Volume 704 Week 12 - Tuesday 24 March 2015Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 704 Week 12 - Tuesday 24 March 2015[Sitting date: 24 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2479. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Tuesday 24 March 2015Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.VisitorsFiji—Speaker House of RepresentativesMr SPEAKER: Honourable members I am sure that members would wish to welcome and accord a seat to the left of the Chair to the Hon Dr Jiko Fatafehi Luveni Speaker to the Parliament of the Republic of Fiji. I am sure that members would also wish to welcome her delegation in the gallery.The Hon Dr Jiko Fatafehi Luveni accompanied by the Deputy Speaker entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair.Mongolia—Parliamentary DelegationMr SPEAKER: Honourable members I am sure that members would also wish to welcome a parliamentary delegation from the State Great Hural of Mongolia led by Jalbasuren Batzandan a member of the Parliament of Mongolia who is also present in the gallery.ObituariesRt Hon Malcolm Fraser AC CH GCLHon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice in relation to the death of Malcolm Fraser former Prime Minister of Australia.Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.Hon BILL ENGLISH: I move That this House express its sadness at the passing on 20 March 2015 of former Australian Prime Minister Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser AC CH GCL aged 84. Mr Fraser served his country with distinction as Australia’s 22ndPrime Minister from 1975 when he was appointed in a caretaker role following the shock dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the Governor-General. This was arguably the most dramatic day in Australia’s political history. Mr Fraser went on to win the following three elections and served as Prime Minister until 1983. During that time he made a significant contribution to the strengthening of the Australia - New Zealand relationship. It was during his time as Prime Minister that Australia and New Zealand negotiated and signed the Australia and New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement commonly known as CER with its enduring legacy of shared prosperity.He will also be remembered for his work with the United Nations and humanitarian agencies. Mr Fraser was a strong opponent of white minority rule in South Africa and what was then Rhodesia. He served on a number of UN and Commonwealth bodies with a focus on southern Africa and was president of the foreign aid group CARE International. Mr Fraser was also an advocate for multiculturalism in Australia and for indigenous and human rights overseeing the establishment of the Family Court of Australia and the National Aboriginal Conference instituting the position of a federal ombudsman and passing the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. He also played an influential role in the Commonwealth of Nations. On behalf of New Zealanders I would like to express our condolences to his family and to the people of Australia.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I just rise briefly to support the motion and to acknowledge and record the New Zealand Labour Party’s condolences at this time over the loss of Malcolm Fraser and to note that Malcolm Fraser was elevated to the role of Prime Minister of Australia in arguably the most controversial of circumstances. He acquitted himself in that post until he was succeeded by Bob Hawke and it was his post -prime ministerial and post parliamentary career that I think he will be most remembered for certainly on this side of the House. He led the Eminent Persons Group on behalf of the Commonwealth Heads of Government to inquire into apartheid in South Africa and he was very much a part of the diplomatic process of leading the change externally that subsequently led to a genuinely free and democratic South Africa which ultimately saw the election of Nelson Mandela as President in the 1990s.I saw Malcolm Fraser speaking in Australia interestingly enough at a trade union conference which reflected the political change that I think he underwent. He was a conservative Prime Minister elected in conservative circumstances who had the presence of mind and the independence of spirit to question what subsequent conservative Governments in Australia had done and he challenged some of the economic nostrums that certainly the John Howard Government had pursued. He took up the cudgels of not just free trade but fair trade in Australia and a more compassionate approach to the people and to economic change and management there. We note his passing.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): On behalf of the Green Party I offer our condolences to the friends and family of Malcolm Fraser and acknowledge the huge contribution that he made to Australian politics and society. My colleague Russel Norman described Malcolm Fraser as an outstanding Australian voice of sanity and humanity. Throughout his life he stood up for what was right and championed a very progressive social agenda with great concern for those who were the most marginalised. He was a fierce opponent of apartheid. He helped to form the Gleneagles Agreement which insisted that South Africa end apartheid if it wanted to continue to compete in the Commonwealth Games and he infamously banned the plane carrying the Springbok rugby team from refuelling in Australia on its way to New Zealand for the tour in 1981. He continued this work after leaving Parliament including chairing the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group against apartheid in South Africa.He had a deep interest in the advancement of indigenous people and it was his Government that recognised Aboriginal land rights by establishing the land rights regime in the Northern Territory. He also established the National Aboriginal Conference a national organisation that represented indigenous Australians. His Government also established the Human Rights Commission. He was a champion of a multicultural Australia and he set up the SBS a channel to provide multilingual broadcasting for Australia’s migrant community. He was instrumental in Australia accepting 70000 Vietnamese refugees displaced by the Viet Nam War including 2000 who arrived by boat with no documentation. He also worked to ensure that these refugees were embraced once they were in Australia. This cause stayed with him for life most notably expressed by his quitting the Liberal Party in 2009 after its election ad portraying asylum seekers swamping Australia. He described the ad as “a throwback to a racist past and not just for the Liberal Party but for Australia”.His legacy also extends to environmental concerns. His Government prohibited exploration and drilling for petroleum on the Great Barrier Reef and later declared the Great Barrier Reef a marine park. He also banned sand mining on Fraser Island passed legislation to create national parks in Australia and under his leadership the first Australian sites were placed on the World Heritage List. His Government also enacted the Whale Protection Act ending whaling in Australia and it achieved greater protection for Australian wildlife. Malcolm Fraser was also staunch on climate change. Back in 1980 he said: “The planet’s capacity to support its people is being irreversibly reduced by the destruction and degradation of the biosphere and the need to understand the problem and take corrective action is becoming urgent.” Over 30 years later he put his name to action on climate change saying: “The overwhelming body of scientific evidence supports the need for change. Many countries are well ahead of Australia. We need to act or we will fall further behind.”When asked what he considered his badge of honour there was a list of administrative law reform including establishing the Human Rights Commission and he said: “Because they all go to how Governments treat its people.” Thank you.TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the motion. It would appear that we are marking the end of the generation of Western political leaders from the 1970s. Malcolm Fraser’s death follows that of the other two major players in Australia’s biggest ever political crisis. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order!TRACEY MARTIN: It is a respectful motion for a man who was important in politics. It is a shame that some members of the House do not feel that way but New Zealand First does and does not take this lightly. Mr Fraser is one of the last political players in what was Australia’s biggest ever political crisis with Gough Whitlam passing last year and Sir John Kerr passing in 1991.Malcolm Fraser’s most famous quote is considered by some to be: “Life is not meant to be easy.” One might say that this encapsulates his belief in self-discipline and individual sacrifice and that it sums up nicely the event that will for ever dominate his legacy as a master of detail. In 1975 the Liberal majority in the Australian Senate refused to pass Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s money bill. This paralysed Australia’s Government. The tipping point came when Whitlam refused to resign or to call a general election which saw the Governor-General Sir John Kerr exercise his rarely used reserve powers to dismiss Whitlam’s Labor Government. Malcom Fraser became caretaker Prime Minister that day 11 November 1975 which is of course Armistice Day. A general election was called for 13 December of that year and despite the controversy of Whitlam’s dismissal Fraser led the Liberal - Country Party coalition to the largest victory in Australian history taking 30 seats off Labor to secure a 55-seat majority.While Fraser repudiated some of Whitlam’s initiatives; he extended others—confounding his opponents and their perception of him as an aloof landed grazier. As we have already heard from 1975 until his 1993 defeat by Labor’s Bob Hawke he established the Australian Family Court and the Federal Court of Australia. He also gave the Northern Territory self-government and passed Aboriginal land rights. He followed our much earlier lead in New Zealand by creating federal ombudsmen. He also ended the mining of mineral sands from Fraser Island and declared 36000 square kilometres of the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns as a marine park. Yet he was also not scared to use mineral extraction where it made sense and these resources boomed under his leadership helping to propel the Australian economy.Malcolm Fraser was touched by the plight of Vietnamese refugees and made great efforts to expand that refugee programme—something he continued with after leaving office. Socially he introduced family allowances paid to mothers and oversaw the decision to build a new Parliament House in Canberra. Internationally he supported anti-apartheid boycotts against South Africa and given the state of global farming in the 1970s he also called for a global common fund to stabilise commodity prices. Fraser was an economic traditionalist yet together with that other giant of politics Sir Robert Muldoon they negotiated and agreed closer economic relations between our two countries. This remains our most important trade agreement proving that sensible trade agreements based on common sense do work.Malcolm Fraser was born in 1930 in Melbourne and grew up on the family farm. He graduated from Oxford University in 1952 working as a grazier before becoming in 1955 at the age of 25 the youngest federal member of Parliament. He would serve for 28 years. An imposingly tall figure at 6 feet 4 inches in 1956 he married Tamara Beggs who survives him and together they had four children—Mark Angela Hugh and Phoebe. Our sympathies go to them their families and the Australian people.Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I want to associate myself with the remarks that have been made by others paying tribute to John Malcolm Fraser Australia’s late Prime Minister who died at the end of last week. I am not going to quote extensively from Wikipedia in doing so but I do want to observe that Malcolm Fraser was a man of extraordinary contrasts—the conservative Prime Minister whose record is one of social reform; the patrician country squire from Wannon in Victoria who was a career politician from the age of 25 but who abruptly resigned from Parliament upon losing the election in 1983 to return to his roots.He was the man who in recent years established a strong following in social media with his comments on all ranges of issues as recently as the last couple of weeks on the international situation the environment Australian politics and always from the perspective of some common sense some good judgment and a real heart and compassion for those who were adversely or marginally affected by decisions of Governments. The interesting thing to me about Malcom Fraser was given the circumstances of his arrival in office where he was labelled for many years as Kerr’s cur by Gough Whitlam the two went on to become very firm friends in their post-political careers who apparently often met to lament the state of their respective political parties subsequent to their departures.New Zealand has lost a good friend. CER was an initiative of the Fraser Government. The “Nareen agreement” entered into on his country property is another enduring mark of cooperation between our two countries. It is appropriate for this Parliament to pay tribute to a great Australian leader. It is appropriate that we share our sympathy with his family his former colleagues his friends and mark the greatness of his contribution to his nation.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Far be it from me to give another exhaustive account of this great man’s life. However what I would like to do is pay tribute to one particular aspect of his prime ministership and career: he changed the culture and the face of Australia by welcoming over 200000 immigrants to Australia during his time as Prime Minister. That is a statement about how countries like our own and Australia should regard the world not as something we are afraid of but as something in which we stand tall and welcome immigrants to our shores. And on that note I would like today to share my condolences with our Australian cousins on the loss of a great and tall eucalyptus. Thank you.Motion agreed to.Hon Lee Kuan Yew GCMG CHHon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice in relation to the death of Hon Lee Kuan Yew the former Prime Minister of Singapore.Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.Hon BILL ENGLISH: I move That this House express its sadness at the passing on 23 March 2015 of former Prime Ministerof Singapore Hon Lee Kuan Yew GCMGCH aged 91. As one of Singapore’s founding fathers Mr Lee led Singapore to independence in 1965 and remained its Prime Minister until 1990. Due to his unwavering determination and vision Mr Lee guided Singapore’s growth and development making it the world leader among small countries that it is today.Mr Lee was a long-time friend of New Zealand and a supporter of New Zealand’s role in South-east Asia. He was also instrumental in establishing the Association of South-east Asian Nations ASEAN. New Zealand and ASEAN celebrate our 40th anniversary this year. On behalf of all New Zealanders we would like to express our condolences to Mr Lee’s family and the people of Singapore who have lost a father with his passing.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Can I join with the Acting Prime Minister on behalf of Labour in expressing our condolences to the people of Singapore and in particular to his family and his son the current Prime Minister of Singapore on his passing. Lee Kuan Yew was an extraordinary figure. I remember when he gave a speech on television in 1965—and I think I was a 12-year-old; a child at that time—he spoke with such power and emotion about why he was taking Singapore out of Malaysia and decades later I still remember that as the first political speech that ever impacted on me in that way.I remember the Prime Minister for another reason and that was when I had dinner with Lee Kuan Yew at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2008. I explained to the then mentor Minister that my mother was a great admirer of his. He looked at me somewhat quizzically and said: “Why would that be the case?” and I explained that in 1977 as a student who had gone 6 years without a haircut passing through Singapore I was given my first haircut by the customs officials at the airport as the price of entry. My mother congratulated him on achieving something that nobody else had been able to do for years before that time.There are aspects of Lee Kuan Yew that all of us would immensely admire. He turned a Third World country into a First World country with a higher per capita standard of living than we enjoy in this country. He dealt effectively with corruption he built a first-class education system and he transformed the living standards and grew the GDP of that country 15 times between 1960 and 1980. There was however another side to Lee Kuan Yew which he himself admitted when he was being interviewed in 2010 and that was that he was a very authoritarian figure he locked up his opponents and he cracked down on the media. He admitted that he had done some bad things in his time and that was the other side which if we were to be fair in our memory of Lee Kuan Yew we would also acknowledge. But today in particular we remember him as a man who was a strong leader who gave Singapore an influence totally disproportionate to its size and created a better country for his fellow countrymen and women.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): The Green Party pays tribute to the passing of Lee Kuan Yew former Prime Minister of Singapore. Our condolences go out to his family on a personal basis and also to his son the current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on behalf of the nation.Lee Kuan Yew was recognised as the founding father of his nation. He was a formidable figure in world politics. When Singapore gained independence in 1965 he began work on what has been called the economic miracle. He transformed the small island nation into a modern and prosperous place of the 21st century. He did so with a raft of regulation a strong emphasis on government and a mix of private and State capitalism.As with every country the rise of modern Singapore did not come without some cost. Lee was quoted as saying that he had sacrificed his life for Singapore. He maintained a close rein on the country and its people in the interests of growing the country in the way he envisioned it. His tenure of course was not without its controversy. In the resulting debate over Asian values not so long ago was a substantive and interesting exchange with the West. We in the Green Party naturally have our views yet we acknowledge the change that was wrought in Singapore and we appreciate his leadership his determination and his vision for a better life for his countrymen and women. Today we join the citizens of Singapore in remembrance of their leader whom history will regard as a giant on the political landscape of our times.TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora Mr Speaker. When I first came into this House 3 years ago one of the first things that was sent to my office were these books on the life and times of Lee Kuan Yew and part of the reason for that—and I thank the sender—was that the Rt Hon Winston Peters highly highly highly respects Lee Kuan Yew and what he did for his country. So I know that the Rt Hon Winston Peters if he were not otherwise working hard in another area of New Zealand would wish to be here to take this call.The sympathies of New Zealand First but especially of the Rt Hon Winston Peters go out to Lee Kuan Yew’s children and to the people of Singapore. He was truly one of the greats when it came to belief in his people and in what they could achieve in a nation with very few resources. He gained the respect of his people and he gained the respect of the majority of the informed world for his visionary plans for a small island nation.I know that the Rt Hon Winston Peters had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with him. Only yesterday the Rt Hon Winston Peters wrote that it was one of the most valuable meetings he could ever have had. In closing as we acknowledge his passing Lee Kuan Yew’s given name in Mandarin means “light and brightness”. We would respectfully suggest that the world is a little bit less light and a little bit less bright for his passing. Kia ora.Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): High on the walls of St Paul’s Cathedral is the inscription “If you seek his monument look around you”. It applies to Sir Christopher Wren but it could equally apply to Lee Kuan Yew because he was a man whose monument is modern Singapore—simple and straightforward.I recall meeting him at a dinner in Wellington some years ago where he described the Singapore story very simply very bluntly and very basically. He said: “At the end of the war we were a set of stinking rotten pieces of territory with no natural resources. We had been plundered by the enemy during the war. We had no future. We either gave up or we got stuck in and tried to do something. And we looked around our region and we saw two big fat countries Australia and New Zealand and we decided to emulate them. And that is what we have done over the last 50 years.”And then he finished the discussion by saying: “And you know what—there are still two big fat countries in our region” which was a challenge that I think he was making to Australia and to New Zealand about where we are in terms of social and economic progress. “We have come from nowhere to be an icon for many throughout the world. What have you done in your country?”. And I think that really summed up—when I read the biographies and saw the documentaries about Lee Kuan Yew—what was at his essence a fundamentally very simple and humble man who knew that you have to use your talents and your abilities to the best advantage in your country. And he did that in Singapore and he did that in a way that has made his country truly one for him—in his lifetime obviously—to be proud of for his successor to be proud of and one I think about which there are lessons that we can learn as well.So we mourn not just his passing we mourn his inspiration we mourn his leadership and we wish him obviously every respect and we wish his country well as it seeks to get used to life without its mentor-Minister its founding Prime Minister and its great leader.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Abe Lincoln once said that “Nearly all men can stand adversity but if you would like to test a man’s character give him power.” Lee Kuan Yew was an extraordinary man who ruled in a constitutional arrangement that I suspect very few if any in this House would have a lot of patience or support for. And undoubtedly at times he did misuse and abuse his power at the cost of what we would regard as normal civil liberties.But all of that is only a preamble to paying tribute to what he did for Singapore a country that in the 1960s was a recipient of foreign aid from New Zealand and today has twice the GDP per capita that we do. It is a tribute not only to the great man Lee Kuan Yew but also to the approach he took to open markets free trade a flexible labour market and tolerable taxes that have allowed the people of Singapore who had no natural resources to speak of to become so prosperous. So on behalf of the ACT Party I would like to join with other leaders in paying tribute to a great man and in wishing all the best for the people of Singapore in this time of sorrow. Thank you.Motion agreed to.Questions to MinistersState and Social Housing—Sale of Housing Stock1.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) to the Minister responsible for HNZC: What are the objectives of the Government’s social housing reform programme?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister responsible for HNZC): The programme will assist more people with serious housing need by delivering more social houses where they are most needed. The Government has set out five objectives: to ensure people who need housing support from the Government can get it; to help social housing tenants to independence as appropriate; to ensure that the properties for social housing are the right size and in the right place; to help increase the supply of affordable housing; and to encourage more diverse ownership of social housing.Tim Macindoe: What steps is the Government taking under the social housing reform programme to deliver on these objectives?Hon BILL ENGLISH: A number of steps. We will purchase 3000 more social housing places over the next 3 years and are currently in the process of purchasing 300 of them in Auckland. We will accelerate Housing New Zealand builds and disposals. We will open up access to income-related rents to the community housing sector. We are committed to 5000 tenancy reviews over the next 2 years to support tenants back into independence. Building is under way in the Tāmaki regeneration of up to 3000 houses. We are committed to the transfer of 1000 to 2000 houses to the community sector in the next 12 to 18 months.Tim Macindoe: What steps is the Government taking to get more social housing to where it is most needed?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Around one-third of Housing New Zealand houses—$18.7 billion worth of them—are the wrong size and in the wrong place. Just for instance 45 percent of current tenancies are for one single person—45 percent of our houses are occupied by one person—but only 9 percent of the housing stock has one bedroom. So we have thousands of single tenants in three-bedroom and two-bedroom houses. Housing New Zealand is making good progress in rebalancing its portfolio. Last year it sold 600 houses mostly in areas of low demand and it is currently building around 700 new houses this year.Darroch Ball: Does the Minister stand by his statement in reference to the social housing reform programme that “These other agencies are having a thorough look and are telling us a whole lot about our business we didn’t know.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. State housing has been run by a Government monopoly for I think at least 70 years and because there has been no pressure to compete or to do a better job there have been significant aspects of that that were not clear to previous Governments or to this Government. But in this whole process of social housing reform we are finding things out like the fact that although 45 percent of our tenants are single-person households only 9 percent of our houses are single-bedroom households.Darroch Ball: Has his Government not released the findings of the warrant of fitness trial which includes 20 State houses in the Northland electorate because the results would show that these houses are falling apart around thousands of vulnerable tenants or is he waiting for these other agencies to tell the public what a disgrace these State houses are in?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The results of that trial will be released in due course but the member does highlight a reasonable issue. Pretty much every MP knows if they are doing their constituent work that this large-scale Government agency could have been doing a better job. I am pleased to say that Housing New Zealand’s performance is improving pretty rapidly now and I think the main reason is that there are others showing up where they could do it better.Tim Macindoe: What examples can the Minister provide of a community housing provider supporting the social housing reforms but opting not directly to buy former State houses on its own in the immediate future?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes I am aware that the Salvation Army yesterday confirmed that it supports the Government’s policy to have community organisations involved in the management of social housing and that under the current policy it will continue to provide and expand its social houses. It confirmed that it is keen to pursue housing partnerships between itself the Government and other groups but it did say that it would not take part in these particular transactions. I am pleased to say that there is widespread interest in the Government housing policy because unlike the Labour Party everyone else in New Zealand thinks it can be done better.State and Social Housing—Sale of Housing Stock2.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statements that his plan to sell state houses “is not about selling to developers” and he would be “amazed” if the likes of the Salvation Army were hesitant to get involved?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): Yes the social housing reforms are about better outcomes for our tenants many of whom have been locked into dependency for decades when Governments have done very little to assist them to housing or economic independence. The Salvation Army yesterday said it is keen to pursue housing partnerships between itself and the Government and others. In fact I am advised that it is in the process right now of registering as a community housing provider which will of course give it access to income-related rents for the many hundreds of seriously needy tenants whom it currently looks after. I am sure the Salvation Army will welcome access to a larger subsidy for New Zealanders in serious housing need.Andrew Little: Is it correct that he is considering a sweetheart deal for private developers with measures including selling the houses below book value offering subsidies allowing houses to be rented at market rates or allowing them to be sold into the private market?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As a result of the first opportunity in 70 years for many people to have an opinion and to participate in better housing for the most needy New Zealanders we have heard all of those ideas. We are going through a process of working with them and listening to them because we all have a common purpose to do a better job for the tenants. The transactions that had been proposed however will be run on a commercial and competitive basis.Andrew Little: Was today’s New Zealand Herald editorial correct when it said his policy “amounts to a subsidy leaving taxpayers out of pocket. And it raises the question of the whole point of the exercise.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No but the New Zealand Herald may be interested to know that the Government values its houses currently as if it is a developer. It values them as if it can get the highest price for an individual house on the day and of course social housing providers who are more focused on looking after the tenants do not believe that those valuations are correct—that as social houses they are not there to capture the full capital gain and that the issue is precisely the opposite of the one the New Zealand Herald thinks that it is.Andrew Little: Which of these community housing experts is wrong and why: Major Campbell Roberts who said of the housing sell-off: “I don’t there’s been enough thinking gone into it.”; or Property Institute chief executive officer Ashley Church who said: “If a large credible social agency like The Salvation Army thinks that the current proposal is too risky—it’s unlikely that any other group is going to be any more willing to pick it up.”; or thirdly the Iwi Leaders Forum housing spokesperson Sonny Tau who said: “I don’t think it’s a good policy.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well two of those three have been knocking on my door for 3 years telling us to hurry up. The iwi leaders group has been criticising the Government for taking too long to work out the details of how to do these transactions. So we have every confidence that there is widespread interest in a once-in-a generation opportunity to redevelop communities that have suffered from the blight of mismanaged State housing and whose tenants have been neglected by Governments that did not support them into independence. Increasingly the Labour Party members are about the only people who believe that the way it is being done now is perfect.Andrew Little: In light of that answer then is Major Campbell Roberts wrong when he says the policy will not “improve the lives and living conditions of State tenants.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes I believe that he is wrong. But I do not believe that is the Salvation Army’s views frankly; otherwise it would not have invested 5 years in assisting the Government to develop the policy. Major Campbell Roberts was in the initial advisory group. He has been supportive and testing about the policy for 5 years. I respect his view but on that one I differ from him.Tim Macindoe: What reports has the Prime Minister seen supporting the Government’s social housing reform programme?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have seen one that is a pretty good description of the possibilities: “We need large-scale urban developments backed by private sector developers and community housing organisations. Such developments cannot happen without the Government playing a role. Private sector developers will invest and do what they do best—designing and building great places for people and there is a vital role for community providers to add affordable housing.” That is a description of what the policy could be from Phil Twyford—the Labour housing spokesman.Andrew Little: It is 31 for 2 and time is marching on. We need to get a move on. After telling the House last week that “there is not a housing crisis” is it not true that not only does New Zealand have a social housing crisis and a housing affordability crisis but now the Government has a housing policy crisis as well?Hon BILL ENGLISH: What we know with the track record of the Labour Party is that as soon as it starts calling it a crisis it comes right. The manufacturing crisis disappeared pretty much the day Labour christened it that way. No I disagree with all those comments. We have a once-in-a generation opportunity to improve the lives of the most seriously needy New Zealanders who have been neglected by past Governments in housing that was of low quality. This Government is going to change it with the assistance of many hundreds if not thousands of other people in New Zealand who want the same thing.Andrew Little: Why is the Government wasting so much time and public money on this convoluted policy that will not do an ounce of good rather than just getting on with the job and building more houses for Kiwi families in need?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well of course it is doing both. We are not just dealing with the short-term issue of more supply on the ground faster—and Housing New Zealand can become a major supplier of that under these reforms—we are also dealing with the longer-term issue of people locked into long-term welfare dependency or in some cases underservicing of their need in a system that focused on houses rather than people. We are happy to be the party bringing in a policy that focuses on the people who need housing rather than the Labour Party’s focus on the State houses.State and Social Housing—Sale of Housing Stock3.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister responsible for HNZC: Can he rule out selling Housing New Zealand-owned homes to private developers; if not will any sale be contingent on developers housing low-income or vulnerable tenants in those homes?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister responsible for HNZC): No I cannot rule that out. Housing New Zealand in the last year sold 600 houses and probably quite a number of those were sold to private developers. But anyone who wants to buy State houses that have low-income and vulnerable tenants in them will need to register as a community housing provider and meet the criteria set out in the regulations.Metiria Turei: How is it “perfectly logical” as he has said to sell a large slice of our $18 billion State home asset for cheap so property developers can make a profit from it?Hon BILL ENGLISH: In the first place Housing New Zealand has an ongoing sales policy and often it is selling houses that we do not need or that are in the wrong place or some of them have just become unsuitable to be lived in and cannot be upgraded at reasonable cost. In respect of the transactions that are coming up over the next 6 months or so there is a process of testing what the real values of those houses are. For instance many community providers believe those houses are not up to date on maintenance and therefore are overvalued when they are valued as if they can be sold for the best price on the day in the location that they are in. Those are exactly the things we are having discussions about over the next few months.Metiria Turei: Will the Minister cancel his plans if it turns out that property developers will buy State homes only if they do not have to house low-income or vulnerable tenants in them given his statement today that the purpose of this plan is to increase the supply of social housing and assist more people?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Neither property developers nor community housing providers are compelled to buy houses off the Government. If they do not want to do that—if they do not want to manage the tenants or own the stock which may be the wrong size in the wrong place—then they certainly do not have to do that. But we are finding that there is an opportunity to work with a whole range of groups to do a better job particularly in those locations where there is a high density of State housing and there is an opportunity to redevelop a sense of aspiration in those communities. If property developers can supply their expertise to do that well we are not going to turn them away that is for sure but it will have to be lined up with people who have the skills to manage tenants and redevelop communities.Metiria Turei: Was the Minister suggesting earlier that the Salvation Army was lying when it said when it rejected the State house sell-off programme that it will not improve people’s lives?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is the member who is misrepresenting the Salvation Army. It did not reject the programme; what it said was that at this stage it does not want to participate in those particular transactions. In fact the Salvation Army has been an advocate for change and I am a bit surprised to hear the so-called radical Greens arguing for the status quo as if State housing in New Zealand is done so perfectly well that it cannot be done any better. That is a ridiculous position and the only people the Greens share it with are the Labour Party members.Metiria Turei: Why is his Government—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I ask the member to start again please.Metiria Turei: Why is his Government so hell-bent on transferring New Zealand’s public resources assets like power companies and now our State homes to private business regardless of how bad this extremist policy is for New Zealanders?Hon BILL ENGLISH: In respect of State housing the policy that has been bad for New Zealanders is the one that for 50 years has focused on who owns the house. The policy that is going to be much better for New Zealanders is one that recognises the dignity of tenants and the aspirations they have for independence and a better life and that allows communities to redevelop themselves when they have been blighted by the policies supported by the Greens and Labour. We are not in favour of the status quo; we want to change it. Labour and the Greens are the last people in New Zealand who think that long-term State housing is the best we can do for Kiwi citizens. It is not. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am just waiting for the Hon Annette King.Metiria Turei: Can the Minister confirm that the only group to benefit from his fire sale will be property developers as the taxpayer loses a large asset the Government will pay more to these property developers through income-related rent subsidies and vulnerable families will still have no guarantee of a decent home?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No I do not agree with that. The beneficiaries of this policy will be first and foremost the tenants who will find themselves getting Government support that recognises their dignity and aspirations and shows a path to independence. Lots of other low-income families will benefit too because the Government is the most inefficient user of land in all our urban markets and through this process we will see the redevelopment and supply of that land to the lower-income market. That member supports planning policies that have driven poverty in low and middle income households by driving up the cost of housing. It is time the Greens changed their policies.Metiria Turei: Is this not the perfect deal for property developers—National will give away these homes for cheap along with guaranteed taxpayer-funded income streams and no obligation to house needy people; if so how is this not the sale of the century?