Volume 710 Week 34 - Tuesday 17 November 2015(continued on Wednesday 18 November 2015)Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 710 Week 34 - Tuesday 17 November 2015(continued on Wednesday 18 November 2015)[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8103. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Tuesday 17 November 2015(continued on Wednesday 18 November 2015)Returning Offenders (Management and Information) BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed.Part 2 Returning offenders: management and information (continued)JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):I want to return to the element of debate that my colleague the Hon David Parker raised during the debate on Part 2 of this bill. On this side of the Chamber this element of Part 2 demonstrates to us why we should be undertaking a dual process with this piece of legislation because this appears from our perspective to be a drafting flaw in Part 2 of the bill.As has been discussed previously this bill derives a lot of its meaning through the cross-referencing of other Acts primarily the Parole Act but also under clause 10 of the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill the Policing Act 2008. That part of the bill makes particular reference in clause 10 to the ability of police to detain returning offenders—returning offenders being the entire cohort not just returning prisoners—for the purpose of taking identifying particulars. It will seem obvious on first blush why we would want a provision like this in the bill. The ability for the police to detain is set out in clause 10(2) “for a period that is no longer than is reasonably necessary in the circumstances for a constable to take the identifying particulars of the offender”. That is similar language to what is used in the Policing Act. In a sense what we are doing here is allowing the police once a returning offender comes back into our borders to take relevant information for police files. When I say “relevant information” we have codified that in this legislation by cross-referencing the Policing Act.And it is not just identifying particulars that we are seeking; for the purposes of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act we are also seeking DNA samples where that prisoner qualifies under the bodily samples Act. But the bit that I want to dwell on again—itwas raised by David Parker and the Hon Amy Adams undertook to take the issue away but when the Committee rose last night it seemed particularly clear to us that there would be no movement on this issue and this is the problem. Under the Policing Act 2008 Part 3“Powers operations and offences” section 32(5) states: “‘identifying particulars’ means in relation to a person any or all of the following: (a) the person’s biographical details (for example the person’s name address and date of birth):”—we have already highlighted that this will obviously be incomplete information given many of the people returning to New Zealand will not have a specific address—“(b) the person’s photograph or visual image: (c) impressions of the person’s fingerprints palm-prints or footprints”. Obviously here we are not talking about DNA because that is covered by the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act.Nowhere in these requirements under “identifying particulars” in the Policing Act which is the direct reference for this bill is there anything about taking information about the nature of the deportee’s offence or offences. There is an obvious reason for that according to the Policing Act and that is because within domestic legislation—of course if they are in a police station having their particulars taken it is because the police have charged them with an offence and they of course know by default what offence has been committed. It makes sense.For this legislation we have got a completely different set of circumstances. For the legislation that we are debating here the person will have been charged and convicted in another country. We do not necessarily have that complete information so when we take those identifying particulars it would make sense that in Part 2 of this bill we be very specific about allowing the police to require that information to be shared. One might argue—the Minister could argue; the officials might try to argue—that we might have that information from an overseas jurisdiction from which the person has been deported.We know that that may not necessarily be the case.How do we know that? Because in our discussions with the Minister in the lead-up to this bill being developed new section 27(1A) from memory was added quite late in the piece because the Minister discovered that the 20 individuals who are being deported to New Zealand this week did not have complete information. New section 27(1A) in Part 2 has been added quite late by the Ministry of Justice for good reason—to allow those with serious offences for instance sexual assault murder rape; what we would consider to be serious offences—to have the courts required to issue interim orders unless there is any reason not to. We know that we may not have complete information about some of those offenders in order to make a complete application in that early stage when they first arrive. So the fact that new section 27(1A) exists demonstrates to us the incomplete information that is coming back with some of these deported individuals and acts as further evidence of why there should be under clause 11 of Part 2 under the provision about police taking identifying particulars an additional set of particulars and that is the nature of offending—the nature of the offences—and it could be that you could define it as “for which the individual was deported from an overseas jurisdiction”. As it stands the Policing Act 2008 is incomplete for the purposes of this bill.If the Minister refuses to add this we are creating a rod for our own back and we will have a farcical situation where a tourist coming into New Zealand for the purposes of visiting casually will be required to give more information on an immigration declaration at the border than we will require a person who is being deported back to New Zealand because of their offending and that is because we will not be requiring that same level of disclosure and we should be. It would be farcical to simply rely on being able to access information via Interpol in order to complete information we could simply require to be shared by an offender. For goodness’ sake! We are taking their DNA samples. That is the most invasive gathering of information that is possible under New Zealand law and yet we will not require them to disclose their offences.From Labour’s perspective this particular drafting oversight demonstrates to us why—and I highlight this again—we would have liked within this part or perhaps attached to the title and commencement clauses a sunset clause which would mean that this bill would expire within a year and at the same time we would be passing a duplicate bill at first reading that would then progress through the House through all stages to allow us to pick up these kinds of errors and to allow us to give the public time to have their say. It would also allow the legal fraternity to have their say on this piece of legislation and we would make sure at that point that such errors did not occur. We do not believe that simply having a review after 2 years is sufficient. It means that errors like this would remain longer than is necessary and this Parliament does not operate on the basis of trial—that we put out a law and just see how it goes without having a proper process up front and that is essentially what we are doing here.I would really appreciate the Minister giving us a final word on whether she will be undertaking to make that drafting change. Otherwise we think it is farcical that it is not included and again it proves our point on the rushed nature of this legislation.I want to speak very briefly in the 1 minute I have remaining to a similar issue around the default provisions in the Parole Act which this part references and it is the standard release conditions. Again we have this bizarre reference in this bill in clause 4(2) that says: “In this Act unless the context otherwise requires a term that is used but not defined but that is defined in the Parole Act has the same meaning as in that Act.”So basically it is a catch-all that says: “If we haven’t defined something and you’re a bit confused and you don’t find it here you should find it in the Parole Act we hope.” It is a catch-all phrase because of the obviously rushed drafting. The Parole Act 2002 standard release conditions on reading are not designed for someone who is deported from overseas are heavily reliant on existing information being available are heavily reliant on their being released to a known residence and are heavily reliant on that person not being transient. These standard release conditions which we are cross-referencing here are not necessarily fit for purpose for people who are being deported. Again it shows the rushed nature of this bill.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): If I had been part of the select committee process which of course has not happened on this bill there are some questions that I would want to tease out as part of that process. I want to turn particularly to clause 17 of Part 2 “Criteria for determination that person is returning prisoner”. One of the things that I would have wanted to tease out through the select committee process is the comparability of laws and sanctions in different jurisdictions to ensure that we capture through this clause all of the people whom we hope to capture. So it seems to me that the principle that we are trying to achieve here is to ensure that somebody who is coming back to New Zealand having been sentenced offshore is treated in New Zealand in a similar way to the way they would have been treated had they been sentenced for that offence here in New Zealand.The wording of clause 17 leaves a little bit of ambiguity which I would like to seek some reassurance on from the Minister in the chair Nicky Wagner. Clause 17(1) says: “The Commissioner must determine that a person is a returning prisoner if the Commissioner is satisfied that the person—(a) has been convicted in an overseas jurisdiction of an offence for conduct that constitutes an imprisonable offence in New Zealand;”. So the first part of that suggests to me that if someone has been sentenced offshore for something that is not imprisonable in New Zealand they would not therefore be covered.Other jurisdictions have things that are illegal that in New Zealand are not illegal. So if somebody had been sentenced offshore and is returning to New Zealand and that was not an illegal activity they would not therefore be covered. My understanding of what the Minister of Justice contributed in the debate yesterday was that that therefore meant they would not be covered. The Minister used the example of some jurisdictions having imprisonable offences for criticism of the monarchy for example. If somebody did that offshore and was imprisoned for that and came home to New Zealand they would not be covered because in New Zealand that is not an imprisonable offence. But when we get to clause 17(1)(b) it says “has in respect of that conviction been sentenced to—(i) a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year; or (ii) 2 or more terms of imprisonment that are cumulative the total term of which is more than 1 year;”. The reason that I am interested in this is that different jurisdictions will obviously treat things more severely or more leniently than they may be treated in New Zealand.So the question that I have is if someone had served a prison sentence overseas for example that might have been significantly less than what they would serve in New Zealand and therefore does not fall within this criterion does that not mean therefore that we are not capturing all of the people whom we are attempting to capture through this legislation? So had they been sentenced offshore to say 6 months’ imprisonment for something that in New Zealand would have given them a minimum prison sentence of say 2 years why would they not be captured by this? That is one of the questions that I would like to get some reassurance from the Minister on because it seems to me that clause 17(1)(a) suggests that what we are trying to do is achieve consistency with New Zealand law yet clause 17(1)(b) does not have any such additional requirement in terms of the length of the sentence. So I would like to get some further clarification and advice from the Minister on that.The next part in clause 17(1)(c) says: “is returning or has returned to New Zealand within 6 months after his or her release from custody during or at the end of the sentence.” And again there are some areas of ambiguity that I would quite appreciate some clarification from the Minister on—and can I welcome the new acting Chairperson to his significant elevation and I congratulate him on that. Some clarity from the Minister just regarding the returning to New Zealand within 6 months is needed. The reason why I am interested in this is that if somebody is sentenced for child sex offences in an overseas jurisdiction they have completed their sentence are released into the community and have been at large within the community for more than 6 months why would they not therefore be covered by this clause and if they are going to be covered by other provisions what would those other provisions be? Those are the sorts of questions that had this bill been to a select committee I think we would have clearer answers to than the ones that we have had so far to date from the Minister.Those are the brief questions that I have for the Minister at this point in the debate. I have further questions as we go along but I see the Minister taking notes so I am hoping that we will get some answers to some of those before the debate proceeds.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): With your indulgence I would like to be able to give some context to my speech which I hope over the course of this debate becomes quite fulsome. Yesterday when I was in the House I tried on several occasions to rise to take a call on this particular bill and was unable to do so and I feel I must give my contribution some context.I was very disappointed to see the passage of this bill rushed through the House under urgency. There should be very good reasons why bills come to this House under urgency. Not only do we have one bill not only do we have two bills but we have three bills that this House needs to debate and review and pass under urgency. For the other two bills that are coming up there are valid reasons why this has to occur but for this bill I do not see why it has taken the Government almost a full year to get this bill to the House. When it does get here it is full of holes it is poorly drafted and it will require a significant amount of re-work at some stage. And are we going to be given the opportunity to do that in a timely fashion? No we are not. We are given 2 years to sit and wait and see how this bill develops over the next couple of years. The impact that that is going to have on the returning offenders is going to be a wait and see.I am very concerned that the Minister has done this because I would not have expected that of her. I do not heap praise on members of the Government often but I think that Minister Adams is a credible capable Minister and I would have expected better of her than this bill which appears to have been rushed at the last minute with amendments at the 11th hour before the bill is read in the House. Frankly it is not good enough. In fact I would have expected this type of drafting legislation to come from other Ministers across the House such as the one who will always have the ignominy of saying that worm farming is dangerous to workers.But this bill has got a really truncated process. Members of the Opposition and in fact members of the Government should be given the opportunity to speak on behalf of those who would have presented at select committee. We should be given the opportunity and we will be given the opportunity to speak their voice because they are unable to speak for themselves. There would be many submitters on this because this is a very emotional bill. There are many aspects of it in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in relation to human rights and in relation to the safety of the public that need to be explored fully. We need to make sure that this House is given the opportunity to do that.I want to speak particularly to some of the aspects that have arisen notably around clauses 20 to 26 which talk primarily about the monitoring process that will happen once these people have landed. Let us face it they are sitting in a plane waiting at the end of the runway to taxi to come here and we are at this 11th hour attempting to put this legislation into place so that we can have some confidence in the safety that will go in place around monitoring them.From reading the regulatory impact statement it would appear there are many policy statements but no clear direction on how we are actually going to support these people when they arrive. That is a major concern because if this bill is about the safety of the New Zealand public and we have not decided how we are actually going to monitor these people—we have not got the policy developed and in place—there is a serious flaw here.I want to talk about the people from People at Risk Solutions in Christchurch and notably Helen who came and saw me several weeks ago with a woman in tow—I will just call her “J”—who arrived in New Zealand from Brisbane with 3 days’ accommodation arranged and $200 in her pocket. That is all she arrived with. She would have been caught up in this piece of legislation.How is it that we are going to be able to cope with the influx of offenders returning to New Zealand if we have not got the basics in place to actually support them? What is the impact? If we were at the select committee we would be asking the officials to give us the costing. What is it going to cost the New Zealand public to put this in place? We would be getting some really good information from officials about what the monitoring programme looks like. We would be getting some really clear steers from officials about what rehabilitation needs to go in place. We would be getting a really good understanding of the implications of the human rights aspects of collecting DNA and blood samples of people.We would also have a much better idea of these offenders—what their offence history is. At the moment that is very unclear and in fact we do not know for sure that we will ever have the full disclosure of their offence history. How is that acting in the public safety of the citizens of New Zealand? If we had given this piece of legislation the due process it deserves we would have had many of those questions answered before the bill came back to the House for the Committee stage and final readings. Unfortunately we are not going to be given that opportunity.I sat here in the Chamber when members of the Opposition parties rose and asked questions and sought advice and put their speeches and not a single member of the Government stood and took a call to defend this process. The only person who spoke was the Minister at the end of the night. Why is that? Why are we not getting the Government MPs getting to their feet taking a call and actually providing some context—Hon Ruth Dyson: Maybe it’s because they’re useless?POTO WILLIAMS: You are absolutely right. They are like cocktail sausages on sticks sitting over on the other side of the Chamber just sitting there—Hon Ruth Dyson: Don’t be so rude about cocktail sausages.POTO WILLIAMS: I apologise to cocktail sausages. They are sitting there please—do they even have copies of the legislation in front of them? One member across the other side of the Chamber. How is that? You bring the House into urgency—not you Mr Chairman. The Government brings the House into urgency and the Government MPs do not even have the ability to stand up and defend their Government defend this urgency process and defend the fact that members of the public have not been able to have their say on this very serious matter.I challenge the members across the other side of the Chamber not to just stand and move closure motions but to actually get up and do the work of Parliament and do your debate. If you actually have your pieces of legislation in front of you that is for you to refer to. Anyway thank you for this opportunity. There is much more I would like to debate and I shall refer to that but at this stage I would like to see whether the Government MPs would like to take a call. Thank you.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I just want to talk about the two amendments that the Green Party has put on the Table. They relate directly to the review clause which I think is clause 37 at the end of the bill. That clause provides that the Justice and Electoral Committee must 2 years after the commencement of this legislation review the operation of the legislation. The Minister has said that the reason for the 2-year time period is to give the law a chance to be operational and for various experiences to be had and to understand how the law may or may not be working effectively and what could be improved. She has also said numerous times including late last night that she is open to narrowing the time frame for that review.We have put two amendments on the Table to change the review period from 2 years from commencement of the legislation to either 12 months or 18 months from the commencement of the legislation. Our preference is for there to be a review in 12 months and that comes as a result of the information from the regulatory impact statement which describes just how many offenders the Government expects to be returned to New Zealand over the next period. It is saying that 280 will return to New Zealand in the 2016-17 year and again in 2017-18—plus we have a bunch arriving tomorrow and we will have more over the next few months. So there will be a large number of New Zealanders returning under section 501 of the Migration Act in Australia and subject to this bill that we are debating. We do not think that we need to wait much longer than 12 months to see how those 100 or 200 people will be affected by this legislation. There are more than enough examples of the implementation to know whether or not the law is working effectively and what we should be doing to change it. If the review is delayed much longer than 12 months from now the chances of fixing the law before the next election are very slim.I will just go back and say that the 2-year review currently in the bill means that the review will not start until about the same time as the general election in 2017. If it starts just before the general election in 2017 nothing will happen for the entirety of the 3-month election period and probably nothing until the beginning of 2018 at least because of the time it takes to get Parliament up and running again. So the actual review itself might well be 2½ years away and possibly no changes will be made for 3 years—and that frankly is just too long. So let us bring the review period back to a more reasonable time frame where the process starts at least a year before the general election gives a chance for a few months of review by the select committee and then gives an opportunity for the Government to look at the recommendations for change and to construct the legislation for change and for that to go through the House.As we have seen with this particular bill we know how long policy development and the drafting of legislation can take. We do not want to be in this situation again where we have urgency for such critical legislation that deals with criminal law and human rights. It is a very poor process for such important legislation. Our argument is: bring the review forward and make sure that it can be completed and that the legislation can be drafted and preferably passed well before the general election. That way we will know both that the human rights of the offenders who are returning will be better protected because there will be a closer review of what happens to them—there will certainly be enough examples of how the legislation affects offenders because so many will be returning in the next 12 to 18 months—and that the lawmaking process can get back on track. We want to have good quality law. We do not want to be debating law that is riddled with mistakes. They are not intentional mistakes; it is just the consequence of a rushed job.We are supposed to be professionals at the lawmaking business and we can do much better but only if the review clause in this bill is changed to make sure that we have the time to do our jobs properly. We owe it to the New Zealand public to do our jobs as best we can and when we are making law about human rights and criminal law to apply all of our best efforts to the best quality job. So I am strongly advocating to all parties including the Minister and those Government parties to support preferably the 12-month review. I think that gives us the best amount of time but even the 18-month review period will at least get us started well before the election. It better upholds our reputation as a lawmaking institution that makes sure it does the best and creates the best possible law in these circumstances. Thank you.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Can I thank Metiria Turei for those amendments and I am sure that the Labour Party would support something like that to bring forward the review. We still think it would be preferable to have a two-track process starting today which would have put a parallel bill to a select committee for consideration of submissions that could be called tomorrow by the select committee and be heard in the normal process and within a year we would have a fully worked-through parallel bill that fixed all the mistakes that no doubt there are in this bill—and there is no doubt that there are mistakes in this bill. That would take effect on the expiration of this bill which could then have a termination date of a year from today. That would be a better solution but the Government has rejected that. I think that that shows how abusive it is of parliamentary processes generally and how unconcerned it is to get the exact balance right between civil liberties but also how unconcerned it is to protect the members of the public properly in the interim period between now and that review which it has got currently set out there 2 years ahead.On that last point I want to return to an issue that I raised with the Minister of Justice last night which is that as far as I am aware there is nowhere in New Zealand lawa requirement for people who have got convictions overseas to disclose those to the New Zealand authorities. Government members are not saying I am wrong we have had no advice to the contrary from the Minister and it seems to be nonsensical. Someone can return to New Zealand with a serious criminal offence overseas and no New Zealand authority has got the right to get that information from them. It might get that information from Interpol sometimes. It might get it from a cooperating country like Australia sometimes. There are other countries in the world that are in no state because of their civil disorder to provide us with that information even if they wanted to. So no doubt there are instances in New Zealand where returning serious criminals do not have a duty to provide information on what those convictions overseas were.Let us take what happens under this bill. This bill applies only in respect of orders for returning prisoners if those people have been returned within 6 months of their release from custody—so we cannot find any protection in subpart 2 in Part 2 of the bill—and in respect of Part 1 the only thing that they are required to provide us with is identifying particulars and as I have said in earlier contributions those identifying particulars as defined in the Policing Act are biographical information. They go to identification of the person not their convictions. So there is no doubt in my mind that that classification of identifying particulars in this legislation does not extend to their prior convictions.I want to also point out another problem with this bill that I think is unintentional and again it points to why we should be having this two-track process. Clause 9 of the bill says that “The Police may as soon as is reasonably practicable request a returning offender to provide identifying particulars and may detain the offender under section 10 if the offender refuses.” Clause 10 then says that the right of detention applies for only 6 months after the offender’s return. Again it is clear that this requirement to effectively have a compulsion mechanism so that you can get those identifying particulars applies for only the first 6 months after someone’s return.What is the policy rationale for that? I do not understand why it is that you would not want to have particulars of people for whom maybe because of Australian incompetence or New Zealand authorities’ incompetence it does not happen for the first 6 months.All of the sudden there is no need to have the particulars of people who have committed serious offences but who were not picked up in the first 6 months. Indeed this actually shows a problem in this legislation in respect of what has already happened.I agree that you should not have retrospective legislation that places people at double jeopardy retrospectively but it is actually a different thing to say that prospectively information you should have collected previously but you have not collected because of the incompetence of the Government—that you should not actually have the right to collect that information in the future if that is necessary to protect New Zealanders. I think that it is proper that the New Zealand authorities get information on people who have had serious convictions overseas after they return to New Zealand even if you do not ask for it for the first 6 months. After this legislation passes we can do something in respect of the first 6 months but not thereafter.Another issue which actually cuts the other way is that we actually might be going too far in respect of some offences. I was thinking about situations that go the other way. If you are a person who is under 27 years old and you are a New Zealander you have got rights to live in the United Kingdom for up to 2 years and get a work permit. I think that is in general the rule. It might have been tightened a little but it is something like that. I know this to be a particularly relevant issue because it actually happened to a friend of mine. A friend of mine stayed over there for longer than the 2 years and was then at risk of prosecution. She actually departed from the UK but others do not and actually overstay in breach of the immigration laws in the UK. If they are convicted it is an imprisonable offence and it would be an imprisonable offence in New Zealand too the maximum sentence for which would be more than a year’s imprisonment I think.You would also be liable for deportation. Even if you were not deported you would be told that you were liable for deportation and you would find yourself coming back to New Zealand. You would actually be a returning offender within the definition of clause 7(a). We might want that but I have not heard any Government member or the Minister actually say that that sort of returning offender is going to be caught by this legislation. I think in theory they are and yet with regard to the person whom I have talked about earlier—the person who might have had a murder conviction or a paedophilia conviction in an overseas jurisdiction at some earlier period and who comes back to New Zealand—we have got no right to get the particulars of their prior offending even if they might pose a threat to the New Zealand public. That is another illustration of how this legislation might not be getting the balance right. It might be attaching to people to whom we as a Parliament might not think it should attach; it might not be attaching to people to whom it should attach in order to protect the public.That is another reason why I cannot see why the Government is being so stubborn about refusing to allow the parallel process where a second version of this bill goes to a select committee so that we can actually consider these issues. Members of Parliament on this side of the House have done their best to make these contributions upon a simple reading of the bill thinking what the implications might be. People who are more expert in areas of the law than we are—specialists or people from the Law Society with a special interest or victim impact groups—will have other issues with this bill that we have not thought of and we are not going to get the opportunity to improve this legislative regime as a consequence until we have a review.I suspect the Minister is going to come and say “Well look maybe the review period should be brought forward a little bit so it doesn’t coincide with an election.” and that is a good thing. I thank the Minister for that and we in the Labour Party would support that if the Minister were to do that.Finally—and I will just recap on one point for the benefit of the Minister of Justice who is now in the chair—I do not accept the circular definition point. One of the points the Minister made yesterday was there would be some circularity introduced because if you have the requirement to provide particulars but you do not know that they are an returning offender then you would not necessarily know to ask them and therefore it is circular. It is actually not circular; it is just that it would not always apply. Given that clause 9 in terms of the request for identifying particulars always applies—it does not expire after 6 months; the only thing that expires is the Government’s right to detain for non-compliance with the request to give identifying particulars—I think we are left with a gap in the law.It is a nonsense that someone who has returned from overseas—let us say someone is picked up on a suspected paedophilia charge outside a school. This could happen; it does happen in New Zealand. The police say “We don’t know about you. What have you been up to?” and that person says “Oh look I’ve just come back from overseas. I’ve been overseas for 10 years.” That person has got no duty to tell them whether in that 10-year period they were spending you know 10 years in prison in Pakistan or something for charges relating to children.That has got to be a nonsense and we can fix it in this legislation by requiring that a person who returns from overseas who is a New Zealander who has been convicted in an overseas jurisdiction of an offence that constitutes an imprisonable offence in New Zealand and who was liable for deportation—you do not have to be deported; you just have to be liable for deportation—has a duty to provide information to the police if requested as to what their conviction was overseas and what their penalty was. It seems to me a very sensible proposition from the Labour Party so I would hope that Parliament backs my amendment.Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I want to take a call to talk on a typescript amendment I have tabled this morning picking up concerns and discussions that I have had with other parties over the course of the evening. I said last night in my contribution that I was happy to continue to talk to parties and if we found areas of common ground to support them where they made sense. This morning I have spoken with the Green Party the Māori Party and the Labour Party—I am sorry Mr O’Rourke I have not had a chance to reach out to you—around the clause on the length of the review. There was some concern expressed to me that there was a preference of this Committee that the review period be shortened from 24 months or 2 years to 18 months. The Government will support that and so I have tabled an amendment doing that which will be coming to members. It also just picks up some advice I have had from the Clerk which I do not think will be of any great concern to the Committee.Just so that you are all aware the bill as introduced talked about referral to the Justice and Electoral Committee. This amendment is just providing more flexibility so that the Clerk can nominate the appropriate committee because as we know various parliaments constitute committees in various different ways. So because it has just been tabled I will read it to you: “Replace clause 37 … with: 37 Review by select committee. A select committee to be determined by the Clerk of the House of Representatives must 18 months after the commencement of this Act review the operation of this Act and prepare a report on that review.” So in other respects it is the same but with a shortened time period and just making sure that there is no issue around the select committees at any point in time being reconstituted as the Clerk would have the ability obviously to determine the appropriate one which I do not imagine members will have any great concern with.I did just want to also come back to Mr Parker. We discussed last night that I would consider his typescript amendment around whether we need to add the requirement for a legal compulsion on returning offenders to give us their criminal histories. My view at that time was that it was a circular argument and that we would need to have their criminal histories to know that they were returning offenders to then collect the information but I undertook to confirm that. That is certainly the advice that I have had through from officials. Without their criminal history records we cannot classify them as returning offenders. The only way that we could make sure that was comprehensive would be potentially to require every returning New Zealander to disclose all criminal convictions and that is not a step I am prepared to take as an intrusion on New Zealanders returning to their home country.So firstly I am convinced that to do it in the manner proposed where it is only returning offenders is circular because we already know their criminal histories at that point but the other point I checked in discussion with Mr Parker was whether police were confident that they had the ability to get criminal history information from any jurisdiction. They assured me that they are. They assured me that they are and that they do not see that as necessary so on that basis we will not be supporting it.The other point I would make is that once a person is identified as a returning offender we of course have the ability to take their biometrics take their details and then of course continue to follow up. So we will have enough information to determine them as returning offenders and then in the future obviously with biometrics we can continue to build on that. But the police’s advice to me is that it is unnecessary the legal advice to me from my department is that it is circular as I had first thought and so on that basis we will not be supporting that amendment.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I thank the Minister of Justice for her contribution. There is an episode of The West Wing where the President’s chief adviser Leo McGarry paraphrases Otto von Bismarck about there being two things you do not want to see being made and that is laws and sausages. I think this is one of those instances where you wish you did not see a law like this being put together in this fashion. It has been rushed and I think the contribution that the Minister has made around an amendment she has just tabled and an amendment tabled by my colleague David Parker is pure evidence that the Government is rushing this piece of legislation through. It should have had time when it first had notice of the need to address these returning offenders and returning prisoners. It should have been addressed at the beginning of this year.Mr Chair I know you want me to speak to Part 2 so I will talk about it in the context of what is and what is not in this part. What is in this part is some of the easy stuff and what is not in this part is some of the stuff that there would have been questions about if this were to go through a select committee process. Some of my colleagues have talked about that stuff which includes some of the services that would help reintegrate and monitor some of these returning offenders and returning prisoners.The easy stuff is in there. I will look at an example and that is clause 13 which states that it is an offence to not comply with a constable’s direction if they feel that they have to detain you or they want to get information from you about your offending or your convictions overseas. Clause 13 is pretty simple. The easy stuff is in there. But if we had the opportunity to sit down in a select committee—and it would have been the Justice and Electoral Committee or the Law and Order Committee—we and I think some of the submitters would ask some pretty basic questions of the Government around what we do with these people when they get here. What kinds of support services do we have for them? What do we do around reintegration? It is my understanding that when the Government took a snapshot of offenders or those who had been convicted and have come back from overseas over the last couple of years the reoffending rate of those people was roughly 20 percent higher than for those who had been released from New Zealand prisons. So we do have an issue because the likelihood is that these people coming to our shores having been deported will have a much higher reoffending rate than those who are released from New Zealand prisons.