Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. It's really fascinating sitting here and listening to members of the Government get up and repeatedly speak about something which is not in this piece of legislation—that is this ministry of regulation or deregulation or red tape or whatever it is. It's a ministry of new bureaucracy if you will. The reason though that I think that that's a really important issue to kind of call to mind as we are working through this today is that as the Hon James Shaw highlighted in his contributions we here are working under urgency with this legislation through a process in which there has been no public consultation nor submissions. Yet members of the Government continue to proffer in their contributions to this debate about this hypothetical entity of which we have no substantial detail terms of reference or otherwise.I actually do think that's it's really worthwhile to actually point to the fact that this is very much in line with the pattern of behaviour that we've seen from this Government. Time and again they have pulled out the shredder and said that they don't like the direction that the country is headed in and decided to rip up that direction that plan that blueprint. And they've done so saying Just wait and see. We don't know where we're going. We're not necessarily going to be clear on that but we'll revert to the status quo or business as usual until we figure that out. We have no time frame no understanding of what the terms of reference are nor the substance of what's to come."I also think it's really valuable in my contribution just to highlight the history of the Productivity Commission as others have—albeit not members of the Government in their very short contributions thus far. That's of course to point out as others have and as the Hon James Shaw has in his earlier speeches and readings on this bill that the Productivity Commission was originally an innovation of the ACT Party. Here I have to point out that we have in the Chamber one Dr Don Brash. I do wonder what one Dr Don Brash a former member and leader of the ACT Party may think about the disestablishment of the Productivity Commission—originally a baby of the ACT Party. The problem is we'll never know because there was a circumvention of typical and conventional parliamentary process to have a select committee process and public submissions on this legislation before us today. Yet once again we're asked to just wait and see; to fly blind into this future that the Government has not given us any indication of what that looks like but simply some bald-faced platitudes. That I think really goes to the heart of the statements as put on the record by the Hon James Shaw yesterday and the day before that this is Government by slogan.So I think it's also really important to point out that in the respective agreements that have cobbled this Government together—the Government of the "Three Scrooges"—what we have is a commitment to data and evidence in the founding documents of this Government. With regard to "data and evidence"—and this is a point made by the Hon James Shaw in his contribution just before—I have found that one of the most frustrating experiences that I have been part of in the last six years that I have been in Parliament indeed with a Labour-led Government obviously for the majority of that time is that we have seen successive Ministers Prime Ministers Cabinets Governments and Parliaments commission advice only to ignore it when it's inconvenient. Then there's a lot of examples that I could give; there's many as the Hon James Shaw put forward with regard to the Productivity Commission.But here I just point out the likes of for example the 1988 Housing Commission report which stated back in 1988: "New Zealand does not have the huge insoluble problems of homelessness and substandard housing which confront many other nations." That 1988 Housing Commission report happened to be the final report of the Housing Commission because it was disestablished after being established about 50 years prior by Michael Joseph Savage as part of the instruments of Government to establish a premise of housing for all obviously—as New Zealand is a signatory to human rights internationally—to underpin housing as a human right. And we had this Housing Commission exist to produce reports every five years to Governments of different stripes to give them that data and evidence from an objective perspective to inform them how to produce a policy that was actually going to meaningfully result in housing being recognised as a human right.What's really interesting about the disestablishment of that Housing Commission by virtue of its inconvenient advice is that also in that final report from the Housing Commission we had and I quote here—or rather prior to quoting just advice against the establishment of the accommodation supplement which we now see paid out to the tune of $2 billion a year. Mr Speaker if I may take Te Pāti Māori's call with their permission.Tākuta Ferris: Absolutely.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Ka pai.SPEAKER: Well hang on. With all due respect to the member on the other side there when the Speaker's asked a question it doesn't get answered from the floor. Nice work though and thank you but carry on.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you Mr Speaker. I quote here that the accommodation supplement would "add little to total housing supply while allowing private landlords and property speculators to make even higher charges for a non-expanding supply of housing … [raising] the purchase price of land and rented property." Yet another example of advice that was ignored by the Government at the time. But not only did they ignore that advice they disestablished the very commission that produced that inconvenient advice. We see to this day that the Government pays out approximately $2 billion per year in that accommodation supplement for a non-expanding supply of thousand. In fact 1.5 million renters in this country tend to pay more of their money for lower quality more overcrowded and more mouldy properties.There's another classic example of this actually which the former National Government in 2014 commissioned in the form of the Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship which was chaired by Sir Graham Lowe and recommended ultimately a phase out of all alcohol advertising in sport. And guess what! We then saw then Minister the Hon Amy Adams saying that they didn't want to progress with that advice from this panel that they themselves had appointed.We then had under the former Labour-led Government a number of reports that were commissioned and the advice was subsequently ignored when it became politically untenable as perceived by the mainstream. For example we had He Ara Oranga the mental health and addiction inquiry and we had Turuki! Turuki! the safe and effective justice review. The former recommended that we move towards a decriminalised approach for substances in this country in order to promote harm-based interventions—a health-based approach—in order to improve livelihoods and lives. Turuki! Turuki! actually went even further and recommended legal regulation of a few substances. This was seen as inconvenient unpopular and not something that Labour wanted to go out on a limb and advocate for therefore it was shelved.We also have a situation even more recently at the end of last year where the incoming Government once again did their favourite tactic of firing up the shredder with the Taxation Principles Reporting Act and what they did despite all of the evidence demonstrating—Helen White: Point of order Madam Speaker. We've had quite a long time without any reference to the Productivity Commission whatsoever.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Thanks for your help.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you Madam Speaker. So to the point of what I was saying with regards to the IRD tax principles bill and the general theme that we've seen under this Government of firing up the shredder and ignoring inconvenient advice and deciding not to follow advice where it may already be public we saw the Minister of Revenue at the end of last year under urgency deciding that the Government was going to repeal the IRD tax principles reporting legislation. Again with all of the speculation at that point in time being that the Minister should have already had a draft report of that on his desk.So yes all of that kind of leads us to this point whereby we have seen successive Governments decide to ignore data evidence and advice where it is seen as inconvenient. And I think that the Hon James Shaw made a really salient point when he said that ultimately this is a matter of the Government seeking simply to whip out the shredder and we have to play this game of wait and see on what replaces it. So the Greens oppose this legislation because we are very much open to and invite more data and evidence and informed policy. The Productivity Commission has produced a number of reports to this effect. Unfortunately we have absolutely no idea where we're going with this so-called ministry of regulation deregulation red tape or otherwise. Thank you Madam Speaker."