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I just disagree with the member. It would be worth her while reconsidering the role of property developers. The Greens support smart growth that limits the supply of land which in the Auckland market has virtually dried up the supply of lower-value housing to that market. Those policies have had more impact on inequality than any other policy in New Zealand for low and middle income households. Why the Greens support that poverty-inducing policy is beyond me.Free-trade Agreements—New Zealand - South Korea4.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Trade: What progress has the Government made in opening up export markets for our regional economies?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Acting Minister of Trade): Good progress just like the Black Caps this afternoon. Yesterday the New Zealand - Korea free-trade agreement was signed in Seoul Korea by our Minister of Trade and his Korean counterpart. Upon ratification the free-trade agreement will ensure that nearly half of New Zealand’s exports to Korea will be immediately tariff-free and then will progressively remove tariffs on 98 percent of total exports. The impact of tariffs is twofold. New Zealand exporters pay a high cost in tariffs and tariffs also substantially reduce the volume of our exports into markets. Both of these problems combine to reduce the availability and competitiveness of New Zealand products. Tariff removal is therefore a key focus of the Business Growth Agenda target to grow our exports and comprehensive free-trade agreements like the Korean free-trade agreement and others are an important part of that.Alastair Scott: How do free-trade agreements like the one signed with Korea yesterday help grow regional economics like for example Northland?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Most of our regional economies rely strongly on the performance of the primary sector and it is the primary sector that has most to gain by the removal or reduction of heavy tariffs. If you look specifically at Northland Northland is the second-largest supplier of avocados to Korea from New Zealand with the Northland region responsible for 37 percent of them. The Korean free-trade agreement will eliminate the 30 percent tariff on the import of avocados into Korea. Kiwifruit is another important industry in Northland. New Zealand exports a lot of kiwifruit to Korea. The tariff is 45 percent. Under the Korean free-trade agreement the tariff on kiwifruit exports will be reduced to zero over the next 5 years and so it goes on with forestry dairy and so on. Free-trade agreements like the one with Korea are critically important for improving growth in places like Northland as they provide more jobs higher wages and opportunities for young people.Richard Prosser: Does the Minister believe that the Korean free-trade agreement will actually be of any benefit to the dairying economy of the Northland region when it will take 10 years to reach a final tariff-free milk power quota of just 2000 tonnes—0.13 percent of our current exports—with anything over that amount permanently subject to a tariff of 176 percent?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do believe it will because in a number of key tariff lines great progress has been made. For example with cheddar cheese we have got an equivalent deal with that of the US and a better deal that Australia’s and that is very important for competition in Korea. If you look at infant formula and at butter for example all those higher-value products have got very good tariff elimination. If the member is suggesting that is not a good thing for Northland I would be very surprised indeed.Alastair Scott: What support has he seen for the Korea free-trade agreement and for reducing costs on New Zealand’s primary sector?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Support for the free-trade agreement particularly from the primary sector has been very positive. As I said the Korean free-trade agreement eliminates the 40 percent tariff on beef the 22.5 percent tariff on sheepmeat the 45 percent tariff on kiwifruit the 30 percent tariff on avocados and the 89 percent tariff on butter. Despite this I have also seen a curious media report that the Korean free-trade agreement does “no favours to New Zealand farmers”. There is also in fact draft legislation—before this House shortly—that would have the effect of torpedoing the Korean free-trade agreement and a number of other trade agreements we are currently negotiating. The origin of that comment and that legislation and the person who wants to kill off jobs and growth in the Northland electorate is the same Winston Peters who is standing in the by-election.Richard Prosser: Is the Minister satisfied with the terms negotiated under the Korea free-trade agreement when the tariff on New Zealand beef under this agreement will be 40 percent but the tariff imposed by the Koreans on American beef is just 32 percent?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The tariffs under this agreement are declining across a whole range of areas as I just detailed in my previous answer including in the areas of sheepmeat and beef. It eliminates the 40 percent tariff on beef and these are good things for the New Zealand primary sector. For the member and his colleagues to suggest that it is not beneficial suggests that they are literally not focused on what is important to New Zealand farmers and frankly Northland farmers.Resource Management Act Reforms—Land Use in Northland5.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he agree with the Northland Regional Council’s 2012 State of the Environment Report that “large areas of land with prime soils suited for agriculture and horticultural production continues to be subdivided for lifestyle blocks and urban development”; if not why not?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): Yes but the report also said that it was not a regionally significant issue and they decided to not include specific provisions for protecting such soils in their proposed regional policy statement. This Government supports the growth of Northland’s agricultural and horticultural industries with initiatives like opening up trade and providing funding to support Northland irrigation initiatives. Our plans for Northland horticulture do not include the option of legalising marijuana as proposed yesterday by Winston Peters.Denis O’Rourke: Can the Minister give an assurance that the proposed reforms announced in his speech of 21 January 2015 on overhauling the Resource Management Act will not exacerbate housing development on prime agricultural land in Northland?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I welcome the fact that building consent numbers in Northland have grown over the last 3 years showing an increased level of confidence. I also welcome the fact that many landowners in Northland are converting over to products like avocados and the good work of the Korean free-trade agreement is going to enable greater wealth. We are a party that believes the best choices about land use are actually made by the landowners themselves and our Resource Management Act reforms will be good for Northland by giving those landowners the freedom to be able to use their land profitably.Jacqui Dean: What specific initiatives has the Government taken that would support the growth of Northland’s agricultural and horticultural industries?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Northland Regional Council has indicated two particular areas in which it is working with the Government to advance the Northland economy. The first of those is a real concern that too much of the prime land in Northland is tied up in the complexities of the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and they are very keen to work with the Minister for Māori Development my colleague Chris Finlayson and the Government to reform that Act to ensure that more of that productive land can produce more exports and wealth for Northland. The Northland Regional Council indicated its second priority was in respect of water and quite recently the Minister for Primary Industries has provided funding for the Northland region to be able to expand irrigation and expand the exports from that region although I accept we do not share New Zealand First’s enthusiasm for growing marijuana.Denis O’Rourke: Are the proposed Resource Management Act reforms which are aimed at freeing up more land for housing at the expense of agricultural land consistent with the Government’s aim of doubling agricultural production by 2025; if so how?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Members on this side of the House want a Resource Management Act that is going to protect the environment but also ensure that economies like Northland are able to grow. The consistent message I have had from organisations like Federated Farmers in Northland and the business associations in Northland is that Resource Management Act reform is pivotal to unlocking the economic opportunities in Northland and that is why members on this side of the House are committed to that reform.David Seymour: Is the Minister aware of historic reports of subdivision of productive land including as long as 70 years ago in St Mary’s Bay?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I do understand that one of the candidates in Northland has a very intense interest in St Mary’s Bay and what might occur there. Our candidate in Northland is far more interested in the practical job opportunities for the people of Northland.Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is a point of order and it will be heard in silence.Tracey Martin: Could you please clarify how the answer had anything to do with the question.Mr SPEAKER: I am not—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the Hon Gerry Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well the question related directly to St Mary’s Bay and was answered directly about St Mary’s Bay. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. The question asked for any historic reports on the subdivision of land around St Mary’s Bay. That is a question that is quite legitimate. I could tell where it was going but it was a legitimate question to be asked in this House and that is why the member then addressed it.Roading Northland—Bridges Upgrade6.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: What advice if any did he receive from the Treasury on the Government policy to double-lane ten Northland bridges?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): None.Grant Robertson: When was the proposal to fund the 10 bridges first raised with him as finance Minister?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I could not give the member that detail. I would have to go back—it may not even be in a diary actually. But it is a proposal by a political party and you would not expect Treasury to be costing it.Grant Robertson: Why did he not seek advice from Treasury about the expenditure of $70 million?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Because I follow the rules and if I had not followed them that member would be asking me questions about why I had asked Treasury for costing information about it.Grant Robertson: How does he reconcile his repeated statements that he stands for fiscal responsibility when he is prepared to throw $70 million at the bridges seven of which have never even been mentioned by the New Zealand Transport Agency and he does not even bother to get any advice on them?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is a wee bit ahead of the circumstances. A political party has made an undertaking in an election the Northland by-election. Whether it can be executed may well depend on the outcome of that election and how far and how deep Labour is willing to bury its candidate who I understand is popular and has a lot of people who could help her out but Labour insists—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not see any ministerial responsibility.Grant Robertson: In light of that answer where he said that the policy to build the 10 bridges may or may not be executed can he confirm to this House that there will be the 10 bridges completed under a National Government?Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is certainly National’s view but in order to achieve a majority in this House you have to work with other parties. So when we have a by-election we do not know exactly what the result will be. We may find ourselves working with different people who have a different view. But it is certainly the Government’s position that Northland needs the bridges. We have made that undertaking and we will follow through on it.Grant Robertson: Is the fact that he sought no advice on spending $70 million proof that he and his Government are prepared to abuse their power in what John Armstrong called a “Brazen shameless cynical and more than a little desperate” attempt to cling on to the Northland seat?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I find that people’s cynicism about the bridges in Northland is directly proportional to how far away they live from them. I invite that member or John Armstrong to go and stand on the bridge in Matakohe and just see what it is like on the one-lane bridge on a main road. Yes we believe the bridges should be built and as I said to the member before if I had asked Treasury for advice he would be accusing me of breaking the rules around election promises.Accelerated Regional Roading Programme—Progress7.SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of Transport: What progress has the Government made on its Accelerated Regional Roading Programme?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Great progress is being made. First up the Government is committing up to $80 million to accelerate five critically important regional projects in Northland the East Coast Taranaki Canterbury and Otago as but a few examples. Work is already under way on the East Coast to improve and make safer opportunities for passing on State Highway 35 north of Gisborne at Panikau Hill and Wallis Hill. Work is also under way on the reconstruction of the historically dangerous Normanby overbridge in South Taranaki. I visited it with my colleague the Hon Chester Borrows. And of course work on the Akarama curves realignment project in Northland is under way. Once completed these projects and others will provide safer and more reliable road journeys for motorists in the regions.Sarah Dowie: How will the Accelerated Regional Roading programme improve single-lane bridging infrastructure in the regions?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well bridges are important. That is why the Accelerated Regional Roading programme includes a number—quite a number—of bridge upgrades as but a couple of examples show. Work to replace the single-lane Kawarau Falls Bridge near Queenstown with a new two-lane bridge is planned to start in the middle of this year and I look forward to being part of that. Also investigation work has been accelerated for the replacement of the single-lane Motu Bridge near Gisborne as well as the single-lane Taramakau road-rail bridge on the West Coast of the South Island.Denis O’Rourke: When will the Minister come clean with the people of Wellsford Te Hana and Northland generally that the Government actually has no route through the Dome Valley and no idea whatsoever when construction could begin on the Wellsford to Warkworth section of the new motorway?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The member is talking nonsense. We have been over this last week and it is old news. I will not rehearse the arguments suffice to say that we on this side of the House know that we back the regions with in fact billions of dollars’ worth of projects that matter in those regions whereas on the Opposition side all we hear is carping because outside of two or three main cities they do not care.Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This question was specifically—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will—[Interruption] I have got a very good mind to ask that member to leave the Chamber but I will not because he would get an advantage on the rest of us to actually watch the cricket. When the member starts a question with “Why won’t the Minister come clean” he can expect the sort of answer he got. He would be better after question time to go back and make his questions far more concise and without that sort of innuendo.GCSB—World Trade Organization Director-General Role8.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his quote regarding Hon Tim Groser’s bid to be Director-General of the World Trade Organisation that if “he decided to put his name in the ring then the New Zealand Government would give him 100 percent support”; if so precisely what support did the Government provide to Mr Groser?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of thePrime Minister: Yes. The Prime Minister also stands by a very similar statement that he made in 2009 that Helen Clark had all the support of the New Zealand Government as a candidate to head the United Nations Development Programme. The Government’s support for Mr Groser included lobbying other leaders for support New Zealand missions promoting his campaign and assistance with developing key messages and a campaign strategy. A lot of resources were used to back Mr Groser’s bid just as they were used to back Helen Clark’s bid. We were of course all delighted that Helen Clark was successful but sadly Mr Groser was not successful.David Shearer: As the Prime Minister and the Minister for National Security and Intelligence would he expect to be briefed if the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was undertaking intelligence gathering on behalf of a Minister in his Cabinet?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The answer to that would be yes.David Shearer: What reports did the GCSB provide to the Prime Minister in relation to Tim Groser’s bid for the World Trade Organization (WTO) job?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: It has been the policy of successive Governments both National and Labour not to comment on operational aspects of the work of the intelligence agencies because it is not in the public interest to do so.David Shearer: Will he agree to authorise the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to investigate the GCSB’s activity of the alleged spying on candidates vying for the WTO role and to report her findings either publicly or to the Intelligence and Security Committee?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The Prime Minister does not need to instruct the inspector-general or ask the inspector-general to do anything. The inspector-general has wide-ranging powers many of which came through the 2013 amendments to her legislation. So if she wants to investigate any matter she has the ability to do so.David Shearer: On what basis did he say that Korea “doesn’t give a monkey’s” about New Zealand spying on one of their nationals and as Prime Minister does he give a monkey’s about foreign powers spying on our Cabinet Ministers?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The Prime Minister is very concerned to make sure that our intelligence agencies act in accordance with their statute and in accordance with the rule of law. The Prime Minister is also concerned to make sure that they are subject to proper democratic oversight.Broadband Ultra-fast—Progress9.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura) to the Minister for Communications: What are the latest towns to be fully fibred under the Government’s Ultra-Fast Broadband programme?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Communications): Over the last 2 weeks I have announced the completion of the ultra-fast broadband service in both Blenheim and Ashburton. In Blenheim around 12500 homes schools businesses and health facilities can now access fast and efficient internet and uptake there has been one of the highest in the country. In Ashburton they are similarly grabbing with both hands the opportunity ultra-fast broadband provides. Those towns join Whangarei Te Awamutu Ōāmaru Cambridge Tokoroa and Hāwera which have all been completed in the last 12 months with three more towns scheduled for completion during 2015.Stuart Smith: How can other towns not part of the original ultra-fast broadband programme get access to fibre?Hon AMY ADAMS: As part of our manifesto promise to extend the ultra-fast broadband programme to 80 percent of New Zealanders earlier this month we released a registration of interest process to ask communities and their councils to get directly involved in identifying the next priority areas and in thinking about ways that they can better support connectivity in their districts whether that is under the ultra-fast broadband extension the Rural Broadband Initiative or as part of our plans to address mobile coverage black spots. I encourage all councils that are keen to see increased connectivities to get involved in the process.Employment Relations—Impact of Legislative Reform10.SUE MORONEY (Labour) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s assertion that we will “absolutely not” see thousands of workers denied their tea breaks under his changes to the Employment Relations Act 2000?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes I do.Sue Moroney: Well why is it that prior to National taking away tea break entitlements Cotton On gave warehouse workers more than the previous law required—that is a 30-minute lunch break on full pay—but after National’s law change wants to scrap tea breaks all together?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The Employment Relations Act has not done away with rest and meal breaks—Hon Annette King: Oh yes it has.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —and it does not matter how many times the member says it it does not make it so. To the second part of the question as I understand it in respect of the negotiations the member refers to they are ongoing.Sue Moroney: Does the Minister believe then that New Zealand workers like those at Cotton On should have to threaten strike action in this day and age just to get basic provisions like a lunch break or a tea break at work?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It is not appropriate for me to comment on a specific negotiation between an employer and a union but the only situations where an employer does not have to give meal breaks are when the employee agrees and it is reasonable. The union can say no.Sue Moroney: What will he do to ensure that the Cotton On workers continue to get their tea breaks at work given that he assured Parliament on 22 October last year that “It has to be done with the agreement of the employer and the employee together.”? What will you do Minister?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It appears that I have a great deal more faith in the unions’ ability to negotiate an agreement than that member does. I can tell the House what I will not do. I will not be injecting myself into a matter that a politician has no place going into. I have confidence in the process.Sue Moroney: Why did his law change which he claimed just removed “unnecessary burdensome regulation” also prompt Postie Plus to issue individual agreements before the law even took effect that state: “Branch managers are not required to provide rest breaks and meal breaks.”?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I would have to check the veracity of the member’s claims but if they are in agreements as the member describes they are likely to be in breach of the present law as they would have been in breach of the past law and there are remedies available.Sue Moroney: To assist the Minister to check the veracity of the statement—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just ask to table the document without—Sue Moroney: I seek leave to table a copy of the individual employment agreement that is in the name of Postie Plus which says—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Sue Moroney: I seek leave to table a copy of the claim that Cotton On has put before FIRST Union in their negotiations which strikes out the requirement—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.GCSB—World Trade Organization Director-General Role11.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) to the Minister responsible for the GCSB: Is the spying on candidates vying to be the Director-General of the World Trade Organization an appropriate use of the Government Communications Security Bureau?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister responsible for the GCSB): The member is asking a question based on allegations made in the media over the last few days. The allegations rely on inferences drawn from stolen documents parts of which may even be fabricated. It has been a longstanding practice of successive Governments not to discuss the operational activities of the intelligence agencies. I do not intend to do so today because it is not in the public interest.Dr Kennedy Graham: In light of the credibility of the sources that the Minister refers to and in the interests of the transparency that he cites how can the Government justify obtaining a personal benefit for one of its Ministers through the use of espionage when that is a clear violation of the Cabinet Manual the Speaker’s Directions and possibly section 105 of the Crimes Act?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The member is asking a question based on allegations made in the media over the last few days. The allegations rely on inferences drawn from stolen documents parts of which may even be fabricated. It has been the longstanding practice of successive Governments not to discuss the operational activities of the intelligence agencies. I do not intend to do so today because it is not in the public interest.Dr Kennedy Graham: Given the credibility of the public sources that the Minister refers to and in the interests of transparency that the Minister cites why does the Government continue to use the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the SIS for its political gain including smearing the Hon Phil Goff during the 2011 election declassifying documents on a whim during the 2014 election and using the GCSB as a private recruitment manager for Tim Groser’s election?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The allegations made in that question are grubby and beneath the member. This Government and successive Governments have gone to great lengths to ensure that these intelligence organisations are subject to proper democratic oversight and act in accordance with their statute. The allegations made by that member are unworthy of him.Dr Kennedy Graham: Is it not true—although this may be above the Minister—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just ask—Dr Kennedy Graham: Is it not true that under this Government the GCSB and the SIS have gone from working for our national interest to working for the National Party’s interest?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: No it is not true and it is not above me but it is certainly a question that is beneath that member.Small Businesses—Crowdfunding and ACC Levies12.JONO NAYLOR (National) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What is the Government doing to help small businesses raise funds?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): The Government is working hard to make it easier for small businesses to access the capital necessary to grow. Under the recently passed Financial Markets Conduct Act small businesses may raise up to $2 million in 12 months through licensed equity crowdfunding platforms. This means that Kiwi businesses have more options to raise money and fund their growth without all the red tape that was involved previously.Jono Naylor: Has the Minister seen any reports of small businesses making use of new crowdfunding options?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes I have seen reports of a number of small businesses that have benefited from the new crowdfunding options. For example I understand that Invivo Wines has raised $1.6 million so far through the crowdfunding platform Snowball Effect. Previous examples also include Renaissance Brewing which last year raised $700000 to expand its production capability. National is committed to giving small businesses the best chance at success. These changes are just another example of the Government making it easier for New Zealand companies to do business through our Business Growth Agenda.Dr David Clark: Has he taken the time yet to advise Cabinet of the benefit to small business funds of reducing ACC charges by $350 million as recommended by ACC Treasury and every struggling small-business owner?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes. Cabinet has been advised and this Government is focused on keeping the costs of business down as low as possible so that New Zealand businesses can flourish.Urgent Debates DeclinedGCSB—World Trade Organization Director-General RoleMr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from David Shearer seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the release of a document showing that the Government Communications Security Bureau undertook targeted monitoring of international diplomats to support the application of the Hon Tim Groser for the position of Director-General of the World Trade Organization.In ruling on an application for an urgent debate the Speaker has to determine whether there is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. If something occurs in secret it may become a case of recent occurrence for the purpose of the Standing Orders when it becomes publicly known. But the release upon which this application is based does not involve ministerial responsibility. The release was by news site from leaked documents. An urgent debate cannot be granted on the basis of newspaper allegations or speculation. There must be a distinct Governmental responsibility for the particular case that it is seeking to debate. On this basis the case raised does not meet the test for me to set aside the business of the House today. The application is therefore declined.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thank you and accept that ruling. It does though place the Opposition in a difficult position if the Government refuses to answer questions as to whether the allegations are correct. I would ask when these issues arise in the next few days for the Speaker to reflect upon whether the Government can effectively stonewall as to whether these allegations made are correct by claiming public interest because as it currently stands if it can do so then the Opposition cannot hold the Government to account in Parliament which would be the wrong outcome.Mr SPEAKER: I will certainly watch answers carefully in the future but having been here for some years on many occasions I have seen Ministers take the opportunity—with regard to security matters—to say that it is not in the interests of the country to publicly debate such matters or to answer such questions. So I will certainly do my best to balance that. I appreciate the point that the Hon David Parker is making.Third ReadingsDebate resumed from 19 March on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill (No 2) the Antarctica (Environmental Protection) Amendment Bill the Biosecurity Amendment Bill the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill the Commodity Levies Amendment Bill the Copyright Amendment Bill the Forests Amendment Bill the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Amendment Bill the Governor-General Amendment Billthe Heavy Engineering Research Levy Amendment Billthe Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Amendment Billthe Land Transport Amendment Billthe Land Transport Management Amendment Act 2008 Amendment Billthe Local Electoral Amendment Billthe Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Billthe Local Government Act 1974 Amendment Billthe Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Billthe Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Billthe Marine Mammals Protection Amendment Billthe Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 1978 Amendment Billthe National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Billthe National Parks Amendment Billthe Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Amendment Billthe Official Information Amendment Billthe Ombudsmen Amendment Billthe Pork Industry Board Amendment Billthe Reserves Amendment Billthe Sale and Supply of Alcohol Amendment Billthe Sentencing Amendment Billthe Summary Proceedings Amendment Billthe Tariff Amendment Billthe Tokelau (Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone) Amendment Billthe Trade in Endangered Species Amendment Billand the Wildlife Amendment Bill.Mr SPEAKER: When this legislation was last debated the Hon Ruth Dyson was speaking. She has 9 minutes and 30 seconds remaining if she wishes to take it.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Mr Speaker I certainly do wish to take my remaining 9 minutes 30 seconds. I recall that when I started my contribution on this legislation on Thursday evening of the last sitting week the member of Parliament for Invercargill had just resumed her seat and had been praising the community trust and the work it does in Invercargill. I was disappointed that she had not continued her contribution because I thought that after a pretty rigorous week in Parliament it was a very pleasant way of ending with a local constituency member praising an organisation in her own electorate. So I am sorry that she did not take up the remaining 30 seconds but I want to commend her for that contribution.It is also fitting that a debate on a statutes amendment bill is not as partisan as some of the other debates that we have in this House because the nature of a statutes amendment bill is such that if any single member of the House disagrees with a provision in it then that part does not proceed as part of a statutes amendment bill. It has to be unanimously agreed. That is pretty unusual. It is also unusual in the fact that statutes amendment bills are—particularly this one—omnibus bills so they cover a wide range of legislation. From memory this legislation which we are putting through its third reading now covers 34 different pieces of legislation which is a lot. That is why it has been divided into 34 bills for the third reading and then of course it amends 34 different existing Acts.The nature of the amendments within a statutes amendment bill are generally technical. They generally clarify policy that is unclear because of the drafting so that the original policy intent is reflected in the amended drafting. They are not meant to involve any policy changes at all. It is for this reason that during the select committee consideration of this legislation some of the proposed amendments outlined in the original legislation were struck out by the committee. The Government Administration Committee which considered this legislation considered that some of the provisions as they were outlined were not appropriate for inclusion in a statutes amendment bill and in other parts of the legislation the committee just recommended changes. So we struck out some provisions and we recommended changes in others.It is ironic to reflect that during a debate that contains no policy alterations at all—although these are important changes to make they are not policy changes—we are having a full parliamentary debate and we have had select committee scrutiny. And it is quite an irony when you consider that on something that is much more important because it involves people’s lives and it involves New Zealand’s security and our integrity as a nation—the issue of sending troops to Iraq for example—there was no parliamentary vote at all. So here we have the juxtaposition: a statutes amendment bill that does not have any policy at all goes through an entire select committee process including submissions—not very many in this case—the Committee of the whole House and a vote at every stage; but for something as important as sending our young men and women to be involved in combat in Iraq we did not have the opportunity for a parliamentary vote.As I said at the beginning this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) contains amendments to 34 different Acts. It is very helpful that it is in alphabetical order. It starts off I think with probably the Animal Welfare Act—yes the Animal Welfare Act—and it goes right through to the Wildlife Act. It does not cover every letter of the alphabet but it does a pretty good job. You might ask: “How does it have more parts than letters of the alphabet?” Well that is because we have several letters repeated. For example we have got the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act we have got the National Parks Act and we have got Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act. My colleague Adrian Rurawhe spoke on that in the earlier part of the debate—at the Committee stage I think; yes—and I hope he might make a contribution in the third reading as well.I want to acknowledge the officials who worked on this legislation. Of course as I said it does not have the rigour of a partisan debate but it does require quite rigorous consideration by the select committee and the officials of course helped us in that regard. Some of the amendments that we considered were fixing up previous errors. I have to say that the Government Administration Committee has not always made those corrections in the way that it intended and sometimes other committees that have considered these legislative proposals have had to come back in subsequent statutes amendment legislation to correct what they thought was a correction. So we did not always get it right but we certainly tried. The officials worked really hard to service the committee in that regard as did the Clerk’s staff who support our committee so I want to commend them.I also want to make particular acknowledgment of the members on the committee four of whom are no longer members of the Government Administration Committee. Mojo Mathers was on this committee and still is so I certainly acknowledge her but others who were on the Government Administration Committee who are no longer on that committee are Trevor Mallard; the deputy chairperson Chris Auchinvole who has recently turned 70 is now sporting an elegant beard I understand and is very happily residing in his retirement from Parliament on the West Coast; Eric Roy a former presiding officer of the House; and Kanwaljit Bakshi who is still a member of the House of course but is not on the Government Administration Committee. So I just want to acknowledge them and their contribution.We did give this legislation some rigorous intent as I have said to the point that we recommended that parts of it were not suitable for inclusion in a statutes amendment bill and then we also made amendments to provisions that we left in. These are important considerations. Some of them caused political debate in the committee even though that is not the point of a statutes amendment bill.The provisions in Part 23 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) which contained alterations to the Official Information Act caused me particular amusement if I could just digress momentarily from the debate specifically on the legislation. I have been making a lot of Official Information Act requests to the Earthquake Commission because in our part of the world we have a lot of earthquake-related issues and of course under the provisions of the Official Information Act there is a limited time frame within which Ministers or Government departments and agencies—anyone covered by the Act—are required to respond.The Earthquake Commission was at one stage taking 6 months to respond to requests under the Official Information Act and I certainly took the opportunity to mention that in passing in regard to the alterations just to see whether we could make it a provision under the statutes amendment bill amendments that the Official Information Act had to be