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am going to interrupt the member. I am going to invite him to now move from a general second reading type of speech to a particular discussion of Part 2.KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you very much Mr Chair. I was speaking around reoffending. I guess in relation to David Parker’s amendment which changes clause 9 having more information about their offending and what level of risk they would pose would be helpful to the Government in being able to offer them those kinds of reintegration services. The fact that David Parker had to put forward his amendment shows the rushed nature and the ill-thought-out nature of this piece of legislation.For those at home who want to know what Mr Parker’s amendment is about it amends clause 9 around the identifying particulars for people who are deported to New Zealand. In clause 9 he wants to add the words “ and the details of any overseas conviction and overseas penalty for any such conviction of the returning offender”. You would think that one of the basic things in this piece of legislation would be to know not just who they are because as it stands we understand the identifying particulars just tell the authorities who this person is.To get an idea of how much of a risk they may be to the public—because this is what we want to make sure we can mitigate for for New Zealanders and this is what the Government claims it is putting this piece of legislation forward for—we want to know exactly what risk profile these guys and these women may have to the New Zealand public. But in the bill itself we do not have the mechanism to be able to find out what they may have been convicted of. So Mr Parker has seen fit to put forward this amendment to clarify what “identifying particulars” are. Are we surprised that we have had to do this? Well no. Within the regulatory impact statement we find a statement that is becoming all too common.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I would like to talk to clauses 16 through to 20 regarding returning prisoners. Clause 16 talks about who is a returning prisoner. Clause 17 outlines the criteria for determining that a person is a returning prisoner. Clause 18 talks about the time for the commissioner to determine that that person is a returning prisoner. Clause 19 states that “[t]he Commissioner must serve a written notice on a person (P) who has been determined to be a returning prisoner.” Clause 20 though describes what that determination notice must look like. It states that a “determination notice must—(a) state that the person named in the notice (P) has been determined by the Commissioner to be a returning prisoner for the purposes of this Act; and (b) state that P is subject to release conditions under this Act; and (c) state the period for which P is subject to release conditions;” and sets out the standard release conditions. It states that the person “must report to a probation officer at a probation officer at a probation service centre within 72 hours of service of the notice; and (f) provide information about how to contact a probation officer;” and so on and so forth.But what this does is actually neglect the actual human side of this situation. If we take for example the planeload of prisoners who we believe are arriving in the next day or so if they are prisoners who have come off Christmas Island let me tell you now that they will be traumatised they will be upset and they will be in shock as to what has happened to them over the last few days. They will come here. They will not have legal representation when they get here. They will have difficulty making sense of anything that the authorities throw at them such as this determination notice that they are a returning prisoner.We have got to remember that these are people who are coming under extraordinary circumstances and that what are standard release conditions to New Zealand prisoners who have had time in prison here who have had access to their lawyers who have had access to legal advice—those conditions do not apply to the people who will be arriving on planes. Their lawyers are over in Australia. The chances are they have not seen their lawyers for probably 8 9 or 10 months of their detention because part of the system in Australia is that they are being denied regular access to their lawyers.So they are getting here without any legal representation without any support people around them without any support base whatsoever without their family or friends being at the airport to greet them and yet they are expected to make head or tail of this determination notice. All things going well it would be served on them immediately upon landing here in New Zealand or if not within a practical time but certainly not greater than 6 months out. Maybe after 4 or 5 months of being here they might actually have been able to settle down and just get their heads around what has actually happened to their lives. Their lives have been flipped into turmoil basically from being put in detention going through the whole situation in the detention centres—in particular Christmas Island—to then being taken off the island and being taken back to a prison in mainland Australia then being brought here.They will be in shock they have been traumatised they will not know what is going on and yet they are going to be whacked with this official notice without any legal support without any assistance—or very little assistance—from the authorities. They do not even know where they are going to be living. They do not know beyond 5 days what is in store for them. They will not have an address to go to. They will not know. If the motel that they are plonked in is in Auckland somewhere in 5 days’ time they might be in Hamilton they might be in Rotorua they might be in Whangarei—they might be anywhere in New Zealand. And then the whole situation changes because then they have got to find a new probation officer they have got to find other people to report to depending on the location where they are going to end up.So I have real concerns about the human side of this. It is fine for the work to be done here but it is basically in a vacuum without regard for what those men and woman have gone through. That is why I believe that this should not have been done through urgency. We have had enough time through the course of the year to write this legislation and to do a good job of it. Instead we have heard that it has been drafted in 12 days.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I think when considering the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill we need to try to think about the practicalities of it and to try to take a practical approach to some of the issues that are bound to arise with new legislation. I support what a lot of other members have said about some of those issues.We are currently thinking a lot about Australia and its deportation of offenders from there but we also should think about some of the issues that may arise where people are being deported or who are just arriving indeed from other countries. Some of those countries will not be friendly countries. Some of those countries will be places from which it is difficult to get information. We need to think about some of those issues as well. So it is in that light that I believe that the Government should seriously consider and in fact adopt David Parker’s typescript amendment.I think he raises a very good point in that the term “identifying particulars” used in clause 9 and defined in clause 4 as having the same meaning as in section 32(5) of the Policing Act 2008 simply refers to the provision of name address date of birth and the provision of a photograph fingerprints palm-prints or footprints. That is all the information that that section provides. So what we are going to get as a result of this bill when it is enacted is that information.It seems to me that what we also need to be able to get—at the border if necessary or as soon as possible after a person returns whether from deportation or just arriving—is details of convictions. As I have said that may not actually be readily available from countries that are not friendly or cooperative or just do not have the facilities or the capacity or indeed the intention of providing that information for us so that information needs to be obtainable from the person concerned.Details of convictions are at the heart of the bill. It is that information that the rest of the bill actually depends on and yet the bill seems to be deficient in not really attending to this issue of being able to adequately require the person concerned to give that information and as soon as possible. So I think that David Parker’s amendment to clause 9 which would add the words “ and the details of any overseas conviction and overseas penalty for any such conviction of the returning offender” is absolutely necessary. I do not understand why the Minister is not seeing it in that light and actually adopting that amendment.I heard what she said about this idea of a circular argument but I do not think that washes at all. The point is this: the police or an immigration official or whoever is in the position of needing that information should be able to insist that that information be provided. It does not seem to me that that is in any other legislation. It does not seem to be in the Policing Act. I cannot see it there. It is not in this legislation. That is the information that is really fundamental to this legislation and yet there is not even a requirement for a person to respond when asked to give details about convictions or penalties.So I think that for that reason this amendment by David Parker is one of those that should be adopted by the Government. After all what possible harm could it do anyway? What is wrong with being able to ask and insist on an answer to a question as basic as “Do you have any convictions from the countries you have been in and what were the penalties?” and so on. That seems to me to be quite basic.I want to also move on to some of the other amendments that have been tabled and I think deserve consideration. One of those deals with clause 37 and that is a very important clause because we all know that this legislation is going to require review.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): We have now been on this part for 2 hours and I think it has been half an hour at least since I heard anything that was new. So I think the Committee is in a position to make a decision on the matter.A party vote was called for on the question that the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): While the Clerk is adding up the votes I will remind people—I will pretend I did not hear I think—that if people call for a division from a particular point of view it is a requirement to vote that way. I will not name the member who appears to have done the opposite.A party vote was called for on the question That the question be now put.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Amy Adams to clause 37 be agreed to:replace this clause with the following new clause:37Review by select committeeA select committee to be determined by the Clerk of the House of Representatives must 18 months after the commencement of this Act review the operation of this Act and prepare a report on that review.Amendment agreed to.The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon David Parker to Part 2 be agreed to:insert in clause 9 “ and the details of any overseas conviction and overseas penalty for any such conviction of the returning offender” after “identifying particulars”.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 44New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12.Noes 77New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.Part 2 as amended agreed to.Schedule 1 agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The honourable Grant—no.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I wish I was.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well premature.GRANT ROBERTSON: I want to actually talk about both clauses 1 and 2 in some calls in this particular part of the debate. The first of those is to talk about clause 1 the title which will be the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act. It is quite clear that in terms of this title the “Information” bit is the focus of the bill. So we have had a number of contributions from members as we worked our way through Parts 1 and 2 about the way in which information is provided. We have had amendments proposed to try to ensure that the New Zealand public can feel secure that all the information that the New Zealand Police and the Department of Corrections need is being provided. The jury is out on that. We have certainly seen up to now some considerable difficulties about the provision of information. I even heard the Minister of Justice on the radio this morning unable to tell New Zealanders where the first load of people coming from Australia on an aeroplane would land—did not know she said.Hon Ruth Dyson: At an airport.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes well that is a good guess Ruth Dyson that it will be at an airport. That narrows it down a little bit does it not? So it is still clear that there are difficulties and issues with the amount of information that is flowing to the Government.We also had the Minister of Justice tell us that she did not find out about this until February. Well that is hopeless. Clearly her sources of information are very poor. The New Zealand media was reporting it in January; the legislation was passed in Australia in December. So the flow of information to the New Zealand Government has not been good. The Minister this morning on the radio blamed the fact that this piece of legislation is now being rushed through under urgency on the fact that she did not get the information about the prisoners that was required to draft this legislation until September. That is just ridiculous. And if that is actually accurate—that the Australian Government has been withholding that information from the Minister of Justice—well it speaks volumes about the poor state of the relationship between New Zealand and Australia under this Government that the Minister of Justice did not even get access to the information required to draft this legislation until September. I actually do not believe that by the way. I think that that is just a case of the Minister finding an excuse for having dragged her feet on this issue from December last year.So the bill’s title that this will be the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act—yes it is about information there is absolutely no doubt about that but the failure of this Government to get on top of the flow of information on this issue I believe has been writ large by the Minister over the last couple of weeks. But the main part of the title that I want to focus on in this call is around the question of “Management”. So the title is the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill and in the Chamber last night the Minister of Justice told us that we should not go looking in this piece of legislation for the way in which the offenders who are returning to New Zealand will be managed in terms of their reintegration. She told us last night that this was a justice bill. She said: “This is not a bill about reintegration.” Well just pause on that thought for a moment. Is that not what it is all about when somebody actually goes into prison or in this case returns to New Zealand as a person who has been imprisoned and ends up in an effective parole-like arrangement? Is not the management of them all about reintegration and rehabilitation? That is what this bill should have been about.To the credit of the officials that is what they thought this bill should be about. They wrote in the regulatory impact statement and in the advice that we have now seen in this Committee all about the importance of reintegration. They gave paragraphs of material to it. They put it in the objectives which should have been what this legislation ended up being about. And then the Minister of Justice stands up in this Chamber last night and says: “Don’t come looking in this legislation for information about what’s going to happen in terms of accommodation in terms of employment or in terms of health outcomes.”Every member of this Committee who represents an electorate in a large town or city has dealt with a prisoner who exits the prison system and falls through the gaps.Peeni Henare: That’s right. Come to Tāmaki Makaurau.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is right Mr Henare. In my office in Wellington Central I have prisoners who come in. They have spent their $300 from the steps to freedom grant within the first 24 hours and they do not have anywhere to live. We have to work with them because the Government decided not to fund the former Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society now known as People at Risk Solutions properly any more. We have to work with them to find their way forward. Imagine being somebody who comes to New Zealand under these arrangements who has no backstop and has not lived here for 45 years. They have got nothing and the Minister of Justice says: “Well don’t come looking in this legislation for anything that’s actually going to really help with”—to quote the title of the bill—“ ‘Management’ of returning offenders.” The Minister says: “Don’t go looking in this bill to see if we’re actually going to sort out their accommodation.”Kelvin Davis raised this in the Chamber last night. What happens when those people come in? I heard the Minister say this morning: “Oh they will be met at the airport and they will be asked ‘Have you got somewhere to live?’ ‘Oh I don’t know. Maybe I do. I’ll go and stay with my cousin who I used to play with when we were 4 years old which is the last time I saw them.’ ” We know that information that is provided in those moments is often wrong or misleading. Answers are given by people to get out of the way. They do not want to deal with any of these officials any more. “Yes I’ve got somewhere to live.” Yes that is a satisfactory answer. Box ticked; away we go.What about the health outcomes and the health issues? There will be significant mental health issues involved not only I might say potentially for those who are the returning prisoners and offenders but also for others in the community who might know them or have some experience of dealing with them in some way—them or their families.Peeni Henare: Family in Australia.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes. Mental health issues are one of the biggest issues in terms of reintegration: the support that is required to be able to become part of a community. Again the needs are greater here than they would be for released prisoners in New Zealand because the lack of whānau support the lack of family around actually will make those mental health issues even bigger. Where is that in this bill? Where is that in the bill that is about the management of returning offenders—that is what the title of the bills says: the “Management” of returning offenders. And the Minister says: “Don’t come looking in this bill for how we will actually manage them in terms of their mental health in terms of their accommodation needs in terms of how they will actually reintegrate into the community.” This is a perfunctory response a rushed response because the Government mucked around and failed to heed the warning signs coming out of the Australian lawmaking process and as a result that is not here in this bill.I actually think it was David Clendon from the Greens last night who got up and spoke about how as you followed through the advice of the officials the objectives that they put up and then you found your way to the purpose of the legislation it lost its focus. It suddenly became this very functional piece of legislation about information and its relationship with the Parole Act. So the title of this bill to my mind is actually a misnomer. This is not about the management of these returning offenders; it is in fact about the mismanagement of these returning offenders and the failure of this Government to have in place the kind of reintegration and rehabilitation regime that is now needed. These released prisoners and released offenders should not be coming back to New Zealand; they should be going to Australia where their family is. The Government has failed in its advocacy in that regard. Now it is doubling up on the failure by failing to put in place a proper reintegration programme.I just want to briefly in the remaining time left to me speak about clause 2 the commencement date and the fact that this comes into force on the day on which it receives its Royal assent. That will probably be today or tomorrow at the very latest. That is too late. That is a failure by this Government: the fact that here we are on 17 November 2015 when this will come into force. It was December 2014 when the Australian Parliament passed this legislation. I guarantee you if we look into the cables that emerge out of the New Zealand High Commission in Canberra there would have been one in December that said that a big change had just happened under Australian law about what happens to people who have served time in prison or who are regarded as being of bad character. I guarantee the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials were up to the task of doing that. Perhaps the Minister had gone off for her Christmas break; perhaps she was not focused on it. Come January there were articles in the newspaper. They would have been reported to the Minister but the Minister failed to recognise those.Tony Abbott came over here for the 1-day cricket game between New Zealand and Australia which New Zealand won—Kane Williamson hitting a six with New Zealand nine down. I was there. I saw John Key and Tony Abbott meeting. Apparently that was when they finally got around to first discussing this—in February. John Key perhaps in the euphoria of the Cricket World Cup forgot when he got back to Wellington to say: “You know what Amy Adams? We should actually be drafting up some legislation now so we are ready on this.” Did not bother to do that—did not bother to do that. Sat around and waited for information to come from Australia and then finally gets around to introducing a bill about 9 months later. That is hopeless; it is a failure.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): It is relatively unusual for me to take a call in the Committee stage but I will not be sitting in the Chair again on this bill. There are a couple of technical concerns that I do want to place on the record of the House. The more I have looked at it the more concerned that I am. I am speaking in particular to clause 2 of the bill which indicates that the bill is to come into force today or tomorrow depending on when it gets through and when it is checked. But because it is coming in so quickly my argument is that it has got to be technically right in its entirety.There are a couple of points that I want to check with the Minister of Justice to make sure that we have got the drafting exactly as the Government wants it. The first one goes to clause 17(1)(c) in Part 2 which is outside of this bit but is of timely essence. If there is an individual who in the Prime Minister’s words is a murdering rapist who has finished their sentence in Australia who goes to Christmas Island for 6 months and 1 day and then returns here are they intended to be covered? Because they are not covered by the bill. The drafting of the bill does not have them covered. The person who is 1 day out of Christmas Island will not be covered by this bill the way it is currently drafted because they have finished their sentence 6 months before. Christmas Island is not part of their sentence—so they will not be covered by this.The next question I want to ask I will put on the record that I have had a discussion about it with individuals who are responsible for the bill and they have a different opinion because they rely on the Interpretation Act. The question goes to clause 17(1)(a) and (b) and whether that offence or an offence and that conviction are automatically considered in the plural. I want to put to the Minister the case of someone who has had 10 convictions of assault and been sentenced to 4 months on each of them—so 10 convictions of assault sentenced to 4 months on each of them. Because they are separate convictions for separate offences that means that they do not meet the criteria according to this bill. They can be quite a serious offender—quite a serious serial offender—but they are completely different offences. They have not just beaten up six people in one pub; they are been to six separate pubs and beaten people up in each of them. They have had different convictions and different offences. That is not cumulative; they are separate offences. The sentencing might end up being cumulative but because they are separate offences then my argument is that this does not apply.So it is a pretty simple series of questions. I know that some officials are of the opinion that “an offence” means “offences” and “that conviction” means “those convictions” but generally when this Parliament is drafting laws and it deliberately means the plural because plural is more serious than singular it says so. It says “an offence” or “offences” and it says “that conviction” or “those convictions”. In my opinion this bill does not do that. I want to place that on the record and every argument that Mr Parker has used earlier as to a method of getting this bill better drafted applies.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure as it were to take a call on the title and commencement provisions within this bill. Obviously the commencement date in particular has been the source of robust debate in this Committee and I will again reiterate Labour’s position on that but I want to start with first a very short reference to the title clause. Obviously this bill—and there are a few iterations that I have seen during the quite rushed drafting of this bill but the title that we are working to now is the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill.The notion of the word “returning” implies a distinct connection between the individual whom this bill covers and their connection to New Zealand and I think this comes to the heart of one of the debates one of the issues that my colleague Kelvin Davis has been battling for many many weeks now. That is the notion that yes we are happy as a Labour Party to support a bill that monitors offenders who are legitimately being returned to New Zealand as New Zealand citizens. They are for all intents and purposes New Zealanders. They were born here they have connection here they have whānau here—they are New Zealanders.We are happy to support the monitoring of those individuals for offences that they have committed overseas and for their legitimate return to New Zealand. We do the same to other countries—let us be clear. If we have someone who has come into New Zealand and committed a crime we will try them in New Zealand we will have them serve their time in New Zealand and then we will deport them to the place from which they have originally come where they reside—the place where their citizenship exists and lies.But we must be absolutely clear that at this stage this bill is covering more than those people. This bill will also be covering individuals who by Australia’s determination are not Australians and we refute that at the moment the place where it has chosen to draw that line is fair. If you said to any individual “Is it fair that a person who was moved to a country like Australia when they were a baby has been raised in that country has worked their entire life in that country has married a person from that country has had children who were then raised in that country”—is it fair to determine that because their first 7 months of life were spent in New Zealand they are a New Zealand citizen when they do not even identify themselves in that way? Our law books may define them in that manner but if that individual does not even define themselves in that manner is that fair?Secondly where does the threshold sit for when you can therefore define that that person should be deported? We know that—we have had lots of discussion in this House as to whether or not it has been fair or not to say to the Government that it should have moved more quickly. We maintain absolutely that it should have because the difference between the last 12 months and say the last 10 years is that last year the Australians changed their law. They changed their immigration Act which allowed them to move the threshold for deportation. It is usually up here—a bar around the types of offences you had to commit before you were deported. They moved the bar so low that we now have people with very very very minor offending in the category for which they will be deported. On top of that—minor offending—there is also the fact that these people do not even see themselves as New Zealanders.So that is why I think that the title of this bill which is a title that talks about returning; the act of coming home—for some of these offenders that will be true. They will have whānau here they will have community here they will for all intents and purposes be New Zealanders. But for a large chunk of individuals they are not returning home. They are being moved to an entirely new country and that makes the job for New Zealand that much more difficult because the key to reintegrating an offender is their connection to community their connection to a place to reside their ability to work and so on. So I dispute the use of the word “Returning” in the title and I would argue that “Overseas Offenders (Management and Information) Bill” would be a better reference.On to the commencement clause—this has actually become a cornerstone of the debate in this Committee. Yes we have said from the beginning that we agree with the need for this provision—this Act—to come in rapidly and as this commencement clause states it provides that the bill “comes into force on the day on which it receives the Royal assent.” For those listening that basically means that as soon as we are done here debating it and the Queen’s representative in New Zealand gives it a signature it becomes law. It then is in force. So that will be pretty quickly—that is about as quick as we ever make anything law in New Zealand. There is a good reason we do things slowly usually—Jami-Lee Ross: Thanks for “Parliament 101”.JACINDA ARDERN: —and that is to get things right. That is to get things right. But the issue here—Hon Ruth Dyson: What was that grand contribution Jami-Lee?Jami-Lee Ross: I said thank you for the “Parliament 101”.JACINDA ARDERN: Jami-Lee Ross I am speaking under the assumption that there are people out there beyond this Chamber who are watching who might be interested in the way that we usually do things in this Parliament. Usually—usually—we would debate it first in this Chamber. Then we would send it to a select committee and a select committee would ask the public to come and give its views.That is not happening in this case. We are using a shortened period because the Government says we need this law to be in place very very quickly. We agree we need something in now. What we dispute is that we should have started this process a year ago. Had we started it a year ago we could have given the public a say on this piece of law. We could have made sure that we did not have errors in it—and we have identified a number of drafting errors through this debate.So what would we do as an alternative given that we are here at this crossroads right now? No. 1 we would keep this commencement clause and allow this legislation to start immediately. But at the same time we would have taken a duplicate of this bill and at the same time that we would have passed one into law we would have sent an exact copy of it to select committee for it to be reviewed properly—for it to be scrutinised properly. Then we would have made sure that this version expired after a year and the version of this bill that had had proper consideration would then replace it. We proposed that to the Minister of Justice. We thought it was a really elegant solution but unfortunately that has been declined.What is our next option? Our next option is to look at when we review this piece of legislation. I absolutely accept the intent of the Minister when she set out that she wanted the bill to be reviewed after 2 years. She did not want it overlapping with the election period; she wanted it to be clear of that for us to give proper consideration. I absolutely accept her rationale. Our view is that that is therefore an argument to make it even earlier. Give it a year. In 12 months’ time in next December let us kick off a select committee review with urgency. Make it over the same time period that you would usually receive submissions on a bill so nice and tight. Receive submissions collect your data and evidence review the operation of the legislation—we could have it all done and dusted back in Parliament by say March the following year well within any election period.So 12 months we would say would be the optimum but if the Government does not want to go with 12 months then we would also support 18 months. Generally we want a shorter time period for review so we will be supporting both of the Green Party’s amendments which would bring that review period earlier than the 2 years that have been stipulated. On this I would acknowledge the Minister’s absolute goodwill in engaging with other parties in trying to set an appropriate time line for review but I see no argument against 12 months.At the moment we are receiving 25 offenders on average—and that is increasing—per month. We will have had hundreds inevitably based on the statistics we are seeing coming out of Australia by the time we come to review this in 12 months. We will know how it is operating. In fact I would wager that if one case hits the headlines—if one monitoring case goes wrong and hits the headlines—we will be reviewing this legislation straight away. So why not make it 12 months? Labour will be supporting those amendments. I encourage the Committee to make the review period 12 months. In lieu of that I encourage it to make it 18 months. Either way we have got to do something to make sure that this legislation is operating properly because it has been rushed.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Talking to clause 1 the title clause I pick up on a number of points that previous speakers have made. The title will be the “Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act 2015” but Jacinda Ardern has made the perfect argument that many of these people are not returning New Zealanders. Let me give you an example. When I was on Christmas Island and visited the 8 detainees one of them was a young man by the name of Ronald Neilson. He looked and he sounded Australian and let me tell you: the reason he looked and sounded Australian is because he was born in Australia—he was born there.Paul Foster-Bell: How does one look Australian?KELVIN DAVIS: “How does one”—obviously the member there has not been to Christmas Island has not spoken to these people and absolutely does not know what I know about their situation. It is fine for him to sit over there in his seat spouting off but he does not actually understand the human side of this whole situation and he does not care.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!KELVIN DAVIS: Let me explain. This man is Australian. He was born there and yet this bill that that member’s party has written talks about returning offenders. Well he is not returning anywhere. He is being deported from his homeland. That is the point that the member needs to look at.Then we talked about the offenders. We have got Kō Rūtene who has not committed any offence in New Zealand or Australia. The Minister of Justice said last night that he is not going to be subject to this legislation if he gets deported back to New Zealand. There will not be somebody at the airport waiting to ask him for his identifying particulars and that to ask for his identifying information and that is good but he is also not going to be eligible for the $200 in his back pocket or 5 nights in a motel while he is trying to get himself on his feet.I also raise that case about Kō Rūtene because there are going to be more and more New Zealanders—or more and more Australian New Zealanders—who are going to be deported. I do not know if anyone has heard about the ill-fated Operation Fortitude which was set up in Melbourne in late October where the Australian authorities—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will sit. We are on the title and commencement clauses. You have had more than half your speech so far in summing up which you are allowed to do. It is a peroration; that is fine. I would now like to hear something on the title and commencement.KELVIN DAVIS: Thank you Mr Chair but I am talking about people who are going to be deported under this bill who are said to be offenders yet they have not offended. Operation Fortitude an ill-fated police and Australian Border Force operation in Australia—it is going to end up that more people are going to be deported as offenders. Then we have the word “management”. Well this is mismanagement because these people’s situations will not be managed other than a couple of hundred dollars in the back pocket 5 nights in a motel and then nothing. There is going to be no support for them beyond that. What they are going to do is the question.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Tie it back to the title and commencement. Tie it back to the title and commencement.KELVIN DAVIS: I am talking about the management of these people.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Tie it back to the title and commencement. Tie it back.KELVIN DAVIS: It is. I am talking about the word “management” which is in the title Mr Chair. These people are not going to be managed.The information that is then being collected—well it is scratchy information at best. One of the best examples of the information that is going to be collected from them is their address. When you have just got out of Christmas Island—sorry not you Mr Chair. When a person has just got off Christmas Island has just got out of a detention centre in Australia and is brought back here they will have no address. They have no address to return to. Let me tell you about another detainee who is coming back who has connections to the Bay of Plenty area. He was raised in New Zealand where he had a horrific childhood suffering all sorts of things. He witnessed his father murder his mother. His father committed suicide. He was sexually abused. He does not want to go back there to where he came from. He told me on the island that there is no way on earth he wants to go back to where he came from to his former address and possibly meet the people who have committed the abuses against him. So these people are not being managed. The information about them that is going to be collected such as their addresses is going to change because their lives are in a state of flux. We need to be cognisant of that whole situation around it. The title “Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act 2015” will not I believe really represent the full picture. It does not represent—CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am happy to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill. I want to begin by talking about the commencement clause first. The commencement clause in this bill is a very simple one. It means that the bill comes into force on the day on which it receives the Royal assent which is likely to be at some point in the next two or three days. The issues that I want to raise—because we have not had an opportunity to discuss this because of the urgent nature in which this is being put through—is why this bill does not also have a sunset clause why this bill is simply coming into force and never expiring.The proposal that the Opposition put to the Government was that we would support the bill—and we are supporting the bill through—with an addition of a sunset clause under clause 2 the commencement clause and a first reading of an identical bill that was then referred to a select committee for consideration. That would mean that the immediate provisions come into force straight away—or pretty much straight away; as I said once the Royal assent is received in the next day or two. But because there would be a sunset clause in here the whole bill would expire after a certain period of time once a new bill had been passed to replace it. The same bill could then go through the select committee process which would allow a lot of the questions that have been debated in the House to be properly addressed and properly answered. That is not going to happen because of the nature of the urgency.Sometimes legislation is urgent and in this case with people coming back to New Zealand—or coming to New Zealand I should say—in short order there is a need for some transitional measures. Therefore there is justification for this bill to come into force straight away—Jacqui Dean: What about the victims?CHRIS HIPKINS: Well I am just saying—Jacqui Dean is asking me: “What about the victims?”