complied with. But of course that is not necessary. I am pleased to say that the Earthquake Commission is now complying with the legislation through quite a lot of the intensive work that it has done. They might not be satisfactory responses but at least it is complying with the legislation.So with those comments can I just say that this is an unusual way of having legislation changed. Generally it is done within a policy setting. This is an entire piece of legislation covering 34 different Acts of Parliament that does not make any policy changes at all. It makes technical alterations. It clarifies the original policy intent of the legislation which had not been properly carried through from original drafting through to the final provisions of the legislation and it also updates legislation. It is good legislation. It should receive the unanimous support of the House because that is what a statutes amendment bill requires in order to proceed.I enjoyed being the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee which considered this legislation. I think that the staff and the members of the committee gave it rigorous consideration. I hope there are no faults in it as we have progressed through this third and final reading because if there are we will be back here correcting them in a future statutes amendment bill. Thank you.BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this the third reading of bills divided from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). As I have said as a first-term MP nearly every day is a day of firsts and this is the point where we have reached with the third reading of this legislation. The Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) is a type of bill that I have not had to speak on before. One thing that has become apparent if I might just say in the role of a new member of Parliament is simply the volume and variation of the work to deal with. This is a great thing. The fact that we deal with so many things of import to our communities to society as a whole—and I refer here to our work both inside and outside this House—is a great thing. In fact the work is so enjoyable I would make the comment that at times it is very difficult to think of it as work.But with the volume and variations of things that we do have to deal with it is helpful to have an aide-mémoire to remind us of the work at hand at this moment. I do apologise for my French pronunciation—it is only marginally better than my English. Unfortunately my sign language is very limited but it is at least succinct. So as an aide-mémoire I would just like to remind us all that this legislation started as an omnibus bill. An omnibus bill is a bill that contains changes across many Acts that are generally quite technical in nature and are non-controversial. They are not matters of policy but matters of small change. I am sure that that reminder serves us all well.As this is in fact the first omnibus bill that I have had to speak on I made some inquiries about what the nature of an “omnibus” is. Surprisingly I could not find any references from the likes of great political luminaries such as Winston Churchill. I thought I would consult a very sage world-renowned and estimable man of knowledge in these areas so I looked to see what Reg Varney had to say on these matters. I could not find a direct quote from Mr Varney but given that one of the dictionary definitions of omnibus is “bus” and his very direct experience with such it would be a fair comment to suggest that he might describe an omnibus as a vehicle that takes you where you need to go—a large vehicle that takes you where you need to go. That is just what this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) represents. It is amending provisions across 34 Acts. It is making small and non-controversial yet important changes—important to ensure that our laws are working effectively and as we intended. It is getting us to where we need to go.On that I might make comments on a few of the very important changes that are being made. I would also like to take this opportunity to correct a little misunderstanding we had in the Committee of the whole House stage. It was postulated that the changes under this omnibus bill were in fact prohibiting the introduction of Labour caucus members to Antarctica—Labour caucus members and other native invertebrates. As it transpires that is not what the legislation is doing. The amendment referenced there was about harming native invertebrates in Antarctica. That is not what this bill does. This legislation makes changes to apply the same protections as are currently in force for native flora and fauna in Antarctica. They may be gentle wee flowers on the other side of the House but they are not native to Antarctica.The other area that was canvassed quite considerably over the debates on this legislation was the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995. This was because of course the potential is as the provisions exist that a person can change the name of another person because they do not have to prove their identity when making said change. So it is quite possible that you know—what could we envisage? Well someone could indeed change the name of the current Labour leader to something like “The Kingston Flyer” without his permission and without any check on their legal right to do so under the current provisions. That is probably something they might do just before they sent him packing down the line from the Labour leadership which history shows us is quite a regular occurrence in recent times. It has also shown us that it is quite common that such people find themselves in New York at the United Nations or what is otherwise known as the “Last Train to Clarksville”.The other amendments that are made in this bill include some very very serious and simple but important changes to the Local Government Act 1974. We are making a change that will ensure that when people deal with temporary road closures they are in fact dealing with the right agency. The right agency for consultation around local road closures is the New Zealand Transport Agency not the Ministry of Transport as is currently in the provision. If we were to operate according to the law the local bodies would be consulting with the wrong agency. As you could imagine if the law was taken very literally it would make what is already a troublesome and burdensome job all that much harder.But there are some very sound pragmatic and sensible things being done to help our Government agencies operate more efficiently and more effectively. The Copyright Act 1994 changes are a good example of that. Basically the change there is permitting the Copyright Tribunal to sit with as many as five members—and it currently sits with a maximum of five—and as few as two members. As a member opposite pointed out in one of the other stages the incredibly sound law that this Government has enacted around what is commonly referred to as the three-strikes legislation—or even sometimes a little unkindly as Skynet—and the implications of that law meant fewer illegal downloads so the Copyright Tribunal has less of a workload now than it has had in the past. So a law change that actually permits the tribunal to go about its business with a better-sized tribunal than was legally stipulated at a full number of five members is simply common sense. It is a good change. It is a practical and pragmatic change and it helps to ensure that we are delivering better public services.Another matter of some interest that was mentioned by a member opposite is the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act 2012. It has been identified that it might be a good idea for the National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme—or NAIT as it is also referred to in the legislation—to contract out some of the tasks that it does around compliance and the like. The change we are making just ensures it is very clear to all that the responsibility and accountability for such outsourced activities will remain with NAIT which makes complete sense I think to anyone who might envisage what the Act should have been and is clearly changing it to something that makes greater sense.One change in particular that has stuck out for me since the first time I spoke on this legislation which was in fact in the second reading relates to information requests—both the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and also the Official Information Act 1982. We are making the same change across both. It relates to what happens when a request is amended or split into separate parts. As the law stands today those local authorities or a Government agency can take the opportunity there to reset the requests as individual requests and go back to the start of the allowable time frame of 20 days. That means there is the scope there for such bodies to deliberately slow down a process particularly as these are Acts that are used quite frequently by members of the public and interested groups.So what this change is doing is reinforcing that yes each change does mean that for that amended part or for that new request there is a 20-day time frame but—and this is very very important—that 20-day limit will be applied only if the local authority or agency can show that it has made a demonstrable effort within 7 working days of the original request to make some meaningful progress on that request. What that means is that if they have been stonewalling such requests—to use a term that many of the public might consider—and then seek a further extension by looking to break it up into subsequent parts they will not receive that allowance of a further 20 working days. That places some certainty and some favouritism if I can use that word back on the part of the requester and that is a very very sound measure.Overall I think that this omnibus bill—these 34 Acts we are amending—makes very good sense. The amendments are a sensible thing to endorse and I commend the legislation to the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just remind the House that thanks to the contributions from previous speakers we do know that this debate is about a statutes amendment bill. It amends 34 pieces of legislation. It is non-controversial. It is an omnibus bill and we now know what an omnibus does. We have had a helpful quote from Reg Varney. It would be most appreciated by the Deputy Speaker and others in the House and by those listening if people speak to the provisions of the bill. Thank you.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker and I will endeavour to speak to the provisions of the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). It is important to recognise that statutes amendment bills are intended to be non-controversial and I thank the Hon David Parker for his explanation during the Committee stage about the changes to the Standing Orders that generally disallow omnibus changes to legislation but do make exceptions for statutes amendment bills. It is because they are non-controversial and have tended to make small technical changes to legislation that they are quite different from other bills before this House and if one single MP opposes a statutes amendment bill then it does not proceed.The Green Party exercised that right recently because it was proposed through Supplementary Order Paper 50 to amend the original bill to change the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act 2013 to increase the travel benefits for MPs who had entered Parliament prior to 1999. To the Green Party that looked to be both substantive and controversial and it had no place in a statutes amendment bill. Therefore we opposed it and it is not in the bill. I think that if that process where we had to have the consensus of all the parties applied to other legislation legislation would be less partisan it would be much more enduring and you would not get the changes that are made by different Governments as they get into Parliament. So there are major advantages in a statutes amendment bill because it does have the agreement of all the House.I would like to comment on some of the changes that the legislation makes to the Official Information Act—and they may seem small but they are significant. One of them is that if someone asks a department a Minister or an agency that the Official Information Act covers for information orally then the department or agency can ask that this be put in writing but if that person—the requester—does not do that then the department has got to record its understanding of the request and then provide a copy to the requester. The legislation also makes other changes to the Official Information Act to clarify that requests for information can be made in any form and do not need to refer to the Act. Also the changes put in doubt that agencies Ministers and departments can provide the information to requesters in an electronic form.Another improvement in the legislation is to allow the Ombudsman to hear complaints under the Act when an agency has failed to decide a request as soon as reasonably practicable. These sorts of changes are entirely consistent with the spirit and intent of the Official Information Act which is to promote open government and as the Dominion Post said in an article last year access to good information is not just some theoretical nicety; it is the oil that makes democracy work. It is because Government agencies are acting theoretically on our collective behalf—we fund them through our taxes—that we have every right to expect that they tell us what they are doing and that they respond promptly to requests for information.The Official Information Act was introduced under the Muldoon Government but the way that it is currently administered under this Government shows what a blatant disregard National has for the Act’s history and for the principles that informed it. We now see major delays in the release of information and pages and pages of redactions when the information is finally released so the Government has certainly strayed a long way from National’s original values of ensuring that there are effective checks on the power of the State and ensuring that the State is accountable.David Fisher made a significant speech late last year which described some of those changes. He said that when he started out as a journalist you could just ring someone in a Government department ask for information and it was provided. Now that does not happen and we have the Prime Minister saying last October that Ministers sometimes waited 20 days to respond because the Government might take the view that it is in its best interests to do that. So that is a real corruption of the spirit and intent of the legislation. This legislation will not fix that so the only thing we can hope for is that the review undertaken by the Chief Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakem into the way in which the Official Information Act is being implemented will result in some quite substantive changes and recommendations for change to try to restore public confidence in the effective operation of the Act.The Official Information Act is critical. It is the essential oil of our democracy and the Government needs to listen to the Chief Ombudsman’s recommendations when they come through and it would be good if the public availed itself of the opportunity to make submissions to that review on how the Act is working. This legislation makes some minor changes but they will not correct that erosion of the spirit and intent of the Act with Ministers sitting on information major delays in its release and major redactions. But the Green Party will support this legislation for the small changes it does make in that area. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First supports these various bills arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). The most important one for me concerns Official Information Act requests. Amendments were made to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and to the Official Information Act 1982 which would allow official information applications to be made orally. This is important for people who are not comfortable doing things in writing—it can be a huge barrier for many people including the elderly dyslexic people and people who can express themselves orally but struggle doing anything like this in writing. It can be a barrier for people for whom English is not a first language. Often they cannot write English very well but can usually make themselves understood orally. Also it is a barrier for sight-impaired people—and the list goes on.The point here is that access to official information is an important human right—a very important human right—so it must not be compromised by official bureaucracy or obstructed in any way. Indeed Government agencies and local government need to be proactive in assisting people to get the information they need. I am sad to say that I do not think that that is the case often enough in New Zealand at the present time. I would also have to say sadly that local government—some but not all councils—is in fact the worst offender.Like many other people I have had personal experience of this. Christchurch City Council has been one of the worst offenders. My personal experience relates to information that I tried to get perfectly reasonably concerning that council’s recycling operations a couple of years ago. It was perfectly clear that it had something to hide and it was going to use the rules under the legislation to try to avoid giving the information that was being requested. It went to extraordinary lengths to do that.That leaves people in the position of having to take the time and effort to go to the Ombudsman but the Ombudsman of course has only relatively limited power which is I think far too easily disregarded by councils. The Ombudsman’s determinations are not properly acted upon in many cases. So I want to use this occasion to say how disgusted I have been with the Christchurch City Council over its handling of official information requests in the past. We as members of Parliament need to take a great deal more interest in this because far too many people in this country have too much difficulty in getting the information they are entitled to. The whole area needs more review and people need easier ways to hold both Government agencies and local government to account over the many and various ways they have of avoiding their official information obligations.This legislation by its nature is limited in how far it can go for that purpose but it does make a minor yet very worthwhile step forward by making it clear that official information requests under both of those principal Acts can be made orally and must be acted upon. But the amendment also now says that local authorities or agencies may then request that oral requests be put in writing. So again councils and agencies may just always do that as a matter of course. They may abuse that provision. Thus a request for a written version would be open to abuse if a local authority or agency actually did want to be obstructive. As I have said too many do just that.I am glad to see that one of the amendments in the legislation now makes a request for an application to be converted into writing conditional allowing the request for a written version only if it is reasonably necessary for the purpose of clarifying it. I am glad to see that is now in the legislation. Putting a request in writing should be necessary only in an extreme minority of cases. I for one will be watching and listening to see whether Government agencies and councils actually obey the clear intent of the legislation so that when applications are made orally there is a request to put them in writing only for the purpose of clarifying the question not for the purpose of conducting some kind of exercise in delaying or obfuscating the request.I expect the Ombudsman will be watching that closely too. The message to Government agencies and local government has to be to watch out—the first step is being taken to avoid this kind of abuse and people are watching. Those agencies and those councils need to toe the line. But as far as this legislation is concerned there is now a satisfactory balance between unclear applications and the right of the applicant to rely on an oral request. That is the way it is in the law; we now want to see that that is operated satisfactorily in practice.Finally as for the dozens of other minor or technical changes made in this pretty large piece of legislation and the various Acts it concerns we in New Zealand First think they are all sensible changes and so we will be happy to vote for the legislation as a whole.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): What a joy it is to have the opportunity to speak for 10 whole minutes on the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Although the Deputy Speaker cautioned the House that he has heard about the structure and provisions of a statutes amendment bill that was several speeches ago.Hon Member: He might have forgotten.JACQUI DEAN: But no I am not willing to incur his ire by going over yet again the purpose and procedures of a statues amendment bill. But what I will say is that I was disappointed to hear that the Green Party exercised its right if you like—and it is a right—and its ability to object to one of the clauses and that was around the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act and Supplementary Order Paper 50. I am disappointed that the Greens saw fit to withdraw its support for that clause because I am not entirely convinced that its support was withdrawn for what I would regard to be the right reason.From my understanding of that Supplementary Order Paper on the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act it was put in to clarify a reference that was unclear as to how the travel entitlements for international airfares should be calculated. In 2013 when this bill was with the select committee the words “lowest cost” were added to the provisions. I am absolutely sure that right around the select committee table each member from whatever party would have supported that approach—that with an international travel entitlement for a former member of course lowest cost would be a desirable starting point. However it was not clear and this was an error that created further uncertainty. So lowest cost whilst being desirable also created further uncertainty so the proposed Supplementary Order Paper was put into the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) to correct that error which was introduced during the select committee proceedings in 2013.But what that Supplementary Order Paper on the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act was doing which in my view—but I can be corrected—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member but the point that my hand gestures have been trying to indicate is that this is no longer part of this bill and so it is no longer—Hon Annette King: Relevant.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: —relevant to be addressing it. We have indulged the member for some time.JACQUI DEAN: What an excellent ruling. Thank you so much Mr Speaker. That is wonderful. Having embarked for so long on this point could—Hon Annette King: Talk about that cheese from Whitestone.JACQUI DEAN: Well yes there is always a solution for everything is there not? If the Deputy Speaker would indulge me for a further 30 seconds only just to say that the Supplementary Order Paper was about honouring agreements and honouring entitlements for former members of Parliament. It was not like we were sitting there feathering our own nests or anything of the sort. It was about honouring a prior agreement which the Green Party then saw fit to withdraw its support for and I do regret that. I have wound up and I want to thank the Deputy Speaker for his indulgence.I want to talk now taking a step back from the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) about the select committee consideration of the bills in the first instance. Many of them have been captured in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) but prior to their appearing in this legislation—because there were oversights or drafting errors or various reasons for them to be in it—there was select committee consideration of them. I was going through them trying to identify a bill where I was involved in the select committee process and it started to make me wonder how it is with the select committee process that members sit around sometimes for months considering clause by clause a revision-tracked version of the bill and discussing various clauses and what the consequences of those are and whether there are any unintended consequences. It is not like we do not ask those questions in the select committee process.I guess the clauses in this bill—where I may or may not have sat round the table—will generally pertain perhaps to the Local Government Act in this instance. So clause 42 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) makes a consequential amendment removing an outdated reference to a borough council. You have a look at that and you think: “Well we haven’t had borough councils since the Local Government Act 2002.” I came into Parliament in 2005 so there have never been any borough councils in my time in Parliament. I am just reflecting that despite all the hard work done by many members of Parliament these unintended consequences—these omissions and these errors—do pop up in statutes.I do also acknowledge a previous speaker Ruth Dyson who went through the members of the Government Administration Committee praising the Labour ones—as you do. But I think that member is quite right that over the months that the Government Administration Committee worked on this bill it delved quite deeply into a number of statutes and found some significant and some minor ones. Although they are meant mainly to be minor and insignificant there are a few in there that did catch my eye as being slightly more substantial—like Part 20 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) pertaining to the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act 2012. Interestingly the amendment in clause 63 of that bill enables the National Animal Identification and Tracing organisation to contract out its compliance and enforcement functions to its subsidiary or holding company. You read it now in the bill and you think: “Well that’s obvious. Why did the Primary Production Committee not capture it at the time?”. I do not know the answer to that but it does perhaps beg the question of why the select committee process—as thorough as it is and as diligent and hard-working as committee members are—does not always get it right and neither do the parliamentary counsel and the drafters.There is another aspect that is captured in this bill which I want to touch upon briefly. Select committees are well served by those officers of Parliament whose job it is to support us in our consideration of and deliberation on bills. For example the National Parks Act 1980 which is Part 21 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) would have had in 1978 in 1979 and in 1980 a bill introduced to the House probably by the then Minister of Agriculture who would have taken advice from officials. The bill would have been drafted put to Cabinet and would have gone through the House and got to the select committee. The select committee would have considered it over some months taken some submissions incorporated those into the bill and relied on the advice of officials and of the bill drafters. We do that but we cannot just sit back and accept blindly what those officials tell us because they are human too and maybe some of the drafting needs to be corrected as has popped up in clauses 65 and 66 of this omnibus bill. Clause 65 corrects a drafting error by replacing references to “conservation management plan” with “management plan”—really minor stuff and probably easy to see why it was missed back in 1979 and probably 1980.Again clause 66 of the bill corrects a drafting error and restores the power to forfeit seized property used illegally in a national park. That is the reverse of the repeal of section 61(8). You can see the complexity that we get ourselves into when we start delving down into the processing of the original bill—it gets enacted into Parliament and then suddenly we discover that there are some parts of it that were unintended. I would not ever ever call it sloppy or bad work or not well considered because I know that every select committee and every select committee chair does their utmost to return a bill for the second reading Committee stage and third reading in a better shape than when they got it. One of those tenets I guess of us as parliamentarians—those of us involved in the select committee process—is that we want to do a good job.So now we have the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I want to thank the Deputy Speaker for his indulgence as I ranged slightly wide of the mark and I commend the bill to the House.ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): It is a pleasure to make a contribution on the third reading of these now 34 bills before the House formerly the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). During the earlier stages of that bill I called it the “Fixer-up Bill” and in this instance I will probably refer to it again as that. It fixes a number of mistakes over a wide range of bills that we have heard about already in this debate.I do want to mention again a point that I made during the Committee stage and that was around the Ngāti Manuhiri claims settlement. I want it recorded again that this is a very important issue for all iwi and all claimant groups that get to the settlement stage: to make certain that the deed of settlement and the Act of Parliament enacting the settlement that they have negotiated are consistent. In this instance one clause that added the two words “Crown body” to a section in the Act was inconsistent with the deed of settlement. The question I raised earlier was in fact around whether or not the Minister and the Government had considered asking Ngāti Manuhiri whether they would prefer the legislation to be changed or the deed of settlement to be changed. The number of Crown body - owned land and properties within the area of interest to Ngāti Manuhiri I think should have been examined to see whether that was viable. So I raise that issue in the third reading.Also fixing up 34 bills—in speaking and adding to the previous contributor around the process I am asking the question why so many mistakes. One can project forward to the next statutes amendment bill and wonder what mistakes have been made over the last few months that will come back to the House to be corrected as well. Perhaps the Ministers were too busy or perhaps the select committees overlooked certain things. I think it is important that we try our very best and work cooperatively in this House. This particular type of bill seems to me one of the few occasions where as has been mentioned before we need to have absolute agreement across the entire House for these bills to proceed. They are to me a rarity.The other point is that as a new member of Parliament over the last 5 months I will be able to go home to my people at the end of this week and say that I have spoken on 34 bills this week and I have been really productive. I think that will more than quadruple the number of contributions on bills that I have made so far. I will be very pleased to be able to do that and I think some of the other new MPs might be able to say the same as well.In responding also to some of the other points that have been made indeed it is really important that the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act is amended so that it is very clear about the process of changing one’s name. I can tell you that one of the issues in my electorate is that up to the 1930s indeed the registration of births in particular was not done very well. Even as a new MP I have had to assist a constituent who did not have their birth registered way back in the late 1920s. These issues of getting that correct are very important. I have also mentioned this issue to a family member whose name was recorded incorrectly within the records. This was in 1960. She wants to change her name to correct the spelling of her name which was recorded incorrectly. I will not mention the name but her name if translated as it was recorded would mean “chair” and I can assure you that she is not a chair. That was a simple spelling mistake because of the recording of her name when her birth was registered.It is important that on the whole host of these bills we have had a number of contributions on the Official Information Act. I too support the contribution that the Hon Ruth Dyson made around the time frame for receiving responses for Official Information Act requests. Also I have heard a number of contributions that I am not sure were all very helpful in discussing these amendments to the 34 statutes. I am tempted to add to that but I will refrain from doing so. I think it is not very helpful although from time to time I probably will go there in certain circumstances.Another Act that caught my eye was the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 1978. A few weeks ago—and I have mentioned it in this debate—I attended the Matatini festival held in Christchurch. A number of groups there in their waiata and their haka spoke about issues regarding the misuse of drugs. I think it is important that we acknowledge that this is a huge issue amongst all of our communities. I can tell you that in Te Tai Hauāuru it is no different. The issues around the misuse of drugs need serious attention. Making certain that this particular Act is amended will hopefully contribute to an improvement in terms of helping those who have addictions. The issue of addiction is a huge issue within my electorate and I suspect in a number of electorates. We need to acknowledge and also make certain that we make positive contributions towards addressing the misuse of drugs. Nō reira tēnā tātou katoa.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): We are 155 for 3 Mr Deputy Speaker. I understand that members of the public who are listening to this debate on the third and final reading of the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) this afternoon will probably be only those members of the public who are unable for one reason or another to find themselves in front of a television or listening to an alternative radio station. I notice that the House is full and ready to go for this concluding debate! It is somewhat surprising and interesting that I find myself speaking in this debate as one who has not sat on the Government Administration Committee which considered the bill and its various component parts.I listened intently to earlier debate from members across the House and was particularly interested in the commentary of my colleague Brett Hudson in his attempt to understand the term “omnibus”. It put me in mind—I am not wanting to deviate too much from the bill—of my long-ago legal studies when of course those students who studied legal system and legal practice and all those important matters will well know that the “man on the Clapham omnibus” is of course the standard reference in legal terms for reasonableness. It is a term that goes back to a time when horse-drawn and long vehicles for passenger conveyance were regular. Clapham I am told was a sort of nondescript London suburb where a reasonably well-educated person who might be the hypothetical reasonable man—they were probably less concerned about gender equality in those days—would be a traveller on the Clapham omnibus. So it seems appropriate and somehow relevant that this long vehicle of a bill should in fact reflect the nature of an omnibus being a long vehicle. The component parts of the original bill are indeed long but they are important none the less.One of the things that always fascinates me as a chair of a select committee and as a member of this House is that the level of detail we are required to be conscious of as legislators is sometimes overwhelming. There can be occasions when the sheer size of the legislation we are confronted with is so daunting and detailed in its manner and style that it is very difficult to get every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. This legislation attempts to resolve some of the issues that occur from time to time when an “i” is not dotted and a “t” is not crossed. I am particularly mindful of the time when I was chairing the Justice and Electoral Committee in the last Parliament and we were considering the Judicature Modernisation Bill a bill of 1200 pages. My heart went out to the Parliamentary Counsel Office staff who were responsible for drafting that legislation. I simply do not know how they were able to keep to terms on the detail of each particular clause and the wording of it. It seems to me to be particularly concerning.The senior whip has just handed me a note Mr Deputy Speaker. We are 162 for 3 after 33 overs and it is the drinks break. So Parliament’s audience will probably increase while the drinks break is on.I want to turn to several of the measures in the legislation. Although they are as we have already heard from numerous speakers across the House not controversial they are none the less important. They raise detail issues that we as legislators do have to consider and from time to time do need to make amendments to. This process is a neat and efficient way of doing that in terms of the efficiency of this Parliament and the efficiency of the way we create law and make provision sometimes for things that some people would think were quite mundane ordinary and unspectacular in their nature. The reality is that of course that is not the case. Often these sometimes apparently small matters are in fact very significant albeit to a small or narrow range of people.I was particularly interested in the select committee’s recommendations regarding legal professional privilege. This is an area that is I think sometimes overlooked by members of the public but it is of course a very important area. So the committee came back and recommended the removal of clauses that would have amended the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act of 1987 and the Official Information Act of 1982 as those amendments would have included a definition of legal privilege from the Evidence Act dating back to 2006. But this definition may have been able to be interpreted to restrict professional privilege to circumstances where proceedings were in train or contemplated and that was simply not the intention of the amendments. So the committee—wisely I think—made a decision on that and that has been included in the amended legislation before us today.There are a number of quite fascinating pieces of statute that are being addressed by the original bill. I want to refer with the goodwill of the House to several of them. I particularly want to refer to the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995. Part 4 and clause 15 of the bill will make a change that allows for the Registrar-General to require persons lodging a statutory declaration for a change of name to provide evidence of their identity and other information necessary to process the application. Why is this important? It is actually very important for the person who is seeking to change their name that their information is accepted and taken as pivotal to the application for a change. Until now my understanding is that that may not necessarily have been the case and there may have been a number of unreasonable barriers placed in front of people who wanted to make a change of that nature and who for one reason or another were precluded from doing so.Similarly in Part 8 of the bill in clause 23 there is to be an amendment to the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act of 1982 and this is a provision that will repeal the requirement for the Registrar of Friendly Societies and Credit Unions to prepare an annual report. On the face of it you would say it is perfectly reasonable for the Registrar of Friendly Societies and Credit Unions to prepare an annual report and that that report should appropriately and properly be presented to Parliament. However what has happened since the original legislation was passed by this House back in 1982 is that the report that has been required until now to be provided annually is no longer of any value at all because credit unions and insurers are now prudentially supervised by no less a body than the Reserve Bank itself. It is no longer appropriate even though it seemed sensible and appropriate and good legislation at the time way back in 1982 for an annual report to be presented to the House that is no longer current or relevant.Another area and just a final one that I would like to highlight before my time expires is in Part 12 of the bill which relates to the Land Transport Act of 1998 clause 34 where consequential amendments were overlooked when that Act was amended to allow the use of vacutainers in the collection of blood specimens in matters relating to blood-alcohol assessments and blood-alcohol driving offences. The use of vacutainers is relatively new technology and it is one that was simply by omission and non-conspiratorial error just simply omitted from the original bill. This Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) is a good example of how a small but important detail such as that can in fact be relatively easily remedied by this Parliament in an efficient and sensible way. Other speakers who have been participating in this debate have I think neatly and appropriately summed up the whole purpose and common sense of this vehicle for making a wide range of minor but significant and important changes to legislation. I commend the legislation to the House.JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): I am honoured to take a call today on these bills arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I would like first of all to acknowledge all of our parliamentary colleagues who have worked on this legislation and in particular the chair of the Government Administration Committee the Hon Ruth Dyson for all of her work and for all of the work of her committee. This Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) has been proposed because it amends 34 other pieces of legislation. Its purpose is to fix previous mistakes. We acknowledge the need to fix and update legislation that is out of date as well as the need to bring legislation into line with other laws and at the same time fix any technical problems it may have. The Labour Party supports the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) including all of the amendments contained in it.As a new MP this is my first time making a statement on an omnibus bill. One of the things I have to learn is how to pronounce that term properly—“omnibus”. I just found out as part of reading and researching this bill and as is covered in our Standing Orders that this is one of the very few pieces of legislation that every single member of Parliament has to agree on before it progresses any further. I agree with this legislation so I will not be that one member today who disagrees with it. But for me as a new member it is fascinating to learn that there is a bill that every single member must agree with. It is also very pleasing as a new MP to find out that there are certain pieces of legislation like this one where we come together as representatives of our electorates—those who have been elected by the people of Aotearoa New Zealand—and find out that we can indeed work together. We can indeed work alongside each other to come to an agreement on amending 34 different Acts. I find it very very pleasing that we can actually work together on something like this.One of the changes that I want to cover and it is not one that has been covered by many of the other speakers previously is the change proposed in what was Part 31 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) that will amend the Tokelau (Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone) Act 1977. Amending that Act is very important to the people of Tokelau one of our neighbouring Pacific countries. Indeed it is important because they are a realm country so every Tokelauan person is a New Zealand citizen. Tokelau and some of our other Pacific neighbours do not have very many natural resources. The fisheries in the vast Pacific Ocean are one of those resources so may I state that it is incumbent on Aotearoa New Zealand to ensure that we get this right for the people of Tokelau.I would also like to quote from Part 31 of this legislation where it relates to penalties that are currently applicable to fisheries offences in Tokelau. These penalties have not been amended since 1977 and they are out of step with the penalties in the New Zealand legislation. In contrast the penalties that are applicable to fisheries breaches in the New Zealand exclusive economic zone have been amended several times since the 1970s. I would also like to say that the Government of Tokelau has approved the amendments that are proposed in this legislation. Clause 107 of Part 31 amends the maximum penalty in section 6 of the Act for foreign fishing craft fishing in the territorial sea of Tokelau from $100000 to $250000 and in the case of an unlicensed foreign fishing craft clause 108 amends the maximum penalty in section 8 of the Act from $100000 to $500000. It is my sincere hope that if and when any of these clauses are breached these fines are imposed to discourage illegal fishing in the territorial waters of Tokelau.One of the other changes discussed at the select committee concerns Official Information Act requests. This is important especially to members of the public who lodge Official Information Act information requests. At the select committee one of the amendments proposed would have made it possible for those who are not accustomed to writing or handling formal requests to have their Official Information Act applications made orally. The committee has allowed this but it is possible however on the condition that people do so only when it is necessary to clarify their request. Part 17 of the legislation also removes section 2(1) of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 in clause 49 and section 7 in clause 51. In Part 23 which amends the Official Information Act 1982 it amends section 2 in clause 70 and section 9 in clause 71.This is non-controversial legislation. We fully support all of the amendments that the bills divided from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) propose. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa.Bills read a third time.Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) BillSecond ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of theMinister of Revenue: I move That the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill be now read a second time. As the title of the bill suggests there are two parts to this tax bill. The first part supports the Government’s HomeStart package for New Zealanders who are saving to buy their first home by extending the current KiwiSaver withdrawals for first-home buyers from 1 April 2015. Currently KiwiSaver members who are purchasing their first home can withdraw the contributions that they and their employer have made in order to supplement their deposit on a first home. What this bill does is allow them to also withdraw their member tax credits. This will give those KiwiSaver members who have been in the scheme for 5 years access to an extra $2500 or an extra $521 per year to pull together that deposit. They will not however be able to withdraw the Government’s $1000 kick-start contribution. This is to ensure that the member’s KiwiSaver account remains open and active after the withdrawal of the eligible funds for their first-home deposit.These proposals are part of the Government’s broader programme for assisting New Zealanders to pull together that all-important deposit for a home and they are also about incentivising the land development sector to produce more homes within an affordable range. This is the most generous support that the Government has provided for people wanting to own their own homes since the days of the State Advances loans and since the time when people were able to capitalise their family benefit. If you take for instance a typical couple in Auckland earning the average wage after a period of 5 years they will now have access to $35000 out of their KiwiSaver and adding to that the $20000 grant from the Government they will now have with no other savings access to $55000 to put a deposit on a new home. When you add these schemes together with the Welcome Home Loan which enables an exemption from the Reserve Bank’s loan-to-value ratios it would mean that that person would now be in the market place to be able to afford a home in Auckland of up to $550000.That is a real step forward for Kiwi families that are having that challenge of being able to own their first home. But this package also needs to be seen to be aligned with the real challenge we have which was identified by the Productivity Commission. What it said was that over the last 30 years because of difficulties in getting land subdivisions through the Resource Management Act there has been a real switch to new homes—Grant Robertson: Ugh!Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —meeting only the very high end of the market. Well I will give Mr Twyford the numbers. In the 1970s 37 percent of the new homes that were built were below the median price. That figure recently got down to just 5 percent. So the Government is saying that we need to reform the Resource Management Act to make it easier for the development sector to produce more affordable homes but we also want to feed the demand element and actually provide an incentive for that sector to produce homes within these price ranges: under $550000 in Auckland $450000 in places like Christchurch and $350000 in centres like Southland.This is a very good programme and I was intrigued during the election campaign when members opposite said that they opposed this bill. They spoke—in one of those sorts of vox pop opportunities—to a young person who said that they really liked this policy because it empowers young people to go and buy the home they want rather than having to get a home that was in Labour’s view to be built by the State. We are a party that believes that people should have the choice and that the market should be able to have the incentives to produce—whether it be a townhouse whether it be an apartment whether it be a quarter-acre section—what New Zealanders actually want and our policy provides for that flexibility. I have received letters and I have met with hundreds of young New Zealanders who will welcome the introduction of these incentives on 1 April—which is as I have said the strongest support that a Government has provided for first-home buyers in more than a quarter of a century.The second part of the bill focuses on making sure that tax rules are applied consistently and fairly—in this case in relation to new rules applying to veterans’ entitlement schemes contained in the Veterans’ Support Act 2014. To ensure that the income replacement payments made to New Zealand veterans are taxed correctly the bill introduces several amendments to the Income Tax Act 2007 and the KiwiSaver Act 2006. The proposed changes will make it clear that veteran income replacement payments will be treated in the same way as ACC income compensation for taxation for social policy and for KiwiSaver purposes. The amendments also clarify that KiwiSaver deductions can be made from veteran income replacement payments but that the KiwiSaver automatic enrolment rules and compulsory employer contributions will not apply to these payments. These proposed changes will take effect from the date of enactment with the exception of the corrections to the retirement lump sum supports which will apply from the date of the enactment of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014. The amendments are important to give veterans who are receiving income replacement payments clarity on the correct tax treatment of those payments and to do it in an equitable way so that they are not disadvantaged.These are the main two proposals in the bill. In addition I wish to advise that I shall be introducing amendments to the bill by way of a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee of the whole House. The reason for these amendments is to further enhance access to the KiwiSaver first-home withdrawals with some technical corrections to the drafting. The issue there which will be dealt with in an Supplementary Order Paper is that the Government is very much wanting to provide the incentives for new homes and one of the practical difficulties for a KiwiSaver member who is withdrawing their money is that the current law does not give them access to the money to put down a deposit on a new home construction. That Supplementary Order Paper will make that easier and that will enable us to be able to use the KiwiSaver scheme and these withdrawal tools to be able to support the construction of new homes.Can I conclude by thanking the Finance and Expenditure Committee for its consideration of the bill and for the recommendations that it has made on the basis of those submissions. I commend this Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill to the House.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): There is a certain appropriateness that the Minister the Hon Nick Smith who delivered that speech on behalf of the Minister responsible for the bill was the person speaking about it—the “Minister for Blather and Excuses on Housing” because that is what he is. He is like a man in a dinghy facing a tidal wave desperately paddling round in circles going absolutely nowhere as the housing crisis overwhelms him. Of all the things that we could be debating today about what to do about the housing crisis in New Zealand about how we could make sure that young New Zealanders can achieve their dream of owning a home about how we can make sure that there is something to stem the out-of-control housing prices in Auckland about how we can actually increase supply in housing and about how we could manage demand in housing—of all of the things that we could be doing today the Government brings to us this bill.And its officials gave it a ringing endorsement in the committee!Hon Clayton Cosgrove: What was it?GRANT ROBERTSON: They came to us and they said that they had looked at all of the information they had looked at all of the background and they were “tentatively positive” about it—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Is that a direct quote?GRANT ROBERTSON: —tentatively positive. Not positive but tentatively positive. That is a direct quote Mr Cosgrove. That is exactly what the officials said. They said that they—Hon Dr Nick Smith: They were negative about your policy.GRANT ROBERTSON: Dr Smith says they were negative about our policy. At least Dr Smith our policy builds some houses. At least we are about trying to make sure that New Zealanders have some houses built.Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s right we are—24000 in the last year. Double the rate.GRANT ROBERTSON: No do not talk to us about consents Dr Smith—actual houses. Things that people can live in. After 7 years of this Government it still has not got a decent housebuilding programme going. And what it came to the Finance and Expenditure Committee with and what it comes to the Parliament today with is a bill about which the best thing officials—its own officials—can say about it is that they are tentatively positive about it. In the end they basically said it would do no harm. That was as good as they got to—that it would not do any harm. Well that is good news is it not? The Government has introduced a piece of legislation that is not going to harm people. That is fantastic news from the Government.The officials were asked a number of quite simple questions about this. Will it improve homeownership? No was the answer to that question. They expect the impact on the proportion of owner-occupiers to be small as most recipients of a KiwiSaver HomeStart grant would have purchased their home eventually anyway. Although the grant will make a contribution to the ability to raise a deposit as Dr Smith has told us a quote from the officials is that “… the grant makes no difference to the cost of servicing a mortgage.” That is the reality: the overall price of housing particularly in the Auckland region is now so out of control that this is actually just tinkering around at the edges. So the officials told us no it will not make a big difference to homeownership.Will the changes benefit supply the officials were asked; answer no it will not benefit supply. Advice to the Government noted there was already substantial demand for homes at the lower end but it was simply not profitable enough from a developer’s point of view. At best officials told us they indicated that the subsidy may have an impact on—get this—a couple of hundred homes; a couple of hundred homes. There is a shortage in Auckland right now of 18000 homes. That is just to get ourselves up to where we need to be let alone the building of an additional 10000 on an annual basis. For this piece of legislation the best that the Government’s own officials could say was that it might mean a couple of hundred extra homes. It is the very definition of tinkering around at the edges of a significant and major problem for this Government.On this side of the House when we introduced the KiwiSaver scheme it was always designed with the idea that it could be used by people buying their first home to be able to use that money for a deposit on a house. We do not have a problem with that. In principle this idea is one that potentially could have some merit but in the end it simply does not address the core issues. What it really does not do—in a supply-constrained environment this really is the equivalent of trying to put out a fire by putting petrol on it. Yes we will open up the possibility of some people perhaps a few hundred to be able to take some benefit from this but the reality is—and different from when we first introduced the KiwiSaver scheme—we are now existing in a very supply-constrained environment and this is what the Government thinks is the most pressing and important thing that it can bring before the House.We had some interesting exchanges in the select committee with the officials who came to see us and we learnt a lot during that about sartorial issues for members of the officials who came in and saw us. It was quite clear from the officials who came from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to brief us that this was simply something that the Government had proposed during the election campaign. It was a desperate bid when Labour’s KiwiBuild policy was out there and the Government had nowhere to go and it went for a policy that it thought would be popular. It was and is essentially a gimmick. It does not change very much at all and yet this is what the Government would have us believe is the answer to housing problems in New Zealand.It is quite clear when we are looking at average house prices in Auckland of around $750000 with increases in the prices month on month—we hear 3 percent one month we hear 5 percent another month—that we know all of those things are adding up to a pressure cooker housing market. So it is all very well to have a policy like KiwiSaver HomeStart but with the loan-to-value ratios and their impact and fundamentally the failure to build affordable housing this simply goes nowhere.It is interesting that on a day in this House when the first three questions on the Order Paper during question time were to the Government around its absolutely failed social housing experiment which nobody wants a bar of in the third sector this is the bill we are now debating. It is quite clear to us on this side of the House that the housing market is in failure the housing market is in crisis and it requires significant Government intervention to deal with that. The Government’s response is to sell the houses that it owns. That is the Government’s response to this. This is not the time to sell houses; this is the time to build houses. This is the time to use the power of the Government to build more houses to use the fact that the Government can borrow more cheaply than the average homeowner to use the fact that the Government is the controller of more land and to use the fact that the Government can do things on a scale that no other developer can to actually correct the failure that is in the market right now.We want to be very clear on this side of the House that this is a question about both supply and demand within the housing market. We heard Bill English say the other day that he did not want to do anything at all to meddle in the demand side of the equation. Well failing to meddle in either side of the equation is the problem for Bill English at the moment. The housing market is a broad thing. If we are not building enough affordable houses it puts pressure on the rental market. If there is pressure on the rental market that pushes up rents and that puts more people towards the need for social housing. The response of the Government is to sell off that social housing. The fact that it does not understand the connection between all of these things in the housing market represents an absolute and total failure of this Government to have a proper coordinated and connected housing policy. When we come to a piece of legislation that the Government’s own officials can bring themselves to only tentative positivity for for one that they say will not do any harm—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Not a lot of good.GRANT ROBERTSON: —but not much good at all Mr Cosgrove—that is a failure of this Government.The Labour Party will support this piece of legislation because it does something. It allows the KiwiSaver HomeStart policy to be put into practice. We will support that. We think that is something that should happen but be under no illusion—this does not solve the problem. This will not build more houses. This will not see more New Zealanders able to fulfil that Kiwi dream any more than any tinkering that this Government would bring to the House would. What we need in housing is a large-scale building programme of affordable housing and we need to ensure that the rental market is kept under control. What we must not do is sell off the social housing that underpins the housing ecosystem in New Zealand. This tinkering legislation is emblematic of a Government that has no idea how to deal with the housing crisis and is failing New Zealanders.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Are we not lucky to have an academic from Wellington who tells us how the housing market works? That member would have no idea what a house even looks like let alone how to build one and then he wants to be in control of the market.The whole of the speechesof the Labour Party members have been about a large-scale Government building programme. Let us go back to communism let us go back to the 1950s let us go back to the Soviet era and let us have a 5-year plan. Let us make it a 10-year plan. Let us see how they build those houses. I bet you they will be lovely looking houses—will they not—that will all look the same. They will all be on streets named after Grant Robertson or somebody else and they will all have the same number. They might put A B C and D just to make it different so that you can actually put mailboxes on them. With New Zealand First they would need three mailboxes per house. Under the Labour Party the houses would all be the same colour because you cannot have anyone having a different colour. You might be able to paint the garage roof if you are lucky. The houses will all be pointing the same way. They will all have the same car out the front. Everybody will be in the same job and will be doing the same things day by day. That is what the Labour Party’s vision of housing solutions is. That is what it believes in.The Labour members—the 30 members is it of the Labour Party left—who are sitting in this House actually believe that they can determine what the future of the New Zealand economy and the New Zealand housing market will look like. I thought there was one line from Grant Robertson—well there were a couple—where he really showed his true colours. He said that the National Party does not understand the market. That is what he said—that we do not understand the market. Well that may be the case—that may be the case.But one of his other lines was that the Government is the controller of more land that can be released. Well I have never seen a Government development of land like that. Land is developed by the developers. It is not developed by the Government. If anything is in between the developer and the Government it is called a council. And the council has the ability then to dictate how land will be developed. It is not developed by the Government.So we get someone like Grant Robertson who has some amazing plan to build these 30000 houses not telling you where you are going to get the people to build them not telling you where you are going to get the infrastructure to put around them not telling you where you are actually going to get the materials to build them and not telling you where they are actually going to be built. But then he is the controller of the release of land is Grant Robertson. That is great to see because that is not how the market works.Let us look at how a market actually works.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You tell us.DAVID BENNETT: Yeah I will and you might learn something. In a market there are individuals called purchasers and one of the things that they look for is the interest rates that they have on their house. In New Zealand interest rates are now at 6 percent. Compare that with when the Labour Party was last in Government: interest rates were 10.9 percent. The biggest thing that determines the growth of the New Zealand property market is interest rates because it is your ability to repay that banks look at. They will lend you the money if you can repay. Even if you do not have the equity they will lend you the money if you have the income. Nobody in the Labour Party would understand this because nobody in the Labour Party has actually ever run a business. But if you ever ran a business you would understand that your income-earning ability is the key thing. It is not necessarily the assets you hold; it is your ability to earn income because that is the ability to service debt. Under National the biggest cost for New Zealand households is now 6 percent compared with 9 percent on that side.Stuart Nash: What’s it in Australia?DAVID BENNETT: What is it in Australia? The member wants to know what the interest rates are in Australia. They are a little bit less than New Zealand’s interest rates but that does not matter. We are not dealing with the Australian market are we? That member over there may think he is in the Australian market but he is not; he is in the New Zealand market.If you look at house prices though—house prices under the Labour Government went up 96 percent in 9 years. They went up 96 percent in 9 years under that Government. After the Budget in 2014 they had gone up only 28 percent under National—28 percent compared with 96 percent; 28 percent compared with 96 percent. Those are the numbers.Stuart Nash: That just proves that property’s in the doldrums and Auckland’s housing market’s going through the roof.DAVID BENNETT: The member over there is telling us his economic policy now. It is slightly different from Grant Robertson’s. That was: “We will build 30000 houses.” But then that member is not really part of the Labour Party front bench. I ask the Labour Party members: if they want to see 30000 more houses built in New Zealand why do they not support the Resource Management Act reforms? Why do they not actually support things in this House that will enable that to happen? They do not because they do not care. The only thing they have got is some whimsical promise that they can pluck 30000 houses out of the air in some Stalinist approach of economic management that Grant Robertson thought up on Kelburn Parade. He did not actually go to Auckland—none of them have actually been there and seen the market and what you have to do. This is the KiwiBuild of the Labour Party which I am sure would be the flop of the Labour Party as we all know.This bill is a small bill. Nobody is going to deny that. It is a small bill. It does not make a huge amount of change.Denis O’Rourke: It doesn’t do anything either. It doesn’t do anything.DAVID BENNETT: Does it not do anything? It does do something. The member tax credit is what homebuyers under the KiwiSaver programme can now access. It does not enable them to withdraw their $1000 kick-start contribution but it does enable them to get the member tax credit.Denis O’Rourke: Where’s the Government’s contribution?DAVID BENNETT: Where is the Government’s contribution? Well it would be interesting to see where the Government’s contribution is when you consider New Zealand First a party that does not support the road from Pūhoi to Wellsford a party whose leader in his speech last year in the election campaign said no to that road—said no to the one thing needed in Northland.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You might be able to assist me. I do not believe there is any reference in this bill to a by-election or the Pūhoi road or anything else.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No; you are exactly right. This is about KiwiSaver and that is what we should be focusing on.DAVID BENNETT: Yes thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It has been quite a wide-ranging debate. I notice the Labour Party members never spoke about the bill. They just spoke about Labour’s KiwiBuild programme which has nothing to do with this bill and will have nothing to do with anything that will provide a solution to New Zealand’s housing issues.This bill does support first-home buyers and it honours an election pledge that was made at that time. The HomeStart package that was debated during the election campaign comprised three changes and one of these changes is in regard to helping New Zealanders through their being able to withdraw this tax credit so that new homebuyers can get access to it. There are also some other changes in the legislation that are more subsidiary and relate to other—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Subsidiary?DAVID BENNETT: Subsidiary—that means secondary for the member over there. He would not know what secondary is because he lost his electorate but that is what it means in practical terms for you Mr Cosgrove. In those terms there is that part of the bill as well that deals with issues to do with veterans pensions. It is tidying up some effects that we have seen in the previous legislation in that area.This is a bill that we will have support for from the other parties in this House which is good to see. It is a bill that enables our New Zealand homeowners to access that part of the KiwiSaver HomeStart programme through the ability to get that tax credit back. It is a bill that will be in the best interests of all New Zealanders. It is not a bill that is trying to create some kind of solution to a property market that is not possible under what the Labour Party has said—building 30000 houses through some grand Government programme that would make our housing estates look very one-dimensional and not be effective at all in providing opportunities for New Zealanders to get into their first home or other home. So this is a good bill. It helps New Zealanders on that path. It is practical. It is real. It will work. It is not a dream it is not a fantasy and it is not some vision of the past that will never happen. Thank you.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): This bill is a triumph of politics and spin over reason. But for any discussion of the bill we have to understand the political context of it and to do that we have to go back to the dying weeks of the last election campaign. What was going on? National was bleeding support on housing. It was in trouble on housing. Nick Smith the Minister of Housing at the time was staggering from scandal to fiasco. Labour’s KiwiBuild policy was extremely popular with the public and the public could not understand what National was trying to do. They could not understand Nick Smith’s housing policy. He kept talking about the Resource Management Act and how we are going to change the planning rules but all people wanted was for the Government—someone—to build more houses. But National for some reason refused to do that.So what emerged from the vortex that is David Farrar the National Party pollster; Steven Joyce the National Party campaign manager; and Nick Smith the hapless Minister of Housing was this policy. The policy is called the HomeStart subsidies. What this bill does is enable aspiring homeowners to withdraw the Government contributions to their KiwiSaver retirement savings and use that as the deposit for their Welcome Home Loan. But the HomeStart policy was opposed by Bill English. He did not like it. His officials did not like it. Treasury did not like it. The Reserve Bank did not like it. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment officials did not like it. But craven cynical politics carried the day and this policy was adopted. It was announced during the National Party election campaign because you see this National Party never saw a political problem that it thought could not be fixed by throwing truckloads of taxpayer cash at it. We have seen very graphic examples of that inclination that the National Party has in the last couple of weeks during the Northland by-election campaign with the bridges of National Party significance and the Government throwing tens of millions of dollars at them without even looking at the cost-benefit analysis.I think this bill is a perfect example of procrastination. We all know what it is like to suffer from procrastination: you have to do something you have got to do it but suddenly you find yourself compelled to do everything else—every other task—other than the thing that you have to do. In a strange way that is what is going on I think with National’s housing policy. The one thing that it should be doing is building houses. We have a housing shortage. What it should do is build more houses. That is obvious to everybody on this side of the House and it is obvious to the public but what does National do instead? It blames councils; it blames the Resource Management Act. The centrepiece of last year’s Budget announcement was the lifting of anti-dumping duties on nails. I think that is going to save about $1000 for property developers; certainly it is not going to save any money for homeowners. The National Government wants to sell a few thousand State houses. It has set up special housing areas where I could count on two hands the number of houses that have actually been built in a year and a half in those special housing areas. It has been a total failure as a policy. The crowning glory of this National Government’s housing policy is a policy that throws taxpayer subsidies into a market that is already supply-constrained.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: But doesn’t David Bennett say he knows all about the market?PHIL TWYFORD: Yes David Bennett is apparently an expert in market economics and he says it is OK so I guess we should all be reassured. So the one thing that it should be doing is building houses and yet there is a long list of policies that either are not working or are going to make the situation worse. The showpiece of this fiasco called the National Government housing policy is the HomeStart policy which has been criticised by Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment officials by Treasury officials by the Reserve Bank and by any credible commentator.In spite of all this and as Grant Robertson said we are going to vote for the bill because the bill itself is relatively benign. The main thing it does is enable people to access the contributions that have been made to their KiwiSaver accounts for a home loan subsidy. So we are going to vote for that but let us just look at what the officials said. Here is a summary of the officials’ advice to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The overall impression was negative. The officials said that increasing deposit subsidies is likely to stimulate demand and thus increase prices in supply-constrained markets therefore undermining housing affordability. Hello National members—officials say that this is going to undermine housing affordability. What are you doing housing Minister Nick Smith? You are actually making the situation worse.This policy was discredited in New Zealand in the early 1990s—the very same policy. It was discredited more recently in Australia and the Australian state and federal Governments acknowledged that this same policy made matters worse. The officials said that the likely cost of HomeStart—$100 million—could be better spent elsewhere. It is poor value for money. The officials also said that the higher income caps shift the Government support from low to medium income households to virtually all households. It reduces its targeting at the people who need it most. It actually makes the existing set of policies and subsidies less effective at helping the people who need it most. Officials also noted that half of the eligible sales of new homes last year were in areas where housing affordability is not an acute issue. It is a poorly targeted policy.As Grant Robertson pointed out the officials told the select committee that at best it might lead to the building of a couple of hundred extra homes—a couple of hundred. Well if the members opposite need reminding—they should not but in case they do—according to the Reserve Bank Auckland has a deficit that was accumulated on this National Government’s watch of between 15000 and 20000 homes. That is the shortage that is driving prices sky high in Auckland as we speak. Under the very same Resource Management Act that saw the building of 40 percent more new homes every yearunder the Labour Government—40 percent more than this current Government is achieving—in Auckland the current build rate is only a little over half what Auckland needs just to stand still. That is just to keep up with population growth never mind the 15000 to 20000 structural deficit of houses in Auckland that has built up under this National Government. How the mighty have fallen. Two years ago Nick Smith was the newly minted Minister of Housing—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: That’s after he was sacked.PHIL TWYFORD: Yes after he came back from his time in purgatory. He claimed in an interview with the Nelson Mail that he was going to restore the Kiwi dream of affordable homeownership. How the mighty have fallen.That Minister has presided over one scandal after another and one fiasco after another and what characterises his tenure as the Minister—actually at least he does something more than old Phil Heatley used to do. Phil basically used to do nothing. At least Nick Smith does something—he does photo opportunities. He has a continual procession of announcements and press releases and photo opportunities that are designed to make it look like he is actually doing something about the housing crisis but he is a classic tinkerer. He never does anything that makes a significant difference. Look at last year’s Budget announcement of lifting the tariffs and anti-dumping duties on building materials. He claimed that it was going to save $3500 per house—nothing of the sort. This measure this HomeStart subsidy is likely to actually make matters worse.