. That is why I am suggesting that this bill should come into force straight away but I am saying that the victims may also have a desire to have a say on this. Why should they be denied the opportunity to have a say on this legislation? Actually sending it to a select committee does give the victims the opportunity to have a say.It means that we could put the bill into force immediately. That means that there would be no increased risk but it means that all those affected could actually thoroughly examine the bill and have a contribution to the process. Therefore I think it is disappointing that the Government has not put a sunset clause into this legislation. I actually think having sat through and participated in many many urgency debates that most legislation that goes through under urgency should have a sunset clause with a more considered deliberative process to ensure that there is a long-term solution in place because there are very few bills that I have seen progress through the House that cannot be improved through a select committee process.We then come to the title clause clause 1 of the bill: “This Act is the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act 2015.” The first thing I want to highlight is that these are not necessarily returning offenders. First of all they potentially never did any offending in New Zealand so they are not returning to the point at which their offending took place. They are being deported from a country where their offending took place and they would not necessarily regard themselves as returning to New Zealand because some of them will not regard New Zealand as home. They would regard Australia or another country as home.There is a fairness aspect here that needs to be considered. When we talk about people returning to New Zealand let us put the facts on the table. In many cases they will have left New Zealand when they were very young. The fact that they were born in New Zealand is one consideration; they could have left as babies having been born in New Zealand and lived their entire life somewhere else. They could have been educated somewhere else. Their families could all be based somewhere else. Their entire relationship structure could be based somewhere else. They would potentially have been contributing taxes somewhere else and now having gotten themselves into trouble at some point—again in some cases quite minor offences could be resulting in people coming here—they find themselves deemed to be returning to New Zealand a country that in many cases could be as foreign to them as any other place on the planet. So using the words “Returning Offenders” in the title of this bill potentially gives I think the wrong impression.Using the phrase “offenders” again also potentially gives the wrong impression because are they still offenders? They have previously been offenders. What if they have served their time and they have been released? They have done their time; they may no longer be offenders. They may have done everything required of them to turn over a new leaf. Why should they be regarded as offenders?SUE MORONEY (Labour): What a shambles. What a shambles this bill is. I am going to start by talking about the commencement date to start off with because I think that that is the part that shows what a complete shambles the Government has made of dealing with this issue. The commencement date for this bill should have been about this time last year quite frankly because that is when the Government says that it was informed by the Australian Government that it was making the law change that was going to bring these supposed returning offenders back onto our shores. Yet they were being brought here and have been for almost 12 months now without any supervision without any of this so-called management and information that this bill puts in place.I want to share a story about how this bill is too late because the commencement clause should have been a lot earlier than this. I know that because in about August this year I went and visited People at Risk Solutions in Hamilton. That is the service that used to provide rehabilitation services for prisoners when they leave prison here in New Zealand. I say that they used to provide that because in fact that organisation has declined to take up the Government’s new contract in that area because it is so appalled at what the Government is requiring in terms of that contract. But I will come back to that point a little later on.The Hamilton People at Risk Solutions told me in August that it had had a number of these people who had been deported from Australia to New Zealand just cold calling it rocking up to its doorstep and telling it that they had arrived. They had been deported back they had no family they had no support services and they were knocking on the door of the People at Risk Solutions organisation in Hamilton saying: “Please help us.”The reason they were doing that was that they had been told by the Australian authorities that the People at Risk Solutions service in New Zealand would help them. That is what they were told when they were forced to leave the Australian shores. “Go and see the PARS service.” the Australian authorities said. “They will help you.” Well the Hamilton People at Risk Solutions service did help those people because it felt so sorry for them—they were in desperate need of support—but it had no funding to do that. It had no prior notice that it was going to be required to do that.This is a service that is struggling to survive because of the bad contracting regime that this Government has put in place for prisoners coming out of New Zealand services. It would not sign up to that contract. Here it was a service that had shed staff very recently because it was principled enough to not sign the dodgy contract that the Government had put in front of it to continue to provide that service for people leaving New Zealand prisons. Here it was having to struggle to provide that service for these so-called returning offenders whom it knew nothing about. There had been nothing put in place for the management of those people and they have been coming back to New Zealand since the beginning of this year Minister Adams. What were you doing? What were you doing all of that time?Hon Member: What was she doing?SUE MORONEY: I am sorry. To the Minister I ask what was the Minister doing all of that time while those people were returning in ones and twos and threes and fours to New Zealand’s shores without any support mechanisms in place and without the forethought of the New Zealand Government to do anything for their plight?That is not only a problem for those people in that situation but that is a problem for New Zealand society. We know that people have been in these dreadful situations where they have been deported. They have been in the sorts of conditions that Kelvin Davis witnessed over in Christmas Island. They have served their time. They have then been thrown into detention centres without any certainty about how long they were going to be there. What I have heard as Labour’s immigration spokesperson is that many of these people found the conditions in these detention centres particularly on Christmas Island to be more dangerous than—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Come back to the bill.SUE MORONEY: —what they had been seeing in prison so they felt less safe. The reason why I raised that is that it is directly related to the commencement clause. These people were not getting the support from the New Zealand Government when they arrived in New Zealand and yet they had been in these very dangerous situations—traumatised arriving on our shores without any help. I am going to divulge—Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): There will be plenty of opportunity I am sure for my colleague Sue Moroney to take another call to finish off that contribution. Mr Chairman it will be a relief to you I am sure that I want to speak to clauses 1 and 2 on the title and commencement.I want to begin with a contribution on the title clause. An earlier contribution described the title of the bill Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill as a misnomer and I think that is an entirely appropriate reference. The bill’s title is wrong it is misleading and it is totally inadequate to describe the purpose of this bill. And I have to say that I think all members in this House would agree with the purpose of the bill; it is to make sure that New Zealanders are protected. People who are convicted of offences overseas and come back to New Zealand deserve to have a level of security around them that other New Zealanders have if they commit comparable crimes and serve sentences in New Zealand.I was reminded earlier today at the White Ribbon breakfast of how important it is for relationships to be open and respectful. I would recommend to Parliament that we reflect—and a number of members were at that breakfast this morning—on some of the contributions that are made as this bill proceeds because as is obvious in clause 2 on the commencement date this bill is going through an unusual process.We are not having the usual process of a bill being introduced by a Minister clearly outlining the point of why are we having the bill introduced to Parliament. It then usually gets referred to a select committee where people with expertise in the area or people who just care a lot about it can make a contribution and can add to the thoughts of Parliament. We then come back and go through a considered debate in detail. But we have not had that opportunity because as clause 2 outlines this bill having been introduced only yesterday has gone through the entire process until 10 o’clock last night starting again at 9 o’clock this morning and it will go through until midnight tonight without the opportunity for that rigour.The Labour Party proposed a parallel processto the Minister of Justice. We have heard that this bill needed to be introduced under urgency because we have got a boatload of so-called—as described in the title of this bill—returning offenders coming to New Zealand this week. So we had to do this bill under urgency. Why was work on this legislation not commenced last December when everyone in Australasia knew that the Australian law had changed and that offenders were going to be treated differently in terms of them having to be returned to their country? I will ask the Minister again: what happened between December 2014 and November 2015 when we suddenly have a bill—which has taken only 10 days to write—introduced and passed through all stages under urgency when everyone in Australasia knew that the Australian Government had changed the law in December 2014?Then in February of this year when the then Prime Minister of Australia met with the current Prime Minister of New Zealand at the cricket did they not discuss the implications of this significant law change on New Zealand? And if they did did the Prime Minister just forget to pass on that critical bit of information to the Minister of Justice?There is no explanation as to why this bill has been introduced under urgency and rushed through and why under clause 2 we are going to see the Act coming into force the day on which it receives the Royal assent. We have had a year. We are rushing through legislation. We know what happens when legislation is rushed. It is always wrong and critical questions from members of Parliament—none from the National Party because none of them has made a contribution—are still unanswered.So just to go back to the title clause 1 of this bill—“Returning” is one of the biggest misnomers. We have heard over recent weeks tragic stories of people who went to Australia as children. They have no connection with New Zealand other than in theory and have been raised made friends made contacts have worked and have contributed in Australia as though that was their place of birth—but in clause 1 they are described as returning. Many of those people do not see themselves—PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I move That the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am going to hear the Hon David Cunliffe.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I appreciate the opportunity—in fact it is my first opportunity—to offer my support to this bill and to reiterate that of the Labour Party. I want to use this title and commencement opportunity which is by convention an opportunity to sum up some of the arguments that have been raised during the course of the bill in the Committee stage in particular to reiterate firstly—Tim Macindoe: No it’s an opportunity to talk about the title and commencement.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —in relation to the title; thank you Mr Whip—firstly Labour’s support for the bill because our priority is and always has been to keep New Zealanders safe. It is important when we have prisoners returning to New Zealand that they are both monitored for safety and rehabilitated into society. I think it was Tony Blair who said—and it is not that I agree with everything he has ever said; certainly some things I do not but I like the line where he said that it is important to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. We must ensure that this bill addresses both of those dimensionsin its implementation. That is why Labour lent its support to extended supervision orders and why we have consistently pushed for the Government to establish an information-sharing regime with Australia in relation to deported offenders. However we have had some concerns with this bill.I see the Minister in the chair the Hon Amy Adams—like my colleague Ruth Dyson we were both at the White Ribbon breakfast—and I need to acknowledge the Minister. I thought she spoke very well on that occasion. I am not sure that the Minister’s timing has been as good with this bill. We have known about this issue for months—close to a year. We are here 2 days before the first planeloads of ex-Christmas Island detainees are due to touch down and we are passing this through Parliamentunder urgency through all stages denying the public their normal opportunity to have input through the select committee process. The question has to be asked—and the Minister may care to address it because we ask the question respectfully—why we have got ourselves into this situation. It is certainly not because Labour or other Opposition parties have been stalling it because we are supporting the legislation overall. I think the public deserves an explanation as to the timing and process.Secondly in relation to the management and information aspects of the bill which are contained in the title the management requires as I have said both the tracking and public assurance function and also the rehabilitation function. As the Committee has discussed this bill through the Committee stage and we have worked through it clause by clause and as my colleague Kelvin Davis has repeatedly said there ain’t much here about rehabilitation. And it is very practical stuff. When someone who has not lived in New Zealand since they were 2 or 3 years old—and that was 30 years ago—gets off a plane and they have no family here they have no friends here they have no job here and they have no money because they have been in prison in say Australia or they have been in detention and they get off the plane and they have whatever it is the $100 that they get started with and a voucher for a motel for 5 days what then?The answer is there is sweet nothing for them beyond that. The likelihood is that the lowest common denominator will emerge and people may be taken up by gangs or other environments that are not going to be conducive to the public interest. It is so much cheaper and so much better to put the fence at the top of the cliff rather than the ambulance at the bottom—to keep people out of bad company by supporting their integration back into society. So in the title of this bill “Management and Information” we just wish there was a bit more management to go alongside the information.The third thing we want to raise is that the part of the regime for the most serious offenders has to be triggered by the Department of Corrections—again a management and information issue. The problem with that is that the department has been rumpy—that would be the best description. The Minister of Corrections has been on termination watch over his management of the Serco circus. We have had fight clubs we have had violence we have had drug use and we have had all sorts of carry on in the privatised prisons. It has been very much—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of this.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —the same as the sort of things that have been shocking the public about Christmas Island.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No—that is not part of this.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: So the management of corrections has been wanting and we want to make sure that the management of returning offenders under this bill—STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I think a good name for this bill would actually be the “Closing the Gate After the Horse has Bolted Bill”. Let me read a quote. It says: “The Government is looking into a monitoring scheme for serious offenders deported to New Zealand.” Is that a quote that came from the Minister of Justice that we have heard in the debate in the last couple of days? No. That is a quote dated 25 January 2015. Minister your Government has been well aware of this all year—for longer than this—and yet you tell us that a bill has been drafted in the last 10 days. This is an issue that has been on the table. That quote is from the press. That quote is not from a select committee paper or from some sort of article that we got out of the Official Information Act. That was in the press. This is a bill that should not be here under urgency because it should have been passed by this House about 6 months ago when we realised there was a real problem here.If we have a look at this bill and the words that make up the title which is what we are debating the first one is “Returning”. If you look at the Oxford Dictionary which is used as the legal benchmark for the definition of language it says the meaning is to come or go back to a place. As Kelvin Davis has alluded to there are some people who are actually being deported back to New Zealand whence they had never come. There is no provision in this bill to send an offender back to the city that their family might have come from or where their support networks might be located if in fact they have any support networks. As we have heard they get $300 in their back pocket when they land in New Zealand. If their family is from Invercargill from Napier or from anywhere else in the country they have zero ability to even get back to a place where they may have an opportunity to start a new life where they just might have an opportunity to become a productive citizen. There is no provision for that whatsoever.Let us go to the next word “Offenders”. I think in the 21st century one of the basic tenets of our democracy is that you give people a second chance. If they have made a mistake that means they end up in jail they have done their time once they leave that jail. It does not matter what the mistake was or how bad it was or what previous life they led—if they have served their time then they deserve a second chance. They are not offenders once they are out of jail. That is a misnomer. I think it denies these people the ability for a second chance where their support networks are where their families are and where they have built a life.Let us have a look at the next word and that is “Management”. When you look at the dictionary definition of “management” as well it normally has a proactive connotation. It is about a way forward. This bill provides no way forward for any of these offenders or these Kiwis—or Australians—returning back to New Zealand. We have not heard how they are going to be managed—that will allow them to transition from the life they came from from the detention centres they were in from the jails where they spent time back to being productive members of society. That must be the ultimate gain for any community: to make sure that people have a second chance and that we put the processes in place and the management in place that allow them to once again have the opportunity to become productive citizens.And then we go to the next word—let us forget “and”—which is “Information”. What is this information going to be collected for? The Minister has provided no indication whatsoever of how this information is going to be used in a proactive way to once again allow these people to get on their feet and become productive members of society which is what we need to do. So this is not the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill. It should be the “Government Mismanagement and Non-Information Bill”. What this is dealing with is one point in time: a specific point in time when a person from Australia who has done their time lands in New Zealand. That is that. It does not deal with the situation that then arises for our communities and for the person who has returned to New Zealand. It does not tell us how or what the community is going to provide for these people that will allow them to become productive citizens. It does not provide us with any opportunity for what that person themselves is going to be responsible for or how they are going to be given any sort of management plan to allow them to integrate.JONO NAYLOR (National): I move That the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the question That the question be now put.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.Motion agreed to.Clause 1 agreed to.Clause 2 agreed to.Bill reported with amendment.Report adopted.Third ReadingHon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I move That the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill be now read a third time. We have heard a lot about this legislation from yesterday afternoon and through today but what I want to just come back to is the situation we are dealing with. We have heard a lot from the Opposition that I think paints a reasonably misleading picture of how we have got here. But here is where we are. At the beginning of this year we were in a situation where for many many years serious offenders returned to New Zealand without any sort of supervision or oversight. I accept that as Australia changed its law at the end of last year which took effect at the beginning of this year those numbers have increased. But the fact is that serious offenders—murderers rapists child sex offenders drug offenders violent offenders the full category—have been coming back to New Zealand for many many years without oversight without supervision. I first became aware of this issue and got advice from my officials on 11 February. I immediately instructed them that I thought New Zealand needed a regime to supervise these offenders and the work has been moving since that time.Suggestions that somehow the writing of the bill is when the work is done represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the process. For those who have not been Ministers and who have not been in this House I can tell you that in the work of putting together a new regime the drafting is the very last piece. You have to start with understanding the implications on the agencies how you are going to resource it what the right balance is between the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues and safety and security issues and to do that you have to know and understand the quantum and the nature of the people being returned. So I have said from the outset that we have to have this in place. Let us get work under way to build it. But in the meantime we must conclude better information-sharing with Australia to make it work.I got the issue put on the Prime Minister’s agenda at the end of February to raise it right up the agenda. That led to finally concluding the information-sharing agreement with Australia. I always maintained that that had to be in place before we could finalise this so that we could assess the impact on the Department of Corrections and so I could stand and say quite confidently that we understand the resources required for the Department of Corrections and for the police we know the cost and we have resourced it. I can say to this House that we have done that work. We have spent the time getting the police the Department of Corrections the Ministry of Justice the courts and their Australian counterparts lined up knowing what we need and how it is going to work. This suggestion that you just rock up to the parliamentary drafters one day and say “Write me a bill that says something.” and the rest of the time is just fluff frankly is absurd; it is absolutely absurd. This piece of work has been going at pace since it was first raised with me.That is more than the Labour Party members can say. Labour had offenders—serious offenders—coming into this country all the way through its time in office and it did not do a thing. Frankly I have been talking about this and putting out releases about the programme of work on this throughout this year and not once—not once—would Labour members be able to point to a single statement a single question from them saying “Where is it? What’s happening?” or calling for it. The only person speaking this year about this issue and about the need to do it has been me. I have worked on it. I have delivered at pace but I have made sure we have got a regime that is fair to offenders that balances their rights properly that does not create a double jeopardy but still provides the monitoring and assistance that I think New Zealanders need.So now 9 months later when this debate concludes we will have a regime in place for the first time that supervises these offenders. I am very proud of that. I know that New Zealanders have been at risk from serious offenders in our communities without supervision until now and that is what we are moving to address. Can I also just address the fact that somehow this is a knee-jerk reaction to the arrival that we are expecting later this week. I can tell members in this House that if they follow the announcements I have made which frankly they showed no interest in until they saw a chance to have a bit of whack they will see that I have been making announcements that this bill was progressing at pace it would be in the House this week and would be progressed as fast as possible. The impending arrival of the offenders came after all of those announcements.So what we now have is the conclusion of three pieces of work that I set up when the issue was raised with me in February. There will be a register to track and monitor these offenders that all of our law enforcement agencies can access. It will be a single point of information no matter where they are in the country sharing that information. That is in place—check. There will be an information-sharing agreement with Australia so that when these people come back we have good advice on their psychiatric state their criminal risk their behaviour in prison their known affiliations their criminal histories—anything we need to make a proper risk assessment and to apply to the courts for whatever additional orders might be required. Having a regime in place where you can apply to the courts for orders without that information would simply have been a piece of paper. You have to have the information. We have it. We now have the regime to go alongside it.This regime is about putting in place the same sort of oversight that offenders would have expected had they been released from a New Zealand prison. No supervision regime will ever remove the risk. We are dealing with serious offenders some of whom will reoffend as offenders who are released from New Zealand jails reoffend. But what we can now be comfortable with and confident in thanks to this bill is the knowledge that the offenders who come back to New Zealand who have only just been released from prison—not people who have offended long ago; but the ones who have only just been released from prison—will be subject to the same sort of oversight regardless of whether they have served that sentence in Australia in New Zealand or in some other country. I think that is appropriate. It would make no sense to have to serve parole if you stayed in Australia but not if you came back to New Zealand. So this bill fixes that gap.The last thing I want to make comment on is the Australian policy that this is all about. I said in my opening contribution that we are not responsible for Australian law. We do not like the way this policy operates. We do not agree with New Zealanders who went to Australia as very young children potentially being removed when they have no ties to New Zealand. We do not like New Zealanders being held in immigration detention centres. But what we are saying is that although we cannot change that we have absolutely expressed our concern at those policies at the highest levels. Mr Little is going to speak to Australian backbenchers. We spoke to the Prime Minister. We spoke to the Minister of Justice. We spoke to the immigration Minister. We continue to raise our concerns every single day—not every single day but every single time we get that opportunity. We do not like that Australian policy but at the same time these people will continue to return to New Zealand as they always have and now thanks to this National-led Government for the first time—the first time—we will be able to supervise them.Can I make just one final point which is that although the numbers will go up and have gone up since Australia changed its laws a large number of that increase are not returning offenders. They have been deported on bad character grounds. It is about 40 percent we understand. Furthermore the extra part of the increase where they are offenders is because the Australian policy is now picking up much lower-level offenders as we heard the Opposition members acknowledge. So when you are talking about that core of serious offenders many of them were always deported back to New Zealand. They continue to be deported back but now they will be supervised. They will be under probation. We will have the power to go to the court and get orders to protect the New Zealand public because that is our primary goal. I commend the bill to the House with great pleasure.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to begin my final contribution on this bill by acknowledging that the Minister of Justice has in the past week or maybe 2 weeks engaged with us as an Opposition party on the finer drafting details of this bill. I acknowledge that that has indeed happened. But I can tell you that it is a sure sign that something is being done at great pace with great haste and unfortunately without the scrutiny that good lawmaking deserves when you are being engaged with to that degree so late in the policy development. So yes I acknowledge that the Minister gave us a call and shared with us various iterations of the bill. But the fact that we were getting amendments on the morning this bill came to Parliament demonstrates part of the problem that we have with this process. When you rush law you unfortunately make bad law. You inevitably make mistakes.I want to debunk some of the myths that have been raised by Government members in defence of that process. They have said: “Look we did it in a rush because this was as fast as we could go. We could not have produced this legislation any more quickly than we have.” They have made all sorts of claims about Opposition members in the process. I want to debunk some of the myths that have been raised in the House. Myth No. 1—the statement that somehow we are not allowed to raise process points because deportation is not new. No one has ever said that this is a new issue. Of course we have had offenders deported back to New Zealand for many many years and from many many countries—legitimate citizens. In fact the Minister’s own notes—Hon Maggie Barry: 700 under Labour. Nothing done.JACINDA ARDERN: And no one has ever denied that Maggie Barry. No one has ever denied that.Hon Maggie Barry: No protections. So what did that member do about it?JACINDA ARDERN: Maggie Barry can I just quote from Minister Adams.Hon Maggie Barry: That member does nothing.JACINDA ARDERN: Do you want to listen for a moment? Do you want to listen?Hon Maggie Barry: Not really.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am calling for order. If the Minister does not want to obey that then she can go somewhere else. I do not care.Hon Maggie Barry: Sure.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: And she is carrying on doing that right now. Do not do that.JACINDA ARDERN: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I think if the member is willing to listen I am perfectly happy to follow the facts as set out by the Minister. We have never disputed them. Yes in recent years as it states in the Cabinet paper approximately 60 to 100 offenders have been deported to New Zealand each year after serving a prison sentence in an overseas jurisdiction. No one on this side of the House ever denied that. However recent changes—the paper goes on to acknowledge—in Australia’s visa cancellation policy have resulted in a large increase in the number of offenders being removed or deported to New Zealand. Those numbers are then explained. The rate of deportations has increased from an average of five per month in previous years to 25 deportations per month since June 2015. So yes deportations have occurred before but not as we know it now—not as we know it now.So what about the claim then that was made by the Government that at least the Government is doing something? Well that is because it had it within its power. I am not just saying that because it has been in Government for 7 years—apparently we can still be blamed for errors of times gone past—but we are actually in a different environment. Not only has Australia changed its laws in the last year which means we have this rapid increase but we also have more information available to us. So I say to Minister Barry that when Labour was in Government we had no information-sharing regime. Australia was not giving us the information that we now have through an information-sharing agreement which was signed only in September and we now have the ability to put in a regime like this. In fact Amy Adams herself said that having a regime in place without this information would have been meaningless. So to somehow blame another Government for not having done something that the Minister herself claims would have been meaningless without that change in process I think means that those claims from that side of the House are totally unfair and unjustified.But the Minister has then made the argument that she has gone as fast as she could. Yes we are not naive; we know how legislation is drafted: you create a regime and then you give your instructions to the Parliamentary Counsel Office. The Parliamentary Counsel Office which literally writes the law for us was not told what to write until about 3 weeks ago. This law that we are debating here was drafted 3 weeks ago. Anyone who has read legislation knows that it is a complex job. If you do not have time and proper scrutiny things go wrong. This started 3 weeks ago. Did it have to be that way? No the Minister herself acknowledged that she knew that we had a problem—well if she read the paper she would have known—well over a year ago. The Australians said “Hey New Zealand we are changing our laws. You should know about that.” a year ago. The Minister claims that she has been working on it since then. Really? Really—it does not take year to give drafting instructions to the Parliamentary Counsel Office. In fact as far as I can tell some of the Cabinet papers on this—which are the first step in the process—that went to the Cabinet saying “This is what we should do.” happened well after August. We know there was at least 6 months when nothing appears to have been happening and in that time hundreds of offenders were being packed up and shipped out.So yes we have a problem with the time line for this bill—we have a problem with it. Our concern is that as a result we will have made bad law. What signs do we have that that might be the case? Well let us look at the way that the law is going to work. The law has set out that there will three sets of different kinds of offenders coming back into New Zealand—three types of returnees—and we would add that the first category are those who should not be deported back in the first place. As the Minister said we are not talking just about offenders who are being sent back to New Zealand; there is a character test that is the cause of about 40 percent of the people being deported back into New Zealand. They are failing a character test. These are people who believe themselves to be Australians who are being deported to New Zealand—a place they have no connection to—simply because they may have been born here or have New Zealand parents. On a character test they are being sent back. We think that is wrong and will continue to fight that. I acknowledge again the enormous amount of work that Kelvin Davis has done on that because our Prime Minister has not.The second group of people who are being deported here and are covered by this regime are what we call returning prisoners. Returning prisoners are those who are defined as having been released for having served a sentence for an offence that attracted a sentence of a year or more. They are being released and they have not spent 6 months out in the community. The rationale of the Minister is that if they have not spent 6 months out then we do not know whether they are able to reintegrate properly. So that group of deportees when they come back into New Zealand will be automatically be monitored—automatically. The point here is that you will notice that we are not focusing on the offence of the person being deported. It does not matter whether or not they have committed a highly violent crime or whether they have stolen something from the backseat of a car. That is not what New Zealand in this regime is paying attention to. It is simply whether or not they have been in the community for 6 months. That in itself has some issues attached to it.Then the next category of people are those who have been out in the community for 6 months before they have been picked up by officials and sent back to New Zealand. For that category of people to be monitored New Zealand’s Department of Corrections has to apply to a court. Those individuals could be murderers—and we know that some of them are. They could have been child sex offenders—and we know that some of them are. They will be covered by a regime only if the Department of Corrections goes through the courts. Our concern is that we have already since December 2014 had the ability to monitor serious offenders who are deported to New Zealand if the department asks for them to be. How many has it asked to be monitored in a year? Zero—not one. Thirty percent of people who have been deported back to New Zealand in the last 2 years are categorised as serious offenders. The Department of Corrections has applied for not one of them to be monitored. We are concerned that this bill is reliant on a department that is underfunded under-resourced and managed poorly at present and we are giving them an enormous job.In summary this bill has been rushed unnecessarily. It has not been given due consideration and yes although we agree that we need a regime we argue that we should have had another bill go through a full process to replace this one. It is disappointing that we are here in this House doing this at the last minute because New Zealanders’ safety is reliant on our doing a much better job than this.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections): I rise to voice my support for the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill. What this bill does in principle is to empower the Department of Corrections to supervise returning offenders. They are offenders who will be managed under standard as well as special conditions consistent with those used to manage offenders who are released from New Zealand prisons—consistent with those offenders. As the Minister of Justice has already said this is a regime that is currently not in place. It is a regime that no other Government prior to this Government has seen fit to put in place.This bill is about providing conditions to manage the risks of those returning offenders in the interests of public safety and public security. Public safety and public security are the No. 1 goal here. We have heard members opposite talk about reintegration and rehabilitation and they are important but the primary goal is to ensure the public’s safety and security from those offenders who are returning. How does that happen? Well it happens through regular engagement by probation staff by agencies and by NGOs who are out there doing the mahi doing the work currently with offenders who are released from New Zealand prisons.It is about managing those people and making informed decisions. This bill sets in place a framework within which we can obtain information from the respective authorities in Australia. That includes the Federal Government but it also includes state Governments. State Governments oversee the imprisonment of Australian as well as New Zealand citizens who are in state correction facilities.Of course secondly it is about conditions that are used to facilitate the rehabilitation and the reintegration of offenders. Members opposite have talked about this but as I have already said safety comes first. Also what should be mentioned is that some of these returning offenders—quite a number of them—will be awaiting appeal. So whether or not it is appropriate to impose conditions in terms of rehabilitation and reintegration when some of these people will actually be returning to Australia needs to be determined within those conditions.Thirdly members opposite have talked about rehabilitation and reintegration not being in the primary legislation. Well it is not appropriate that they be in the primary legislation because the conditions to determine the safeguarding and the monitoring and the surveillance of these returned offenders will set out quite clearly on an individual level how those offenders will be managed.As has already been stated the Department of Corrections has been working alongside other agencies both justice and police all year to prepare for the return of this increased number of offenders from Australia. The Department of Corrections has helped manage and supervise these people as is envisaged by the bill. It is essential that we know who they are and what they have done and that we have some detailed information around their needs around the risks and around some of the challenges that will be in place in terms of monitoring these offenders once they return to these shores.That is why in July I went to Darwin and I signed a memorandum of cooperation alongside corrections Ministers from the various states. Ultimately some of that more detailed information in order to manage some of these offenders is going to be required from the states. That includes psychological reports and some of the assessments and the risk analysis and risk assessments that those states do in order to manage those offenders both within those corrections facilities in the states as well as upon release and the conditions upon which they are released into Australian society. This legislation is not to manage just Australian deported offenders; it is to manage deported offenders wherever they come from right around the world. We know that there are also risky offenders that come from other countries. This legislation will capture those people.In terms of rehabilitation and reintegration I can say to this House that the Department of Corrections is working alongside other agencies. It is working alongside NGOs like for example People at Risk Solutions which does a wonderful job in the community helping to rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders. A grant of $100000 was given to that society in order to help with the reintegration services for returning offenders. Of course that will not be the only cost. There will be many other costs and members across this House have noted the cost that will be incurred not just by the Department of Corrections but by other agencies in order to in the long term take care of and monitor these offenders.Of course the department will work alongside and in collaboration with some of these community providers as well as social service agencies local government and other Government agencies in order to support these offenders as they adjust to life in New Zealand. That is in the same way that the department will work closely with deported offenders to ensure that they have this support alongside domestic offenders.This bill has a twofold role. It is about holding offenders to account in terms of the conditions imposed and it is about safety and security for all New Zealanders. A mother of a victim came on Radio New Zealand National this morning and said it has the potential to save lives. It has the potential to save lives where monitoring of a high-risk offender will lead to a better outcome and avoid the risk to and the deaths of New Zealand citizens. I support this bill. It allows for fine work to be extended to offenders returning to New Zealand from overseas. It is in keeping with this Government’s track record of driving legislative change that strengthens our ability to keep the New Zealand public safe first and foremost as well as reintegrating and rehabilitating these offenders. That is why I commend this bill to the House.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I have very few problems with what the intent of this legislation is—that is to collect information so that these deportees when they return to New Zealand can be monitored by the probation service by the parole services or by whoever needs to monitor them. That is not really the point. We have objections around the time it has taken to get this bill to the House and the shoddy drafting of the legislation.Let me give you an example. On 25 January in the Northern Advocate which is not exactly the world’s most widely read newspaper there was a report about a woman who was deported from Australia. She had participated in a murder in Australia and was sentenced to a number of years in jail. She was deported back to Kaikohe. I will not name the woman because she has to get on with her life. But she is not going to be much of a problem to the Kaikohe community. Murderers do not tend to go on and murder over and over again except of course serial murderers I must admit. That woman is very little risk to the Kaikohe community.The point of the story is that in that newspaper report on 25 January the former Minister of Justice Judith Collins said that the deportation of prisoners was an issue that the Government was aware of and that needed to be changed. She then went on to say that the Government was looking into a monitoring scheme for serious offenders deported to New Zealand. That was in January. We had an admission by the former justice Minister the predecessor of our current justice Minister saying the Government was well aware of this issue and that it was looking into a monitoring system for serious offenders deported to New Zealand. And now 11 months later we are going through this whole process based on legislation that has taken 12 days to draft. There is something seriously wrong with the story that the country has been told in terms of the genesis of this legislation.The Minister who has just finished speaking Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga talked about the primary goal being public safety. We have no problems with that but my question is: how does the bill protect public safety when we are deporting people from Australia and dumping them here in New Zealand with a couple of hundred dollars in their back pocket with vouchers for 5 days in a motel and then telling them they are on their own? How is it protecting public safety when they do not have the support systems around them? They do not have their family networks around them—they are back in Australia—and they do not have legal representation here in New Zealand because their lawyer is back in Australia. How is New Zealand going to be a safer place if they do not have their support systems and do not have the proper networks and social services wrapping around them to the extent they should?The Prime Minister stands up and says he is the only person who is speaking for victims in New Zealand. That is rubbish. If these guys are not supported to the extent they should be what the Prime Minister is going to do with this regime is create more victims here in New Zealand and that is what we are trying to prevent at all costs. That is why we say that this legislation although it is good to look at the information-gathering side of things and all that is missing something in the fact that there is little mention of the support services that need to be wrapped around these guys. Once their 5-day motel voucher has run out where do they stay? What is going to be put in place for them? That is why I suggested some 5 or 6 weeks ago that the Government should fund a marae—and let us face it; many of these people are Māori—to look after these people to cater for them to accommodate them for 4 or 5 weeks while services can come in and provide some comprehensive wraparound get them on their feet and help them to get a job and an IRD number and all those sorts of things that they probably do not have.As I said in the Committee stage many of these people have no connection to New Zealand. One person I met on Christmas Island a young man by the name of Ronald Neilson was born in Australia. He has no connection to New Zealand. He said to me: “If they are going to deport me deport me to Bali.” He knows more about Bali than he does about New Zealand. Despite the fact that his parents were born here he has no connection.The Minister has made out like she is the only person running around doing things and that the Government has set up this information sharing about criminal risk. That is great. All this information sharing is fine but the information that the Australian Government has not shared with us is the number of people who are on the plane that is meant to be arriving tomorrow where that plane is going to land or what the names of those people are—the most basic things. It has not shared that information with us. So it is fine for the Minister to get on her high horse and start talking about the great system they have set up for sharing information but when it comes to what is happening on the ground and what is going to happen to tomorrow with the arrival of a planeload of deportees they have not shared the most basic bits of information.So how do we support these people? We do not know who they are. We do not know their criminal record. We do not know where they are going to go. I wonder whether those people know which motel they are going to be put up in. None of these questions have been answered. That means these people are bound to be dumped on our streets and if they do not have the support systems that they require and they run out of food and they run out of clothes and they are cold at night and they have no money chances are they are going to have to resort to crime to get by. They are being set up to fail. All the monitoring in the world by the probation service does not put food in someone’s stomach does not get them money and does not give them a job. These are the issues that we have concerns about.Some of these people have not even committed crimes in Australia; they are being deported because they fail a character test. And let me tell you about something that I believe is extremely frightening and that is an operation by the Australian authorities its Border Force—that is the immigration people and the police. It is Operation Fortitude. Just google it. It is an operation that was meant to go ahead in October of this year where the Australian Police and the Australian Border Force were going to randomly check people’s visas on the streets of Melbourne. So basically they were going to be racially profiling or profiling people and checking their visas. If their visas were not up to scratch then they could have been detained and deported. And those people could well have ended up here in New Zealand for nothing more than just not having their visas up to scratch or completing that process properly.That means we could have more people uplifted from their homes in Australia from their families and from their support networks and landed here on New Zealand soil where we actually have to look after them and where we have to re-establish them. And of course as I have said if we do not do that properly these people will be set up to fail and they have not committed a crime. They will be set up to fail. Does that mean that they have to commit crimes to get by? Does that mean we create more victims in New Zealand?I just want to finish telling the story and I have told it already during the course of this debate about a young guy Beau Adams whose entry into the Australian criminal system was on dubious grounds to start with. He had a domestic violence order put against him. The person who put that domestic violence order against him then texted him phoned him insisted that he drive her somewhere they argued she claimed that he broke the domestic violence order and he was then imprisoned. And I do not even know that he went to court; he was definitely on remand. He was there for 159 days before he was eventually sent to Perth from the east coast where he lived and then on to Christmas Island. I am not even sure that that guy has been charged with a crime and he could possibly be sent back to New Zealand where he has not been since he was 4 years old.I know that Australia has the sovereign right to make the laws that it makes but its laws are wrong and we in New Zealand are the ones who are bearing the brunt of its poor laws. And if this does not work if this legislation that we are enacting now does not work then we are going to create more New Zealand victims. Kia ora.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I will make only a brief contribution. I think many of the issues have been traversed. I just want to pick up on a point from the rather breathtaking speech that Kelvin Davis has just given to the House. He fears that under this legislation returning offenders will be “dumped on the streets”. Well the news is that this piece of legislation fills the gap and will take care of people so they are not dumped on the streets. That is exactly the point of this legislation.The point that I think is being missed by the Opposition is that this bill is about protecting New Zealand citizens. This bill captures those people—and I used that word advisedly—at the border where hitherto in particular under the previous Labour Government hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of serious offenders came across our border unremarked unknown about only caught by chance if they were caught and then were essentially free to go into New Zealand society to live adjacent to schools and adjacent to families with one child and that Government of the day did nothing. So spare me your hollow words across the House because this is the legislation that is plugging that gap and making New Zealanders safer in their own homes.I have sat through much of this debate listening to the Opposition saying that this Government is making bad law. Really? Is this Government making bad law? I did not hear a single argument about why. David Parker alerted us to a spelling mistake. Thank you very much. It may have been a point of grammar but I did not hear any cogent argument as to why members opposite were saying this was bad law because it is good law. What this law is doing is placing a new supervision regime which is very similar to that which is imposed on New Zealand - based offenders when they are released from prison when they go out in our society. Tell me what is bad about that. The thing is the Opposition essentially agrees with the position of this Government and that is where its objection to this bill has utterly failed. This is a good bill and it will do as it intends to do which is to make New Zealand safer for New Zealanders.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I suspect that this debate has actually been at heart one of furious agreement—to be frank—about the need for legislation to manage the issues for those who have been deported from Australia and elsewhere who need some kind of monitoring for some reason or the recording of their details with the Police. The content of the bill reflects that comparatively well.I think the Government has made a mistake in not acknowledging its process failures as effectively as it should have. It would not be difficult to do to acknowledge that it could have done a better job of consulting other MPs from across the House. I would note that Amy Adams did say that she is the only one who has been working on this issue. Well my colleague David Clendon asked her for a meeting to talk about exactly this in July and was refused. So that is inaccurate and it is unfair in the sense that if this had been from the start a collaborative effort across the political spectrum and with some of the critical external agencies—like the Human Rights Commission the Law Commission and the Law Society—we would have got a better-quality piece of legislation.The Government has a tendency to keep its cards far too close to its chest and to not understand that there are real opportunities for cross-party engagement on these serious issues where we all agree. We all agree we need legislation to deal with the deportees. We all agree that the Australian legislation is disgraceful and is a breach of human rights; everybody thinks that what it is doing is wrong. So why not choose to work on those areas of common ground as opposed to this manufacturing of huge drama in the House over the detail—detail that could have been properly worked out with a decent process?It has been an interesting debate over the last 24 hours or so and as a result of the debate we have made changes to the legislation. My own conversations with Amy Adams led to a constraining of the information that is going to be required of returning offenders. I am pleased for that. I am pleased that she was seriously considering that at the time. The House has agreed to change the time frame for the review of the law from 2 years to 18 months. That at least gives us a chance of getting a review completed and all changes made before the next election. Again that is good.No doubt better changes could have been made with more time and with even a short select committee process by which we could have got some external analysis and external review of the legislation. That is what the Greens have asked for. Even a day’s worth of select committee would have been beneficial to find ways to improve the legislation. There is no Government department that knows everything and sometimes you need the practitioners—the people who will put this law into practice every day—to give us their analysis of it and how it will actually affect their work so we can make it the best possible legislation. Overall I think that is why the Greens are abstaining on this legislation. We understand the need for it. There is broad agreement on the basic purpose. But the details—the law itself—could have been much better if the process had been more collaborative. It is an example to the Government that it really needs to be rethinking its strategy on some of these big issues.I would say that the other area that is now left open and could benefit from a more collaborative approach from the Government is the rehabilitation for offenders. As the Government’s own paper on this bill the regulatory impact statement has said there is a critical connection between reducing the chance of recidivism—further offending—and the quality of the support that wraps around an offender. Those two things cannot be separated from each other. In this debate over this bill which is about the monitoring but not the rehabilitation there has been very little from the Government—the Minister or other Government MPs—about the importance of it about what they are going to do to increase services and how they are going to better engage with communities. Kelvin Davis suggested funding for marae to do this work. It is great idea. The fact is we know that agencies are already saying that they are well over their capacity to deal with returning offenders as we speak and are desperately looking for more support. Often some of those agencies are too afraid to speak out and to ask for more support because of their concerns about being punished politically.We now actually have this opportunity to set aside the politics around the issue and to have a cross-party working party or it is a chance to have a conversation directly with the relevant Ministers—including the Minister for Social Development and the Minister for Building and Housing as well as the Minister of Justice—to find out how we can best support the best possible support services and rehabilitation for those who are returning. If there is one way to stop reoffending it is making sure that offenders have genuine options for making a decent life for themselves when they get back here.We have heard a lot about—particularly from Kelvin Davis and I do want to acknowledge his efforts in debate in this House; I think he has made some amazing contributions about the stories of the people who will be affected by this bill. He is quite right that there are people coming who have absolutely nowhere to go when they arrive here. They know no one. There is nobody here for them. What can we possibly expect for them but the worst outcomes if we do not immediately put in place intervention when they arrive? Not a punitive intervention—one that respects their dignity gives them choices and provides them with the support they need to take the next steps to build a new life here.That is something that again we all agree on. We all agree that should happen we all agree how important it is and we all agree that it is critical for public safety so let us find a way of working together on this. The Government’s—I am not sure how to describe it—block about working with the Opposition means that it makes mistakes and it makes mistakes that those members do not suffer. It is not anybody on the Government benches who is going to—Chris Bishop: Listen to the Greens. Oh!METIRIA TUREI: This is an example of exactly what I am talking about. They are not listening to a contribution about how we can best work together; they are deciding to just shout. This is just a fact: they are not the ones who are going to be affected. It is the offenders—Chris Bishop: It does not actually mean collaborate; it means just do what you want.METIRIA TUREI: Here we go again. They are just shouting for no good reason. It is the offenders who will be affected. It is their victims who will be affected. So we need to make sure that when we are making law about other people we recognise how far away we are from those lived experiences and how little we know about what really happens and therefore make an additional commitment to those people who are directly affected that we will act in their best interests by putting aside the political arguments and shouting and actually work on what is the best and most decent policy for New Zealanders. That is why we are in this business; that is why we are in the Chamber. Let us see if we can improve on that after this example. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First still supports this bill warts and all but buying into it is a bit like buying a new car especially if the old one has died and a new one is needed immediately. What one gets one will be stuck with for a significant period in the future whether it is fit for one’s purposes or not. It would be good to have tested it properly before buying it and probably one should have studied it for a few months to see whether it would be fit for purpose but that luxury has long gone—and so it is with this bill. Clearly it should have been introduced months ago. The Minister of Justice said the process started in February—and for her yes I am sure it did but not for the rest of us. The rest of us have had just a few days to look at this bill to study it to see its ramifications and to debate it and that really is not good enough. That is not the usual process which we have a right to expect in this Parliament for this kind of important legislation.New Zealand First deeply regrets that it is necessary at this stage to pass such a bill under urgency. When you think about it it has been almost a year since the Australians passed their legislation and it has been 9 months since the process began in New Zealand to respond to that legislation. So in the end we get this rushed process to pass a bill under urgency when in fact much better could have been done and that rushed process shows in many of the errors and the inadequacies in the drafting of this bill.We in New Zealand First are quite happy to acknowledge that the fundamentals of the bill are perfectly OK. We are quite happy to ensure that offenders are identified on arrival in New Zealand and we are happy to ensure that prisoners returning to New Zealand comply with Parole Act conditions and any special conditions that may imposed by the courts. We have no difficulty with that but it is the detail of the bill that has caused concern. Those matters as we know are usually sorted out in the select committee process and that process is missing from this bill. The most important aspect of that is that the public has no opportunity whatsoever for any input into this bill and that is a very significant matter. I would have looked forward to hearing from organisations such as the Law Society and many others that have special expertise and could have contributed to a much better piece of legislation. We are not going to get that either and that really is a shame.The only saving grace is clause 37 which requires a review and report by the Justice and Electoral Committee after 2 years. The Minister’s amendment says now that it should be in an appropriate select committee after 18 months but not even that is long enough in the circumstances. There were always two better options.Firstly I think Labour’s parallel process option is the one that ought to have been adopted. That would require effectively two bills—one passed now and the other to go through the select committee process in the normal way with full public consultation and so on. That would have been the best of both worlds. We could have had legislation that comes into force this week—as this bill will—and yet have a select committee process to sort out all of the issues that there are with it. I think that the only reason the Government is not willing to do that is that to do so would mean that it would be admitting it had acted too late. That is the reason why this Government is not willing to adopt that very sensible dual process which the Labour Party proposed.The other option was a closer date for review than 18 months. When you think about it 18 months means May 2017 at the earliest. That is the time at which election issues are really starting to warm up leading up to the election campaign for later that year. Effectively it really means that the review would actually be in 2018. That is far too late. The opportunity to learn from experience after this bill is passed is in the first year. That really requires the review to start no later than 12 months from when this bill is passed this week. That is not being adopted and that also is a shame because to wait until 2018 for a complete review will mean that a lot of issues that will arise will go unfixed for far too long.This could have been done a lot better and New Zealand First deeply regrets that the Government has not taken on board those concerns expressed by many of the Opposition parties in Parliament. We already know of some of the areas needing review which could be—but will not be—amended right now. Indeed Minister Adams herself produced amendments within hours of the first reading of the bill so she herself knew that she was bringing to Parliament a bill that actually needed amendment from the very beginning. Opposition parties have offered amendments in good faith to try to help improve the bill. A few have been accepted but most have not been seriously considered and that also is a shame.There was not the opportunity for a select committee process which would have provided for much better amendments and review of the bill. Actually when you consider it this bill really could have been introduced by the Government at least say 6 weeks ago because it has had at least 9 months if not more to bring the bill to Parliament. If it had done so 6 weeks ago we could have had a shortened but worthwhile select committee process with public submissions and especially submissions by expert organisations and the result right now this week would be much better legislation.I want to acknowledge David Parker and Trevor Mallard in particular who raised drafting issues and issues of substance and placed them on the record. Those issues have not been dealt with and they ought to be. It should not be necessary to wait until 2018 effectively for those matters to be looked at again. David Parker in particular offered an amendment which I thought was well worthwhile to add words to clause 9 to add a requirement for offenders—as they are so called in the bill—to provide information about convictions and penalties. That information is obviously necessary. Why has it been left out? It would have been so simple to add those few words—completely harmless words completely worthwhile words—which would have added some important information. But the Government has refused to do it with some pretty weak excuses made by the Minister—excuses I would have to say that did not really make any sense. So the bill will now be passed without those words added and it will be the poorer for it.I raised a number of issues regarding clause 7 especially around the term “liable for deportation”. Those also have not been addressed. I raised issues about clause 10(2) concerning the period of detention. The Minister said case law could be relied on to define what a reasonable period is but why not specify a maximum reasonable period in the bill? That would have been better so the Minister’s response I think was completely inadequate on that. I and others have raised a whole raft of other issues—issues of substance issues of drafting—and all of those will now have to wait effectively until 2018 before anything can be done about them. Really that is not good enough for a process for legislation of this importance.Finally let me say this: New Zealand First has always supported the objects of this bill—the object of making sure that we are ready to accept a greatly increased load of offenders and returning prisoners especially those from Australia but also from other countries. We have always accepted the need for that. It is probably legislation that should have been done years ago so we have been happy to see this legislation come forward. We support it. What we do regret very deeply and protest about very strongly is that it has been so slow and that the opportunity for Opposition parties and indeed the public to have genuine and substantive input into this bill has been completely inadequate.JONO NAYLOR (National): Well it has been an interesting discussion over this last day and a half as we have been hearing things. Some of them actually have even related to the bill. It has been interesting and I guess disappointing from my perspective to have heard so much focus from a lot of people on Australian law when this House should be dealing with New Zealand law.I guess I would ask the question: is it the role of New Zealand to advocate for our citizens who are living abroad? Absolutely yes it is. And in dealing with that—and that is why I just want to commend the work that has been done by the Prime Minister and by Ministers Adams Woodhouse and Lotu-Iiga who have been dealing with their counterparts in Australia doing that work. But this bill is not about what happens in Australia; this bill is about what happens as a result of what is happening in Australia which is that there are people who are being deported from Australia who are New Zealand citizens. Yes maybe they do not have a lot of connection with New Zealand but although they have been in Australia for all that time unfortunately they have not become Australian citizens for reasons that only they can tell for themselves.One of the concerns that I have heard from members opposite—and I just want to reiterate that this is not the case. There is a lot of talk about those people who are being deported for issues of character. Those people are not caught up in this process. The bill is very clear in Part 2 in its description of who a “returning offender” is and who a “returning prisoner” is. Those people who are being deported for issues of character—I think we would all agree that that is not necessarily a great thing for Australia to be doing but they will not be picked up in this. So those people will not be victimised by this bill in the way that I think members opposite have been conveying and I think that is disappointing.This is a good bill. It is a bill designed to help keep New Zealanders safe. It is designed to ensure that those people who are returning after convictions in other countries will be treated in the same way that people who are being released from New Zealand prisons will be treated. I think it is only summed up really by the overwhelming support that it has had around this House. It is in fact a good bill and I look forward to seeing it enacted hopefully later on today or tomorrow.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party—David Clendon.DAVID CLENDON (Green): Some years ago Sir Geoffrey Palmer made the comment that this legislature this Parliament contains the fastest lawmakers in the West and unfortunately the experience of the last 24 hours or so demonstrates that I think we can still lay claim to that rather dubious distinction. In less than 21 hours by my count since this bill landed on the Table we have had about 8 to 8½ hours of debate on a very substantive matter. This is not a trivial piece of legislation. We agree that on occasion there is need for haste. There are occasions when urgency is necessary and important.We do not accept that this is a case of such compelling urgency that in a 10 or 11 - month process—by the Minister’s admission at least 10 or 11 months of work have gone into this. Could we not squeeze out 1 week when we could invite members of the public the community voluntary sector the legal fraternity and the judiciary to come and have an opinion about this bill? Even in the course of yesterday evening the Opposition parties were able to add value and to make this a better bill on the basis of very little information with very little time for analysis and that indicates how much better this bill could have been had even a very truncated select committee process been allowed.I particularly feel for the community voluntary sector. The success or failure of rehabilitating and reintegrating the people who do return to New Zealand once they have been registered supervised monitored etc.—a lot of the hard work of bringing those people back into our communities will be done by people in the community voluntary sector some of whom are partially Government funded but who to a large extent rely on voluntary time. They are people who give up their time their energy and their experience to try to bring people back into the fold. I think we should acknowledge that and I think it is somewhat disrespectful of this Parliament not to have included that community sector in the preparation of this policy which it will have a considerable part in implementing.I must take a moment to acknowledge PARS the Auckland-based group which was formerly the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society and now I think it has rebranded as People at Risk Solutions. At least since the beginning of this year it has been sending people to the airport to meet offenders who have been deported—to meet deportees—and to endeavour to assist them. Two middle-aged women women in the prime of life—or else there was one senior kaumātua who would go alone—would go out to the airport not really knowing what they were dealing with; knowing that they were meeting deportees who may have been confused or angry who may have had major alcohol and substance abuse problems. Out of that their courage is extraordinary—courage to actually put themselves personally at risk in order to go to the airport meet these people and bring them back and endeavour to get them at least a roof for the night and to link them in to whatever social services were available. They have been ignored and I think that is very very unfortunate and disrespectful of those people.I will not dwell on the fact that the Minister of Justice sort of indicated she has been carrying the burden alone for this year. Actually we put our hands up to be part of that. My colleague Metiria Turei made comment on that; I will not dwell on it.The Greens are not opposing this bill. We are absolutely opposing the process; we are not opposing the bill because we acknowledge there is a problem.Hon Craig Foss: Are you voting for it or against it?DAVID CLENDON: No listen carefully. We are not opposing this bill nor are we supporting it; we are abstaining for the simple reason—Hon Craig Foss: You’re paid to be in here to vote.DAVID CLENDON: We are voting. We are not opposing this bill because we understand there is a problem. We agree with the principle of aligning the treatment of returning offenders with what happens to people domestically. We understand the information-sharing issues. We think parole is a good thing. There was research put out earlier this year by Anne Opie indicating that longer periods on parole are an indicator of less reoffending and that is a good thing. So we have no problem with the principles of this bill.We could have supported it had it been a better bill and had we had a better process and it is unfortunate we have not seen that. We have heard reassurances that the support mechanisms will be put in place to ensure these people who are returned have some sort of a fighting chance of keeping out of trouble keeping out of the justice system—of not reoffending. We will be looking to see that. We will be looking hard to ensure that the organisations both Government and non-governmental organisations that actually do that work are being properly resourced and properly funded because without that this legislation will have been a waste of time. It is not sufficient to supervise and monitor. We need support mechanisms. We will be looking to see they are in place. Thank you.