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): To the 90000 people who will benefit from the changes that this Government is making to KiwiSaver they heard it here today from the Labour Party. Labour thinks that having 90000 people benefit from the Government’s changes to KiwiSaver is simply a gimmick. That is what Grant Robertson described this measure as this afternoon. He said that it was simply a gimmick. Well to those 90000 people who over the next 5 years will be benefiting from the ability to withdraw more money from KiwiSaver to use as a deposit to get themselves into a home I say that this Government cares about homeownership in this country and that the Labour Party does not.The Labour Party thinks that trying to help first-home buyers is a gimmick. The Labour Party thinks that this bill will do nothing to help them. Yet again it is absolutely wrong. We have heard the speeches from Mr Robertson; we have heard the speeches from Mr Twyford. They do not support first-home buyers like this Government does. I am pleased to be speaking on this bill. I am pleased to be speaking on a bill that will actually enable more people to access homes at an affordable rate.There is a large number of challenges that we face when it comes to housing—particularly in Auckland but it is also a nationwide issue—and I believe that this Government has a set of policies that is going a long way towards helping those who wish to get a house. Let us talk first about the fact that we need to have more houses built in New Zealand. I have been listening to speeches from the Labour Party members—it happens week after week—where they downplay and do not acknowledge the significant increase in construction that is taking place in this country.If you want to get more people into houses and more people owning houses in this country we simply have to be building more houses. But the building of new houses does not take place overnight and the building of new houses is not something that I would ever trust any Government—particularly a Labour Government—to be involved in and to be doing for itself. The best way for houses to be built in this country is to have them built by the private sector. The role for the Government to play is to put in place the policies that enable the private sector to get on and build. The policy that the Government also has to be involved in is ensuring that there is the ability for people to access capital in order to access deposits so that they can borrow to build more homes.I get sick and tired just like every member of the House does of hearing the Labour Party members talking about housing affordability. I remember going to the banks and asking for a mortgage in the mid to late-2000s when Labour was in office. I remember the mortgage rates being close to 11 percent. When I was purchasing a house in 2008 the mortgage rate offered by banks under economic settings by that party was almost 11 percent. Interest rates are considerably lower right now because of the economic policies that we are pursuing.If Labour members want to talk about housing affordability then I would like them to address the fact that under their economic settings under their watch homeowners were paying almost twice the amount that they are for borrowing. First-home buyers are the ones who are impacted the most when it comes to interest rates.Another part of housing affordability that we need to consider in this House is the compliance costs that are put on those wishing to purchase houses and those wishing to develop houses. I heard some sounds coming from the New Zealand First corner. New Zealand First members are out there at the moment trying to convince New Zealanders that they supposedly have had an epiphany and they now support Resource Management Act reform. We do not believe it. They do not believe it either. They do not support Resource Management Act reform. That would be meaningful and that would lead to—Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Is the Resource Management Act in this bill?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No look this is a debate where the Resource Management Act has been mentioned before. So long as the member does not concentrate on it and make an issue out of it I am allowing it to happen.JAMI-LEE ROSS: I am sorry Mrs Martin. I know that these issues are a bit sensitive for New Zealand First. I know they cannot handle some of the truth sometimes but the fact of the matter is that along with a number of changes that we have in housing including KiwiSaver changes including special housing areas—Denis O’Rourke: National will not pass the Resource Management Act amendments because it will not win the Northland by-election.JAMI-LEE ROSS: Look Denis just go back to supporting marijuana. Go back to supporting marijuana Denis. I know that is what the party’s new policy is.Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There are actually two points. First of all the member cannot refer to me or any member by just a Christian name. Secondly I take offence at being told that I support the legalisation of marijuana when I have never ever said any such thing.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I hear what the member says. I ask the member to withdraw that comment and then proceed with the debate.JAMI-LEE ROSS: Sorry what am I withdrawing?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Withdraw the comment relating to marijuana.JAMI-LEE ROSS: I withdraw. I will refer to Denis O’Rourke—the list member of Parliament from Christchurch with two letterboxes—by the correct name if he wishes. But the fact that I referred to something he did not like I think is something we should consider because their leader has been out there saying some things on the hustings.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a Standing Order that members cannot challenge your ruling. You have ruled; he has withdrawn and he is now referring to it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no he has not mentioned the word again. I would ask that the debate comes back into focus here. But no he has not mentioned the word that I asked him to withdraw so that is in order. Jami-Lee Ross just focus in the last 4 minutes on what the bill is about.JAMI-LEE ROSS: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I am sorry that I get the members of the Opposition so excited. They get so excited because they do not like hearing about the strident steps that we are taking as a Government to address housing affordability in New Zealand. This bill addresses one of a number of steps we are taking.I now would like to talk a bit more about housing and the fact that we need to build more houses. Whenever we hear the Labour Party members talk about bills like this whenever they talk about housing they do not acknowledge the fact that building is on the increase in this country. Residential construction is up 21 percent in the last year. In the last year 24000 consents were issued—the highest number since 2008. If Labour members really want to support first-home buyers if they really want to support building more houses then they should get on board with the Government’s programme. They should be supporting the moves we are taking to build more houses because it is having an impact.If Phil Twyford ever wants to see the impacts of the residential construction and policies we are pursuing I invite him to come out to the Botany electorate. If one wants to see residential construction taking off in a particular part of Auckland the Botany electorate as it merges into the Hunua electorate is one place where construction is absolutely booming. I am looking forward to the Deputy Prime Minister coming to my electorate next month to help do another sod turning on some more development in my electorate. It is going ahead; it is happening fast.The special housing area policies that we have put in place are leading to more construction. In my electorate the Flat Bush strategic area is going to be home to almost 5000 new houses under that policy.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: How many now?JAMI-LEE ROSS: Clayton Cosgrove does not like the sound of it. Phil Twyford does not like the sound of it. But more Kiwis are getting access to homes under this Government because we are pursuing policies that will lead to more houses being built will lead to more Kiwis getting access to lower mortgage lending rates and will lead to more Kiwis getting deposits together so they can afford more houses. Overall New Zealanders are going to be better off.This Government does not shirk away from the important decisions that need to be made around housing. This Government supports Resource Management Act reform. This Government supports policies that allow developers to get out and build. This Government supports New Zealanders to get into homes. Mr Denis O’Rourke—the list member of Parliament from Christchurch with two letterboxes—come on board with Resource Management Act reform. You know you want to—you know you want to. His leader is selling a song out there up north but they do not actually believe it is going to happen.Let us all just calmly remember that the people who will benefit from this are young New Zealanders. This is not a gimmick. This is not something that goes nowhere. Grant Robertson was wrong when he used those terms. In fact I think he was rather insulting to people in saying that the Government changing policies to allow more New Zealanders to access their own funds to be able to put them into a deposit so they can live that Kiwi dream of owning a home—to denigrate something like that as Mr Robertson did was appalling.New Zealanders want to own their own homes. We are putting in place policies to help them to do that. I suggest to the Labour Party members that they start to realise what Kiwis want—that they start to realise that the Government building homes is not the way to do it. It is actually done by supporting the community supporting New Zealanders and supporting residential construction developers out there to be able to do it. We are putting in place those policies. I am proud to stand on this side of the House to say we are helping young New Zealanders. We are helping first-home buyers. They will see the results long term. They will be better off because of the settings and the economic policies we are pursuing. I do commend this bill to the House.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): David Bennett in his contribution to this debate referred to this bill as a small bill and I think that was generous on his behalf. As officials pointed out to the Finance and Expenditure Committee this bill in fact achieves almost nothing. None the less the small amount that it does contribute possibly is worth supporting and we will vote for it in this second reading debate.The Prime Minister said last week that there was no housing crisis. It feels very much like it is a housing crisis to those people who are increasingly shut out of homeownership. New Zealand has the lowest rate of homeownership that we have experienced since 1951—the lowest rate since 1951. Why is that a problem? It is a problem because New Zealand made a choice. Countries generally made a policy choice between comprehensive superannuation programmes or alternatively policies that supported comprehensive homeownership. New Zealand chose the latter of those. Our policy settings were designed to encourage almost universal homeownership because we were not going to provide comprehensive superannuation. So when we have our rates of near universal homeownership from the past actually declining to their lowest rate since 1951 that is a crisis and it is a crisis because more and more New Zealanders are shut out.We have particularly declining rates of homeownership amongst Māori and Pasifika New Zealanders and indeed from the increasing group of poor New Zealanders who are likely to see that they will never have the opportunity to own a home in their lifetime. That is a problem not only for them but for all of us as increasing inequality has been shown to be. Inequality is a problem not only for those at the bottom at the heap but for the whole society. The whole society carries the costs of increasing inequality.The consequence of that decreasing rate of homeownership is to throw more and more people on the mercy of the appalling rental market in New Zealand which delivers extremely poor-quality housing in general. It delivers a very poor standard of rental security which still exposes New Zealanders to increasing rental costs right now at a 6.5 percent increase year on year. And as I say there are those major consequences down the track for the retirement savings and incomes for New Zealanders. So the problem is not just theirs; it is also ours.This is particularly a problem for young people which is where this bill comes in. When speaking in the House last week I pointed out that for New Zealanders aged 20 to 39—a group of New Zealanders we would expect to be moving into homeownership establishing families and setting the foundation for their productive years as adults and for their retirement savings and incomes—homeownership declined from 61.4 percent in the 1986 census to 26.8 percent in 2013. It more than halved.We have a plummeting rate of homeownership by younger New Zealanders—those aged 20 to 39. It is not only for the very young New Zealanders who may only just be moving into the age where we expect homeownership to be occurring; it is for that whole group. For New Zealanders aged 20 to 34 homeownership in the Auckland region declined in 2013 to 17.2 percent and it is not much better in other large cities. So young people I am sure will have been thrilled to hear the National Party in its election campaign just weeks before the general election last year talking in terms of providing a handout or a hand up for those young New Zealanders and talking about how it understood the plight that young New Zealanders faced in trying to afford their own homes. It seemed like we had a National Party that cared about the plight of young New Zealanders.However I suspect that not many of those young New Zealanders looked at the detail of the policy that National was offering them. Nick Smith referred to young New Zealanders in his contribution earlier in this debate when he said that they really welcomed what the Government was doing and had looked at the numbers but I do not imagine that Nick Smith pointed out what those numbers were to those young New Zealanders.The total contribution that this makes is $521 per person per year and even that contribution will be at the expense of the person’s own retirement savings. This contrasts with a median house price in Auckland just now of $621800 while the average median household income for New Zealanders aged between 20 and 34 is just $48600. That $521 per person per year will go almost nowhere in adding to the affordability of housing for that group of young New Zealanders.Steven Joyce in the House last week said he could not understand why it was relevant to compare median house prices with the median household incomes of young New Zealanders but I can assure Mr Joyce that those young people understand. The overlap between their incomes and house prices is becoming smaller and smaller. It is drifting further and further apart. Homeownership is becoming an unaffordable dream for more and more young people in this country and this bill does almost nothing to fix that problem.That group of young people is the same group who is also saddled with high rates of unemployment. It is saddled very often with high and unaffordable student debt. Those young people are facing a situation where their own health and welfare is being put at risk by that financial situation by the unaffordability of both buying houses and renting houses. But also this intergenerational inequity that the Government is feeding by its policies across the board not only affects those people now but will also affect them in the future when they come to retire and it will affect the situation that their children will inherit.There is a structural inequality that the Government is building into the New Zealand economy that will saddle this country with debt and with deep and deeper problems for generations to come. Against that picture what this bill does is essentially nothing. It is a demand-side stimulant at a time when what we need to do is deflate the speculative market in housing increase supply and reduce demand. What the Government needs to do instead is tackle the root causes of the problem. We would suggest a five-point plan: a capital gains tax; restriction on homeownership and landownership by non-resident foreign citizens; accelerated intensification of building housing particularly around Auckland’s public transport corridors; a regional development strategy to divert demand away to places that are supply rich in housing but currently job poor; and potentially different macro-prudential tools targeting the mark-to-market nature of valuation and its relationship to lending. That would be a package of measures that might actually start to address that problem.There is nothing offensive enough about this bill to require us to vote against it. But what is offensive and deeply disappointing is a Government whose housing programme is based on unfettered ideology and a Government that seems to be bereft of ideas when it comes to actually ensuring that everybody in New Zealand is well housed. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): With this rather pathetic bill National is doing just little things just for show—things that do not go far enough to do any real good. In fact this bill will go nowhere close to solving the housing crisis—and there is a housing crisis despite what the Prime Minister tries to tell people. There is a housing crisis simply because first-home buyers have no hope in this country of being able to buy a new home unless they have a rich uncle or some other source of finance that most people actually cannot access.National members opposite have tried to say that New Zealand First opposes Resource Management Act reform. Well they cannot have listened to speeches given by New Zealand First members. We have never opposed Resource Management Act reform. In fact I myself have given speeches in this House saying that the Resource Management Act does need reform especially as far as processes go. We acknowledge that it takes far too long and costs far too much money and that there are other barriers to sensible development in this country and we do want to see sensible—sensible—practical housing for New Zealanders. We do not want to see the Resource Management Act amended as far as sections 5 6 and 7 go. We have definitely got problems there and we will be talking about that when those Resource Management Act reforms come up for debate. But never let it be said that New Zealand First opposes sensible Resource Management Act reform for the purpose of assisting the provision of homes for New Zealanders.This bill does recognise that first-home buyers cannot find the finance needed for a home these days. It is the one good thing it does do: it recognises a problem. What it does not do is actually do much about it. Simply giving people access to their own savings is a very low-level attempt to assist. They need much much more help than that. This is a derisory method of assisting first-home buyers to buy a new home. It is only allowing access to their own money and that is hardly ever likely to make the difference between a young couple getting the money they need for a deposit for a new home or not—hardly ever going to make the difference. For a few it might do—a very few. Worse still even those who do make use of this facility will have to do so at the expense of their own retirement savings and that is a very very bad idea. And it actually should not be necessary for people to have to dip into those savings if the Government had the wit to put forward policies and facilities for people to be able to afford to buy a new home and that fundamentally means raising a deposit and getting a reasonable bank loan.If this Government was serious about assisting first-home buyers it would provide a fund to do just that or it would adopt the New Zealand First policy to assist first-home buyers to purchase a section for a new home on easy terms by paying back a loan for a section over 25 years at very concessionary interest rates and other policies that we have to support those objectives as well. The Government should just take a look at our policy do that and then it would be doing something sensible—something this bill does not get close to because this Government is simply too mean or is in fact too uninterested in the realities of the issue to do that. In fact it is a bit like throwing a thimbleful of water at a bonfire. That is about the magnitude and worth of this particular bill.Looking at the bill the levels set out for the purchase of new homes in Auckland are just too low. The assumption is about purchasing homes around the half-million-dollar mark when new homes at at least the $600000 mark—and probably much closer to $800000—is the reality of the situation. The Minister of Building and Housing obviously did not know that because I heard him speak and he talked about this bill providing sufficient assistance for people to be able to purchase a home of $550000. Well it will not. It will not get there; it will not be enough. In fact this Minister is nothing more than a master of spin. He builds facades a bit like Juan Perón—building facades for people to look at but there is actually nothing behind them. This Minister is a little bit like that. Builders and property developers these days are more interested in building premium homes where they get a much better return not in building homes that ordinary people can afford.So what does the Government really think it is doing to achieve anything with this bill? It will achieve something for very few people—very few—when there are literally hundreds of thousands of young couples in this country looking for much more assistance than that. This Government is simply not trying hard enough. Furthermore the rate of increase in house price inflation is still much higher than the rise in people’s household incomes. Homes are getting further and further away for those people every day and the Government is really not doing much about it except to tell people they can use their retirement savings. Well that really is not enough—not enough to make any real difference. It does not address the real issues of assisting first-home buyers to obtain the finance they need.Another problem is that there is growing unease that actually the Auckland housing market is a bubble and a dangerously growing bubble fuelled to a significant degree by immigration numbers—a 30000 increase in Auckland alone in the last year. Do not tell me that does not make any difference; everyone with half a brain knows that it does. It makes a big difference.Beyond immigration there is speculative foreign investment in the local market which adds further fuel to the fire. The Government is not doing anything about that either. At some time that bubble is likely to pop with potentially huge damage to Kiwi families and massive social problems to follow. Where does it leave people whose retirement money could have been growing exponentially over that time but who have instead diverted it to housing? It leaves them in a position where their retirement savings are going to be degraded and they should not have to do that. They should be able to save for their retirement and afford to buy a home in this country. We can do that other parties seem to know how to do that but National clearly does not have the wit to do anything about it.This is short-term band-aid thinking. It is a bill that is unobjectionable and New Zealand First will vote for it but we know as the people out there know that a lot more than this bill needs to be done about the housing crisis—a very real housing crisis—in this country. In fact this bill is probably actually fuelling fires is probably actually counter-productive and will certainly damage retirement savings. It is really a bill that is hardly worth having at all. It is doing next to nothing but it is some possible help for a very few so New Zealand First will vote for it on that basis. But we expect a lot better and so do the young people of this country.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking on the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill. As we all know owning our own family home is not only a cherished Kiwi dream but actually a fundamental right of all New Zealanders. This bill is about helping 90000 lower and middle income first-home buyers get on the rung of the ladder towards getting their first home. Housing has been a significant issue that this Government has been focused on. We have approached it at both ends in terms of trying to address the problem—namely towards assisting couples to find the deposit for their first home and also trying to increase the supply of new homes particularly in Auckland and Christchurch.With regard to the second issue the supply of housing it is one of the most longstanding issues and many Governments have previously ignored or chosen not to deal with this issue. When the Prime Minister made a statement on 28 January this year on social housing he was committing this Government to actually doing something about it. It is great to see the new special housing areas coming into action with 100 across the country and 80 in Auckland. In my own electorate of Hunua we have one of the largest special housing zones Wesley which will create between 4000 and 4500 new homes over the coming years as well as Belmont also in Pukekohe which will bring in an additional 700 homes.I have listened to some of the earlier speakers including Mr Grant Robertson from Wellington. My suggestion to Mr Robertson is that he needs to get out and about. In my own electorate of Hunua I can talk to you about the number of new developments that are already under way. For example if he chose to get in a car from the Auckland Airport and drive out to Beachlands and Maraetai—probably a 50-minute drive—he would observe that there is a population of roughly 8500 people. By the year 2021 there will be 17500 people in that area alone. When he drove around that area for the first time no doubt he would observe great areas that have already been bulldozed and site works well advanced. The sections will be on the market in some areas already and other sections will be coming to the market over the next few months. There is a staggering amount of new developments there.If Mr Grant Robertson then continued in his hired car and drove a matter of about 20 minutes he would come across a place called Clevedon one of the great places of my electorate. There he would observe if he stopped for long enough an area that will create 700 new homes over the next couple of years. If he travelled south to Pukekohe he would then observe those two large social housing areas that will be an addition of 5500 homes. If he also drove along to Pukekohe East he would observe the diggers the loaders and the trucks undertaking significant earthworks that will create thousands of additional homes in my area. In fact in my electorate one of the biggest issues I have got is that there is going to be an avalanche of homes and to get the council to support that with infrastructure is one of the major issues. But in terms of the number of new homes coming on market it is substantial it is real and you can see the new homes if you actually choose to get out and about.What most people do not realise—just going back to the issue of social housing designations—is that the key requirement of those is that for developers and I know that for some that sounds a very dreadful word a crucial requirement is that they need to build amongst those groups of housing an element of affordable homes and Pukekohe is going to be the better for it. Both of these two large social housing areas in my area will be important contributors towards addressing the issue of supply which for too long has been stifled. I just want to quote some statistics because again there is no factual basis to a number of the presentations tonight. In Auckland in the first year of addressing this issue of supply just over 11000 new sections and dwellings were achieved—20 percent above the target of 9000. Overall for 2014 nearly 25000 building consents were issued across the country and in January this continued with 1700 consents issued—the strongest start to any year since 2008.I just want to move on to some of the other announcements the Government has made towards addressing housing issues. We have previously noted that firstly we are going to be increasing the social housing budget by $40 million per annum which will mean that by 2017-18 around 65000 people or families will be able to benefit from increased income-related rent subsidies. Secondly we are putting additional funds into the emergency housing sector and introducing an emergency housing database in Auckland. It is interesting. Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting my Work and Income office in Pukekohe and I spoke to a social housing adviser who took me through the great work the office is doing in finding emergency houses for those people most in need. We are addressing this issue. Essentially we want to help people move out of Government-provided housing into private rentals or preferably into homeownership if and when their circumstances improve. For people on a low income this Government is providing a total of nearly $2 billion in subsidies. Around $1.2 billion of the accommodation supplement helps people with the costs of private rentals and sometimes mortgage payments. The other $700 million is for income-related rent subsidies which support low-income people with the greatest housing needs.As noted before this bill is specifically about assisting our Kiwi families to enter the housing market. It will allow KiwiSaver members to withdraw their member tax credit when purchasing their first homes. The bill drives at the heart of the issue for many first-time buyers—namely how to save a sufficient deposit to be able to put down an adequate deposit. It supports the HomeStart package announced during last year’s election campaign which comprises three changes which take effect in 8 days’ time. These include firstly introducing the KiwiSaver HomeStart grant. This doubles the support for buying a new home and increasing the house price limits. Secondly it enables KiwiSaver first-home withdrawals by also including the member tax credit which in effect means that someone who has been in KiwiSaver can withdraw all their KiwiSaver contributions other than the $1000 initially provided by the Government as a kick-start. And thirdly it expands the eligibility for the Welcome Home Loan by aligning the house price cap with the KiwiSaver HomeStart grant.The new price caps—just to reiterate; I have heard people mentioning them—will be $550000 in Auckland and by the way you can buy a house for $550000 in Pukekohe; $450000 in the key centres such as Hamilton Tauranga and Christchurch; and $350000 in the rest of New Zealand. The KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal gives eligibility to those members buying a first home who have been contributing for at least 3 years. Additional criteria for the KiwiSaver HomeStart grant and Welcome Home Loan are having an income below $80000 for a single person or $120000 for a couple. The property being purchased must obviously fall below those price limits I spoke of.This Government supports and favours those young New Zealanders who are disciplined and ambitious and who want to save up and put a deposit on a house. This bill will show people that if they can join KiwiSaver and continue to save they can rapidly put together a deposit for their first home. As the Minister for the Environment noted earlier these arrangements offer the capacity to provide up to $55000 towards the deposit. It is a welcome addition and these provisions together with the low-interest environment that we have helped to bring about in this country mean that our first home owners have a better opportunity to acquire their new home. Thank you very much.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I understand that the next call is a split call. Jan Logie—5 minutes.JAN LOGIE (Green): The Green Party feels compelled to support this bill the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill not because we think this bill is adequate or even necessarily sensible—but we do feel compelled to support it because things are just so bad that even token measures seem necessary and the least we can do. This bill will enable people who are currently eligible to use their KiwiSaver savings towards a deposit for their first home to also use the $521 member tax credit for each year they have contributed to the scheme. I will mostly speak about that but I also do want to mention the other aspect of this bill which and I will quote the commentary on the bill “would correct errors in the tax social policy and KiwiSaver treatment of income replacement payments made to veterans under the Veterans’ Support Act 2014.”—correct errors from 2014. To be honest I am losing count of the number of times I have been in this House speaking on legislation that seems to be fixing recent mistakes. Government your masquerade of competence is slipping and I am sure that members of the public in New Zealand are increasingly seeing the incompetence that underlies it.But to get back to the main aspects of this bill last week as my colleague has said the Minister said there is no housing crisis in New Zealand. It does seem reminiscent of that Blam Blam Blam song “There is No Depression in New Zealand” to be hearing that—Catherine Delahunty: No sheep.JAN LOGIE: There are no sheep in this country yes. No cows. We have no housing crisis although we have the lowest rates of homeownership since 1951 and although the average median house sale price in Auckland last year was $621800—$621800 for the average median house price last year in Auckland—the median household income for Aucklanders aged 20 to 34 was just $48600.I think it is important to focus particularly on young people in this debate because it has been pointed out I think many times in the public arena that we are now facing the first generation post-colonisation who are likely to be worse off than their parents. So much for aspiration. So much for the drive for people to provide something more for their children. What successive Governments have provided for the young people of this country is less opportunity more debt and more struggle. And while we are looking at a 20 percent deposit on that average house price in Auckland requiring $124360 as a deposit in Auckland on a salary of $48600 as the household income we realise just how out of reach it has become. What will this bill provide with that extra $521? Assuming a young person has been a member of KiwiSaver from its inception in 2007 the most they are likely to have by the time this bill comes in is an extra $4168 towards that deposit of $124360. Come on. Is this really the best we can do as a country?Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.JAN LOGIE: As I was saying what this will do at the very best is give people maybe $4000 more likely $2000 or less towards in Auckland an average deposit of over $120000. Last night I was speaking to a caregiver who is working full-time doing hard intimate and life-holding work and after her rent she has less than $200 a week to pay for her food the care for her child her transport and her daily needs. Tell me: how is that person going to pay for the extra $114000-plus towards a deposit for a house? She is not going to be able to. This bill although we support it is absolutely pitifully inadequate for addressing the needs of the people in most need in this country.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): There are times when the Green Party and I have disagreed on some things but I have got to say that that last contribution summed up I think the piffle that this bill is.This is the National Party’s big hit—this is the big hit from the National Party. The National Party effectively is telling voters—typical of the National Party to give with one hand and take with the other—in this bill that out of the generosity of its heart people can unleash or will be able to withdraw their retirement savings to use as a deposit on a home loan. But in return for sacrificing their retirement savings the extra amount that people could withdraw as a result of this bill would be equivalent to less than 1 month of Auckland house-price inflation. That is how generous these guys are: the $521 which the Green colleague was talking about is worth less than 1 month of Auckland house-price inflation. So when Government members talk about the 90000 people who are supposed to sort of go down on their knees and thank the National Government for its great generosity—it is equivalent to less than 1 month of Auckland house-price inflation.You have got to say that as a Minister—Nick Smith has been in and out of the Cabinet half a dozen times and I have been a Cabinet Minister—what you look for from official advice is some sort of affirmation. You turn to officials in your ministry who are the specialists the people with skills and you say to them: “Look is what I am about to propose going to work?”. Well he did that and their words will hang around his neck as a political epitaph. When we asked the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment officials as other colleagues have said in the select committee “How good is this going to be?” the best they could do was call it “tentatively positive”. Well that is a ringing endorsement! Maybe the official who answered had calculated that if he unlocked his KiwiSaver he would have the equivalent of less than 1 month’s housing inflation towards a deposit. No wonder he was “tentatively positive”. That was the official advice.But worse than that when you look at the overall advice by the various Government agencies the cracker for me is where they say: “Increasing deposit subsidies is likely to stimulate demand and thus increase prices in supply-constrained markets thereby undermining housing affordability.” We had a great lecture on what a market does from that genius from the Government David Bennett and he explained to us in his own fifth form economics type of way what a market does. The problem for poor old David Bennett is that he did not read the advice from specialist economists advising him and his own Minister that this is a dud. Then the advice goes on: “The higher income caps shift the government’s support from low to medium-income households to virtually all households.” And it goes on to say: “Half of the eligible sales last year were in areas where housing affordability is not an acute issue.”So these guys have come up with an absolute cracker. Their gift to those people who want to get on the housing ladder is less than 1 month’s Auckland housing inflation—$500 and some—and they expect the people of New Zealand to go down on bended knee and be grateful for that. This is the big hit we are told. They talk about 90000 people. Well at best you might get 90000 people who get 500 bucks a month per year towards a deposit as the Green colleague said of over $100000. How generous is that?So I say to the National members as Andrew Little said to your leader “Cut the crap.”—cut the crap.” I think I know which turkey is going to call for the early Christmas—the speaker who is going to benext. I would like him to get up and address and rebut the official advice from his own Government’s agencies that says that this bill is a dunger. We will support the bill because I suppose 520 bucks once a year is better than no bucks once a year. But let us not dress it up. This is mutton dressed up as mutton from the National Party; nothing more nothing less. The ashen-faced performances of such enthusiasm by people like Jami-Lee Ross and that economic genius David Bennett the man who knows everything about markets do not alter the fact that this bill is a dunger. It is $521—[Interruption] Mr Ross can laugh. I ask him to get up and take a call and tell us how 1 month’s—Jami-Lee Ross: I have taken a call today.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Have another one mate; have another one. We will do you slowly. How is less than 1 month of Auckland housing inflation going to help the average New Zealander get into a home? The bill is a dud and it is a con.