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): I have listened intently both here and in my office to the debates that have raged about this bill. There is no question that many of the members who have spoken have offered good advice to the Minister of Justice. The Minister has listened to some of that and we are going to have a reduced period of time to review this legislation given that it is going through under urgency and given that we are rushing to put something in place that should have been put in place many years ago—in fact decades ago.I think that the purpose of this bill as widely discussed last night is narrow. In fact I am grateful that it is narrow and that actually we are going to deal with the justice aspect of this for parole and parole only. Some of the people who are returning to us have been treated poorly—that has been widely talked about. They have been treated harshly and in fact if the 6-month rule applies then for those people who have been in detention centres for 7 months 8 months and longer this need not apply to them unless they are seriously offending. Some people have talked about the DNA swabs and the fingerprinting which again applies only to those whom it would have applied to here in New Zealand under similar conditions for similar offences. So I am glad that there is a narrow scope.We have talked about the people of questionable character. I have no idea why they are being deported merely for associating. One of those people Kō Rūtene as we have highlighted in the past was picked up visiting someone in prison. Picked up visiting someone—if that is considered association then we should be warning all of our Kiwis now not to go visiting anybody in prison for fear that they will be deported. In fact my Facebook has been rife with instances and questions of people concerned about this legislation about what is going on over there and about whether or not coming home at Christmas time will see them stopped at the border and sent back. So I am glad that there is a narrow scope here.I am glad that the Minister does not have extraordinary powers and that the courts will be the adjudicators of whether or not somebody who comes back 6 months after being released from prison will then need to have these parole conditions placed on them. I would not like to see any of those people who have already been harshly treated come back and be harshly treated again.This is about the safety of our communities. For that purpose we are happy to support the bill but also because the Minister herself has made the attempts to come and discuss the issues that we have had with the proposed draft that we got to see and to make some small amendments here and there to ensure that it is as reasonable and fair as we are able to do.I take on board the points that the Opposition has made around the urgency and the time. If we were able to give it some consideration and at least go to the select committee stage maybe we could have crafted this and taken on board the opinions of those people in the community who do work in this space.I have been given assurances and have seen some of the work that has been going on with rehabilitation. It is something that as a party we have been very concerned about hence the reason why we have established things like Whare Ōranga Ake for the rehabilitation of offenders and to reduce recidivism. I want to support Metiria’s comments around that rehabilitation to ensure that these people coming back—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Can I just ask the member to refer properly to other members. Thank you.MARAMA FOX: —yes thank you—will be adequately supported not just through parole conditions but through rehabilitation and support services as we know that they are being alienated from their families.The People at Risk Solutions group which David Clendon has spoken about has been doing an amazing job and it needs to be commended for that job. We as a Government need to ensure that groups like it are also supported post putting this bill through. I want to assure communities that we have given it great consideration albeit in the condensed time. This is for the safety of our communities. Although we have been loud about those people coming back for minor offences we do recognise that there are also people caught up for major offences and that they will need our support our monitoring and our care. Therefore we support this bill. Thanks.ALFRED NGARO (National): There were a number of comments made about this bill. One of them which was of interest during the second reading was a comment by Mr Shearer with regard to the fact that the events of tomorrow Thursday will be “Con Air”. He talked about the aspect of a number of offenders who will be returning from Australia back to New Zealand as well.If one thinks about that movie Con Air it is an interesting story. In that story a 1997 American action film a hundred of the most serious offenders in the United States were on a plane going to a detention centre but inside there was one Cameron Poe. He was an army ranger who unfortunately through a situation and a circumstance found himself convicted of manslaughter. So out of a hundred there was one who was there and there was Vince Larkin who was the US Marshal who was there to try to save the day for this one offender.I think that the movie proves the point of some of the comments that have been made by the Opposition which is that it is true to say that there will be some of those detainees who do deserve justice—who have possibly been unjustly imprisoned or detained for whatever reason. We on this side in the Government also understand and recognise that. However we also want to recognise that inside of that there are a number who for their own circumstances and some outside of them are put in that situation where they have offended and have in a sense broken the law.This bill has been rushed through as we know because of the changes in the Australian Migration Amendment Act 2014 which amends the old Migration Act 1958 that mean character and general visa cancellations mean that we have now got this rushed aspect. Previously there had been up to 80 to 100 offenders returning to New Zealand; now the estimated forecast is up to 250 to 300—hence the reason why we have had to move to urgency.The comments across—and I know even from New Zealand First that Denis O’Rourke has been in favour—are that the principles fundamentally have been right. I just want to comment on one thing that I think has been raised in regard to the question: when these offenders return what provision will be made for them? This is called the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill. In other words it is a bill that is particular in its cause and purpose to ensure that when they do arrive we ensure that there is supervision and monitoring in place in that process. However they will still be subject to the conditions that mirror those in the Parole Act of 2002. Therefore they will still need to go to a probation officer who will ensure that their living and working arrangements are appropriate and also whom they associate with.The other thing that is important is that those offenders who return to New Zealand will be able to access the prisoners’ aid and rehabilitation that has been talked about such as from the New Zealand Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society Inc. and the services that it offers. The last thing that I want to say is that the Ministry of Social Development will ensure that they receive all the Government support that they are entitled to. We have talked about 5 days which is part of a period to be able to reintegrate back in again but they will still have those support services that we think are important.This bill has been rushed into urgency because it does meet a need of safety and concern for all New Zealanders not least all those who are offenders who are returning not just from Australia but from other parts of the world. The bill is intended to be able to ensure that we have a regime of supervision that monitors them in such a way that if there is any repeat offending that can be dealt with and at the same time there is an appropriate process to lead them on to hopefully being good citizens who contribute to New Zealand as well. We believe that this bill is right. The monitoring and review by the Justice and Electoral Committee in 2 years is appropriate rather than having a sunset clause. So I do commend this bill to the House.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Can I begin by responding to Marama Fox’s contribution the vast majority of which I agreed with. Thank you for that contribution Marama Fox. But there was one mistake made I think and that was—if I understood your contribution correctly—when you said that if someone has been in a detention centre for 6 months following their imprisonment they will not be caught by the returning prisoner provisions of this bill. Actually that is not correct. The bill at clause 17(2) says that that 6-month period runs from the release of custody and release of custody means “if a person is detained in an immigration or other facility following release from prison”. The date is from the release from the immigration or other facility not the release from prison. I am pretty sure—in fact I am sure—that I am right about that. I have just read from the relevant subclause of the bill.I do not say that to criticise the member but to highlight the problems that we have in Parliament when we pass legislation under urgency. It is understandable that members who make contributions to this debate cannot be expected to get their heads around all of the finer details and indeed around the effect of important provisions like that one. I take it from your comment you would think that that is going too far in respect of this legislation and that underscores the fact that maybe we are. I have also pointed out other examples of where we might be going too far and I have pointed out other examples where we are not going far enough to protect the interests of New Zealanders.If I could re-traverse the issue that we had discussions with the Minister in the chair about earlier—about whether you can get the required information from someone who has returned to New Zealand having had a conviction overseas that is not necessarily known to the New Zealand authorities which I think is an appropriate thing that the New Zealand authorities should be able to learn from the offender if they have not learnt it from Interpol or some other country. This bill does not allow the police at some later stage to require someone who was convicted and has served a sentence for a serious offence overseas to have to tell the New Zealand authorities about it if they ask them about it. The Minister said that that will never be a problem because they can get that information from overseas authorities. I am sorry—that is naive and untrue. It is just not right. Take for example someone who was in Syria. Do we really think that we could get proper information from Syria about what convictions a returning New Zealander might have had whilst in Syria some years ago? It is fanciful. It is laughable. It is also true in respect of various other African and Asian regimes. It is just not believable.We still have the possibility of people returning from those jurisdictions to New Zealand and there is no record in the New Zealand system of those persons offendingoverseas—and these will not be common occurrences but none the less they are things that we can think of that could occur and that we should have a legislative fix for. What happens when for example someone is investigated following a crime that they are alleged to be involved with in New Zealand? These are distasteful examples that we do not like to talk about and I do not want to ramp them up because I do not like trying to spawn fear in society and I am not trying to do so here but it is true that some sex offenders against children have a recurrent problem. It is actually one of the reasons why the likes of Australia want to get rid of them out of there and send them back here. If they have come from another country not like Australia where you could get that information I would want there to be a duty upon the person to say: “Well yes I was in Syria. I lived there for 20 years and that’s why there’s no record of me being in New Zealand because I’ve been overseas for 20 years.” That person should have a duty to disclose their convictions.We cannot have those discussions at select committee; neither can we have the submissions that we would get from the Law Society or from Rape Crisis or even from the Sensible Sentencing Trust which as an organisation I generally abhor for its hypocrisy and for its wrongheadedness—its hypocrisy being shown by events with David Garrett when he was here having backed him for a discharge without conviction and name suppression after he had been found to have stolen the identity of a dead baby as part of his passport fraud when it generally opposes both for criminals. That sort of hypocrisy annoys me but none the less I respect its right in a civil society to make submissions on legislation. I would defend even the right of the Sensible Sentencing Trust to come along and say that this legislation does not go far enough—if that was its view. We have heard from Marama Fox and others about how People at Risk Solutions—and I would say the Howard League for Penal Reformalso—has got a relevant interest in these things. It might not be directly in respect of this legislation because this is about management and information but if there is no parallel process elsewhere in Government dealing with the need to help these people reintegrate and minimise the risk that they will reoffend that is actually something that would be highlighted by those submissions to select committee. That is one of the reasons we have these processes.I want to say why all of these things go to the underlying principle of why it was that the Labour Party suggested we have a parallel process with a sunset clause for this legislation. It was a very simple process we were suggesting. It would not have elongated this process in the House. We could have had two bills being considered at the same time. The parties of Parliament would have agreed to that through the Business Committee. One of the bills would have been taken through all three stages under urgency and it would have had a sunset clause or an end date of a year say—we were flexible as to the date—and then the second form of the bill would have passed only its first reading and would have commenced at the end date of the first version of the bill and it would have gone to select committee. Through that process we could have advertised tomorrow we could have heard from submitters and we could have taken the time to actually get this legislation right.I do not think we have fixed even the grammatical error that is in clause 7 of the bill. It was pointed out to me by David Shearer and raised by me in the first reading debate. It says “Who is returning offender”; it means “Who is a returning offender”—they have missed out an “a”. That sort of error should be fixed. There will be other mistakes in this bill that could be of import as to what the legislation actually means. We have not had the time to deal with that. It would have been fixed at select committee if the Government had chosen the process that we suggested. The idea that a review via an established select committee is the answer—I do notthink that is right. Select committees do not have to hear submissions. The select committee is controlled by the Government. This select committee will have a majority of Government members. They can just say if this is too much of an embarrassment or if they do not want this particular item coming up—they can actually cause that inquiry to be very short. They do not need to hear submissions from the public. They do not need to do a proper job. If it is too embarrassing they probably will not. Governments often act like that.The reason that we have multiple stages of processes—there is the Committee stage some time after a select committee has looked at the legislation—is actually to make it better legislation. We have offered the Government a practical way to achieve that and it has thumbed its nose at us. I think it actually shows what scant regard the Government including the Minister Amy Adams has for proper processes and for getting the balance right between individual civil liberties and protecting the rights of the public both of which are relevant on this occasion.Finally can I end by saying that I am pretty fed up with the position that the Australian Government is taking in respect of New Zealanders living there. As others have said earlier in this debate it is true that we deport some serious criminals back to Australia but it is also true that if people live in the country from close after their birth then they are effectively Australians. Why is it that we are not ensuring that those people in Australia have all the rights of Australians including the right to live in their country after they are convicted of less serious offences? Why is it that they cannot get proper social support? They pay for social insurance like disability insurance. They actually pay and they do not get it—they are excluded from the scheme even though they pay for it. They cannot get decent support as students. Women who break up with their partners and have children in the country cannot take their children out of the country and back to New Zealand because of the Hague convention yet they cannot get the support that they need in order to maintain themselves and their children while they are there. Those things should be addressed properly by the Government. They are not—we do not hear the Government standing up for the rights of New Zealanders in that regard.Final point—I am still offended by the Prime Minister’s comments last week about our supporting rapists. It was a low point in this House a low point for the Prime Minister and particularly galling given that clearance and conviction rates in respect of rapes that occur in New Zealand are decreasing under the Police department under his watch.CHRIS BISHOP (National): I just want to start my brief remarks in this debate by picking up from where Mr Parker left off. I think it was as is typical for Mr Parker a learned contribution to the debate and there are a few areas I agree with him on.What I do disagree with him on is this issue as to whether or not the Justice and Electoral Committee will do a good job in reviewing this legislation. I am a member of that venerable committee which is chaired by Jacqui Dean and Alfred Ngaro next to me sits on that committee as well. We will do a good job in reviewing this piece of legislation. The Government does not have a majority on the Justice and Electoral Committee and actually I am surprised that Mr Parker would impugn the integrity of the committee because we will do a good job working that through.The other point I want to make is to respond to Mr Parker’s remarks about how the Government has scant regard for properly calibrating the balance between civil liberties and public safety. Actually if they read the section 7 report that the Attorney-General has provided to the House members will find that officials have done a very good job in a short space of time of drafting this bill in a way that strikes that right balance—so much so that only one very minute part of this bill conflicts unjustifiably with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and that is the section around DNA sampling.Finally I want to pick up on Mr Clendon’s remarks about how the New Zealand Parliament is the fastest lawmaker in the west. This is something that Geoffrey Palmer said a few years ago. That was definitely true back in the days of Rob Muldoon you know when we had the Economic Stabilisation Act. I think it was Sir Robert who said you could do anything in this country as long as you hang your hat on economic stabilisation. When we had that Act which allowed the Minister of Finance—who at the time was the Prime Minister—to literally do anything to the New Zealand economy through the stroke of a pen under regulations passed through the Executive Council that was certainly true but that has been repealed. We now have MMP and so it is a lot harder for Governments to do things.But it is certainly true—and this is why this is relevant to this bill—that every legislature around the world retains the ability to do things quickly. Every Parliament retains the ability to do things expeditiously under urgency—call it whatever you like. Every Parliament has that ability. Why? Because sometimes you get circumstances like we have before the House today. Sometimes it is necessary to move fast and pass laws. Sometimes it is necessary to get a framework and have Parliament move quickly to put that in place. That is certainly true when it comes to this situation. It has been well canvassed by members particularly on this side of the House as to why it is necessary to move quickly. It has been well canvassed why we do need to pass this bill as quickly as we can. The officials have done a good job. And finally in closing this debate I want to say that this is a Government that stands up proudly for New Zealanders this is a Government that stands up for the rights of Kiwis in Australia and it is necessary that we pass this bill. And with that I commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I put the question I will quickly summarise a ruling that I made yesterday on the understanding that there are members in the House who wish to abstain from voting. Normally one can call for a party vote only when one is opposed to the decision but that unfortunately leaves us in a position where abstentions where there is not otherwise a division cannot be recorded. So what I did on the first reading and what I will do on this reading is that I will indicate that there is to be a party vote on this question.A party vote was called for on the question That the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill be now read a third time.Ayes 107New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Abstentions 14Green Party 14.Bill read a third time.Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment BillFirst ReadingHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I move That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. The Government has a long-established policy position on benefit stand downs as a way to encourage people to make provision for a short period without income before relying on State assistance. The policy intent has always been that stand-down periods are full calendar weeks without State income. To be very clear this means that a 1-week stand down is 7 days and a benefit would commence on day 8. Operational practice has always reflected the policy intent.Work and Income commences benefits on the day after the stand-down period ends. However there is a technical error in the Social Security Act that allows a benefit to commence on the day that a stand-down period ends instead of the day after. The error occurred as a result of an incorrect amendment on 3 June 1998 but unfortunately it was not discovered until May 2014. This bill corrects that error so that a benefit will commence on the day after a stand-down period ends. The change has retrospective effect to 3 June 1998.The error needs to be corrected quickly to firstly uphold the Government’s policy intent; secondly to ensure that previous ministry practice is validated; and thirdly to avoid any unintended financial cost to the Crown. The bill does however protect people from the effect of the retrospective validation if they have had a benefit commence on the day that a stand-down period ended before the amendment is enacted whether through a new grant or a review or an appeal process that commenced before the bill comes into force.The bill also provides an opportunity for people to seek a review of a decision about their commencement date if their benefit was commenced incorrectly since the error was detected on 20 May 2014 onwards. They can do this before or in the case of a benefit that commenced on or after 20 May 2014 after the bill comes into force up until what I am proposing 8 January 2016 if the Supplementary Order Paper I have tabled in this House is accepted by the House.This is a fair and balanced approach that allows beneficiaries to claim what they were entitled to under the law while mitigating the financial risk to the taxpayer. Initial data suggests that since June 1998 when the error occurred 2.7 million benefits have commenced after a stand down. We also know that if this is not corrected the ongoing additional cost is likely to be around $6 million a year for a technical error in law not a change in policy. The fiscal risk to the taxpayer cannot remain unchecked which is why we have separated out this change from the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill.I believe this bill takes a fair and balanced approach to correcting an error in the legislation. Beneficiaries will have until 8 January to lodge an appeal for any benefits granted from when the Ministry of Social Development became aware of the issue in May 2014.I also want to take this time to acknowledge Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni who came to me when the issue was raised at the select committee with a constructive proposal for such a review process. We always want to be able to work across party lines on issues such as this. This error went undetected for 17 years across a number of Governments so it is fitting that we are able to work together on a balanced and fair solution. I commend this bill to the House.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I would like to first point out that we have made an attempt to work with the Government on some changes here. We were disappointed in September when we realised that the Government was planning to retrospectively change the law in relation to the issue of historical underpayment of welfare entitlements via the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. That issue was not fit to be in that bill. Concerns were raised with us by beneficiary advocates about the fact that they felt it had been hidden in there as a way to disguise what the Government was attempting to do.Since we did write to the Minister for Social Development in September after realising that that clause was in that piece of legislation there have been conversations and letters backwards and forwards between us and the Government about what changes it has been planning. There are some elements of what it is attempting to do that we would say are better than what it had originally planned but there is one major element to this piece of legislation that we cannot support and I will go into that in detail shortly.The exchange between us and the Government has been going on since September. On 15 October I met with Minister Anne Tolley and she showed me a draft of the bill. Not long after that I wrote to the Minister and highlighted our concern that if the bill was put through under urgency there was no application period for those who had been underpaid from 3 June 1998 to 20 May 2014. This bill does take into consideration those who have been underpaid since May 2014 to September 2015 because the Government recognises that it was aware of the technical error and so feels that those people should have the right to be able to make an application or a claim so a window of opportunity has been provided for them. But there is no window of opportunity for all of those people from 1998 to May 2014 to be able to have that same window of opportunity to make a claim. I just saw a National MP shaking their head like: “That is unnecessary.” Actually it is necessary to provide people with that natural justice. The Government says it is a technical error but we in this House know and everyone out there across New Zealand knows that when money is owed to the Government it is chased relentlessly. The point here is that actually when the shoe is on the other foot the same thing—natural justice—should prevail.I want to give a recent example where the shoe was on the other foot and the Government was seen to chase New Zealanders relentlessly for cash and that is in respect of the Novopay disaster. Only a week ago we saw in the media that the Government has now moved to get debt collectors involved in chasing up the $1.8 million from almost 2000 school staff who were overpaid by Novopay. The education sector was put through hell with the Government’s botched-up Novopay debacle. Some were overpaid some were underpaid—some were underpaid for months.Peeni Henare: Some weren’t paid.CARMEL SEPULONI: Yes. Of those who were overpaid more than 80 percent of them have repaid that debt but in this instance because it was money owed to the Government the Government has demanded that that money be paid back. The shoe in respect of this issue that we are talking about today is on the other foot.There are a number of people out there who justifiably should have the right to make a claim. It has been brought up that there would be thousands of people who would be entitled to make a claim. The chances are—from the conversations I have had with people—many people would not actually put in a claim. It might be 1 day over the last 17 years that they are entitled to but there are certain pockets certain workforces where actually there could be something significant that was lost here. We have been talking to our teacher-aides teacher assistants some of whom go in and out of employment four times a year some of whom have stand-down periods for benefits four times a year and some of whom have been providing that teacher-aide service and working in our schools for several years not just 1 year. We respect the job that those people do and believe that they should have a window of opportunity to make a claim. Other workers that we have had discussions with include seasonal workers who are in and out of work and on to benefits with stand-down periods. They should have the right to make a claim. People who are in and out of temporary work should have the right to make a claim.We know that many people would not take up the opportunity to make a claim but natural justice should prevail and they should be given that opportunity. We have put up Supplementary Order Paper 142 which we think is a fair compromise here. That would provide a small window of opportunity for people to be able to make that claim as we have suggested should be done. The Supplementary Order Paper that I have put up delays the commencement of this bill for 6 weeks so that there is that window of opportunity for those who are underpaid by a day or more depending on how many times they were stood down between 1998 and May 2014 to put in that claim.We do not think it is asking too much. We think fair is fair. We know that when money is owed to the Government it is chased up relentlessly. When the Government owes people money it should not have the right just to retrospectively change the legislation so that it takes away the right of New Zealand citizens to make a claim. We are pushing hard for that amendment and asking that the Minister and the National Government consider supporting that Supplementary Order Paper that would delay the commencement date of the bill to enable people to have a window of opportunity to make a claim. Jono Naylor is laughing. I do not actually think it is a funny matter Jono Naylor.We have had a few other issues highlighted in the media recently that really do show up the hypocrisy of the National Government in respect of this issue.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No that is not a word that can be used. The member will withdraw.CARMEL SEPULONI: Apologies.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am sorry. The member will withdraw. I did not require her to apologise.CARMEL SEPULONI: OK thank you. I do not mind apologising. This really does highlight—what is another word for it? [Interruption] It does highlight the inconsistencies of the National Government. So here we have some of the potentially poorest members of New Zealand society who are now going to be denied the right to claim for $27 or whatever it might be for the day that they were underpaid by the Government after a stand-down period. The inconsistencies are highlighted when we see that we have a Minister for Social Development who does not want to pay that amount of money to those people who are entitled to make a claim but does want to pay $3000 to Paula Rebstock per day for her role as chair of the Child Youth and Family review panel. We have a Government that does not want to pay out people who are underpaid in their benefit for a day and yet we have got a Government that will engage in extravagant spending like the $500 sheep repairs for the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment the $26000 Christmas party for that ministry a $140000 TV screen hair straighteners in the bathrooms an $11 million New York apartment a $26 million flag referendum that no one in New Zealand wants and potentially pandas for Wellington.It does show up inconsistencies with the Government’s approach to New Zealand citizens and all we are asking is that the Government provides a window of opportunity for these people to make their claim and that the Government delays the bill by 6 weeks so that these people have that window of opportunity to do that. Thank you.ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a first call on this the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill going through all stages under urgency. The point I want to raise—as the previous speaker Carmel Sepuloni has talked about—is that the issue is this has been a legislative error since 1998. It goes some time back so I think there needs to be some cognisance that the issue of responsibility and liability probably goes a long way back. However we are at this point where we do need to address a critical and a technical issue where the legislation does not follow policy. I just want to put that on the record. Although we can talk about the responsibility and the liability of this Government which it is taking under urgency we also remind the House and those who may be listening that this is an issue that has been a legislative error since 1998. I want to make that point really clear. We are taking responsibility and this is what needs to be done.I do want to acknowledge the previous member too. She did also make petitions and inquiries into this issue under a previous bill. I know that it was also due to her persistence in trying to get us to a point where we could address this issue. But I also want to acknowledge the Minister for Social Development who herself has also taken on the role of responsibility to ensure that we progress this bill under urgency because of the concerns that there are. I want to talk about some of those concerns as well. We must act quickly to mitigate the increasing financial and legal risks that this technical error poses to the affordability of our welfare system. I think that is quite critical and it is important as well.One of the issues too that comes up is that the tax reduction and social policy legislation from 1996—and I know that people out there will be riveted to hear about this—contained an error that technically provides for benefit and stand-down periods to end a day earlier than intended. So there is the technical aspect that this bill is trying to address. Again I want to go on record as commenting on that. That is what this bill is trying to address.The other aspects I suppose and the concerns that have been raised by the member in her speech are around the impact on beneficiaries. The bill protects people from the effect of a retrospective validation. If they have had a benefit commence on the day that a stand-down period ended before the amendment is enacted whether through a new grant or a review or an appeal process commenced before the bill comes into force then any reviews relating to that period back to 3 June 1998 that are lodged prior to the legislative amendment coming into effect are allowed. This is to provide some sort of protection for those in that situation as well. There are a couple of other points. Those people affected can do this before or in the case of a benefit that commenced on or after 20 May 2014 within a 6-week period after the bill comes into force. The other thing is that these protection provisions are a measure of the Government’s good faith and do not negate the original policy intent that a benefit should commence on the day after a stand-down period begins.There are some other points I want to raise. The legal and financial risks of this error have been increasing so we are fixing the problem. We do acknowledge that it is a problem it has been a problem for some time and we do need to address this. In fact in May 2014 the Social Security Appeal Authority alerted the Ministry of Social Development to this error and through that alert and through that judgment it was important that it acted in the appropriate way. In May 2015 Cabinet agreed that a correction was needed with full retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 when the Tax Reduction and Social Policy Bill 1996 took effect. At this time the risk to the Crown was considered relatively low. A plan was put in place to correct the error that was established and amendments were included in the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill and that amendment bill is currently before the Social Services Committee. In the meantime the ministry practice is to continue to reflect the policy intent until the legislative correction is passed as it was considered that people should be able to get only the assistance that they were intended to have.I look forward to other opportunities to speak in the House on this bill as it goes right through all its stages under urgency. Again we first of all take responsibility for what was an error that goes some time prior to the time of 1998. It is a legislative error a technical error that needs to be corrected. The intent of the Minister and of the select committee and also hopefully of the House is that we will correct this error through having this bill go through the House under urgency. I commend this bill to the House at its first reading.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koe e Te Whare. Thank you for the opportunity to rise and take a call on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. Firstly I just want to raise the matter that the previous speaker Alfred Ngaro touched on: when does owing something to somebody become a “technical matter”? As my colleague Carmel Sepuloni pointed out in the case of an individual owing the Government it is not technical but the other way round; when the Government owes the individual it becomes a “technical matter”.We are pleased that the Government saw sense to take this portion of the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill out of that particular bill and craft it as a piece of legislation on its own because it is an important aspect and it is a stand-alone one-off situation that needs to be dealt with separately. There were concerns when this was discovered within the aforementioned bill that it would become a matter that would not receive the full attention that it requires.What we are concerned about are the rights of those who are seeking to make a claim and that their right to seeking those arrears has been curtailed for those people who may have been able to make a claim for arrears that have occurred between 1998 and the period halfway through 2014 when this original technical matter was found by the ministry. That is an important issue because it has not really been fully explained or justified why the ministry has decided on this period. I know that the technical matter was discovered at one point and the ability to fix it happened at another point but that does not excuse the ministry or the Government from looking at what was actually owed to those people from 1998 and having a conversation with them.We have had no information provided about what the cost of that might be. How many days are we actually talking about? There is no information to give us a real sense of what is going on here and how many people might be impacted on by this. In that case I find this really unfair. There will have been people who may be entitled to claim only 1 day but there are people who have for example seasonal work who may be on and off benefits on and off stand-down periods over the course of many years and who would be owed quite significant amounts of money. So in terms of that aspect of natural justice those people will not get an opportunity to make a claim whatsoever and that is technically unfair.So here we are in urgency again with a truncated process without the ability to get really really sound information particularly from submitters—people who may have a slightly different perspective and who should be given full consideration of those views. Yet again we are not able to take full opportunity to hear what those views might be. So there will be no full select committee examination but we do want to look at what people are already saying out there in the public about what is going on and I just want to quote from something that was in the Waikato Times—that illustrious publication. It says that “The Ministry of Social Development takes a dim view of benefit fraud.”—we all know this—“It has … about 100 specialists who investigate abuses of the benefit system or accusations that some welfare recipients have pocketed money” that they are not entitled to.So the overpayment of benefits is one reason why money might be owed and this can arise where changed personal circumstances affect a beneficiary’s entitlement. Underpayments are another matter. The Government can simply write a new law to validate the short-changing of beneficiaries as it is now doing to deal with the costly implications of serious maladministration. Yes this is a matter that has been discovered in recent years but it is not an issue that relates to just that time period within which that matter came to light. It is an opportunity to review more fully the implications for those people who may have been affected earlier on.Just in relation to the departmental disclosure statement—because there is no regulatory impact statement—I want to look at a couple of aspects: points 4.3 and 4.9 about retrospective effect. Point 4.3 states: “Provisions in the Bill have retrospective effect which could be seen as contentious as generally legislation should operate prospectively not retrospectively … The amendment to section 80BA [of the Social Security Act] to correct the commencement date of a benefit so that a benefit commences on the day after a stand-down period ends will be retrospective to 3 June 1998 in order to validate the Ministry of Social Development’s previous practice …”. However in point 4.9 we now note that: “To acknowledge that the Ministry of Social Development’s operational practice should have been amended when the error was discovered on 20 May 2014 clients whose benefits were commenced on or after 20 May 2014 may apply for a review of decision …”. That is the statement that I find of most contention. The date at which the error was discovered is the date from which claims can be made and that is blatantly unfair.Members of the beneficiary advocacy community such as Kay Brereton were very hopeful when the error was first discovered that the Government would look at the legislation being retrospective to 1998. Sadly she along with other beneficiary advocates is saddened to hear that the period has been brought forward to 20 May 2014.We are not likely to support this bill unless my colleague Carmel Sepuloni’s amendment is supported by the Government. Her amendment would allow a period of time 6 weeks in order for those affected beneficiaries to make the appropriate claim as they should do. This is right and we should allow that period for that to happen. I do not see any reason why the Government would delay that. It is certainly not giving us any indication that there is an issue with not wanting to pay what is owed to beneficiaries for that period of time yet we are not getting the indication that the Government would support that amendment. It is a fair amendment and it should go ahead. Thank you. I will have the chance to speak more fully on this during the bill’s passage through the House and I thank you for the House’s time.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to take a short call to stand in support of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I guess we are already at the start of what no doubt will be a somewhat arduous afternoon and evening based on what we have just had to listen to. We have heard that the core difference of opinion in respect of this bill is about what the policy intent of the stand-down period was. When that regime was put in place successive Governments going back a number of years—as you can see here back to 1998—always held the view that if you were put on a stand down when that regime was put in place it was for a calendar week. Everybody—those who were administering the law and those who were claiming under the law—held the view that it was for 7 days that you were stood down and on the eighth day you stood back up in terms of accessibility for a benefit. Everybody assumed that that was indeed the law that we were working to.So to have the conversation here around broad natural justice now for those before May 2014 where everybody could be available for further review and potential addition for money that they were potentially excluded from—to me that misses the point. If you have a policy intent that is clear and you have successive Governments that have acted accordingly then that ultimately has to be at the core of this debate. Of course when you have had—as we have had—a ruling in May last year that identified comprehensively that this was actually a technical error and that technically under the law as it was written it should have been paid on the seventh day as opposed to the eighth day as everyone had assumed that it should be then clearly this legislation is required. It is required under urgency as we have all collectively agreed today and you need to apply some natural justice.Therefore what the Government is proposing in this bill where you provide opportunities for those from that day forward to when this legislation comes into effect—actually 7 weeks beyond that even—I think is a particularly generous approach. I think it is fair-minded and it gets the balance right between ensuring the original intent of this legislation is upheld—and that we make it absolutely clear through retrospective legislation that we are going to have in law what everyone assumed to be the case all along—and having a process for those who were in a review prior to May last year and for those who have subsequently identified that there is a particular issue. I think that is fair legislation. I look forward to having a sensible debate around that policy intent being confirmed by legislation here over the next few hours. I very much support this bill through the stages and commend it to the House today.JAN LOGIE (Green): The Green Party opposes this bill which seeks to retrospectively remove the legally established rights of New Zealanders for the primary purpose of saving this Government some money. I think this bill speaks to some very important points in relation to New Zealanders’ relationship with the Government around trust balance the rule of law and transparency.Over 1 million New Zealanders did not vote in the last election. Many of those New Zealanders were low-income New Zealanders. Today we heard from the Salvation Army that children in Auckland are living in cars garages camping grounds and emergency housing. We heard that this is due to a lack of housing in part but also because some people’s experience of Work and Income has been so bad that they will do anything to avoid going to Work and Income even if that means giving up their legal entitlements to support. These two things are calling us as a canary in the mine warning us of a very fundamental breakdown in trust between the Government and this House and a large number of citizens in this country.This bill does not work to rebuild that trust. This bill fundamentally erodes that trust further. The urgency that this bill is being brought to this House under is a fabrication and an abuse of power. There is no plane arriving tomorrow and there is no threat to the country; there are only people without much money lodging claims for an average of $80—$80 to which they are still legally entitled. There is only a Government that has since May last year knowingly denied people their legal entitlements and that now seeks to give those people only 7 weeks to be able to get their legal entitlements and that is knowingly denying anyone else before that point access to justice. This bill—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I apologise for interrupting the member but the time has come for the lunch break.Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.Debate interrupted.ObituariesJonah LomuHon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister for Sport and Recreation): I seek leave to move a motion without notice on the sudden passing of Jonah Lomu.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I move That the House mark the passing of the prominent New Zealander Jonah Lomu. The whole of New Zealand will be in shock and sadness today to learn of the sudden passing of the great Jonah Tali Lomu—the greatest No. 11 ever in an All Blacks side. Anyone who was living in New Zealand in the 1990s and the 2000s would not have failed to notice the massive impact that Jonah Lomu had not only on sports fans but on the wider community in this country. He was a man who came from very humble beginnings in Māngere South Auckland and who rose to become the first ever global rugby superstar. He brought a lot of joy to New Zealanders and no one will ever forget his performance at Cape Town in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup in 1995 when to the great delight of all New Zealanders he scored four tries against the English ran right over the top of them and asserted our primacy at the top of the rugby world at least for a week.Jonah Lomu was a man whose achievements went way beyond rugby. He was a major inspiration to a whole generation of young Polynesian men because Jonah proved that you could come from anywhere in New Zealand and make it to the very top. He was a man who was extremely generous with his time. He was a loving father. He gave generously to a wide range of causes and he remains an inspiration not only to those who follow sport but to anyone who is battling against the ravages of a chronic disease.There will only ever be one Jonah Lomu. In 100 years from now when they name the greatest ever All Blacks team he will still be the best ever No. 11.We mourn his passing. We know that he leaves behind Nadene his wife and two young sons and our thoughts at this time are with those two little boys and their mother.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): On behalf of the Labour Opposition I would like to join with the Minister for Sport and Recreation and extend our condolences to Jonah Lomu’s family—both to the immediate and to the extended family. Those of us who have been watching rugby for some time will remember him bursting on to the scene at the 1994 Hong Kong Sevens and then following that in 1995 when although there were four tries it was the one that sat Mike Catt on his backside that we will remember the most over a period of time.Jonah went on to earn a total of 63 All Blacks caps over his career. He played for a number of Super Rugby teams. I think the Minister is correct to say that a combination of international television Sky Sport and the predominance of Adidas frankly meant that he went from being one of our stars to a world star. That was something that I think was really important especially given the fact that he was a Wesley College old boy and from South Auckland.I think it is also appropriate to place on the record our thanks to Grant Kereama for donating his kidney for extending Jonah’s life and the quality of his life. I do not totally agree with the Minister as to this being a major surprise. I think that those of us who saw him in the stands in the telly shots during the Rugby World Cup recently saw a frailness that we had not seen for some time and that was to a certain extent foreboding.The Labour Opposition supports the Minister and extends our condolences to Jonah Lomu’s family.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I rise on behalf of the Green Party to join others echoing the comments made by the Minister and by Trevor Mallard expressing our sadness and condolences to Jonah Lomu’s family. Recently we have been celebrating the performance of our All Blacks team at the Rugby World Cup and of individual players within that team. But it is true that at no point either now or at any point in the past has any player so dominated the sport of rugby as Jonah Lomu did and will continue to do in people’s memories. Others have already mentioned that 1995 World Cup campaign and in particular that try involving the encounter with Mike Catt.Jonah Lomu’s fame popularity and influence have extended far beyond the sport of rugby and indeed far beyond the countries where rugby is played. He has become an icon for his strength skill determination and as the Minister says for his generosity also. He was often the last player to leave the field still signing autographs for kids until the kids had gone.I sit on the Health Committee and we have recently been hearing about the ordeal that is dialysis and that is an ordeal that Jonah Lomu has had to sustain for many years now.The Green Party expresses our shock and our sadness and our deepest sympathy to Jonah Lomu’s family and friends.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): As Muhammad Ali was to boxing so was Jonah Lomu to rugby. He was simply the greatest player we have ever seen and anyone who was lucky enough to be at the Sydney sportsground the time he first turned up—when he got the ball 70 metres out sent Damian Smith and three other guys flying got all the way to the corner and then gave the ball to Kronfeld—would have then heard the buzz which no one will ever hear again so loud of Aussie admiration which is not easy to get. An Aussie sports field will never forget how good this man was. To use Tina Turner’s famous song he was simply the best.It is a very sad day—a tragedy—because for much of his playing time towards the end he was never fit he was never really well and we did not see the best of him.Our condolences go out to his family; to the very special relationship he had with Tonga as someone whom they owned; to Wesley College his school which he made seriously famous because of his athletic prowess; to the people of Māngere in South Auckland; but above all to all his friends and admirers all over the world.Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party):Jonah Lomu te toa o Tonga Jonah Lomu te tōtara o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Jonah Lomu te ngākau ngāwari Jonah Lomu te pāpā ki ngā tamariki e moe! I nanahi nei i kōrero tēnei Whare mō te hunga i Wīwī i mate i te parekura nui i tū ki reira. I tēnei rā kua hoki mai ki te wā kāinga. I noho tata te hunga mate o te wā kāinga ki te hunga mate o tāwāhi kia taea ai te kī koutou o te mate haere haere whakangaro atu rā. Ka tangi ake ki a ia me tana whānau tana hoa rangatira otirā rātou o Tonga e tangi nei i tēnei rā. Nō reira kāti ake huri noa kia ora tātau katoa.[Jonah Lomu warrior of Tonga tōtara of the Great Ocean of Kiwa affable one and father to children sleep! Yesterday this House accorded tributes to the ones in France who died in the huge calamity that occurred there. Today we have returned to the home front. The death of the one at home is closely associated with those overseas making it possible to say to you the dead depart go forth and fade away. I truly mourn for him his family his wife and at the same time those of Tonga grieving today. So enough—my appreciation to us all throughout.]I join with other speakers in saying what a sad day it is for Aotearoa and it was a bit of a shock to see the news coming over.I will just bring one other perspective to the House today. As an old boy of the greatest rugby school in the country St Stephen’s School there are about three or four schools that my generation my school loved playing: Wesley College Te Aute College Church College and others. One was Wesley College and I in my day played Wesley College and because that was pretty much one of the closest schools to St Stephen’s School when it was alive it was always a very very hard game. I am glad that I was not around in the generation that Jonah Lomu came through because he brought a totally different perspective to the game that we have. In my day Wesley College played our third XV; in his day they played our first XV.I can say this from all the old boys of St Stephen’s School who think about the relationship that St Stephen’s had with Wesley College we think about our Wesley brothers and sisters and we think about Jonah Lomu’s whanau. We hope that the next couple of days will be easy on them as the whole nation mourns the death of a wonderful man who gave as the Minister said not only to the rugby world but actually to the nation by way of his donations and looking after our tamariki. Nō reira e moe Jonah Lomu te toa o Te Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa.[And so to you Jonah warrior of the Great Ocean of Kiwa sleep.]DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I will not reflect on the previous speaker’s choice of the greatest rugby school in New Zealand but I would like on behalf of the ACT Party to join with other leaders in expressing condolences at this very sad time to the family of Jonah Lomu and also to pay tribute to such a tremendous man such a freakishly great athlete such an inspiring leader and such a great ambassador for New Zealand. Thank you.Motion agreed to.Questions to MinistersiqsFinance Minister—Climate Change Policy1.JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all his answers to oral question No. 5 yesterday?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes.James Shaw: When he said yesterday that “it is going to take a long time for the world to heat up significantly and it is going to take a long time to take the measures that might mitigate that.” what did he consider to be significant?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would not want to get into a technical discussion here but I was just reflecting on the time spans covered by the climate change models which run out for about a hundred years.James Shaw: Would he say that it is significant or insignificant that global temperatures will have risen by 1 degree by the end of this year which is halfway to the agreed global limit of a 2 degree rise?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It was in anticipation of that kind of temperature increase that the previous Government with the then support of the Greens put in place the emissions trading system and the increase in the carbon price probably reflects the growing understanding that those temperatures are rising and that more mitigation will be required.James Shaw: Given that National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has found that the 2013 drought which cost the New Zealand economy an estimated $1.3 billion was longer and more severe because of climate change would he not agree that taking “the measures that might mitigate that.” is more urgent than he suggested yesterday?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think that one can have a discussion about the degree of urgency around climate change policy without relying on individual weather events where it can be difficult to connect one to the other or to suggest to the public that some particular policy might avoid droughts in the future—I think that is unlikely. There are debatable points about how much urgency and I guess that will be discussed at the Paris conference in the next few weeks.James Shaw: Given then that NIWA has also found that events such as the 2014 Northland rain storms which cost $18 million just in direct insurance claims are now twice as likely to happen because of climate change would he not agree that taking the measures to mitigate that is actually more important than he suggested yesterday?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member could go through a list of individual events that point in the direction that the climate is warming up but as he knows probably better than most it is a global system and the impact of global action is what is going to be important and that will be tested in the next few weeks in Paris.James Shaw: What advice has he received from Treasury about the economic impact of the more frequent and more severe floods storms and droughts that are already happening or anticipated to happen in New Zealand?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have not received advice specifically on that although when I have looked at advice from other sources it has been clear that there are some balancing effects and that in some parts of the world we are going to see for instance more food production rather than less. In fact Treasury’s advice is largely focused on the fact that New Zealand faces the prospect of giving up more economic growth per unit reduction in carbon output than any other developed country. This is one of the reasons why the Government is pretty careful about how it sets its targets because the economic cost to us of any target that is similar to another country’s target is higher.James Shaw: How exactly does this Government’s economic strategy of “more roads more cows and more oil” fit with the urgent need to reduce our climate emissions in the next 30 years?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I suppose in the first case we want to be pretty careful about the negative effects of “no cows no oil and fewer roads” which is the Greens’ policy. We are unlikely to go down that track but as I have said before to the member the principal tool for making complex trade-offs around climate change is the emissions trading system. It sends a price signal; that price signal is currently changing. It is a bit unfortunate that the Greens have abandoned what was a multi-party consensus and are heading off in the direction of a carbon tax.Ministers—Confidence2.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in all of his Ministers?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): Yes. They are competent and hard-working Ministers.Andrew Little: Why does he have confidence in the Minister for Building and Housing given he used ministry funds to host meetings designed to promote Parmjeet Parmar’s candidacy in a possible by-election?Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is absolutely ridiculous. The Government makes—[Interruption] The Government has a HomeStart policy that will help thousands of young New Zealanders into their first home and of course local MPs are turning up to promote the policy. We cannot help it if Labour is worried that Labour would lose a by-election in Mt Roskill.Andrew Little: Why did a ministerial staffer in Nick Smith’s office say in an email: “Parmjeet Parmar has also expressed a strong interest in hosting a road show as she is keen to raise a local profile in Mt Roskill in case of a by-election.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The National-led Government is in the fortunate position that its backbenchers like our policies. They know what they are and they want to promote them. I know that is not the case in the Labour Party but it is the case over here.Andrew Little: Why does he have confidence in the Minister of Education when her officials intervened to change a damning independent report on education for toddlers and babies from the Education Review Office?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Of course there is confidence in the Minister of Education who has done more than most Ministers of Education to focus on delivering the promises of public education to those who need it most and has the total backing of the Government in that respect. The member’s other allegations are just wrong.Andrew Little: Why will the Government not release to taxpayers a taxpayer-funded New Zealand Trade and Enterprise report about sheep that were flown using taxpayer funds to die in a taxpayer-funded corner of the Saudi desert?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I understand it the key information in the report is commercially sensitive. There is no aspect—[Interruption] The circumstances to which the member is referring have been thoroughly investigated by the Auditor-General and Cabinet is quite happy with the nature of those arrangements. [Interruption]Andrew Little: Well their heads are somewhere. Why are New Zealand taxpayers funding secret research reports for the private benefit of Saudi sheikhs?Hon Members: Sheeps?Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked; it will now be answered.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Maybe secret sheikhs and the sixth sheep. I do not know what the member is referring to.Andrew Little: So what steps will he now take to address the widespread and growing perception amongst New Zealanders that his Government is just corrupt? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: I did not hear the last word but—the Hon Bill English.Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is simply not true. This Government is more open and more transparent than any previous Government. More of its official proceedings are published more quickly; more data is more open to anyone. The Government is fully transparent.Services Sector—Productivity3.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Finance: What proportion of the economy is made up by the services sector and how can the Government boost the productivity of this sector?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The services sector now generates around 70 percent of GDP. This includes retail media accommodation construction food services and utilities and of course services also contribute to goods production. It is a large sector and therefore its productivity is an important driver of productivity in the economy. The Government of course is the largest provider of services making up a bit less than half of the services sector. So we focus as our contribution to productivity in the economy on the productivity of Government services.Jonathan Young: Why is competition important to the services sector and what steps is the Government taking to improve productivity?Hon BILL ENGLISH: A number of steps: sharpening competition law as announced yesterday; reviewing the Commerce Act to ensure that the sections preventing anti-competitive behaviour are appropriate; and improving the ability of consumers to drive competition themselves—for instance in the electricity sector but also significant pilots in the disability sector where people who have long-term disability can control their own budget and make their own choices. This is a bit disruptive of traditional Government services but it will improve the productivity of the services and the living standard for people with long-term disabilities.Jonathan Young: How have different components of the services sector been performing recently?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The latest BNZ productivity of services index shows that the services sector which makes up 70 percent of the economy has had 63 months of expansion and in September recorded the highest rate of growth since 2007. The ICT sector has been growing at about 9 percent per year since 2008 and ICT exports have grown at 14 percent a year over the past 6 years. Tourism has been performing particularly well. Total tourism spend in the year to March 2015 was $30 billion up more than 10 percent on the previous year.Jonathan Young: What are the main drivers of productivity in the services sector and what steps is the Government taking to lift them?Hon BILL ENGLISH: In its recent report Boosting services sector productivity the Productivity Commission identified five drivers: competition knowledge sharing through internationalisation new skills development innovation and quality regulation. The Government is taking steps in each one of these areas—in particular through the likes of the Rules Reduction Taskforce where we are taking steps to cut red tape that prevents innovation in services—and also through the reform of Government services to promote innovation and more efficiency.iqsOverseas Investment—Silver Fern Farms4.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes.Rt Hon Winston Peters: As the Minister of Finance can he comment on this astute observation about the Overseas Investment Office “They are under-resourced in my opinion.” and what is he going to do about it?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not sure who made that statement but many people could have and they are probably right. The Government is in the process of looking at an increase in fees paid by overseas investor applicants in order to improve the resources of the Overseas Investment Office.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can increasingly concerned Silver Fern Farms shareholders trust the Overseas Investment Office to forensically examine this latest deal when that same keen observer added “So when people say the Overseas Investment Office approves nearly everything put in front of it that’s true.” and what is he doing about it?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Silver Fern Farms shareholders can rely on the same process as anyone else involved in these transactions and that is that the Overseas Investment Office has to apply the law a law brought into this House actually by that member. If they believe that the law is not applied they can do what a number of other parties have done and that is take the Overseas Investment Office to court and get the courts to tell us whether it did its job properly.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If that same person who happens to be the Prime Minister says the Overseas Investment Office is under-resourced and that it approves nearly everything put in front of it and the Minister of Finance is ultimately responsible for its funding is he not alarmed that lawyers Harmos Horton Lusk formed the company that became Silver Fern Farms Beef Ltd a full year before proposals were put to shareholders; if not why not?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think I would characterise the connection between those ideas as looseness of association. The Overseas Investment Office has the task of looking into all the commercial arrangements around any application that is made to it and I am sure if there is anything nefarious in this one it will uncover it.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table a document showing the Minister has contradicted what Mr Key told the Chinese—Mr SPEAKER: Order! We do not need it further described. I need the source of the document and the date of the document.Rt Hon Winston Peters: It is a publication Rural News not widely available to members.Mr SPEAKER: Rural News—[Interruption]—Order! Rural News is very easily sourced by members.Grant Robertson: Which of his statements is correct: last week when he said that the economy is “going through another softer patch for the obvious reason of lower dairy prices.” or a few months ago when he said that dairy is a smaller part of the economy than most people think and that the overall performance of the economy depends on how the rest of the export sector does? Which is it?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Of course both things are right. As I pointed out in answer to an earlier question tourism is now our largest export and growing quite fast and the dairy sector is around 7 percent of GDP so there is no doubt the drop in dairy prices has had a negative impact on the economy. The success of tourism and ICT will have a positive impact on the economy.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why would he rise in this House and say that I am responsible for this legislation which is demonstrably false and why would the Prime Minister claim that he cannot change the law because New Zealand First will not support the tightening of the Overseas Investment Act when not one person from the National Party has ever approached us on this issue? Why make—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked.Hon BILL ENGLISH: They must have made the mistake of going to the Northland office of New Zealand First. The member has never been happy with the fact that the current Overseas Investment Act was written under his sponsorship. We are enforcing—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That is the second time that Minister has made that claim. I am not going to do the normal thing and call him what he is but the fact is that he should answer the question and not tell falsities.Mr SPEAKER: The Minister is responsible for his answer. He is answering it. If he is misleading the House then there is—Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well he’s not allowed to lie.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Then there is an appropriate means by which that can be addressed subsequent to the answer given. Does the Minister have anything further to add?Question No. 5 to MinisterGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave for this question to be answered by the Minister of Finance for whom it was originally set down.Mr SPEAKER: No—I was unaware that it had been transferred but if it has been transferred that is the decision—[Interruption] Order! If the member wants to stay to ask the question he had better not interrupt in that vein. The member can proceed if he so wishes; otherwise we can move forward. [Interruption] Order!iqsDairy Industry—Milk Price Forecasts5.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister for Primary Industries: Does he agree with the advice of the Prime Minister in regard to dairy prices made in November last year when the average price at the global dairy auction was US$2561 a tonne for farmers not to get too worried and that the price would bottom out soon and start climbing again; if so can he advise what is the latest average price at the global dairy auction?Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Yes. The very good point the Prime Minister was making is that global commodity prices are indeed volatile. They go up and they go down but the medium to long term outlook for dairy is very positive with growth in key markets in Asia. The latest average price at the Global Dairy Trade auction overnight was US$2345 which is 29 percent higher than the August low. As we all know prices have been affected this year by international factors beyond our control including growth in the overall supply trade sanctions by Russia and the EU lifting its dairy quota.Grant Robertson: In light of that answer does he further agree with the Prime Minister that “The biggest indicator you would see if there really was a long-term systemic problem would be a reduction in land prices”?Hon NATHAN GUY: Land prices as we know go up and down but the important point is that the long-term outlook for dairying is extremely positive. Just a few months ago the Labour Party was calling it a crisis in the dairy industry and actually prices are higher than when Labour was calling it a crisis.Grant Robertson: Does he now agree with the Prime Minister that there might be a systemic problem with today’s Real Estate Institute of New Zealand dairy farm price index noting a 19 percent fall in prices for dairy farmers?Hon NATHAN GUY: The dairy prices are volatile but the long-term outlook for farm prices is very strong because we have only a limited supply of land. As a result prices will go up and down. That is something that the Labour Party does not seem to understand. Land prices go up and down but the important point is that the medium to long term outlook for the dairy industry is incredibly strong. Farmers are taking a long-term view.Grant Robertson: Was the Prime Minister correct when he said: “The biggest indicator you would see if there really was a long-term systemic problem would be a reduction in land prices”?Hon NATHAN GUY: I agree with the Prime Minister’s comments but importantly what I have said is that you need to take a long-term outlook. That is why Labour day in and day out extracts a small subset of figures and gives them profile. In actual fact what the member should be doing is looking at the long-term outlook for dairying. Because we have significant free-trade deals with Asian communities and because we are supportive of the Trans-Pacific Partnership which that party will not even support which—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon Damien O’Connor: If global dairy trade is supposed to be global why have the seven other companies who have used the platform withdrawn leaving Fonterra as the only company trying to flog off its commodities on a Fonterra-owned but Boston-based trading platform?Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there is ministerial responsibility the Hon Nathan Guy.Hon NATHAN GUY: The Government does not have a role in deciding which companies participate on the Global Dairy Trade. That is indeed a decision for private businesses to make. For the member to stand up and say that it is all about Fonterra’s commodities well Fonterra knows that it has got challenges in front of its own business model and it needs to look at long-term value-add contracts.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Minister if the issue of trade is so important why is there a boycott to the second-biggest importer of dairy products in the world namely Russia which he goes along with as does the Prime Minister?Hon NATHAN GUY: I am surprised that the member is alluding in the House this afternoon to the fact that New Zealand should be there negotiating a free-trade agreement with Russia. That does not make sense—that does not make sense.Rt Hon Winston Peters: You were and you are. What a fool.Hon NATHAN GUY: The member should realise that just recently Fonterra has had some plants relisted into that market.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Oh! What did your Prime Minister say?Hon NATHAN GUY: The member does not seem to understand the wider geopolitical issues of right now. If the member was supportive of free-trade—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister will resume his seat.Investing in Educational Success Programme—Progress6.Dr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister of Education: What progress has been made on the Investing in Educational Success initiative?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): I was pleased to announce this morning that the number of communities of learning have more than doubled including more than a quarter of a million of our children and young people—and in every region. Communities of learning now cover 793 schools—almost a third of all schools—only 1 year after introduction. This is significant progress in this Government’s $359 million Investing in Educational Success initiative and reflects that schools across New Zealand are driven to provide the best possible educational achievement for their students. These latest communities include schools in Northland East Coast Taranaki and Wellington meaning that we now have every region in the country involved in this enormously exciting initiative.Dr Jian Yang: How do communities of learning assist students and teachers?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Communities of learning put kids and their achievement at the centre of a joined-up pathway from early childhood to schooling and on into tertiary options. They set common achievement challenges and receive additional funding to enable teachers and principals to share expertise and best practice to meet them. We know that quality of teaching and leadership are the biggest in-school factors for lifting achievement. The involvement of families and communities is also vital and communities of learning will help everyone to play a part in helping our kids to succeed.Chris Hipkins: How much of the $53.1 million underspend in primary education last year a significant factor in the Government’s momentary claim to surplus was due to delays in the roll-out of the Investing in Educational Success initiative?Hon HEKIA PARATA: The roll-out of this policy began on 1 July 2014. We have not yet completed this financial year. We are ahead in terms of the numbers forming but we are being very prudent with the resources available.Chris Hipkins: It’s not what the annual report says—read the annual report.Hon HEKIA PARATA: I do read the annual report and I think we commended it to you in the written parliamentary questions.Question No. 7 to MinisterJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet because we are about to hear a point of order.JULIE ANNE GENTER: I seek leave to have my question transferred back to the Minister of Finance as he is ultimately the Minister responsible for the funding of rail infrastructure.Mr SPEAKER: I will not be putting the leave. Can I ask members to please have a look at Speaker’s ruling 169/5. Does the member wish to continue?iqsTransport Infrastructure—Railways7.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Transport: Does he agree with the Secretary to the Treasury that “there could very well be some merit” in evaluating and funding rail infrastructure on the same basis as State highways and other transport infrastructure?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Yes to some extent although I note it was a very qualified statement by the secretary.Julie Anne Genter: Why is rail infrastructure not eligible for funding from the National Land Transport Fund when it benefits road users and the country as much if not more than highway expansion and also decreases carbon pollution?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: It does in fact receive money from the National Land Transport Fund—just last week I was at a park-and-ride opening in Ōtāhuhu—but primarily rail is funded from the centre through Crown appropriations.Julie Anne Genter: Why is his Government spending over $1 billion a year on highways—and that funding is ring-fenced—with low economic efficiency that increases carbon pollution when it could be investing that money in the rail network which complements the road network moves freight more efficiently and reduces pollution?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The reason we invest so heavily in roads is that they are great for the economy and for people but we also invest and have over the time we have been in Government billions of dollars in rail. We have got a proud record of that.Julie Anne Genter: Is he aware of any country in the world besides New Zealand that is looking at scrapping electric trains and replacing them with diesel trains because of lack of funding?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I would have to do a Google search.iqsHomelessness—FamiliesPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): My question is for the Minister for Social Housing—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am very tempted to be asking that Minister to leave the House. The question has been called. There is no need to interject like that.8.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Social Housing: Is she embarrassed that families are living in cars?