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): It gives me pleasure to speak to the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill. I am encouraged to hear from across the House general support for this bill despite the comments made by Opposition members. Despite the criticism the moaning the whingeing and the whining they are willing to support it. I guess they are saying it is “tentatively positive”. Those would be their words. I guess they are tentatively positively supporting this bill at this stage which is a good start.The environment for housing could not be better. There is a building boom on right now in Auckland and right across the country. There have been 23000 new housing consents issued. We have had descriptions of the Hunua electorate where you can drive endlessly to see new building sites. New subdivisions have opened up including Hunua and Botany which were used as examples today. This bill means that more than 90000 low and middle income Kiwis who are first-home buyers are eligible to a doubling of support. That is a good thing because it gives young Kiwis first-home buyers a greater chance of getting into their homes.This bill is not a silver bullet. There is no silver bullet as Mr Cosgrove was suggesting. This is part of a considered package of economic development that drives our economy and has driven interest rates down to as low as they have ever been giving first-home buyers an even greater chance to access their first homes. The interest rate is the most important cost to a first-home buyer’s budget. We know that as has been said earlier it was 11 percent 6 years ago. It is half that rate today.Although there is general support I also heard a lot of criticism of the policies of this Government. As we know we have talked about demand and we have talked about supply but can I just reiterate that the supply of housing has been increased dramatically. The special housing areas will make a difference. They are making a difference and they will continue to make a difference. As we know you cannot get consent through the Resource Management Act overnight to build a house which is a completely different subject of course but that leads us on to Resource Management Act reform which is so essential to getting these houses built in a timely manner.It was a little bit concerning to hear the Labour Party’s option of solving the housing problem which was to build their own. A Labour Government would build houses. That is its solution—its silver bullet. I am not sure where Labour would build them but I assume in Auckland. I am not sure whom it would buy the land off but I assume the owner of the property would see it coming because that is what happens when a Government agency comes in with its cheque book. I would assume that Labour would do its best to pick the best place the most appropriate place for the people of Auckland to live in. That is just totally patronising. It is none of the Government’s business to tell the population where they should build their homes and where they should live. Building houses under the design of Mr Grant Robertson would be frightening—it would be frightening. I am not sure what he would have in his house but it would be different from mine.Then we had the solutions—the silver bullets if you like—from the Greens. They talked about five points and I managed to write down only four because I was giggling in my shoes at their suggestion of a capital gains tax for a start. A capital gains tax is exactly what you do not want when you are trying to solve a housing problem particularly if I am assuming a household would be exempt. If you have got a capital gains tax and you exempt your house it drives people obviously to jump through the loophole and buy the biggest the flashest and the most expensive home that they can possibly afford. That simply drives up the price of homes. That is what will happen given the proposal of a capital gains tax with a household as an exemption.The second point raised was about restricting foreigners. We have heard before about the registration of foreigners—they are coming in with their money and we do not want their money of course because money from offshore is a bad thing. That is unfortunately a very naive assertion coming from the Greens. We know that New Zealand as a country is short of capital. We are screaming out for capital. We are trying to attract capital to our regions. So restricting foreigners would not only drive capital away from New Zealand but drive it away from our regions in particular which is exactly where we would like some investment to be made by foreigners even those Asian foreigners—the foreigners whom the Opposition would like to put on a register. A register of foreign owners is only going to turn them away. It is only going to encourage them to invest elsewhere. It is only going to encourage them to go to Australia. What also happens—[Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Can the member take his seat. I encourage the member Tracey Martin to take a breath. Interjections are supposed to be rare reasonable and witty if possible not a constant barrage.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I was talking about this registration of foreign owners which is only going to turn capital away from New Zealand and from our regions. Of course when you create rules you also create loopholes. That register would only create loopholes. So when a foreigner comes in to buy something that I might own like some shares in Chorus and I go and choose to buy a home in Auckland would I be registered on the Opposition’s register? Such are the loopholes that you suggest and that people would take advantage of. The fourth silver bullet if you like from the Greens—Stuart Nash: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I heard what you said about Tracey Martin but the member has spoken for about 6 minutes on things that are completely unrelated to this bill whatsoever. I think what Tracey Martin was doing was highlighting the fact that she wants to know what is actually in this bill and how it is going to benefit Kiwis.Jami-Lee Ross: The debate so far has been very wide ranging on housing. This deals specifically with housing solutions and I think that is why the member has been focusing on housing.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the members. I take the points. I will continue to listen closely. I do acknowledge that the debate I have heard so far has been wide ranging from both sides. Please continue.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I was talking about the Greens’ proposal which was mentioned in this debate regarding the regional development project of targeting regions to build houses in. So you build houses in a certain place—but who is going to go there? You have got to create jobs. You have got to invest capital in the regions. You cannot just build houses where a Labour Party policy or a Green policy might choose to centrally control and dictate. You have got to leave it to the market to decide.What this bill does—coming back to the bill—is it allows first-home buyers to choose where they buy their home where they invest. They can come to Masterton or they can go to Wellington or to Auckland. This bill enables and—as we are talking about demand—it does increase the demand for houses. That is absolutely right. It does that but only in a very narrow section of the buyer market and that is the first-home buyer. Combined with the loan-to-value ratios which exempt new homes this is one of many policies—there are no silver bullets—that contribute to new families and young families getting into their first home. Thank you.STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I am standing in support of the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill. One of the reasons we are supporting this bill is that the officials said that this would have no impact. So it is not negative but it is just not going to do anything. I suppose one of the things that has been interesting in this debate for me is not so much what is in this bill but the attitude of Government members to housing and to this bill in particular. But I just want to start off by saying that this bill is shoddy legislation. It is all about style over substance. There are not 90000 Kiwis who are going to benefit from this. The officials said there were going to be a couple of hundred. But this is one of those bills that are out there and it is trumpeted that 90000 Kiwis will benefit. That is not the reality.Let me give you a couple of examples. Nick Smith stood up in the first reading and said that what this will allow Kiwis to do if they are coming home is they can get the HomeStart package they can get their KiwiSaver stuff and they can get access to about $50000. That example was actually a little disingenuous because if you have been away for 6 or 7 years the odds of you putting money into KiwiSaver are remote but let us say that Nick Smith is right.Let us say that you have come home to buy your first house and you have got $50000 in your back pocket because of this piece of legislation and because of the Welcome Home Loan and this sort of carry on. Mr Smith said that it will allow Kiwis to get into houses in Auckland. He said that it will allow Kiwis to be able to afford a $500000 house. Well to be able to afford a $500000 house you have to have a deposit of $50000 so you have got to pay off $450000 worth of debt. To do that at today’s rates it is $743 a week that you are going to be paying off—$743 a week—and the banks like to have a ratio of around about 30 percent of your disposal income going towards paying off your mortgage. They allow for a little bit higher but that is the ratio they are really comfortable with. Well to do that you have got to have a household income of $173000 to be able to afford a mortgage of $450000.Nick Smith has the audacity to say: “This is going to be great for Kiwis who are just coming home. They can buy this house.”—and they have got a household income of $173000? I do not think that is particularly realistic at all. In fact they are more than likely on the average wage to be able to afford something that has around about a $175000 mortgage if they are on the average wage of about $60000. So the arguments over there just show how much this Government is out of touch.I do not want to throw numbers around because people get confused but there are a couple of points that Jami-Lee Ross made that are just astounding. Jami-Lee Ross an Auckland MP actually said: “I am sick to death of hearing about the housing market. I am sick to death of hearing about our high-priced housing market.” Well I would suggest that a whole lot of people who live in the city he purports to represent let alone all over the country are sick to death of not being able to even come close to affording a house.For a whole lot of Kiwis now—a generation of Kiwis—the dream of homeownership has gone. Homeownership is not available. So Jami-Lee Ross what I say to you is instead of saying to people who come to you: “I don’t want to hear about the housing market.” how about having a little bit of sympathy? How about having a little bit of sympathy and saying: “I hear where you’re coming from. How about we sit down and work out a solution.”?The thing for me is that Jami-Lee Ross said—and this is a man who in his maiden speech said that Maggie Thatcher was his political idol—that the market has a solution and that highlights the absolute philosophical difference between Labour and National. National believes that the market has the solution; Labour believes that the markets are imperfect a lot of the time and that in a country the size of New Zealand the Government has a role to protect the interests and the identities and the well-being of good hard-working Kiwis. That is the difference.I would argue that in Auckland the market has failed and the reason I say that is that house prices have gone up at such a rate that homeownership is now unaffordable for a lot of Kiwis. In fact Mr Bennett inadvertently played right into our hands because he said that under Labour house prices had gone up by 96 percent in 9 years but that under National it had gone up by 28 percent. Well you know the reason why that is. It is that under Labour for 9 years the provinces boomed and so what you had was house inflation over the whole country because people had jobs in the provinces there were opportunities in the provinces and people bought houses and they moved there. Well I know—and you probably knowyourself Mr Deputy Speaker—that in the provinces—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not bring the Speaker into the debate.STUART NASH: —there has not been house inflation; there has been house deflation.This is a Government that has actually forgotten the provinces and Alastair Scott got it dead right. He said that in order to have people go to the provinces you have got to create jobs and opportunities and that is exactly what Labour believes—exactly what Labour believes. But what has happened is that even the president of Local Government New Zealand who was a National supporter—he is no longer a National member—said before the last election that this Government did not have a plan for the regions and that is a damning indictment. But it makes me smile when I hear these guys say: “It’s the market—it’s the market.” The market has failed.In Australia they introduced something like this. What they did for first-home buyers was to give them $20000. It sounds fantastic does it not? The immediate thing that happened was that house prices increased by $20000. The market prices this sort of stuff in and that is what the officials said. In fact when we asked the officials: “Have you done any modelling on this?” they looked a little sheepish and they said: “No we haven’t.” We said: “Well what do you mean you haven’t done any modelling?”—Mr Scott will back me up on this—and they said: “Well we haven’t done any modelling.” And Mr Cosgrove said: “Well have you talked to the different agencies? Do you know the benefit?” and they said: “Well tentatively positive.” “Tentatively positive” will I think be the quote that goes down in Finance and Expenditure Committee—Kris Faafoi: Absolutely tentatively positive.STUART NASH: Absolutely tentatively positive. For me if we are going to do something like this then it has to be a little bit more than “tentatively positive”; it has got to be absolutely stunning because this is about substance and this is what Kiwis want to see. They want to see solutions. They want to see solutions not window dressing and I think that this measure is absolutely window dressing.There were a couple of things that Mr Scott said. He talked about whether a capital gains tax would come in. You know there are arguments for and against a capital gains tax but he said that if a capital gains tax came in it would force people to buy bigger houses. It is called the mansion effect and it has been completely discounted—I just wanted to put that on the table.We do want to see a register of foreign buyers. I just thought I had better address that. I just think that all Kiwis deserve the right to know who is investing in their country and I back that 110 percent and I would love to see this happen. That is not saying that we do not allow foreign investment in at all because Labour believes that foreign investment is absolutely vital to growing a strong economy but what we do want to know is who is investing and where they are investing—that is all. It is about to go ahead in Australia and in a lot of other countries.But there is something else I would like to mention that has not been talked about—[Bell rung]; just for the last 2 minutes—and this is the veteran income replacement payments. This bill is not just about getting your money out of KiwiSaver and buying a house. There is some stuff here about veterans. There was a member of the Defence Force who was in the select committee the whole time. We tended to concentrate on the KiwiSaver stuff but this was just as important as well.What I would urge RSAs and veterans’ representatives to do is to understand the bill and to go out and consult. I did ask a question of one of the Defence Force staff when I read this part and I said: “Hmm hold on a second here. This isn’t as clear as it seems.” and what this particular woman did say was: “Oh well what we have in RSA is veterans’ advisers who are very good at consulting and letting veterans know about changes in legislation.” But this is not quite clear-cut because what this is about is that there are changes being made to payments under the Veterans’ Support Act and they have now got to be treated in the same way as ACC earnings - related compensation. What that means is that this has implications for veterans who have student loans and child support payments. It is going to increase those obligations but it is also going to decrease the Working for Families entitlements for veterans.So what I would urge every representative from every RSA around the country to do is to understand the legislation and put it down in plain English in all your newsletters that go out to veterans and I would urge veterans to sit down and understand the implications of this. It is not quite as clear as I initially thought when the bill was going through the select committee. It was not until we actually sat down that I said: “Oh I now see.” So I urge all veterans and veterans’ affairs people to understand the bill and communicate that well to their constituents. Thank you very much.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of this Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill. I stand in support of this bill. This National-led Government has been working towards improving the lifestyles of New Zealanders. We remain committed to providing support and security to those who are most vulnerable. There are many young New Zealanders who are looking towards buying their first home. Let me clarify that there is no silver bullet that can fix the long-outstanding problem of housing. We in the Government understand the challenges faced by prospective buyers. The Labour policy to build 10000 houses per annum was totally rejected at the last election. We want to reduce the pressure on first-home buyers of accumulating a heavy deposit. To reduce the pressure faced by first-home buyers we have introduced this legislation.This bill will allow members of KiwiSaver to withdraw all their KiwiSaver savings except the $1000 kick-start contribution by the Government. This means that more and more New Zealanders will be motivated to buy their first home as in addition to withdrawing their own and employers’ contributions they will now be allowed to withdraw their member’s tax credit from their KiwiSaver account. Under this policy the KiwiSaver first-home deposit subsidy will be renamed KiwiSaver HomeStart where determined and hard-working homebuyers will be able to access their savings. An eligible couple would now be able to access up to a maximum of a $20000 deposit for their newly built home in addition to their savings.Apart from assisting prospective buyers with money to buy their first home this National-led Government has been working towards increasing the supply of housing as well particularly in Auckland. We all know that the supply of affordable housing for people living in Auckland has been a pressing issue. We are currently trying to increase the supply of both new and affordable housing in this area. Under the National-led Government we have been able to achieve the highest number of consents in Auckland last month which showed an increase of 11 percent from January 2014. Without doubt it is indeed tremendous growth. However I doubt whether the naysayers in the Opposition feel the same way.Each of us is faced by a set of challenges. Some are small some are not too small. It is what we do about these challenges that defines us as a human being. As an example our hard work and determination has ensured the transformation of the South Island’s most valued city of Christchurch. The public-private partnership can now build new homes on council and Government-owned lands as we have passed housing accords from Auckland Tauranga Wellington and Western Bay of Plenty to Christchurch and Queenstown. It is also positive to note that the house price limit for HomeStart and Welcome Home Loans will be $550000 in Auckland $450000 in Wellington and $350000 for the rest of the country. National is also aiming to reduce the number of people waiting for social housing and wants to lead Kiwi families to the path of success. Apart from assisting families to get their first home the Government has also set up a number of other initiatives. With these words I commend this bill to the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Todd Barclay—5 minutes; a split call for National.TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): It is a privilege to speak on the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill in its second reading because of this Government’s proposal to address the issues of housing affordability around allowing first-home buyers to choose where they live. I am going to touch on what our policies are in a second.I just want to acknowledge another party’s policies in this regard. The reason I want to acknowledge those is that in National’s approach we are putting the saying “Actions speak louder than words.” into practice. I just want to reflect on the New Zealand First policy which is being driven by Denis O’Rourke. Whereas we are focused on New Zealanders building more houses Mr O’Rourke is focused on building more letterboxes for the same number of houses. While we are wanting to build more houses for more people the New Zealand First Party is building more letterboxes for the same number of houses and the same number of people.I want to get back on to the Taxation (KiwiSaver HomeStart and Remedial Matters) Bill. What we are doing is doubling the support for first-home buyers—in the same way that Mr O’Rourke is doubling the number of letterboxes for his property—to tens of thousands of first-home buyers who will benefit from this and getting more young Kiwis into homeownership and building more affordable houses.I want to use a Queenstown example—from my own area. If you drive between Frankton and Arrowtown for the 20-minute drive everywhere you look on the right-hand side of the road there are new houses and subdivisions being built. There are hundreds if not thousands of new houses being built over the next couple of years. During the election campaign as we were talking about these policy proposals with a group of local developers and the council Phil Twyford came down and enunciated the Labour Party’s policies. He was almost laughed out of the room if not laughed out of town because the developers agreed with the National Party’s approach which is around allowing flexibility for developers and homeowners to build where they want to build and to live where they want to live. So it was a bit of a wasted trip for Mr Twyford given that he was almost laughed out of town.Getting back to this bill we propose to allow first-homebuyers to withdraw their KiwiSaver membership tax credits when purchasing their first home up to a value of $521 per year. This is in addition to their and their employer’s contribution to the KiwiSaver scheme. Although some members have previously mentioned that $500 per year is not very much I can assure you that for any first-home buyer $500 is better than nothing. It is a lot better than having a Government trying to tell you where you should live and where you should build your home if you are in a position to be building. That is why it is confusing at times as well.I am not too sure exactly what Mr Twyford’s position is on this bill and whether it is in support of the Government’s policy or in support of his own party’s policy given he has been reported as saying recently that we need larger-scale urban development—check; that is exactly what we are doing. He said that the Labour Party backs private sector developers—check; that is exactly what we are doing as well. He wants community housing organisations to be involved—check; that is exactly what we are doing. So I am not entirely sure exactly whether Mr Twyford was coming down to Queenstown to talk about what was happening in the Labour Party’s policies or coming down to endorse what the National Party’s policies are doing in this space.We are roughly doubling the number of people who are receiving Government grants to buy their first homes from 10000 up to 20000 people. We are doubling the Government grant they are eligible to receive when they are buying newly built homes. The price limits for the KiwiSaver HomeStart grants and Welcome Home Loans will be as we know $550000 in Auckland $450000 in a number of cities including Hamilton Wellington and Queenstown—in my electorate—and $350000 for the rest of the country which includes Gore Balclutha Dipton and Ōwaka. I can assure you that you can get a very very stylish house for $350000 in Gore. In fact you could probably get a couple.These schemes here are helping people get into their first homes and ensuring that they have the choice to decide where they want to live and how they want to bring up their families—if it is the case that they have new families—and how they want to succeed in life. By the sound of Mr Twyford’s glowing endorsement of our party’s policies he thinks so too and we thank Labour for its support. Thank you.Bill read a second time.Harmful Digital Communications BillReferral to Justice and Electoral CommitteeTRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I move That the order of the day for the second reading of the Harmful Digital Communications Bill be discharged and that the bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee for consideration.A party vote was called for on the question That the motion be agreed to.Ayes 57New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 11.Noes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Motion not agreed to.Second ReadingHon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I move That the Harmful Digital Communications Bill be now read a second time. Bullying is not a new problem but its reach and its impact have increased considerably in the digital age. In its in-depth report to Parliament on the issue the Law Commission found that one in five New Zealanders aged between 13 and 30 have experienced harmful communication on the internet and these numbers are increasing all the time as more young people engage. Bullies and harassers use emails text messages and social media sites to intimidate people spread damaging or degrading rumours and publish invasive and distressing photographs. There are a number of reasons why harmful digital communications are more worrying and potentially more serious than off-line bullying: their ease and speed of dissemination their potentially viral nature the persistence of the information and the difficulty of removing it and of course the facility for anonymity. For all of these reasons and based on the very real damage we have seen inflicted this kind of harassment is unacceptable and must stop.This bill represents world-leading legislation to tackle cyber-bullying and I want to acknowledge the work of my predecessor the Hon Judith Collins in bringing this bill to the House. The bill seeks to prevent online bullying and harassment and reduce the devastating impact of perpetrators’ actions. It will empower victims by providing a quick low-cost and effective way to right the wrongs done to them. Our proposals make it clear that it is not OK to use digital communications in harmful ways and that those responsible for causing serious harm will be held to account.We have to recognise that in the modern digital world it is becoming increasingly prevalent for perpetrators to use social media to bully and hound their victims. We need look no further than the Roast Busters case where we had young Kiwi men take to social media to continue to harass and demean their victims far beyond the time and place of the initial attack and it is happening more and more. Last Thursday we saw the whole of this Parliament stand in unison and outrage against the Roast Busters case and the impact the case and its handling had on the victims. Yet now not a week later some MPs are rallying against the prompt passage of the very bill that would allow us to better protect women in these situations from being revictimised through explosive fast-disseminated means. The Harmful Digital Communications Bill is making an effort to address some of the harm caused by revictimisation through online tools. It is farcical to be outraged one moment at the way these young men gloated about their conquests on social media and then in the same breath oppose key legislation that would prevent their victims from being attacked once more on the same platform. I would like to think that this entire House could bring itself to support a bill that can prevent victims of sexual abuse from being revictimised through social media in the same way that members were outraged at the criminal acts themselves and provide effective means to deal with those who set out to cause such harm.The suggestion that has come from some quarters that the existing laws are adequate to deal with abusive material on a website is wrong. The current law could require a young person to go through a drawn-out court process to prevent abuse or harmful information being spread on the internet. This can be immensely costly and lengthy. In stark contrast this bill tackles cyber-bullying head on and simplifies the process for getting abusive material off the internet in a quick and proportionate way.There are also claims from some quarters that this bill is out of line with what is happening overseas. In fact bills dealing with these issues are being passed in similar jurisdictions all over the world. What opponents fail to mention when describing the new Australian law is that Australia already has a cyber-bullying criminal offence which has been in place for more than 10 years. Their recently passed legislation to set up a regime also has many similarities to the approved agency in this bill. The United Kingdom relies on existing law both civil and criminal to deal with harmful digital communications. A number of offences in the United Kingdom are used regularly to prosecute people for offensive or harassing communications. However like us they have acknowledged that the internet can provide new means by which to cause harm and recently enacted a new offence in February this year for revenge porn where intimate photos or videos are taken with consent but released without consent. There is a gap in current New Zealand law where revenge porn is concerned as it is not currently illegal but this bill changes that. In each of these countries criminal sanctions are part of the mix and it is proper that they should be provided for the most serious cases in New Zealand.Despite what is being said the bill will not criminalise children. I cannot make that any clearer. Children are those under the age of 14 years. This bill creates new criminal offences that will be subject to the same youth justice processes that apply to other criminal offences. This means the offences will not apply to children but will certainly apply to young people aged 14-16 and to adults. Those young people will go through existing youth justice systems in New Zealand. This is not inconsistent with the approach taken in Australia which has had a similar offence as I say for more than a decade and where only eight prosecutions of 300 have been for people under 18. Although there is a perception that harmful digital communications are mostly an issue for children and young people this of course is not the case. The Law Commission’s report noted many cases involving adults who suffered harm and who could not get redress. NetSafe has noted that half of the people it assists with harmful digital communications are in fact adults.While we are on the subject of misinformation it is worth turning the spotlight on the actions of some of those multinational companies that have been actively lobbying around this bill. Let us be really clear: global giants like Google are not public interest groups. Their interest is in their profit and having a market that is as unregulated as possible. It should be noted that Google was among the top 10 spenders for Washington lobbyists last year. It spends millions defending its interests and is now spending more on lobbying than some drug companies and weapon makers are. It is incredible to me that members of this House are more interested in parroting lines produced by global multinationals which do not pay their taxes here in New Zealand than in supporting a bill that addresses the harm and abuse by cyber-bullying of New Zealanders. Anyone who thinks that our law can stay static in the face of new technology is either ignorant or wilfully blind. The speed at which information disseminates and spreads and survives and is able to be found with a search engine from anywhere in the world bears no resemblance to the search of a card catalogue at your public library 50 years ago.A lot of the commentary around the bill has been around the criminal aspects but in fact the vast majority of the bill is about civil enforcement and advice and education from the approved agency. Currently people harmed by digital communications find it very difficult to stop the abuse and have their tormentors answer for their actions. For example defamation proceedings through the court are not seen as practical or cost-effective. The new civil enforcement regime addresses these issues by establishing an approved agency backed by the District Court. The approved agency will offer advice and use informal methods such as negotiation mediation and persuasion to resolve complaints. The vast bulk of complaints will be dealt with in this way. For the very serious complaints the District Court will act as a backstop with the ability to make various orders. For example the court may order the removal of harmful content or the identification of anonymous bullies. This approach is intentionally novel and forward-looking and reflects the Government’s focus on finding practical solutions that work in the real world.The bill provides practical assistance to people of all ages and as we know from the tragic case of Charlotte Dawson anyone can be a victim. Crucially the bill will be particularly helpful for children teenagers parents and schools especially where cyber-bullying takes place. For the most part the approved agency will do this by resolving complaints but it will also work hard to prevent such harm through education and advice.The bill creates a new cyber-bullying offence because there are gaps in New Zealand law. These include: existing laws on threats and intimidation which do not always apply when there is emotional or mental harm; publishing without consent intimate recordings or pictures that were made with consent such as revenge porn where the Crimes Act currently only criminalises making or posting intimate recordings taken without knowledge or consent; and malicious impersonation where current law allows for impersonation to be prosecuted where it is to obtain a benefit or cause loss but not clearly where it is for the purpose of causing distress or harm. I note some issues have also been raised in relation to the operation of a “safe harbour” provision and I have requested further advice on these concerns.This bill’s purpose is to prevent and mitigate the harm caused by abusive and destructive digital communications and empower victims by providing a quick low-cost and effective means of redress. The bill contains a number of safeguards to balance the freedom of expression with the reduction of harm. With the committee’s proposed changes I am confident that the bill will more effectively achieve these objectives. I commend the bill to the House.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): First of all can I offer my congratulations to Brendon McCullum a boy from south Dunedin who got 59 runs off 26 balls tonight. Secondly can I say to the Minister that she needs a bit of a fact check herself: there is no doubt that cyber-bullying is a growing scourge and the worst thing about it is that young New Zealanders are being affected. In fact the term “cyber-bullying” is now in our lexicon. There is also no doubt that Labour supports and has supported and continues to support the intent of this bill which is to mitigate the harm caused to individuals by digital communications and to provide those victims with a quick and effective means of redress. The big problem is that this bill does not do that. It is so full of holes and problems and that is why Labour has expressed concerns about it.We supported this bill to the select committee on the basis of supporting the intent but at the timewe expressed reservations at some of the measures in the bill. After going through the select committee process Labour abstained from voting in support of the bill because of our deep concerns. I am going to run through a list of what the deep concerns are about. First of all the unnecessarily hurried passage of this bill through to select committee and through that select committee process. I note that since then it has been sitting on the Order Paper for months and months and it certainly is not being pushed promptly through the House as the Minister said. Instead in that select committee process time and time again we on the Opposition side were blocked from seeking further clarification from getting further advice and from trying to clarify some of the more difficult parts of the bill.There was a lack of wider views sought. There is a really important set of voices that is missing in the discussion on this bill and those voices are the voices of young people—and they are the young people who will be most affected by this bill. Their voices are missing. In fact a late submission provided to the select committee was not accepted by the select committee and I am going to read a little bit from that submission by Sticks’n’Stones which is a student-led project promoting positive behaviour online and standing up to cyber-bullying. Based in Central Otago it is made up of students from secondary schools around that region. They said: “We are Sticks’n’Stones a student-led digital citizenship project. We’re a group of teenagers with firsthand experience that words can hurt and be hard to escape.” They said: “Penalties like fines or even jail seem more like a scare tactic rather than a solution. They may stop people from cyber-bullying out of fear in the short term but they are highly unlikely to change the mind-set of bullies.”That is one of the major points about this bill. It sort of started at the wrong end. It is punitive. It contains a new criminal provision that will criminalise young people but there has been no education campaign there has been no build-up and there have been no resources put in to actually get to the target audience to try to change behaviours and ensure there is widespread education in schools and amongst parents. Instead the private sector has been left to do that in the absence of Government input. That is one of the major flaws of this bill.Secondly there is the impact of new criminal provisions on young people. Clause 19 of the bill creates a new criminal provision called “Causing harm by posting digital communication”. Clause 19(3) states: “A person who commits an offence against this section is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.” As the Minister confirmed before this could bring 14-year-olds into court before a judge with the potential for a criminal conviction and a term of imprisonment. Yes that might be rare but that potential exists and that potential exists for a cyber-crime—not a physical crime but a cyber-crime. So if you go and write a nasty note and stick it in the locker of one of your friends then that is not a criminal act but if you write the nasty note online then that could be a criminal act—although they are the same words. One of the big issues with this bill is that it is not aligning the physical environment with the cyber environment; it is creating a completely new regime around the cyber environment without the forethought and the deep thinking that needs to go into the ramifications and the unintended consequences.There is a lack of detail about the role of the approved agency a lack of detail about funding for that approved agency that would create the civil enforcement regime and as I said a lack of commitment to funding a widespread education campaign. There are no funds allocated at all. In fact I hear that there will be no funds that this law is going to stand on its own and there will be no corresponding education campaign.This law does create international precedent. Despite what the Minister says it does create international precedent. In Europe there has been a definitive trend towards relying on existing laws and upgrading the existing laws to address harms caused by the use of internet technologies. In the UK the House of Lords select committee on communications reviewed how the law deals with social media abuses such as cyber-bullying revenge pornography and trolling and concluded that relevant legislation such as the Protection from Harassment Act and the Malicious Communications Act is adequate to deal with such phenomena. Well why are we not relying on the existing laws that we have and upgrading them—which to be honest this legislation does do? Why are we not saying: “OK that is the route we should go down because that means it is in the physical environment and in the cyber environment.”