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Housing): No but I do not think it is acceptable for people to be living in cars and that is why the Government is pursuing a social housing reform programme to increase the number of social houses.Phil Twyford: Will she commit to a nationwide strategy to end homelessness properly resourced with houses and the funding for support services to help people get their lives back on track?Hon PAULA BENNETT: That is simply what we are doing with our social housing reform programme.Phil Twyford: Is she seriously describing the current policies and funding commitments as a nationwide strategy to end homelessness?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I certainly am and I certainly also see it as a way to make sure that we are looking after New Zealand’s most vulnerable not just in homelessness and those going into State houses but equally in affordable housing—making sure that people have opportunities on the housing continuum from $2.5 million in just the last few months on emergency housing through to 20 percent social housing on Crown land through to a number of other measures that we take seriously.Phil Twyford: When almost half of our homeless are children how can she justify allowing so many of them to remain on the streets?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I am not justifying anything. What I am saying is that we have a social housing reform programme that is seeing success that we need to have more of it that it is unacceptable for those children to be living in those circumstances. If you take Auckland alone you have got a population increase of around 40000 in just the last 12 months. As we know the building of new homes is not keeping up with that population increase. However we are seeing a record number of building consents since 2009 and we are equally seeing more than 800 houses for Housing New Zealand contracted out and under construction just in the next 12 months.Phil Twyford: Is she ashamed of the fact that if National stopped its State house sell-off and used the 2000 vacant State houses it would be enough to house the homeless but she just does not have the commitment to do it and if she is not ashamed of that why—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked.Hon PAULA BENNETT: I think it is good that we get a few facts on the table. Housing New Zealand houses are at the highest occupancy they have ever been at at 98 percent. Equally with those 2000 houses that are vacant we have—Phil Twyford: 1000 fewer on your watch.Hon PAULA BENNETT: Can I just give you some answers because you are asking the question. Three hundred and twenty-two of them are vacant because of meth contamination. We have also reduced the vacant turn-round times significantly: from the 50 days that it used to be to an average now of 34 days. We are doing the work that needs to be done because the member is the first one to say that these houses are cold and need to be refurbished. So between the vacancies we are actually refurbishing them and doing exactly what is needed. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I say to both members that if they want to have a further conversation go to the lobbies.iqsPaparoa National Park—Pike River Memorial Track9.JOANNE HAYES (National) to the Acting Minister of Conservation: What are the benefits of the Pike29 Great Walk and the extension of the Paparoa National Park that takes effect today?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Acting Minister of Conservation): The 3971 hectare extension to the Paparoa National Park ensures that the mine site is properly respected but is also accessible for the families and loved ones of the 29 miners. It is also a significant gain for conservation in that it includes rich podocarp and beech forests and is home to the great spotted kiwi to whio or blue duck to kaka and to kakariki. The new track is the first Great Walk in more than 20 years and the only one exclusively on the West Coast. It makes up stunning views from the limestone gorges of the Pororari Valley stunning views from the Moonlight Range of the Tasman Coast and the Southern Alps and it also will give people an experience of the rich mining history of the West Coast through to the community of Blackball.Joanne Hayes: Who initiated the idea of the Pike29 Track and what will be the next steps from here to create this new Great Walk?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The track was first proposed by the Pike families group and its spokesperson Mr Bernie Monk. I visited the site and met with the families both in person and in conference calls and there was overwhelming support for the venture albeit it is inevitable across such a group of families that there will be some differences of view. The track will require changes to the Paparoa National Park Management Plan and consultation on that will begin shortly. The Department of Conservation will also start the process of design and procurement. Cabinet has provided a budget of $10 million for the track to be constructed as well as ongoing maintenance funding of $350000 a year in the department’s baseline.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This question is set down to the Acting Minister of Conservation. I just seek some clarity from you as to the basis on which a Minister can be acting when the primary Minister is in the House.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I will allow the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I do know the answer.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It is not uncommon that if there is any possibility of there being any conflict of interest then a Minister will hand that responsibility to another Minister. That is the simple explanation. There is nothing being hidden here.Mr SPEAKER: And indeed the announcement made at the weekend I noted was in the hands of the Acting Minister of Conservation.iqsNew Zealand Trade and Enterprise—Saudi Agri-hub Report10.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Minister for Economic Development: Does the withheld NZTE-funded report on why most of the lambs died on the taxpayer-funded farm in the Saudi desert confirm or disprove the statement by Hon Nathan Guy on 18 June 2015 that he thought the lambs could have died in a sand storm?Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries) on behalf of theMinister for Economic Development: The information sought is commercially sensitive and was provided to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise with an obligation of confidence. I do not think it is in the public interest to provide it to the House. I would note that at the time the Minister for Primary Industries made it clear that he understood the mortalities could have been due to a sandstorm but that he did not have the full details. Brownrigg Agriculture issued a press statement later that day which indicated the mortalities were due to a rain storm and a range of illnesses.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would ask for your assistance. This is an area of public interest—funded by the Government overseas New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I have the point of order please.Hon David Parker: I think the Minister does have a responsibility to answer to this House and I would ask that you request him to do so.Mr SPEAKER: Can I ask the member to familiarise himself with Speakers’ rulings and particularly Speaker’s ruling 193/3 “Obligation to answer”. An answer must be given “if it can be given consistently with the public interest”. In this case the Minister has responded on two points: one it is not in the public interest; and two it is commercially sensitive. That is his opinion. It is certainly what he is allowed to say and it addresses the question.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There must be a point where those claims just are not credible and so what I am asking you to do—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. The Minister has given an answer. It may not be to the satisfaction of the member. My job is to see whether it has been answered and addressed in accordance with Speakers’ rulings. I have done that. I have gone so far as to reference it to the member. That is the end of the matter. Proceeding with further supplementary questions is the best way forward for the honourable member.Hon David Parker: If it was not a sandstorm in the desert that killed the lambs does the report show whether poor maternal ewe health caused by heat-stress or an unsuitable diet contributed to the 80 percent lamb death on the farm in the desert funded by the New Zealand Government?Hon NATHAN GUY: On behalf of the Minister I have not seen the report so I cannot answer the details of that.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Standing Orders are clear that when Ministers come answering on behalf of other Ministers they should inform themselves of the details. Also this is the Minister for Primary Industries who was willing to answer questions at the select committee and yet comes here contriving to be ignorant of the answers.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Very very soon we will be moving to the next question. The Minister is responsible for his answer. If he rises and says he has not seen that particular report then I must accept his word. If the member has other information or feels that this is a case of misrepresentation then there is a very appropriate course of action but it does not involve raising it on the floor of the House. We will proceed with further supplementary questions—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. We will proceed with further supplementary questions but if there are any more of what I consider to be pointless points of order I will not hesitate to move to the next question. I am trying to assist the member but he must accept the answers that are given if they are in line with the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to the primary question which references the report in question that my colleague David Parker is asking about. In his answer to the primary question the Minister said that he did not believe it was in the public interest for him to make further comment on the report. How could the Minister make that claim if he has not read the report?Mr SPEAKER: That is for the Minister to judge and for the public of New Zealand to judge. That is the answer—[Interruption] Order! That is the answer that has been given by the Minister. It may not be satisfactory to members on my left-hand side. They will judge that. The public of New Zealand will judge that. The way forward is further supplementary questions.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. A fresh point of order.Mr SPEAKER: I would be grateful.Chris Hipkins: A fresh point of order and it is purely for a matter of clarity because the Minister is answering on behalf of another Minister. Is he answering that the Minister has not read the report or he as the acting Minister has not read the report? That is just for the purpose of clarity so that we can tailor our supplementary questions accordingly.Mr SPEAKER: The member in answering should have addressed the question by answering on behalf—he did not. I will allow the Minister to clarify because I would judge that he is answering that as the Minister for Primary Industries not as the acting Minister for Economic Development. But I will allow the Minister—Hon NATHAN GUY: I was answering on behalf of the Minister for Economic Development.Mr SPEAKER: Then that statement has been made.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I accept your ruling that according to early Speakers’ rulings it is for a Minister to decide whether something is in the public interest.Mr SPEAKER: Can I have a point of order then?Hon David Parker: I ask you to reflect on whether it is right for you to say that it is fair for the Minister to say that he had not read the report given that the report is in the primary question.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I did not say it was fair for the Minister to say he had not read the report. I am saying that the Minister did state that he had not seen the report. The Minister is responsible for the answer not me as Speaker.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: No we are now—Hon David Parker: There are Speakers’ rulings on this.Mr SPEAKER: Well if the member wants to quickly refer me to one I will have a look at it.Hon David Parker: Yes Speakers’ rulings say—Mr SPEAKER: Number?Hon David Parker: Yes I will give it to you.Hon Gerry Brownlee: 192.Hon David Parker: Speaker’s ruling 168/1 actually Mr Brownlee. Speaker’s ruling 168/1—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I require silence from my right-hand side.Hon David Parker: —says that “Ministers should be in a position to answer supplementary questions.” Given that this was about a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise - funded report the Minister answering on behalf of the other Minister should be in a position to answer questions about the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise - funded report otherwise it is pointless asking questions.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister is in a position to answer the questions—[Interruption] Order! He is then not answering them to the satisfaction of the member. That frequently happens in this House. Does the member have a further supplementary question?Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Is the Speaker now making a ruling—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon David Parker: I am asking for a ruling as to whether you are making a new ruling as Speaker that Ministers do not need to have read the report in the primary question and can now just say “I didn’t read the report therefore I don’t need to answer.”?Mr SPEAKER: No I am certainly not saying that and the member is now trifling with the Chair and wasting time. I am certainly not saying that Ministers can come to the House ill prepared. If they come to the House ill prepared that is for the members of the Opposition to judge and it is for members of the public to judge. If the member has a further supplementary question I will hear it but otherwise I am very tempted to move to the next question immediately.Dr David Clark: What a hopeless Government.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not want another interjection from that member this question time. It has been consistent—Hon David Parker: Supplementary—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet. There have been consistent interjections from the member. That will be the last one for this question time.Dr David Clark: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have ruled.Dr David Clark: Point of order.Mr SPEAKER: What is the point of order?Dr David Clark: I have been out of this Chamber for most of question time. I cannot accept that comfortably. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member. I have been hearing interjections from that area. I did not realise the member had not been here so if it was not him it is somebody in his very near vicinity and I immediately apologise to the member. [Interruption]Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: If it is a genuine fresh point of order I will hear it. But if it is the member continuing to waste the time of this House I will take a very very dim view.Chris Hipkins: A different issue. You just warned a member that if he would interject further you would ask him to leave the Chamber. While you were on your feet doing so there was significant interjection from the Leader of the House. Does the same standard apply to him?Mr SPEAKER: There has been significant interjection from both sides of the House through a number of points of order. To sort out one side at this stage I do not think would be appropriate. I should perhaps be dealing—[Interruption] Order! If I addressed Dr David Clark the wrong way I have apologised. That is the end of that matter.James Shaw: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you could help me with this. In reference to the Speaker’s ruling that you just referred to Mr Parker said that Ministers should come prepared to respond to the primary question and you said that if they were not prepared then that was a matter for public judgment. Does that mean that when the Speaker’s ruling says that they should come prepared that there is no consequence if they do not—other than the court of public opinion so to speak?Mr SPEAKER: If Ministers come illprepared and do not answer questions to the satisfaction of this House the public are also watching and they will then judge the performance of Ministers. It has been like that ever since I arrived here.Hon David Parker: Given that his Government was warned that flying heavily pregnant sheep to a farm in the hot desert was risky why did he allow his Government department to proceed with and fund this ludicrous plan?Hon NATHAN GUY: This is about a food security partnership and an agri-hub to showcase New Zealand technology. It is a prudent long-term investment that this Government has decided to make.Hon David Parker: Is it the ultimate shame of this whole saga that even after dishing out the $4 million bribe building a $6 million farm in the desert—Hon Gerry Brownlee: You can’t say that.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will determine that but if it is an inflammatory type of question it will possibly get an inflammatory answer. Carry on with the question.Hon David Parker: —and spending a million dollars flying sheep his Government has now admitted that the deal will not even get the free-trade agreement that he was wanting to get across the line completed?Hon NATHAN GUY: I refute those allegations. This is about a food security partnership an agri-hub and this is about showcasing 30 New Zealand companies and their goods and services and what we have to offer to the Gulf State. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the member for his supplementary question can I ask that members on my left-hand side also listen to the answer.Hon David Parker: How much extra trade with Saudi Arabia in New Zealand agricultural products and services has resulted from the demonstration farm in the desert excluding of course the $12 million of taxpayers’ funds that have already been spent?Hon NATHAN GUY: What that member does not seem to appreciate is that this is about a long-term investment—[Interruption]—that we are prepared to make a food security partnership showcasing New Zealand technology—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is just no point in continuing with an answer.Hon David Parker: Given the Minister’s recent experience with inflatable sheep did he consider using them because they might have a better survival rate?Hon NATHAN GUY: What we have seen this week is that Labour’s books are in tatty shape and they are very under-inflated.Flag Referendums—Cost11.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Deputy Prime Minister: Is he confident that the money spent on the Flag Referendum is appropriate and lawful?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): Yes.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Perhaps the Minister can explain how much was spent on this advertisement in the Air New Zealand inflight magazine last month containing only four of the options which meant it was a total waste of public money?Hon BILL ENGLISH: All the advertising and publicity is under the control of the Flag Consideration Panel to ensure that it is independent of the Government. I am happy to take that issue up with the member but it is quite possible that some of the material was produced before Parliament’s somewhat sudden and unexpected addition of a fifth flag. [Interruption]Hon Gerry Brownlee: Air New Zealand’s man on the inside.Mr SPEAKER: Order—to Mr Brownlee.Rt Hon Winston Peters: In your case it would be a blessing.Mr SPEAKER: Now we will have the question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why was it necessary for the Electoral Commission to advise New Zealanders that they should not cast an informal vote which is their choice if they want to have it or to spend in a desperate 24-hour flag-athon with Newstalk ZB and the New Zealand Herald such huge amounts of money just because they are two leading media handmaidens in New Zealand?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not sure just what the member is referring to but I do not think there is any question about the lawfulness of the spending as he asked originally.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can he explain to New Zealanders why there is no silver fern in any of the alternative flag options or is this a deliberate deception given this is Fraud Awareness Week?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not want to oversimplify the explanation but the reason there is no silver fern in the alternative flag options is that there is no silver fern in the alternative flag options.iqsFood and Beverage Industry—Sugar and Food LabellingMr SPEAKER: Question No. 12—Ian McKelvie.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): My—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order!IAN McKELVIE: Apologies Mr Speaker. I cannot hear myself think. My speaker is to—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are nearly there. One question to go. Question No. 12—Ian McKelvie.12.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister for Food Safety: What initiatives has the Government put in place to encourage the food and beverage industry to reduce the sugar content of their products?Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for Food Safety): Last year the Government introduced voluntary front-of-pack labelling called the Health Star Rating system. These labels make it easy for shoppers to understand the nutritional value of the food that they are buying so that they can make healthy choicesmore easily. This has created a competitive environment in which the industry has reduced sugar in order to obtain more stars.Ian McKelvie: How has the industry responded to this labelling system?Hon JO GOODHEW: Very well. Already there are more than 600 products on supermarket shelves. They are using these labels already. The number of products being rolled out with new labels is growing so fast that the product lists are almost out of date when I receive them. Well over 1000 products will be on the shelves by the end of the year and that will continue to increase as the phasing-in periods for the new labels come along. Very important more than 95 percent of all juice and non-alcoholic drinks will soon have the Health Star Rating labels and our two largest supermarket chains are rolling the labels out on their home-brand products and the bulk bin sections of their stores.Ian McKelvie: How are these labels encouraging the food industry to reduce the sugar content of these products?Hon JO GOODHEW: The voluntary system has encouraged food businesses to look carefully at their recipes in order to reduce sugar fat and salt to improve the nutritional content. Many of our staple products like breads and cereals now contain less sugar. This is just far too much good news for the Opposition to possibly contemplate it seems. Due to this initiative 70 percent of all breakfast cereals have been reformulated to reduce sugar content—and they did it voluntarily members of the House. Nestlé last night announced on television—Mr SPEAKER: Bring the answer to a conclusion.Hon JO GOODHEW: —that it has doubled the fibre level—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer is going on too long.Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment BillFirst ReadingDebate resumed.JAN LOGIE (Green): As the bells rang I was speaking to the point of the importance of trust between the people of this country and the Government and indeed this Parliament. This bill in front of us going through this House under urgency I think creates the risk at the very least of giving New Zealanders the impression that the first rule is that the Government is never wrong and when the Government is wrong see rule No. 1: the Government is never wrong. And I want to say very clearly that I do not want to live in that society. I want to live in a society where as a Parliament we seek to strengthen—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I am sorry to the member. Those who are leaving the Chamber please do so quietly and as quickly as possible so that in fairness to the speaker we can all hear.JAN LOGIE: As I was saying I want to live in a society where as a Parliament our focus is on strengthening the people’s trust in the Government and public institutions and where we do our best to protect the rule of law and the human rights of everyone in this country. There are some very significant principles at stake with this piece of legislation. I have already spoken to the principle of trust and quite significantly connected with that is the principle of balance.Last year this Government in this Parliament passed a piece of legislation to strengthen Work and Income’s requirement to recover debt from beneficiaries. It did this in response to court rulings that suggested the human rights of beneficiaries to shelter and food may actually have primacy over Work and Income’s right to reclaim debt. I want this House to think about that—that when the court said the human rights of New Zealanders may take primacy over the Government’s fiscal agenda this Government came to this House with legislation that said: “No our fiscal priorities need to take priority.” This House passed legislation that undermined people’s human rights to shelter and food. And now here we are about a year later in this House when the Government has been told by the courts very clearly over year ago that it is misapplying the law and denying people money that they are entitled by law to access and the Government is saying: “Oh we made a mistake. I know the courts think we owe these people this money but actually we’re retrospectively going to rule out that right and deny people that money.” I think that raises some pretty major questions of trust and balance.I want to talk this House through the process as it has happened as I can work out—the time line. The law was introduced on 3 June 1998 and section 80BA(4) of the Social Security Act states that if a stand-down period applies under this section benefits commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends. The day on which the stand-down period ends is the day on which the benefit commences and yet somehow for 18 years the Ministry of Social Development has been commencing the benefits on the day after the stand-down period ends. That is a pretty clear piece of legislation—benefits commence on the day the stand-down period ends—yet for 18 years despite reviews of legislation that piece of legislation has been misinterpreted.We have been hearing from the Government that well that was a technical error and that there was always the intention that the stand-down period be a week and that benefits commence the day after despite the fact that the legislation says “the day on which”. I have asked the Parliamentary Library to go through the debates at that time in 1998 to consider where the debate was and whether there were some points raised in the debate that would back up what the Government is telling us. The library could not find one reference that backed up the Government’s perception that this was not the intent of the law. We have nothing on record that backs it up.Then in May 2014 we had the courts establish that Work and Income was incorrectly interpreting the law. That is well well over a year ago. That practice of misapplying the law has continued until 29 September denying people what they were by law legally entitled to. It seems to me very worrying that despite there having been two court cases reinforcing that law and—as we heard from a previous speaker Alfred Ngaro—Cabinet having considered the fact of those court rulings Work and Income still refused to implement the law. It chose to act illegally until about 2 weeks after this came to the media’s attention.So we have court rulings—two court rulings—we have a Cabinet consideration and nothing. There was a decision and there were choices not to apply the law to beneficiaries as it was written. I can assume it was only because Work and Income did not think that beneficiaries would have any public support to back them up on accessing their legal rights until the matter managed to come to the attention of the media—through advocates raising this in a select committee. The Minister for Social Development said to me that she was not aware and then we get to a very significant problem of a major breakdown between Minister and department.DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. In its essence it is a rather simple bill in so far as it wants to change one section of the principal Act. I would just like to read out part of the general policy statement which is in the explanatory note of the bill: “This Bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to correct with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent that a benefit commences on the day after a stand-down period ends as opposed to the day on which the stand-down period ends.” In other words as the Minister has said and as other members have said this bill corrects a technical error in law. It is not a change in policy. That is the basis on which and the reason why New Zealand First will be supporting this bill.There are a couple of issues however and firstly I want to talk about the process that we are going through at the moment under urgency. There are a couple of issues about that process and one of them is the actual lack of communication from the Minister for Social Development and from the Government as a whole with regard to the change in legislation what it is going to look like the intent and even with regard to when we were going to go through the legislation and go through urgency itself. With legislation like this which is an actual correction in law that spans successive Governments you would think that communication was key.Why are we going through urgency in the first place? That is the second issue. We see if we put together the time line as Jan Logie did that in fact this change in legislation was actually placed in another piece of legislation and months later—in fact 18 months later—we now find ourselves under urgency. What are the reasons for that? I think it boils down to the fact that the Government was found out and wants to rush it through to ensure that it is not fiscally disadvantaged in the end.There is one key point that has been brought up by Labour and that is that the Government knew of this issue back in May 2014. In the departmental disclosure statement in the last paragraph under the heading “Any other unusual provisions or features” it says: “the Ministry of Social Development’s operational practice should have been amended when the error was discovered on 20 May 2014”. So the question that obviously comes out of that is: why was the operational practice not amended in May? As we can see and as I stated right at the start it is actually a simple enough bill and it is a simple enough change so why was it not changed and why was the issue not communicated to the beneficiaries and to the public back in May?As far as communication to the beneficiaries is concerned it is all well and good to give them 6 or 7 weeks—I think it has been pushed out now to 8 January—but again the lack of communication from the Minister is disappointing. However that time period is only as a result of the process we are now in—urgency. If we were not under urgency to get this pushed through there would be no need for a time limit on when people who got a benefit from May 2014 can apply.The other question actually is: if out of a matter of principle and fairness there is a 6 or 7 or 8-week period when beneficiaries who received a benefit from May onwards can apply why is everyone not able to get the back-pay for that? Why do they have to make an application to do so? In this day and age with digital computer records and everything like that going back to May 2014 there will obviously be records of all those beneficiaries who will be eligible for this back-pay. So why are we going through the rigmarole of making beneficiaries apply when it can be automatically done? That is a question that hopefully the Minister can answer during the Committee stage.The two main reasons why New Zealand First is supporting this bill are the intent of the original legislation and the intent of the stand-down period itself. It is easy actually to get dragged down an emotive pathway where we are seeing the effects of beneficiaries’ poverty. There is bill called the Support for Children in Hardship Bill going through the House and we have heard stories about children who are homeless in Auckland. We have got issues with child poverty throughout New Zealand and obviously those are big problems for this country. But this is not the problem here and this is not the legislation that we need to change to fix that problem. Labour and the Greens are opposing this bill based on that emotive pathway. So in reference to that I would actually like to look at the departmental disclosure statement again. It highlights right at the start that this bill amends the Social Security Act to correct “an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent …”. So New Zealand First’s stance is that if you take those beneficiaries from day one from 1998 and if the legislation itself was written to the intent of the bill—we know that it was not—those beneficiaries would have received exactly the same amount that they have already received.So if the legislative error was not there the beneficiaries would be no better off today than when the mistake was made. So we are correcting that and we have heard from Labour and from the Greens that the beneficiaries are owed money and that they missed out on a day but the intent of that original legislation states that they did not. And of course if the situation was reversed and the intent was for them to have the extra day and they did not of course we would be holding the Government to account on that.Also some have said that there is an issue with the retrospective effect. The departmental disclosure statement says that in this case the retrospective provisions can be justified to ensure that the Government policy intent is upheld that the practice and understanding that has been previously applied by the Ministry of Social Development is validated and that financial costs to the Crown that were not anticipated are avoided. New Zealand First agrees with that.I would just like to finish off with a 3 News article about this urgent Government bill that is going through to fix a benefit error. TV3 states that beneficiaries are being underpaid by 1 day. It is disingenuous to report that because that is not the case. Beneficiaries have not been underpaid by 1 day. The intent of the bill was fulfilled and that is why New Zealand First is supporting this bill.It has always been Government policy—in fact the Minister has said it too—that the benefit will commence the day after a stand down and that the stand-down period is a 7-day period. So it is not just the case under the National Government; it has been so under successive Governments. And it is a little bit contradictory for the Labour Party to oppose this when the policy intent was being fulfilled under the Labour Government too.I have got a few more things to say and I will say them in the second reading and in the Committee of the whole House but at this stage we will be supporting the bill.JONO NAYLOR (National): I would just like to acknowledge the contribution made by Darroch Ball because he did highlight the fact that this is actually a very technical bill and not one that we need to get too carried away on in terms of the wider impacts on families who are dependent on benefits or otherwise. This is a technical bill. There is a technical error in some of the drafting that needs to be fixed and that is exactly what we are looking at.Some people have talked about the fact that there was nothing compelling in Hansard or in the debates when the initial legislation was put in in 1998. I think the issue here is that you have got to look at the intent. When you have a stand down people would normally acknowledge that actually after a period of a stand down then that kicks in and not necessarily on the day on which it ends or otherwise.But there have been some conflicting ideas about this and so today through this legislation we are going to put it right. When you are putting things right you have got to make sure that things are in essence fair and practical and I believe the balance we have arrived at with this legislation is both fair and practical. It is not practical for us to for ever and a day keep taking people’s challenge of things going back as far as 1998 and so what we are saying is actually from the point at which this legislation comes into practice you will not be able to go back to 1998.However I think it is fair and reasonable for us to acknowledge that actually since May of 2014 perhaps things should have been done differently. So there is an option through until January this year for people to apply for a refund for where they have been unreasonably treated perhaps and that is exactly what will happen. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. I call Marama Davidson—5 minutes.MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Kia ora. This bill seeks to fix a mistake that recently came to light that found that the law was not being followed. The law was not being followed and people receiving a benefit were missing out on a day’s pay and that has been happening since 1998.What I would like to raise in this short call is that the law says that they are entitled to this—this is a legal entitlement. Retrospective legislation to deny people what is owed to them is I think an affront to the rule of law and when that affront to the rule of law harshly impacts on those already doing it tough then to me that is a stain on our moral society on a transparent society and on a society that has to be based on trust which my colleague Jan Logie has already referred to. The operational blunders have been raised often and rightly I believe.We go to intent again which I feel is a good point to raise. Firstly where does it say what the intent was? I think the onus should be on the Government to prove that. But secondly even though that was the intent the law was quite clear and so this is a legal entitlement that we should be upholding as per good lawmaking in this country. Some 10000 people have already applied to get what they are entitled to so this we know directly affects a huge number of New Zealanders and would help in numerous and meaningful ways.I know that the previous speaker Jono Naylor would prefer that we do not talk about them and that we try to ignore the stories of absolute hardship and also the stories where this would help and the stories where this would be an investment in our children—for example those who are homeless according to the report released today. Denying this payment is absolutely going to add to the hardship that too many are already feeling. For example the economy and the state of employment at the moment are up and down. They are tumultuous so people have needed to move in and out of employment for so many valid reasons.I know that in my own past as a mother of young children in full-time paid employment it was validly difficult trying to uphold that in light of huge costs. I had to keep trying to find a job that would enable me to work but would also properly cover my basic living costs. So that is a very real situation that many people face. You know that is the nature of our current employment market. It is precarious.Again I would like to support what Poto Williams has said. I also wanted to talk about our seasonal workers. Often the nature of their work is unstable. They are often in and out of these employment situations and this has undoubtedly hit them hard. Those stand-down periods have undoubtedly hit them hard.My last point is that I also stand—again despite what some members would like to ignore—to acknowledge the disproportional effect that this will have on Māori Pacific and migrant communities. I am asking for written responses to see whether we can also get a handle on how many children this payment would benefit. We are opposed to this bill. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The Hon Ruth Dyson—5 minutes.