? But instead what has happened is that the previous Minister of Justice Judith Collins reacted to the Roast Busters issue and said: “We must do something. So let’s create a new cyber-crime. Let’s have that.” Well the unintended consequences of that are being warned about and may be very extensive and I am actually going to reel off a few of those unintended consequences because of the impact that they could have.The bill could result in ridiculously false allegations. The bill fails to adequately acknowledge false allegations that no reasonable person would believe. Political satire could come within the realm of this legislation. We do not know—the definition of “harm” is so broad and is so untested that it could actually bring in political satire. It could bring in political criticism. So if for instance someone writes text messages or puts up tweets or Facebook statuses criticising John Key might they possibly end up in court? Well that might sound ridiculous but actually Judith Collins herself wrote some unpleasant tweets about a journalist late last year that actually could have been demonstrated to fall within the realm of the cyber-criminal provisions contained in this bill. It could bring in robust debate and protest whistleblowing and social and political campaigns as well as increasing the criminalisation of young people.Finally the workability of the “safe harbour” provision is significantly of concern. The Minister herself has acknowledged that and I am pleased to hear that she is going to be doing some work on that. We understand that the Minister will present amendments at the Committee stage but we do not know what those amendments will be. As the bill stands we cannot support it and we will not be supporting it at the second reading. However I am signalling today that if the bill passes its second reading we will work with the Government in good faith to amend the bill in the Committee stage. We contend that the bill requires substantial amendments not just technical amendments but if those proposed by the Government do not address our fundamental concerns then we cannot support it through the remainder of its passage.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I am very pleased to stand up to speak in the second reading of the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. I am however very disturbed by the contribution that has just been made to the House by the Labour member Clare Curran. I think what is really particularly disturbing about that contribution is that first of all when one has a paucity of argument one tends to attack the process and there was a little bit of that. I have heard it before in other contributions from that member. There is a tendency to say: “We weren’t listened to.” “We were blocked.” and you know all of those things but that is not a real argument.So then we come to the real argument which is—and I did take notes—that this bill will criminalise young people who are caught up in its provisions. I have to say that although I did not sit on the Justice and Electoral Committee which considered this bill and this is my first introduction to it I have done a little bit of reading—but I acknowledge that I did not go through the select committee process. But from my reading of this bill what really disturbs me about that member’s and that party’s response to the threat of cyber-bullying is that they do not seem to have an understanding that young people should know right from wrong. I mean is that not the job of a parent? Certainly it was my job when I was raising my children. Do we not teach our children right from wrong? Is that not what parents do? Whether it is “You don’t go down to the dairy and nick sweets.” or “You don’t cross the road against the red light.” or “You don’t send abusive messages by text.” is it not one of the basic tenets of our society that one of the basic things that we should do as parents is to teach our children what the decent thing to do is? And that includes not undertaking cyber-bullying whether you are under 14 or whether you are over 14. I want to hear other Labour members defending that position because I think it is indefensible.The next contention the next point of argument that that member brought along was that there is no education process—there is no education process. Well I tell you what there is. There is a very strong signal coming from those parties that have got the guts to support this legislation through the House that cyber-bullying is not acceptable. I simply do not accept furthermore that member’s and that party’s argument. I am interested to hear other people from that party making this argument which is an argument that is indefensible that children are going to be caught up in the District Court system and caught up in the law. I mean did they not pay any attention while this bill was going through the select committee and its first reading? My reading of this bill is that an agency is going to be set up with the express purpose of receiving complaints from individuals complaints that will be managed and dealt with inasmuch as they can be without having recourse to the District Court. That is the whole approach of this bill—recognising therein that cyber-bullying and revenge porn and all those other activities are best dealt with if they are being undertaken by young people outside of the courts system. So I want to hear the counterargument to that because to me the arguments that are coming from the other side of the House simply do not carry any weight.This approved agency is being set up. I was trying to think of parallels that we already have. Maybe it is somewhere along the lines of Project Turnaround or restorative justice. Those are the parallels that I am thinking about immediately when I hear that argument where you get some really decent people in our society who will be appointed to this agency the shape of which is yet to be determined and they are the people who will receive these complaints. It will be done out of the public eye because we are dealing with kids here by and large and we are dealing with schoolkids here by and large. They need recourse. Please do not tell me they do not other side of the House. They need recourse but of course it is not going to go straight to the District Court. It just defies sense to make that argument. It just simply defies sense.So here we have an approved agency that can receive a complaint in its community. Let us have a look at what that complaint might look like. It might be something like revenge porn. It might be something like a boy and a girl swapping photos of an intimate nature. It all seemed fine at the time. It was all you know laughs and giggles or something like that until they break up and then you get the Roast Busters scenario. So that person perhaps supported by their parents makes a complaint to the agency. The agency then decides whether there are grounds to proceed with an investigation or if this is just simply a matter of a boyfriend taking revenge and immediately taking it down—or is it vexatious? Is it not worthy of complaint?The argument came across that perhaps political satire would get caught up in this. Well political satire is an accepted form of communication and I simply do not believe that it will be caught up in this range particularly when there are 10 statutory principles which were recommended by the Law Commission that have been incorporated into this legislation. Those 10 statutory principles are based on criminal and civil law and regulatory rules. I will read the list. They include that a communication should not “disclose sensitive personal facts about another individual.”; “be threatening intimidating or menacing.”; “be grossly offensive to a reasonable person in the position of the affected individual.”; “incite or encourage anyone to send a message to an individual for the purposes of causing harm to that individual.”; “incite or encourage another individual to commit suicide.”; or “denigrate an individual by reason of his or her colour race ethnic or national origins”—and so it goes on. I do not think political satire belongs in that list so again I would like to hear the arguments. Are we so sensitive that we are going to object to political satire? I think we need to be a little bit more grown-up than that.So young people can make a complaint to this agency. It is done in private. It is done with confidentiality. Hopefully the issue can be resolved to everybody’s satisfaction. It remains private. People learn a very good lesson and carry on with their lives. If the agency feels that the issue cannot be resolved in a negotiated manner then there is recourse to the District Court. The District Court will have powers to require individuals or organisations to take down offensive material and those organisations themselves will have recourse to the High Court to contest that.I simply reject the arguments promoted by the Opposition members. I think the members entirely miss the point. Whether that is wilful or they just entirely miss the point I am not sure. But if there are good strong arguments for not supporting the very measures that are going to protect our young people from cyber-bullying then I want to hear them. Thank you.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is my pleasure to speak in the second reading debate on the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. It is also a pleasure to speak at a time when National members claim to have a monopoly on the virtues of right and wrong. If you look at their recent history what they do have a monopoly on are the virtues of wrong. If you look at what they have done with the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and at the way they use that and at the evidence that has come out that they used it for the wrong purposes of trying to further the career of Tim Groser and if you look at the virtues of them being wrong with regard to the pork barrelling that is going on in Northland you would think that they had the monopoly on what is virtuous and right. But after that—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Bring it back.KRIS FAAFOI: —contribution from Jacqui Dean I think you will see from the evidence that has been presented by this side of the House and through the media that they do not have a monopoly on the virtues of what is right and what is wrong but that they simply have a monopoly on what is wrong at the moment.It was a disappointing contribution from Jacqui Dean because I think we deserve better from the Government. This is an issue that is important. She did make mention of our youth but it is absolutely paramount that we get this issue right for our youth. It has been a short time since I left high school but technology has advanced so that these things here and the internet are ubiquitous. We are growing up in very different times. My teenage niece faces much higher pressures around social media than I would ever have had to. I got bullied; everyone in the House probably got bullied when they were at school. But we dealt with it face to face. These days the internet and these things take bullying to another level. These days we have to protect teenagers in an effective way to make sure that their lives are as good as they can possibly be given the ubiquitous nature of the internet online text messaging and email. We on this side of the House do not believe that the bill as it stands right now is an effective way to make this country and their lives as safe as possible when they interact online—whether that be via email whether that be via text messaging whether that be via Snapchat Facebook or Twitter. We want to make sure that there are effective measures to make sure that our young ones especially are safe.This bill has come out of a Law Commission report. It commissioned some of its own research which I believe found that about 10 percent of young people have been prone to some kind of online bullying. When it narrowed the numbers down to between I think it was around 14 to 29 that number went up to about 22 percent. So online bullying or cyber-bullying is an absolutely real issue for our young ones. So I am a bit disappointed in the Government for making this a political issue because I think there is an onus on us to make sure we get this legislation right. There was an attempt by Government members to pre-empt what was going to come from this side of the House saying: “We’re disappointed that the Labour Party does not want to support this measure for our young people.” Well if this Government were serious about these measures—this bill was introduced in December 2013; the select committee submissions closed in February 2014; that process was rushed; and this bill has been sitting on the Order Paper for months and months and months—if this Government over there were serious about protecting our youngsters from the harm of cyber-bullying we would have seen this legislation much earlier.But you have got to look at the DNA of this bill. It was introduced by Judith Collins who in her tenure as Minister of Justice Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections was all about introducing bills of the justice nature that looked tough but that actually did not do a lot. We have got another version of that here. I did not sit on the Justice and Electoral Committee but I read a number of the submissions and the papers that the Ministry of Justice put forward to the select committee. There were a number of details in the bill that would have made it effective but that were completely absent from the bill and that can be seen in the nature of the penalties that were placed in the bill. There was some debate as to whether or not they were appropriate given the nature of some of the crimes that have been proscribed in the bill. Some debate was had about whether or not they marry up with other pieces of legislation. I put to this House that that is one example of where the Government was making up the legislation as it went along because if it had been doing this properly everything would have lined up. But the select committee had to go backwards and forwards with officials to make sure that those things married up. If the Government had been serious about getting the details right in this that process would not have happened in the select committee stage.Another example of that relates to what powers the approved agency has—what it can do. The select committee sorted out what the approved agency will do and can do; not the Government in putting forward this bill. It was the select committee which filled in the detail of what an approved agency can do and it still does not know what it is going to do. It still does not know where that approved agency will sit or who it will be. One year there is some talk that this agency might be the approved agency and then the next year that that agency will be the approved agency. This is another example of this piece of legislation just being put out there to try to be popular at a time when the Government was on the ropes with Roast Busters.I go back to my earlier submission: this is a piece of legislation that we need to get right for our young people. For the Government to say that this side of the House does not care about preventing harm for youngsters in terms of cyber-bullying is just nonsense. We want to sit here and get the legislation right so that we do not have to come back and make the changes that really need to be made in this bill. There may be a glimmer of hope that the Government might see that in the Committee stage and that it might actually make the amendments that are necessary to make this piece of legislation effective because the way that it stands now it is not. I will not bore the people at home who are watching this instead of the cricket tonight with the process but if a complaint gets serious it will end up in the District Court. Our District Courts are already inundated with a whole lot of other work which they are struggling to do. So what we are asking our District Courtsto do—they are under a lot of pressure and they have had budget cuts over time—is to take on more responsibility on complex cases and to make rulings on them. So in reality how effective is this piece of legislation when it has asked the Districts Court to do much more to take on new responsibility but we are not funding them for that. Oh no heaven forbid. They will do it for free. They already have a huge workload which they say they cannot handle.This piece of legislation has been rushed and still has plenty of holes in it. We would hope—and I think Clare Curran has already suggested this—that the Government might reach out and try to make the amendments necessary in this bill. Because as it stands right now it is just punitive and there is no resource in terms of education and preventative measures to make sure these kinds of things do not happen in the first place. The Minister is wrong; in overseas jurisdictions there is resource put into prevention and education to try to reduce the harm. But nowhere in this piece of legislation as it stands right now do we see any commitment from the Government to serious and effective education prevention on cyber-bullying. In terms of its police portfolio this is a Government that sings to the top of the hills that it is prevention first but in this growing area of cyber-bullying we are not seeing any resource or any effective measures being taken when it comes to looking after our youngsters. There is some work to do to make this piece of legislation effective. We would hope that the Government recognises this and that in a mature way we will engage with it will take up the offer to make the piece of legislation effective because as it stands now it is not.JONO NAYLOR (National): When the previous speaker Kris Faafoi was referring to all of the people who would be watching at home tonight I thought we were going to get a “Hi mum.” out of him actually to be honest because his mum and my mum might be the only ones who are watching—if they are not watching the cricket.Kris Faafoi: No no she’s definitely not watching.JONO NAYLOR: No I do not think mine is either to be fair. But anyway the Harmful Digital Communications Bill is a really important piece of legislation and I am really happy to stand and take a call on it. I think one need look no further than the purpose at the beginning of the bill to be able to agree with this bill and to be able to get behind its intent and what is trying to be achieved here. Clause 3 states that its purpose is to “(a) deter prevent and mitigate harm caused to individuals by digital communications; and (b) provide victims of harmful digital communications with a quick and efficient means of redress.”I think it is really important that we do these things. So often in the past things like bullying were swept under the carpet. In fact in days gone by it was perhaps almost an accepted part of society and I think we have moved on as a society to say that we are not going to accept that. But over the passage of time that bullying has been around and even—as the previous speaker alluded to—in the short space of time since I left school things have moved on. Technology has moved on and our legislation for dealing with the ill-effects of bullying also needs to keep up with those changes in technology. I was thinking about when I was at high school a couple of moons ago that if somebody wanted to circulate—Carmel Sepuloni: A couple of moons?JONO NAYLOR: Yes at least a couple of moons.Hon Member: A blue moon.JONO NAYLOR: A blue moon—no it was not that. It was a long time ago anyway since I left school. If you wanted to circulate some sort of offensive picture of somebody—of something that just happened to happen—you would first need to go and find a camera then go and take a picture of some description then wait until your film was finished then go down to the local chemist shop and get the photo developed then either put it on a Gestetner machine or perhaps a little bit further on go to the photocopying place photocopy it and then go and distribute it to as many people as you could find. There was not a lot of that going on in those times; but nowadays of course it is simple. If somebody sees something that they think could catch somebody in a compromising position they can simply whip the phoneout of their pocket—which most people carry—take a photo and instantly have that compromising photo or whatever circulated right around the globe.So although in the past we had this stuff going on as I said it took multiple steps; we can do it quickly and easily now. It was no less harmful in the old days if somebody took those measures but usually as has been alluded to previously by speakers old-school bullying if you like—that is the way to describe it—was often instantaneous and easy to deal with instantly. But actually in this digital age things can be said circulated and control lost of the offending statements or pictures or whatever. They can be spread far and wide and that maintains the harm over a longer period of time for the victims.I spent a period of time as a high school guidance counsellor and although at times my office felt like an episode of Dr. Phil with some of the types of things that kids used to come in and talk to me about there were at times some very serious issues that I had to deal with. Those were often to do with bullying and the impact of young people’s behaviour on one another. Even 15 years ago—it was only the start of the cyber age I guess; texting was just becoming a bit fashionable—we were starting to see that kind of thing come into play. I saw firsthand the impact of such behaviour on young people. I think then it is beholden on us to ensure that we have things in place to protect those young people and to deal with those issues when they are confronted with them.There has been a lot of focus today on and tonight I have heard people talking about the criminal aspects of this and how it is going to laden the District Courts with more work and all that kind of thing. Well if that is what is required in order to clean it up and if we are not going to pass laws because they are going to make courts busier boy are we on a slippery slope as far as making legislation is concerned. This is not just about complaints that can be taken to the District Court and I think that is the beauty of this legislation. At the moment if somebody does want to make a complaint really it is very hard to deal with it other than by formally going to the police and going through the court system to get it dealt with. But this legislation empowers the establishment of an agency that is able to deal with these matters in a more timely way—and perhaps a more appropriate way—than going through the District Court system.I have heard people on the other side of the House saying: “Well we don’t know what this agency is going to do. We don’t know how much funding it’s going to have.” We do not always have to set those things up before we pass the legislation to empower it to be set up. We need to actually pass this legislation. We need to keep it moving through the process so that we can empower an agency to be set up and we can sort out the details once we have got this foundation stone—which is the legislation on which to build this agency—firmly planted in the ground.I believe the agency itself will provide a buffer when addressing some issues. It will mean that you do not have to go directly to the police or directly to the courts and go through all of the strict legal process involved with that. I think that the processes and powers that have been given to the agency by this legislation are sensible and that they deal with things appropriately. The functions and powers of the approved agency will be firstly to receive and assess complaints about harm caused to individuals by digital communications—that is good. Secondly the agency will investigate complaints—well of course complaints need to be investigated. I think this is an important factor that has been brushed over a little bit in the dramatic debate happening on the other side of the House. They are saying that it is going to impact on the courts and that it is just going to make criminals out of all sorts of people. Clause 8(1)(c) is incredibly useful because the agency is empowered “to use advice negotiation mediation and persuasion (as appropriate) to resolve complaints:”.As I alluded to before in the experiences that I used to have in my high school guidance counsellor’s office there was sometimes dramatic action that needed to be taken and appropriate authorities that needed to be notified in cases of sexual abuse or otherwise and there was a process to go through. Sometimes as I said my office looked a little bit more like a Dr. Phil episode and so you needed to negotiate and mediate and persuade and resolve complaints as required. And so for those offences that are on the lower threshold of the types of behaviour that we are talking about in this legislation that is entirely appropriate.I want to commend this bill to the House. I also want to say that the establishment and provision within this process of professional leaders in schools is also a really important part of the puzzle. Young people—and there have been lots of talk about this lately—do not always have the confidence to go and lay a complaint themselves. It can be a big deal if you have been bullied if you have been the victim of this kind of behaviour to necessarily stand up and say it is not OK and to go and try to take some sort of action about it. In the past professionals like teachers and principals or otherwise have been able to support students to take those actions. They have been able to encourage them to take those actions. But this legislation with the consent of the student involved actually allows that professional leader within the school to actually go and lodge the complaint themselves on behalf of the student. I think this is a critically important piece of this bill because what it does is it takes the onus off the young person from having to step up to actually put themselves forward and perhaps face further humiliation and enables them to come in behind the protection of a professional leader who will act on their behalf.This bill is sensible. This bill is exactly what we need to do to start working harder to keep our young people safe and to improve outcomes for young people in Aotearoa New Zealand. Thank you.DAVID CLENDON (Green): I must say it has been interesting in these last few weeks to see the level of interest and activity around the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. It has sat for some time. The Justice and Electoral Committee reported back from memory in about May last year. An election intervened of course but the bill has sat relatively unmolested for some time. But of late there has been some obvious interest and particularly industry interest. The industry seems to be going to some pains to ensure that we as politicians are well informed. I think I have to acknowledge the Minister of Justice and her comments in the introduction that the larger companies—Google and Facebook and the like—that will be affected by this legislation are not actually public service organisations; they exist to make money to make a profit. It is interesting that the Productivity Commission noted that regulation does impose compliance cost on some of these digitally based organisations. Frankly I am quite happy for that to occur. Generally I am not an enthusiast for imposing costs on business but if a small cost on business generates a positive social benefit—particularly when large multinational organisations are involved—then frankly I have no concern with that.I was on the select committee for this bill. It was a good select committee. It was a very engaged select committee. The bill that came out was notably different from the bill that went in and it was a better bill. It was a very engaged very vigorous conversation. I think as I said that the bill that came through was better and much improved. Having said that I am quite sure that this bill is imperfect. Seldom I think do we get it absolutely right the first time when legislation goes through this House. But I do believe that this bill is sufficiently good and fit for purpose to merit our support and the Greens will continue to support it. We are interested to see the Supplementary Order Paper that we understand will be forthcoming and we will engage with that in later readings obviously.I would just like to refer specifically to some of the objections we have heard. We heard a bit about this notion that this bill will criminalise children. We have an age of criminal responsibility in New Zealand of 14. That does not change. I have not seen any appetite from any stakeholder in this conversation to criminalise children. Clearly it is a theoretical possibility but it would have to be extremely high-end offending and continued offending I think before any child would suffer the penalty from a court. There has been commentary about education or the lack of it. I can say that one of the first changes the select committee effected was in clause 3 the purpose clause of the bill. Right there at the nub of the bill it inserted the words “deter prevent and” before “mitigate harm”. The conversation about that was absolutely to do with the necessity of educating. The best cure of course is prevention and the new wording of the purpose clause reflects that commitment to doing that. I must confess I am slightly puzzled by the objection that there is nothing in the legislation that indicates where the educative activity will come from. To me it is blindingly obvious that one of the core functions—and it is written into the bill—of the approved agency is that it will have a responsibility to educate in the same way as the private sector is already doing as are NetSafe and others. I think Vodafone is worth a special mention. It has a very active educative programme targeted well at kids their parents families schools and the like. So I do think that that objection has been somewhat overstated.We have heard a bit about the fact that other countries are not going down this road of creating criminal offences. I have done enough comparative research around corrections around policing and around justice issues generally to realise that you have to tread a bit cautiously because inevitably legislative regimes are complex and multifaceted. I think you really need to know and understand the breadth of a particular regime before it is useful to make comparisons between one and another. I am somewhat persuaded by the fact that our Police Association has identified that there is a gap in the legislation. It is quite relaxed that if I go online and threaten to assault somebody damage their property or do some criminal harm to it then clearly that is an offence. There is no question with that. Low-level bullying the sort of schoolyard thing has always gone on and always will and we have means of dealing with that. But with this notion of causing harm through digital communication the Police Association in its submission pointed to a gap in the legislation that is impeding its ability. The appeal from the association was to give it the tools and it will apply them appropriately. The Human Rights Commission made a similar commentary that there is a gap in the legislative tool kit that offences or offending are not able to be addressed clearly and with a degree of timeliness and that this new legislation is necessary and useful to plug some of the gaps in that.Clause 19 of course is the clause that creates this new offence of causing harm and I think that it is important to note that effectively there are three characteristics of the offending that must be proven. The first is that there must be a proven intention to cause harm. The second is that it must be proven that a reasonable ordinary person would suffer harm as a result of this. So it is a somewhat objective test: is this something that crosses that threshold? The third is that actual harm did result from the digital communication. So intention is not enough and potential is not enough. The three characteristics are conjunctive. You must prove intention and the likelihood of offence or harm being done and the actual harm being done.We have heard some comments about concerns that satire for example might be stifled by this legislation. Again I do not accept that because in clause 19 it again talks about the context of a particular communication. If any one of us sees reporting on The Civilian website for example—there was a case I believe where one Colin Craig was “quoted” on that website as having said something that of course he had not said. It is a satirical website. Any reasonable person reading such a website would be alert to the context in which that statement is made and that to me would pull the teeth of any attempt to bring a criminal charge against such a person. The age and circumstance of the person who allegedly is being offended against or at whom harm might be directed are factors. Again with politicians if somebody has a little bit of a crack at us on Facebook or suchlike we are expected to have a thick skin. We are public figures mature adults and people of some authority. It is expected that the threshold would be significantly different for any one of us in this House from what it would be for a 13-year-old schoolchild for example. I think that is entirely appropriate. I do think that the qualifications if you like the extremity of language the age and characteristic of the victim the context as I have mentioned and the anonymity—for all of those things I do think that there are protections already built into the bill that can assure us that it will not be misused or abused.As I said earlier the Human Rights Commission came out strongly in support of this bill. We have heard a bit about some concerns that we are creating offences in the digital environment that do not exist in the real world. The Human Rights Commissioner quoted a 2011 report to the UN General Assembly from a UN special rapporteur who talked about the unique characteristics of the internet. It is a unique environment; it is not the real world and I think we are slowly reaching towards a legislative regime that recognises the uniqueness of that environment and seeks to address the inevitability really that it will be used inappropriately to cause harm to people. And that is something that this bill seeks to remedy.I am also comforted by the fact that the bill specifically states in clause 6 where it refers to anybody exercising functions and powers of the bill that they must be consistent with rights and freedoms contained in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. There are not too many pieces of legislation that specifically identify that obligation to be compliant with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I do think that it is almost a belts and braces approach. I think it just recognises that we are feeling our way into new territory here. I do not think we need to resile from that. It is a new environment it is a new set of situations that we are addressing and I am comforted somewhat by that specific reference to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I look forward to participating in the Committee stage and the later debates on this bill. Thank you.TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Earlier just before this debate began I moved a motion that sought to send this bill the Harmful Digital Communications Bill back to the Justice and Electoral Committee. New Zealand First did that not because we oppose the intent of the bill and not because we believe that steps need to be taken but because we have concerns around one particular part of the bill which we were seeking to have the select committee look at again in the light of new legislation that has come into play internationally since the select committee passed this bill back to the House. I accept the Minister of Justice’s statements—I think they were interesting—around international organisations such as Google and so on and so forth. Certainly in this bill appropriately there are requirements for the service providers. There are takedown notices and there are pieces of this bill that directly go to their responsibility around protecting the users of that environment. We 100 percent support that—100 percent support that. So if the suggestion is that somehow New Zealand First has been purchased by Google no that is not quite right.What we have concerns around is this. If I go to the purpose of the bill the main aim of the bill is to “mitigate harm caused to individuals by digital communications and (b) provide victims of harmful digital communications with a quick and efficient means of redress.” This will be achieved by first creating a new civil enforcement regime to quickly and effectively deal with harmful digital communications; second make some small amendments to existing legislation to clarify its application to digital communications and cover technological advances; and third create new criminal offences to deal with the most serious harmful digital communications. It is the third one that we are seeking more confidence in. It says here: “In respect of the offence of causing harm by posting digital communication a person who is convicted of that offence is liable to imprisonment for a maximum term of two years.” There is now no fine penalty provided only imprisonment. This is the concern. Are those settings right? Do we have it right? That is all New Zealand First was asking for. All New Zealand First was asking for was for the bill to go back in the light of other legislation that has been passed in other nations to make sure that we are not taking that step too far in the first instance.It is very emotive to use the Roast Busters case. It is very emotive to use it. The reality and I think what was interesting in the Minister’s statement was that she acknowledged that a criminal act had taken place and yet with all the laws that are there nobody has been brought to justice. So to say that this is the answer to Roast Busters is not fair and to say that this was a criminal act and that this bill would solve that is not fair. It is emotive and it is inappropriate. The Minister has also been quoted: “However Minister Adams says children—or those under 14—cannot be charged with the offence.” She is absolutely right. The Minister is absolutely right. We acknowledge this but I want to give an example of a real-life situation. A 15-year-old male was at a sports day and took a photograph of a 15-year-old female jumping over the high jump. He pasted it on his Facebook page. The father of the 15-year-old female—she was wearing shorts she was in her PE gear—took offence at that photo and contacted the school and wanted the young man stood down and put into the discipline process. The young man was horrified and in this instance took down that photo immediately once he was brought in by the principal and spoken to. That father was not happy with that response by the school and he wanted that child pursued through the discipline process of the school to be made an example of—made an example of.Jono Naylor: Does he go to St Bede’s?TRACEY MARTIN: Exactly. A member of the Government has just shouted out “He should go to St Bede’s.” That is exactly what my point is—that is exactly what my point is. That parent at that time had no legislative ability to make the school do anything lay any charges or go any further.Let us talk about the approved agency. Is the Government confident—and the member Mr Naylor read out about the powers of the approved agency. They are not actually powers. They are a very good idea. Let us just get this out in the open: we 100 percent agree with the approved agency and we believe that this work is possibly the answer without this next step. It is the next step we are wondering about. Miss Dean’s contribution made the suggestion that the approved agency would decide whether the case could go forward. Actually the police decide whether a case goes forward and those are the Minister’s own words. The decision to prosecute anyone rests with the police who are required to ensure prosecution is in the public interest. I would challenge the fact that if a father showed up with a very high-priced lawyer and pushed the point whether they could use this legislation as a tool to take that young man forward. That is the concern and all we were asking for was an opportunity to discuss it further in light of the other legislation that has been made.NetSafe for example is currently filling the role of the approved agency as best it can without any formal structure or funding. In 2014 it assisted over 800 people dealing with harmful communications even though it does not advertise or promote that service. It has also been liaising with Australian politicians and their partners at the Australian Communications and Media Authority as they established the Children’s e-Safety Commissioner function under the recently passed Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act which has many similarities to the Harmful Digital Communications Bill—many similarities. This puts NetSafe in a unique position to describe the current situation and provide insights into what difference this bill could make. All we were asking for was the opportunity to go back and hear from people like those at NetSafe who are working in this environment to make sure we have got this right before we put in another piece of legislation that can turn people into criminals. Absolutely we must address this but are we addressing it correctly and that is where New Zealand First is coming from.New Zealand First will oppose this bill at this reading. That does not mean we will oppose it all the way through. What we are seeking is further assurance. What we are seeking is confidence that we are not going to criminalise children. We are confident with many of the other things inside the bill.Hon Amy Adams: Should we remove all criminal offences against young people? Is that your position?TRACEY MARTIN: The Minister shouts out “Should we remove all criminal offences?”. Unfortunately this is where we have ended up. We have ended up where the Minister will not discuss. The Minister goes on the defensive and the Minister starts to shout out. At this time New Zealand First has made no political statements about this bill. New Zealand First has made no political marks about this bill and has not attacked the Minister in any way shape or form but the Minister interestingly enough for a bill that is about anti-bullying has chosen to decide to be defensive and start to abuse. So what is very very interesting is—Hon Amy Adams: Tracey you never asked to meet me. Why didn’t you just ask to meet with me?TRACEY MARTIN: And the Minister knows that I sent her an email yesterday along with all the other people and the Minister had an opportunity to come back to me around those concerns and around that bill but the Minister chose not to. The Minister has chosen to go on the defensive. I hope that the Minister is that confident. I hope that the Minister if this should catch any of our young people or any of our citizens is that confident that these settings are right. But New Zealand First at this time is not confident that these settings are right. We would like more confidence that we have—that the select committee actually had the appropriate information given to it. In light of other countries other organisations and other nations going to a place without any criminality in it we would like to think that possibly we may need to just take a breath and have a look at it but I am not going to hold my breath on that. I wanted to explain that for those not watching the cricket and I explained it in an email to the Minister and every other member of this House yesterday. I sent them a two-page paper explaining our position but not a member of the National Party bothered to contact me or ask anything about it so I explain it now and perhaps they might go and read their emails to double-check on that.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the Harmful Digital Communications Bill’s second reading. Before I get into discussing this bill I want to reject the argument that was presented by the member who just resumed her seat Tracey Martin. It is very unfortunate that that member and her party New Zealand First are not supporting this bill. Also I heard from a member from that side that they are talking about prevention and saying that this bill is not about prevention but this bill is about both prevention and dealing with the crisis situation. The purpose of this bill is to deter prevent and mitigate the harm caused to people through forms of digital communication and to provide victims of harmful digital communication with an efficient and quick means of redress.Our work life and our social life in our current day and age are not the same as they used to be for my parents when I was little. I remember those days. It used to be about sending and receiving letters delivered by postmen. Phoning used to be from a landline to another landline. I still remember that we used to dial the same number many times to get through to that number after getting through to so many wrong numbers. So the best way was meeting face to face with people for work and the social part of life as well. For any urgent matters it used to be a telegram. That was the fastest way of communication when I was growing up. I grew up on air force bases—my dad was in the Indian air force—and I remember a personal telegram used to mean bad news. It used to mean that somebody in the extended family had passed away or there was someone who was seriously ill in the extended family. As soon as the news was out that there was a telegram received by a family on the air force campus other families around would gather and quickly rush to that family to see what needed to be done to support that family. This was without seeing the content of the telegram because it was assumed that telegrams were always bad news. So that was how that fastest way of communication was used.But then came the internet mobile phones and the digital technology that we are experiencing. This is not just limited to our work; it is in our social life in our personal life. I am a mother of two kids and I know that kids want access to the internet because they want to do homework. For homework they need the internet. They want access to mobile phones and other digital technology to stay in touch with their family members and their friends. This is by texting calling Facebook and a number of other social media trends that come in and out of relevance. Moreover the advancement of technology is such that day by day these things are becoming more and more affordable. So the question is about harmful digital communication and cyber-bullying.The Law Commission in its report in 2012 found that one in 10 New Zealanders has experienced harmful digital communication on the internet. There was a close relationship with age as the numbers doubled for those aged between 19 and 29. Our research also shows that one in five New Zealand high school children experience cyber-bullying or harassment. Bullying is not a new problem but cyber-bullying and harmful digital communication are definitely a newer problem. The National Government is setting various measures to stop bullying and minimise the impact of cyber-bullying on our people especially our young ones. Everyone actually old or young deserves to feel safe in their homes and communities. The devastating effect of cyber-bullying should not be underestimated. It is very disturbing especially for our young ones because it contributes to a lot of other problems such as increased truancy failure at school and many other social and emotional problems.But schools need new technology for teaching and learning purposes and to help students manage this rapidly changing social environment that comes with it. Cyber-bullying is an increasing concern for schools students and parents. It is time that cyber-bullying and harmful digital communication got this attention with the intent to update our legislation for digital communication so that digital harassment becomes part of our legislation and is covered by the relevant criminal law and so that there is a process that clarifies how to take up such complaints and enforce a regime that will stop harmful communication and provide protection to victims of harmful digital communication. This is also to futureproof our legislation to the extent we can see what is coming next. After the Law Commission’s work on harmful communications as part of its report on new media called The News Media meets ‘New Media’: Rights Responsibilities and Regulation in the Digital Age in 2013 the National Government announced a number of proposals to tackle cyber-bullying and those proposals are part of this bill.The bill along with other things will create a new civil enforcement regime that includes appointing an approved agency to receive and where appropriate investigate complaints. The agency will be able to investigate and resolve complaints and this will be done directly and quickly but more serious kinds of complaints will be referred to the District Court. The bill is also to provide a legislative mechanism for people to easily and quickly request the removal of harmful content that is put on websites or on to some online sites. It makes it an offence to send harmful messages and post harmful material online. For example where it is grossly offensive indecent obscene or knowingly false this will be punishable by up to 2 years of imprisonment. This is about sending that strong message that cyber-bullying or harmful digital communication is not acceptable.This bill is to amend the Harassment Act the Privacy Act and the Human Rights Act to ensure they are up to date for digital communication as some of our legislation was written before this digital time. We believe that when it comes to digital communication we need to have good legal options to take up such complaints and to deal with them. People may be hesitant to lay their complaint with the police and the police may not have the mechanisms in place to investigate and prosecute such cases. In some situations victims might not know who is sending these messages because it is very easy nowadays to hide phone numbers or contact numbers and people may not know who is responsible for posting things online as well. In these situations complainants can ask the approved agency to investigate. The agency could pass on a request for removal modification or correction of the harmful communication to an internet service provider or other appropriate internet entities like Facebook Twitter or Google.The next question that I would like to address is what happens with people’s right to freedom of speech. Section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 guarantees the right to freedom of expression. However it is not an absolute right and freedom of speech does not automatically undo offences and protections set out in other laws. So therefore these new proposals in this bill are consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This bill is to address and tackle the growing problem of cyber-bullying and it covers all aspects actually. It covers all aspects thoroughly by amending related legislation.Finally I want to say that I am not on the Justice and Electoral Committee but recently I had the opportunity to be subbed on to it. That gave me a very good opportunity to get some insight into the work that is being done by that committee. It is a great privilege to be able to speak on this bill that is assigned to the Justice and Electoral Committee. I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. I am calling Gareth Hughes—5 minutes.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I would like to greet the six people watching the broadcast because I suspect the rest of the country is watching the cricket at the moment. It is an important topic we are discussing tonight the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. The issue of bullying in general—no doubt all of us have experienced it to a greater or lesser extent over the years. Sadly it is pervasive in our culture and in our history. There is a legitimate public debate around the nature of it given our online environments that we live in—and have for many years.I want to raise a few questions for the Minister of Justice because obviously the Green Party is supporting the bill at this stage. But we have got to say there are some concerns when we are dealing with internationally unprecedented legislation. We saw a fast select committee process additional evidence not considered by that select committee and intransigence by the Government benches to not have a second look at a select committee. We have heard of amendments to be introduced in the Committee stage. I think they should be referred back as the member Tracey Martin attempted to do to a select committee where they could be considered because there have been international developments which have been picked up on by other members. We have seen Australia avoid the criminal offence approach at the heart of this legislation. All members in this House agree with the intent—Hon Amy Adams: They’ve already got it Gareth. It’s already in place in Australia. That’s why they haven’t put it in this bill. They’ve already got it.GARETH HUGHES: It is a different place. So Amy Adams wants to run out on her own do something entirely experimental and unprecedented and then she will not listen to the public will not listen to the experts and will not put it through a select committee. The Minister I think should take her time and do it in a considered fashion. Let us look at across the Ditch. The fact is the Australian Government has created a Children’s e-Safety Commissioner. The fact is it has avoided a criminal offence. Let us look at what is happening across there and let us actually take our time. If there is going to be a debate I do not know why the Minister is afraid to have that conversation at a select committee.I want to address some of the points raised in this debate. The fact is there are existing remedies. NetSafe the approved agency currently with no advertising has informed me recently that it has dealt with 800 cases in the last year alone—800 cases. What we are seeing is people saying there is nothing that can be done about this new scary threat. What are we going to do? On The Simpsons people would say: “Won’t someone think of the children?”. But the fact is that 800 cases have already been dealt with in the last year. Take the Roast Busters case. Here is an area where the police in their wisdom put a preservation order on the material and did not request it to be taken down. Take that sad case of the drunk 9-year-old on YouTube. Here again the police blamed YouTube but did not get in touch with it. I would like to acknowledge the work done by our tech companies in New Zealand and their guidelines. This is where the education debate is so important. We should be educating our police. We should be educating our education officials. We should be educating the public on existing remedies.As I reiterate there is a legitimate public debate. Everyone in this House agrees with the intent. We want to reduce the impacts and the harm caused by cyber-bullying. But there are legitimate public debates around making it a criminal offence around the avoidance of decades of statute defences—for example the Harassment Act or the Defamation Act—and a legitimate debate around education. Of course the Government did not have to put the appropriation in this bill but signalling how much money it is actually planning to spend on education I think would be useful and a valuable contribution to the House and the public. Looking across the Ditch again there is $7.5 million in extra funding there.The last point I want to raise is the idea that something happening online should be a different offence to something happening off-line. We have heard discussions around telegrams. It would be ludicrous to think of a law against bullying on telegrams. It would be ludicrous to think of a law against bullying on the telephone. It would be ludicrous to think of a law against bullying by using Morse code. This is an important topic. The internet is incredibly valuable to our economy to our society. We need to go into this field and with the power of legislation form an Act to consider it. That is why it is disappointing we have not sent this to a select committee particularly on the latter point when the UK House of Lords has rejected this entirely. The UK House of Lords says that what is not an offence off-line should not be an offence online. In summary I would like to acknowledge the Government’s intention and the intention of all members in this House. No one in this House wants to see cyber-bullying. The debate is around the solutions.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Sue Moroney—5 minutes.SUE MORONEY (Labour): This is a split call on the Harmful Digital Communications Bill but we also have a split in the positions that the two parties are taking. Although I want to share and reiterate some of the concerns that the member for the Green Party Gareth Hughes who has just resumed his seat has talked to the House about the Green Party is supporting this legislation whereas the Labour Party is opposing it. Of all the Ministers in that Government I would have thought that it was this particular Minister the Minister of Justice who would have an interest in actually getting this legislation right—getting it right and talking with the other parties so that we can get it as right as we possibly can.The reason why Labour is opposing this bill is that we have a deep concern about cyber-bullying and we want it to be dealt with appropriately and properly. The consideration of this legislation has been rushed. The select committee process was rushed and submissions—very important submissions—were not considered. The Labour Party wants to make sure that when we address this issue we do not have to come back and relitigate it in 2 or 3 years’ time. We want to make sure that we can get it up to speed as much as we can in a fast-changing environment and do that now.I think the Minister may have been having a crack at me before in her speech when she talked about members who vigorously opposed the way in which the sexual violation of young women was spread around on social media where the perpetrators of that crime actually used social media to gloat. I do not resile for 1 minute from that position. But here is the rub Minister. I am informed that this legislation will actually mean that any objectionable material like that has to remain there for public viewing for 48 hours before it gets taken down. And here is the irony. At the moment those providers can take that offensive material down straight away.Hon Amy Adams: They still can.SUE MORONEY: That is right. They can right now Minister. That is the point. And the bill will exacerbate that. So until that issue is resolved until that issue is addressed to the satisfaction of the parties across this Parliament I think it is right and proper that we oppose the bill until some of those concerns are addressed.The Minister’s approach is to scream and yell and bellow across the debating chamber. That actually is not going to address the issues.Hon Amy Adams: You rely on wrong information.SUE MORONEY: What I would like to invite the Minister to do is to engage with the Labour Party to address our concerns.Hon Amy Adams: I’ve been trying. Unfortunately your member won’t.SUE MORONEY: Well so the Minister is agreeing that she will actually—Hon Amy Adams: I’ve said if there’s agreement for the core principles yes; if there isn’t then no.SUE MORONEY: So the Minister is saying that she will engage with us only if we vote for her bill. Is that correct?Hon Amy Adams: I’m saying if you agree on core principles then it is worth working together to get it right.SUE MORONEY: Well we do. We do agree on core principles. So there is a great way forward. I just want to make sure that the Minister is agreeing to meet with the Labour Party to address our concerns.Hon Amy Adams: Vote for the bill if you agree with it.SUE MORONEY: Can the Minister—Hon Amy Adams: Vote for it if you agree with it.SUE MORONEY: So the Minister will not meet with us unless we vote for the bill. Is that correct? Is that correct?Hon Amy Adams: I’ll judge you on your actions.SUE MORONEY: It is a bit unclear. I am not sure whether the Minister is agreeing to meet with us or not. She appears to be saying that she is going to agree to meet with us only if we vote for the bill. That Minister is an appalling approach to this issue. I want to make it clear that the Labour Party will meet with you to have these issues covered—whether you agree with us or not. That is what we want to sit down and have a discussion about. And that attitude from the Minister that I think she is saying she will meet with us only if we vote for the bill—that I am sorry is the reason why these issues will not get addressed properly but I hope she will change her attitude on that. Thank you.TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the Harmful Digital Communications Bill in this second reading. I am pleased that the previous call was only a half call because that inaccurate misinformed drivel by the previous speaker was utterly unacceptable. It clearly shows that she has not read the bill or paid any attention through the passing of this legislation. Her accusation that material has to be left online for 48 hours is completely false. It is to be up to 48 hours as the Minister has already articulated. It would be helpful if the Labour Party is going to be opposing legislation that Labour members actually know what they are opposing before they stand up and dribble on about opposition to the bill.As we know the purpose of this bill is to deter prevent and mitigate harm caused to people by digital communications and to provide victims with a quick and efficient means of redress. That is why we are trying to pass this legislation. It is to assist the victims in this dreadful circumstance as we have already been told about over the last few months—a number of incidents involving harmful digital communications and the effect that that has on victims through a pretty dreadful public display. We would like to commend the Green Party for its support in this so far and I would like to offer maybe just a thought to the Labour Party that while you are having trouble in paradise maybe you should take a leaf out of what the Green Party is suggesting because it seems to be quite sensible.Just moving on yesterday we were in Hamilton in that member Sue Moroney’s list seat. We met with representatives from Waikato University as well as from a number of other tertiary institutions. They were talking about the development in technology and the challenges the consequences and opportunities of that. We know that legislation is going to be one step behind the development of technology because technology is developing in a continuous cycle. I think part of the problem as well is that—in terms of the types of abuse and bullying that can take place in this day and age with cellphones and with Twitter and Facebook and other forms of digital abuse—the parents of those people probably are not even slightly aware exactly what the forms of abuse can potentially be. I know for one my parents have both got cellphones. My dad probably turns his on about once a week just to check it. If someone had a conversation with him about abuse through the use of digital technology he would probably be a little bit lost by it. So I think part of the challenge as well is to try to inform parents and caregivers of children about the quite significant effects that harm through digital means can have. This is what some of the steps in this bill in addition to what the Ministry of Education is doing will work to achieve.I want to focus a little bit on the education side because as the Law Commission has found one in 10 New Zealanders has experienced harmful communications on the internet and that number doubles for those aged between 19 and 29. It shows that one in five New Zealand high school students experience some form of cyber-bullying or harassment. I was working in Hekia Parata’s office at the time that the previous Minister of Justice Judith Collins initiated conversations around this bill and I can say that both Minister Parata and the Ministry of Education were very keen to be a part of the development of this bill because one of the constant issues that is being reported by schools both to the Ministry of Education and to parents is the effect that bullying has on the student population. There are also the flow-on effects of truancy. A lot of people are not showing up to school because of the effect that bullying has on them.So it is quite a complicated area and the Ministry of Education and schools have been looking for extended avenues in order to help them address this serious issue. It is a complicated issue as well given the complexities that technology involves. I think the devastating impact that cyber-bullying can have cannot be underestimated particularly when it comes to young people and it is contributing to as I said increased truancy failure at school and emotional problems such as depression self-harm and suicide.In 2011 there were 93 male youth suicides and 31 female youth suicidesin New Zealand. What I found quite puzzling coming from a rural electorate was that there was a higher rate of suicide in rural areas than in urban areas. I think a contributing factor to that is the effect of digital bullying through instantaneous links in relation to Facebook Twitter and cellphone usage. The more that we can do in this space to address the harm that it has on individuals and families emotionally mentally and physically in some cases and the flow-on effect of that—we should be doing everything we can which is why it is great to have a cross-party approach I think to issues such as bullying and mental health - related issues.Again it was quite concerning that the previous speaker from the Labour Party Sue Moroney did not even consider the implications of this bill when she was standing up attacking the Minister Amy Adams who was actually answering some of her questions on the floor here tonight. Had the member actually read the bill and the implications of it half of those questions would have been answered. Perhaps it might have had the Labour Party supporting the bill. It is a shameful position for the Labour Party I would have thought—an absolutely shameful position.Andrew Bayly: Shameful.TODD BARCLAY: Thank you very much.Sue Moroney: Will you get the Minister to meet with us?TODD BARCLAY: I think that the member should potentially start reading the bill again revise her position and then consider whether or not that is something that she would like to do.It was actually quite interesting when we were in Hamilton yesterday assisting David Bennett to hear the positive feedback we were getting about the National Party’s performance and his performance up there particularly in the areas of education and justice. It is a bit of a shame that the member who spoke previously Sue Moroney has gone around standing in a number of seats in the Hamilton area. She seems to be our biggest asset actually when it comes to campaigning in Hamilton as we were hearing yesterday.Getting back to the purpose of this bill the changes to the criminal law system are around creating particularly a new offence of posting of harmful digital communications with the intent of causing harm. It would apply to communications that are grossly offensive or indecent obscene menacing or knowingly false. The offence will also cover serious instances of intimate recordings being published online without a person’s consent. It will carry a maximum penalty of 2 years’ imprisonment.Some of the concerns raised today were around the potential criminalisation of children. As we have already discussed we are trying to use other approaches as opposed to going straight to the courts to deal with this issue but in serious cases where there is repetition and serious misconduct in this space at the end of the day there are victims who are detrimentally affected by this and it could even cost some people their lives. So in fact if it does end up criminalising a child but there is the chance of saving the life of another then I think that is something that we are just going to have to deal with and I think on balance that the general public would support that view.So it is a serious matter that we are dealing with and it is not something that we want to take lightly. As we know we would want to use any prevention that can take place to prevent a child from getting into the youth justice system because of the spiralling effects that can have downstream.Another thing is that this legislation has been echoed in Australia the UK and the United States which already have similar offences that criminalise communications that cause serious distress and mental harm. On the one hand we have got an Opposition saying that we need to be doing more in this space to prevent mental illness and to try to get on top of the issue of bullying but when we try to do that—as part of a wider package of reforms including in areas such as education social welfare and justice—we are getting shut down and we are getting a lack of support from them in that regard. So it is a bit confusing as to exactly what the Opposition expects us to do and thinks that we should be doing in that space.Just to go back to the education aspect in terms of what will be done to address cyber-bullying in schools and of school-age children there are a number of programmes that are currently in place throughout the education system particularly the National administration guideline 5 which requires boards of trustees to provide a safe physical and emotional environment. This includes addressing the issue of bullying including cyber-bullying. The Bullying Prevention Advisory Group which was established and chaired by the Secretary for Education Peter Hughes is working on this issue with teachers principals and parents across a wide range of schools currently. There is a constantly updated edition of a document that records and reports on success in this area which can be found on the Ministry of Education’s website.There are also a number of other avenues such as the Online Safety Advisory Group which has recently produced a publication entitled Digital Technology: Safe and Responsible Use in Schools which has been developed to aid schools in addressing this issue. There are also programmes in schools such as Wellbeing@School and Positive Behaviour for Learning—which this Government has put significant investment into—to try to establish more coherent assistance for schools to address the problems of bullying and other behavioural difficulties. Of course with regard to the Positive Behaviour for Learning programme that is something that provides tools for schools teachers and parents to help them create a school environment that encourages positive behaviour. It involves a number of initiatives such as operating with NetSafe.Although I would just like to acknowledge the other speakers from this side of the House and the Green Party as well who have commented on this bill tonight I suggest that the Labour Party members should potentially hang their heads in shame and read the bill before commenting on it in futures stages. Thank you.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Well I have read the bill and I want to address some of the issues that arise from it. First today the irony could not be greater in that we are discussing the Harmful Digital Communications Bill on the very day when the Government will not answer allegations as to whether the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was used to intercept the communications from competitors for the job of the Director-General of the World Trade Organization—the rivals to Minister Groser—whose emails it appears were intercepted by the GCSB in pursuit of a job application by Mr Groser. That will have long-term consequences for New Zealand’s reputation as an honest broker in the world. It will have implications for our trading relationships with countries like South Korea and Indonesia. And we have already seen I think some of the disquiet in civil New Zealand as to the consequences of those harmful digital communications.In respect of this bill I think the first thing to say is that no one in this House of Parliament is saying that some of the egregious conduct that we see through the internet amongst other media is acceptable. People who are criticising this bill are not condoning that conduct. The second thing I would say is in respect of the Roast Busters issues that have been referred to by some speakers in this House let us not go too far down that line for two reasons. One is that the report of the Police Complaints Authority showed that there were legal remedies that could have been used in respect of those individuals that were not used because of either incompetence or some other form of bungling by the authorities. It was not for want of authority that they did not do anything; it was because they did not do their jobs properly.The next thing I would say is that this legislation was given a kick along because of the Roast Busters controversy. The Minister at the time was the Hon Judith Collins who was the Minister who conducted this bill. Again I think with the benefit of hindsight given what we have seen in respect of what we know of Judith Collins passing information to Whale Oil which was a harmful digital communication it is deeply deeply ironic that the National Party is pretending to be protecting people from cyber-bullying when some of the worst instances come from its own members including the then Minister who was responsible for this bill.In respect of the offence that is created of causing someone serious emotional distress the commentary from the select committee reportuses the term “a digital communication which has caused or is likely to cause someone harm” and “‘Harm’ is defined as ‘serious emotional distress.’” Nowhere in the bill is that term defined.The commentary then says: “We consider that the principles would provide a useful reference to help infer a common set of values when assessing whether behaviour was acceptable.” How woolly is that? You then turn to the principles that are meant to give us the confidence that we are creating something that is reasonably easy to understand—and some of them are. Some of them include: “A digital communication should not be grossly offensive to a reasonable person in the position of the affected individual.” I can agree with that. “A digital communication should not incite or encourage another individual to commit suicide.” I can agree with that. But these are not principles that all have to be met—any one of them from the list can be met.Principle 5 says: “A digital communication”—not a series of digital communications but a digital communication—“should not be used to harass an individual.” Well if that is the test—if this law was in place when Judith Collins sent her email to Whale Oil and then Whale Oil used it to attack Simon Pleasants on the basis of the address disclosed by Judith Collins Judith Collins would be in breach of a criminal law. Is that really what you are intending to criminalise the likes of Judith Collins for her conduct because that is what this says? It does not talk about a series of harassing emails; it talks about a digital communication that is used to harass an individual. That would be an instance of a criminal offence that was created because I am sure that it caused serious emotional distress for the person who was on the end of that. I have not heard the Minister stand up and say that that is the sort of offence that is intended to be created because I do not think the Minister has thought it through properly.I want to refer to principle 10: “A digital communication should not denigrate an individual by reason of his or her colour race ethnic or national origins religion gender sexual orientation or disability.” I do not like people doing that and I do not think that they should do it but we do not have laws against hate speech in New Zealand. If the Minister wants to introduce a law against hate speech introduce a law and properly discuss the principles that should lie around whether we should have a prohibition on hate speech because we have not got it in New Zealand and if we are going to have it for digital communications why should we not have it in the newspaper? What is going to be the implication of this?When we have a body like the Sensible Sentencing Trust or some of these other organisations in New Zealand that I think say reprehensible things I think that a lot of the things that they say would be caught by that principle. I know that they routinely denigrate judges. They denigrate them as a class of people. I have heard some of these groups that are in favour of fathers’ rights feel that they are abused by the criminal justice system. They abuse some of the judges on the basis of their gender as if they are showing bias. That would offend principle 10 if it went to the stage that it was causing serious emotional harm to people and we do not know really what that term means.Laws should be of universal application in principle if the principle is right. If we are going to have prohibitions on hate speech they should not apply to just the internet. They should not apply to just the limited situations here. We will have if this law passes in this present form the ridiculous situation that it would not be illegal for someone on a New Zealand website to host deeply offensive messages from the Islamic State people saying that anyone who is not a Muslim of their persuasion and who does not believe in sharia law is justified in being killed that the State should be overthrown that homosexuals should be put to the guillotine and all of those sorts of things. That would be perfectly permissible under this legislation because this legislation would not cover that ill whereas some of the other things that I have described would be covered by this legislation.In the time that has passed since this bill was prematurely reported back to Parliament under pressure by the then Minister of Justice because of the Roast Busters case times have changed overseas and I would call upon the Government to reflect upon whether it is creating some unusual laws in respect of criminalising behaviour in regard to the internet when we do not have general prohibitions against the same conduct under other laws. We in the Labour Party have written to the Minister offering to meet to discuss some of these issues. I do find it deeply ironic that we are debating harmful digital communications the nature of which would have been offences committed by the very Minister who introduced the bill Judith Collins.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): This is a split call. Andrew Bayly—5 minutes.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): I am very pleased to be able to talk to this bill both as an MP and as a parent of teenage boys. I also find it most unfortunate to hear the Opposition talking of delay vacillation and a do-nothing approach with regard to this bill. Members of this House are reminded daily both through the media and through different forms of lobbying of the increasing concerns in our communities about the variety of potential ill effects caused by digital communications of all types. This Government is committed to deterring preventing and mitigating the harm caused by digital communications and is committed to providing victims of this medium with an effective and rapid means of correcting the habit.Cyber-bullying has taken on overt proportions to a more insidious level. It is often hard to quantify and with regard to these communications we need to curb its incidence as well as the often devastating and longer-lasting impact that it can have on young people. This Government is alert to this adverse activity and is determined that New Zealanders should feel safe in their homes and in their communities—with a special focus on our young people who might be less discerning and more vulnerable. By introducing increased controls and legislation we are protecting our children our youth our families and in general New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): I would just like to focus in this very short call on the importance of this bill not being too platform-specific. If we look back to 2004 Facebook came into being in February of that year yet today that is one of the most thought-of digital platforms and one that is used most often in these cases that we are discussing tonight. Twitter came in in 2006. A year before that YouTube came into being and who knows what digital platforms will be available in 10 years; they may not be in a form that we know today. I commend this bill because I think it has the flexibility to take account of new platforms in the future. It is with pleasure that I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.A party vote was called for on the question That the Harmful Digital Communications Bill be now read a second time.Ayes 77New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 43New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 11.Bill read a second time.Sittings of the HousePAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I seek leave for the House to adjourn until the next sitting day.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.