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I just want to commend Marama Davidson the member who has just resumed her seat for her contribution to this debate. I say to the member Darroch Ball from New Zealand First who spoke before her that I think he should have listened to her contribution and figured out that actually the law as written in 1998 did not make it clear that the way it was operationalised after that was in fact the intent of the law. Nothing in the Hansard records would lead one to assume that that was the case. But I do not think that there was a deliberate attempt either by the Minister at the time—who was the Minister in 1998?Carmel Sepuloni: I’m trying to find out.Hon RUTH DYSON: OK. I cannot recall who the social welfare Minister was in 1998 but I do not think the Minister at the time or the current Minister for Social Development or the department have made a deliberate decision to underpay beneficiaries—to start people getting their benefit a day later than they were intended to.This is an error. This is legislation interpreted 18 years later in a different way than it has been implemented. So that is not the challenge for this House to debate. In my view the challenge for us is to say: how should we fix what has been determined through the appeal process to be a misinterpretation of the law? So of course you have to say that either we are going to change our operation or we are going to change the law. The Minister has decided to have a bob each way and that is where I disagree with her.I think that it is fair enough for her to take a call as the Minister and say “Well we’ll start the payment the day after the stand down ends as we will do as we have been doing.” or “We will start it as the original law intended. We will leave the law as it is and start it on the last day of the stand down.”—that is the difference. That is where the 1 day comes from. But to then say “We’re going to change the law to the way it has been interpreted”—that is leaving all those beneficiaries with a day less of their payment than they would have had if it had been interpreted in the way that it was intended—“to retrospectively take that off them.” is unfair. It is saying “We interpreted the law wrongly for 18 years. We found out 15 months ago that we were doing it wrong but we are going to retrospectively take that entitlement off”—how many people? We do not know. It could be thousands. It could be hundreds.The Minister Anne Tolley sort of dismissed it in a radio interview that I heard. She said: “Oh it’s only a day so it won’t be very many.” Well actually over 18 years it could be quite a lot. If teacher-aides for example are employed term by term they may be on a stand down four times in 1 year and over 18 years that is quite a few days’ payment they would be entitled to. But the Minister has said: “Oh we’ve got to balance changing the law with financial responsibility.” Well I say actually our job is to comply with the law or to change it but not to change it retrospectively to suit—what? The Budget? Convenience?People were left out of their legal entitlement because of a misinterpretation and I do not think they should have that 1 day’s pay from their benefit taken off them by a retrospective law change. So that is where I strongly disagree with the determination that the Minister has come down on. Retrospectively taking away an entitlement is bad law. It is unfair it is wrong and I would not want my name to be marking alongside it. I do not understand if it is as few people as the Minister has said why she is happy to go along with it.So I think we should stick to the facts of this case. The idea that some have raised that there might be worthy beneficiaries and not-so-worthy beneficiaries—I do not agree with that at all. I think that is a disgraceful slide into value judgments which is not appropriate for this Parliament.The idea that Parliament should fix a misunderstanding only from the day that it discovered it is just plain nonsense. The courts would never do that. The courts would never say: “This is our determination and from now on you will interpret it.” The courts operate in a way of interpreting our law from the time that a law has passed. That is the standard that is set by our judicial system and I think it is a standard that this Parliament should follow.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the first reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. The matter being dealt with in this bill under urgency is a very urgent matter because there are a number of people who go on benefit each day and it is dealing with that number of people. This bill is to clarify the Social Security Act about the commencement of benefits and to ensure that the Government’s policy intent is upheld.This Government is committed to our welfare reforms. We know hundreds of people are getting off benefit every day because they are getting into jobs. When people go on benefit there is a stand-down period. The current practice—when I say “current practice” the practice I am referring to is the one that started in June 1998 and ran until 29 September 2015 because from 29 September 2015 we have changed the practice to reflect what is in the legislation. The current practice has been what the intention of the legislation was which is to start the benefit after the stand-down period finishes—that is the next day after the stand-down period finishes.So the current practice is in line with the intention of the legislation but if I look at the legislation it says that Work and Income people should start benefits from the last day of the stand-down period. So there is a big discrepancy in the legislation and the intention of the policy and it is important that the legislation reflects the intention of the policy. It is a great bill. I support this bill and commend it to the House.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I enjoyed that speech from the member Parmjeet Parmar. The senior Government whip Tim Macindoe was staring at her throughout I think encouraging her to take her seat. I guess now that the member does not have taxpayers’ money available to her to promote herself as a possible candidate in an upcoming by-election she is having to do it the old-fashioned way by using her time in the House to try to raise her profile in the event that she should find herself the National Party candidate in any upcoming by-election.The member also said that this is an urgent matter for the Government I guess as some way of trying to convince the House that this bill actually belongs in the urgency motion. Well if it was such an urgent matter for the Government it would have dealt with it somewhere between May 2014 and today. More than a year and a half since the Government realised that it had been breaking the law it is finally getting around under urgency to dealing with it—a year and a half after it realised it was breaking the law.I have heard members opposite say: “Oh this is just technical. It’s not such a big deal.” The last time I checked being ignorant of the law was not a defence for breaking the law. But even when the Government became aware of the fact that it was breaking the law it continued to break the law until it became public. So the test for this Government was not “Are we doing the right thing? Are we adhering to the rule of law?”; the test was: “Will this look bad for us on the front page of the Dominion Post?” When it started to look bad for it on the front page of the newspaper and on the 6 o’clock news only then did this Government decide that it was probably about time to start doing something about it. I think that goes to the motivation of this Government. If it can get away with it it will break the law. Only when it becomes politically dodgy for it is it actually prepared to do something about it.I actually do not think this is just a trivial matter because it actually helps us to understand the standards to which the Government holds itself. We have heard about the housing Minister’s office encouraging Housing New Zealand officials to involve Parmjeet Parmar—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is not in the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —in a roadshow because she wanted to raise her profile—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back to the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —and we have heard about a range of other matters that actually question the standards of this Government. I think the fact that it has brought this legislation under urgency more than a year and a half after it discovered it was breaking the law is just another example of the shoddy standards of this John Key - led Government.The other thing I have heard about why this is just a trivial matter is that for the people involved it is not a lot of money—it is just 1 day on the benefit. There are probably not many people involved although the Government cannot tell us how many people are involved. It cannot tell us what the cost of compensating everybody who has been affected by this breach of the law by the Government would be. I do not even think the Government has told us what the cost of the opportunity to seek compensation that it is offering will be. There is very little information for the House from this Government.But I want to challengethe notion—and other members have done this as well—that this is a small matter for everybody affected by this because there are a number of people and it is a growing number of people who move in and out of work on a regular basis. They are people who are in temporary work like seasonal work like fixed-term contracts and like casual work and people who get their work through temping agencies or labour-hire companies. For a lot of people these days they are moving in and out of work. Every time the work that they have comes to an end—whether it be because it is a fixed-term contract whether it be because it is seasonal work whether it is casual work that has come to an end—they then have to go through this stand-down period.The example that has been used a number of times particularly is of classroom support people. They have a number of fixed terms every year because they are actually employed only during the school term. For those people they are having to go through this stand-down periodfour or maybe five times a year. That is 4 or 5 days every year for many of them. We are talking about an 18-year period here over which maybe four or five times a year an individual may have been denied a day of benefit that they were entitled to under the law. So for some people—and I appreciate that it is probably not an enormous number of people—this is more than just trivial. Just because it is a small number of people—possibly; we do not actually know because the Government cannot tell us any figures. Just because they are not people who are a priority to the National Government does not mean that it is not very real for those people and it does not mean that we as a Parliament should not address that for them and compensate them for it. I think it is more than just trivial.Actually I think it raises the issue of just how relevant and appropriate this stand-down period as it is applied today actually is in the 21st century because the number of people who are engaged in this type of temporary work is growing and growing at a dramatic pace. Overall in the New Zealand employment market around 10.5 percent of workers fall into one of those categories of temporary workers—around 10.5 percent. OK so that is a significant number of people but only one-tenth of the overall employment market. However for the jobs that were created between 2008 and 2012 a full 28 percent of those jobs—28600 people—are actually in that form of temporary work. In recent years the overall proportion of people in these temporary work situations has grown significantly and that is a trend that shows absolutely no sign of abating at all.This issue of the stand-down period is actually one of those issues that falls into that suite of issues that we on this side of the House are talking about as part of our Future of Work Commission because the nature of work is changing. This is maybe a 19th century but probably not—very much a 20th century policy when overall the vast majority of people were in stable work with a set number of hours a week had long-term prospects of staying in the same job and were not moving in and out of employment on a regular basis. That is sadly becoming a thing of the past. The fact that it is becoming a thing of the past is not something that we should resign ourselves to and we as parliamentarians should be looking at how we provide employment security and income security for people. But we have to acknowledge that the nature of work is changing and this policy of putting people through a stand-down period especially those people who are on fixed-term contracts and especially those people who by the very nature of their work are required to go through a stand-down period a number of times a year—I think it is a well-overdue time for us to reflect on that policy and actually ask ourselves as a Parliament whether that is an appropriate policy in the 21st century.In a lot of ways I think this change is perhaps not the change we should be debating. We should actually be debating the question of how the stand-down period actually operates and whether it is appropriate. On this side of the House we do not see this as a trivial matter and we will not trivialise it in the way that members opposite have. This is significant and for the people who have been affected by it it is significant. We actually need to acknowledge that and treat this as a serious issue and try to actually get it right because some people have been severely affected—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry the member’s time has expired.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): We do not take this as a trivial matter at all on this side of the House. I think the reason we are debating this bill today is that the policy intent back in 1998 was very very clear and due to drafting errors or poor wording we have ended up with the legislation not matching that policy intent. That needs to be addressed for many reasons but not the least being a fiscal one. Although there has been a little bit of politics from the Labour Party in this particular debate I think the contributions from the Green members underline for those who were in any doubt that they certainly are not ready for the Treasury benches. It would be certainly a cruel and unusual punishment should they ever get the opportunity to be unleashed on us in that area.This is a very timely bill. It is very good to get it done at this point. It absolutely nails the problem that we have of getting the legislation lined up with the policy intent. I commend it to the House. Thank you.A party vote was called for on the question That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.Ayes 75New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 46New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.Bill read a first time.Second ReadingHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I move That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I want to reiterate the Government’s consistent and longstanding position on benefits and stand-down periods. The current stand down provisions in section 80BA of the Social Security Act first came into force in 1997. These provisions were based on the policy agreed in 1996 that benefits commence on the day after a stand-down period ends. This policy has never changed. The legislative error created on 3 June 1998 is a technical mistake not a policy change. However the result is that it provides for people to have an additional day of benefit payment that they were never intended to have. So the legislation needs to be changed to avoid unintended Crown costs but in effect that is costs to the taxpayer.We need to avoid unintended costs to the taxpayer but we are attempting to do this in a fair way. There are three separate provisions protecting people who have been able to receive this additional day or who want to lodge a review to receive it. This is a very reasonable compromise that provides a balance between clients’ interests and the financial costs of the error.I would like to take the opportunity to outline to the House the process that clients can now expect if this legislation comes into effect. Clients who have already lodged a review request—and I understand there are between 8000 and 10000 of those to date—will continue to have it processed in the normal way. These reviews can relate to a benefit granted back to 1998 when the legislation was amended. Those who have been granted a benefit after a stand down since the operational practice changed on 29 September 2015 will also be protected by this bill. This bill will also enable people who have been granted a benefit since the Ministry for Social Development was made aware of the error to seek a review. These reviews if my Supplementary Order Paper—Supplementary Order Paper 141 tabled in the House today—is passed by the House must be lodged by 8 January giving people 7 weeks to do so. Review forms are currently available online and at all Work and Income sites. They can be posted they can be faxed or they can be emailed. In addition to this the Ministry for Social Development has created an online form that can be submitted electronically and this will be available once the legislation has passed.I want to make it clear that these protection provisions are a measure of the Government’s good faith. They do not negate the original policy intent that a benefit should commence on a day after a stand down finish period ends. As I said earlier those seeking a review will have 7 weeks to submit their request for review and I think that this strikes a balance between what is fair to them and what is fair to the taxpayer. I commend this bill to the House.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I want to reiterate some of what I said in my first speech and then also just elaborate a little bit more on that. We have concerns about this bill because of the fact that it takes away the rights of those who would have been eligible for an additional day paid out of their benefit from 1998 to May 2014. The Government in terms of the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister was just talking about is trying to make allowances so that those who would have been eligible between May 2014 and September 2015—so that there is a window of time for them to actually put in a claim but she is ignoring everyone from before 20 May 2014.I can understand the Government’s immediate concern with that group that it is accounting for in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. I guess there is a sense of urgency there for the Government and probably some legal obligations and possibly legal ramifications if it does not do it. That is pointed out in the departmental disclosure statement where it is made very clear in section 4.9 where any other unusual provisions or features are discussed and it states: “To acknowledge that the Ministry of Social Development’s operational practice should have been amended when the error was discovered on 20 May 2014 clients whose benefits were commenced on or after 20 May 2014 may apply for a review of decision of that commencement date in the 6 weeks after the legislative correction is made and the retrospective amendment will not apply to their decisions.”So legally the Government should have done something immediately but it did not. And today we have heard National Government members stand up and say that there is a sense of urgency in respect of introducing this bill when there actually should have been a sense of urgency on 20 May 2014 when this error was discovered.So many members across the House have said that this is really just correcting a technical error in that the intent of the bill is being corrected and that that was always there. But actually none of us were there at that select committee. None of us or very few of us in this House were in Government at the time that the bill was going through so I find it really interesting that so many new members of Parliament—as new as me or even newer—are saying that the intent of the bill was clear. It would be interesting during the Committee stage to hear from the two members who are still in the House who I believe were on the Social Services Committee at the time in 1998 when this bill was passed and they are Gerry Brownlee who was deputy chair then and Annette King. We are looking forward to her contribution at the Committee stage.Chris Bishop: We all are.CARMEL SEPULONI: She is holding herself back. She really wanted to speak in the second reading but we have allowed Poto and Iain Lees-Galloway to take the next two speeches and Annette will make a contribution in the Committee stage.Chris Bishop: What about Ruth?CARMEL SEPULONI: Ruth was not on the select committee at that time. So that is our concern that those people are being denied the right to make a claim but also there are issues with this particular bill. We are disappointed that there is no regulatory impact statement for this bill.The Government’s secrecy around the retrospective removal of natural justice for those who are owed arrears between 1998 and 2014 is highlighted in the lack of a regulatory impact statement to accompany the bill. I know that there are situations where a regulatory impact statement is not required but given that even from the outside even for a person who is not necessarily that actively involved in politics there is a huge impact to this bill you would think that the Government would do the responsible thing and provide us with a regulatory impact statement. The impact really is that this bill will ignore the thousands of people who had stand-down periods between 1998 and 2014 and were denied at least 1 day’s pay and for those who were in and out of work they were denied multiple days of pay. So it is disappointing that there is not a regulatory impact statement.We have heard from the Minister about the fact that there was some attempt to negotiate around this. I want to acknowledge if I have not done already in the House that this error—yes it may have occurred when the legislation was drafted back in 1998 but the technical error continued under both National and Labour Governments. So of course out of good faith we did contact the Government to see whether or not we could work on this together to come up with a solution. A couple of the things that the Government did do were good; I will not deny it that. It took this out of the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill and has done it separately. That needed to be done. The Government has also made sure that there is a window of opportunity for anyone who was affected by this during the time that the Government was aware of it so from May 2014 to September 2015. That is a good thing.The only thing that we are concerned about as I said earlier is the number of people particularly those people who would have been in and out of work who stand to lose something from not being able to make a claim. The only thing we are concerned about is that the Government is still not providing an opportunity to do that. The easy solution is Supplementary Order Paper 142 that I have put up which delays the commencement date of the bill. It provides an opportunity for those people to be informed to get their papers in and to make a claim. It is only a 6-week delay that that Supplementary Order Paper is asking for but 6 weeks is enough time for people like Kay Brereton who has been amazing throughout this whole process—beneficiary advocates like Kay—to get the word around so that anyone who wants to make a claim is able to do so. I just want to reiterate that the chances are most people will not be bothered doing it but it is about natural justice and it is about making sure that they are at least given the opportunity to do so.I just want to perhaps touch on another couple of things in here—actually no I think I have covered everything off. I know that the Greens have put up a Supplementary Order Paper to delay the commencement date as well. Theirs is for 6 months ours is for 6 weeks but the intention is the same. It is to provide that window of opportunity for people to make an application and put forward a claim. I think the Greens have also got a Supplementary Order Paper that requires that the Government actually promotes or advertises it so that people are made aware of their rights and their right to make a claim during a fair process.I am looking to see what the Government does. I am disappointed in New Zealand First but we will talk to some of the other members—apart from Darroch Ball—at a later stage today. Thank you very much.ALFRED NGARO (National): We are not disappointed in Darroch Ball. I think he is a wise young man who comes from Liston College out in the west. I actually visited Liston College not so long ago and saw the principal there who said that they are proud that one of their old boys has become a member of Parliament so I think they are very proud of Darroch Ball. We are proud that he is a member of the Social Services Committee and makes a great contribution to the committee as well.Just in regard to the second reading of the bill I think there has been a lot said about the bill. It is a technical piece of legislation that is correcting something that goes back to 1998. I will keep saying that again because it has been some time since then. So I do not want to go over that as I have sort of laid it out in my first speech but I just want to talk about the issue around financial cost.Before I do that there was a comment by the previous speaker Ms Carmel Sepuloni around the regulatory impact statement. It was a good point. She asked why it is that we do not have a regulatory impact statement. In actual fact what has happened is that this piece of legislation has come out of the current piece of legislation that is before the Social Services Committee called the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. It is inside that bill that there is a regulatory impact statement which has the issues that have been detailed. So just to answer the question about a regulatory impact statement that is the purpose and that is the reason why it is in there.Hon Ruth Dyson: What does it say? What does it say Alfred?ALFRED NGARO: So it is in there—I do not have that in front of me right now OK but we can get that. I am sure that throughout the night there will be opportunities to talk about the points that I want to raise in regard to the regulatory impact statement on this current bill.I just want to touch on a couple of things that have been raised that I think are important in regard to the financial costs. Officials have estimated the total cost of backdated payments to be in the region of $3.5 million for clients whose benefits commenced on or after 20 May 2014 who lodge a review in the 6-week period after the legislative change. That may rise—we are not sure—but that is what is currently before us at the moment.Until the legislative change takes effect the ministry will begin paying benefits consistent with current legislation. This will increase benefit expenditure. The effect of this change to current operating practice has been estimated at around about $0.4 million. So I think there was a question that was asked in some of the speeches about understanding what those costs could be. On that last point around financial cost to put this in perspective we reduced the expected costs of supporting current beneficiaries over their lifetime by $7.5 billion last year. That has become part of the overall package that this Government has made to provide support to those who are on benefits as well.That is my sort of brief contribution at this stage. I look forward to the Committee stage and some of the other discussions and debates there may be but I do commend this bill in its second reading to the House.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Firstly I just want to make a comment on something that the previous speaker Alfred Ngaro mentioned. They have included the technical correction of this error as a way of saying that the Government is actually doing things for beneficiaries. I find that totally bizarre actually. It should be doing this. This is an error that needs correcting. You should not be crowing Mr Ngaro that this is part of the Government’s programme to support beneficiaries; this should have been done in the first placeactually. They are completely owed what this bill intends to do.Hon Anne Tolley: Nine years of Labour didn’t pay it back either. Nine years of a Labour Government didn’t pay it back.POTO WILLIAMS: Minister must I remind you that 1998 was the date of the error. There have been many Governments since then.David Shearer: Seven long years.POTO WILLIAMS: Absolutely—absolutely. So let us not quibble about which Government is responsible. We know that the National Government likes to blame everything on Labour because it takes no responsibility itself—it takes no responsibility itself. Hey we have got broad shoulders. We are taking responsibility. When we come to the Committee stage I want the Government MPs to take responsibility and take some calls which they did not do on the other bill that went through today under urgency. So let us see. We will see what happens. We know that the Government has forced us into urgency on three bills but its members are not even prepared to stand up in the Committee stage and take calls to defend the Government’s position. It has gone quiet over there. Thank you—thank you for that. I will continue with my second reading speech thank you very much.We all know that this bill has come out of a need and a desire to correct a technical error but I want to ask a question and during the Committee stage I hope Minister that you will answer it. Why was this bill actually part of the Social—now what was the name of that bill Carmel?Hon Ruth Dyson: Extension of Young Persons Services.POTO WILLIAMS: The Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill—thank you. Why was this—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I will just remind the member to address other members properly.POTO WILLIAMS: Thank you. Ms Sepuloni—thank you very much. Why was this bill part of that piece of legislation? Why was that?I think it is amazing and it is great that that significant piece of work was actually taken out of the original bill so that we can actually discuss this properly. It should not have been part of that bill. Was it actually an attempt to cover up the fact that this error had come to light—and not come to light in recent times but actually a year and a half ago? It was a long time ago that this error came to light but the Government sat on it. It sat on it until November 2015 in order to actually force the bill through under urgency. Then we get to the point where people have got until 8 January to apply for a review—7 weeks. We all know that if people are looking to apply for a review we have got a couple of weeks of closure at our Government offices; so technically that is going to cut a couple of weeks from their ability to get their applications in for the review process.Why is this happening now? What is so urgent about doing this right now? According to Mr Ngaro the cost of this is $3.5 million. Is that going to change if we pass this piece of legislation today or if we pass it at the beginning of next year? I say: not significantly. So what is the hurry to get this bill through under urgency? Is this an excuse to hold us in the House to pass this piece of legislation—and the one before and the one following? No one has really justified this to us as yet. I would be really interested to hear your comments on that Minister when we come to the Committee stage—if you would take a call on that.I really recommend supporting the extension of the commencement date of this bill which will give people adequate time to find out whether they are able to apply and to then put in an application for review. The Greens are advertising the fact. I think that is a great idea. It shows real openness and transparency. It could do on the Government’s part to actually capture those people who need to look at whether they want to respond. Indeed Carmel Sepuloni did say that the people she has spoken to probably will not—that they will not be bothered by it. But at least it gives them the opportunity to do that. When we come to the Committee stage I will be really interested to get some answers from the Minister about why she will not be looking at an advertising programme and at an extension of the commencement date which actually makes a lot of sense and whether the ministry has done any work on how many people have actually been captured by this going back to 1998—and not just Labour Governments but National Governments as well. I know that we will have plenty of opportunity to traverse this through the Committee of the whole House and I look forward to doing so. Thank you.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise this afternoon to support the second reading of our bill the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I would like to start by making a few comments about responsibility. I found it very interesting listening to the previous member lecture us in respect of responsibility. I think it is the height of responsibility actually to put this bill in place as we have this afternoon.The bill corrects this technical error with full retrospective effect back to 3 June. It is the height of responsibility and fairness to have included in that bill an acknowledgment that those who have lodged a review of decisions relating to a benefit commencement on or after the 1998 amendment can still have their review processes seen to in the normal manner. It is an extremely responsible and fair bill and Government that acknowledges and puts in under Supplementary Order Paper 141 a 7-week review period where clients have benefits that commenced after the Social Security Appeal Authority decision of May last year. But in my view it is completely irresponsible to be holding the view that because of this technical error every benefit commencement going back to 1998 should be included. It is irresponsible from a logic perspective and it is irresponsible from a taxpayer perspective.Also I do go back to the core view that I have in this debate. It relates to the Government in 1998 successive Governments since and the Ministry of Social Development and its predecessors from 1998 through to today all holding the view that a stand-down period particularly when applied to a particular week—it was at the end of those 7 days that you were stood down and then on the eighth day it began. Everybody was under that assumption. Those who made the law those who were administering the law and every one of the Ministry of Social Development’s clients who came to the door were equally under that assumption. So everyone assumed that that was what the rules were until of course this particular Social Security Appeal Authority decision from last year.This is a responsible Government which has put together a comprehensive bill that reflects the policy intent ensures that it is retrospectively validated and then has in my view very fair and natural justice for those who are caught up in this process to have their interests looked at and protected. It is a good bill. I look forward to future debate and discussion. I commend the second reading to the House. Thank you.JAN LOGIE (Green): I would like to talk in some detail about the use of urgency for the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill but before I do I do need to address some of the points raised by the previous speaker Todd Muller. He said that this bill is the height of responsibility and fairness. This bill seeks to retrospectively remove the legal entitlement of some of the poorest New Zealanders all for the purpose of saving this Government money. That I think goes to the point that we are hearing consistently from that side of the House that financial responsibility means that the Government has to bring this bill to the House. Any money that would go to those people—it would obviously be irresponsible for the Government to hand out money to people. The intent of this bill is that it was always clear that it was supposed to be “the day after” even though section 80BA(4)(a)(i) of the Social Security Act reads “the day on which the stand down period ends;”. I do not know how that can lead people to think it is the day after. You read the words that benefits commence “on the day on which the stand down period ends;” and suddenly you interpret that as the day after which is what this Government has been doing. The Government does not seem to understand the rule of law. The Government is telling us despite how the courts have interpreted this based on the debates and from reading this legislation stating “the day on which” that actually the intent was always clear that it was the day after. That really does stretch the Government’s credibility; it really really does stretch credibility.I would like to speak a little bit more too specifically because this is the second reading and this is the time when we normally would have been through a select committee process. This Government through a previous speaker has told us that well we have been through a select committee process because there was a provision in another bill which related to the extension of youth services and was entitled the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill that sought to retrospectively deny those people their rights. It looked nothing like this piece of legislation might I say but there was a provision in that bill that covered this so therefore—we were told—we have been through the process. Well I do want to point out to people that there was one submission that picked up this point. I cannot even talk about what we were told from the departmental advisers because that is business that is still in front of the Social Services Committee so I would be breaching privilege if I spoke about the advice that we were given in relation to that point in this bill. This I think raises some significant process issues in that we are now debating a bill and the Government is telling us that that process applies to this and means we can go through this under urgency but I cannot talk about the detail of it because it is still under select committee privilege. That is worrying. That is not a good process at all.I would like to remind people to think about the appropriate use of urgency. There was a book published on this a few years ago called What’s the Hurry? which talked about the 10 guiding principles for the use of urgency for this House to consider. Point No. 1 is “Legislatures should allow time and opportunity for informed and open policy deliberation”. That has not happened. Point No. 2 is “The legislative process should allow sufficient time and opportunity for the adequate scrutiny of bills”. Days? No. That is not adequate time. That condition has not been met. Point No. 3 is “Citizens should be able to participate in the legislative process”. Again that has not happened. Point No. 4 is “Parliament should operate in a transparent manner”. Well putting a provision inside another bill on a very substantive point hidden as a remedial matter which the Government was hoping nobody would pick up? That is not transparency. Moving this bill through under urgency without the ability for public participation—that is not transparency. Refusing to implement the court’s decision and bringing this through under this process is not transparency and does not uphold the rule of law.The next point is point No. 5: “The House should strive to produce high quality legislation”. How can we produce high-quality legislation when we are rushing it through? Point No. 6 is “Legislation should not jeopardise fundamental constitutional rights and principles”. One of those is around the rule of law and non-retrospective legislation and here we are putting through under urgency retrospective legislation that undermines the rule of law. Point No. 7 is “Parliaments should follow stable procedural rules”.Point No. 8 is “Parliament should foster not erode respect for itself as an institution”—and that to me goes to the very very heart of what is wrong with this piece of legislation. When we have over a million people who did not vote where we have people not going to Work and Income because they find that experience so alienating that they are living in cars because they do not want to deal with it and here the people’s benefits get cut by 100 percent or 50 percent if they miss a bus and miss an appointment. Here the Government is making a very very fundamental misinterpretation of the law which reads to me so clearly. It is saying “Yes we made a mistake and we’re just going to fix that up and deny all of you your rights over the last 18 years.”; not “OK we made a mistake. We’re going to fix this for the future.” That would have been credible. We would have supported that if you had brought that case. But no you are doing it retrospectively and it is so out of balance with those people’s experience of how you—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!JAN LOGIE: Not you Mr Assistant Speaker—how the Government implements this system. It is so out of balance and such a misuse of power that it undermines the respect for Parliament as an institution. The ninth point is that “The Government has a right to govern so long as it commands a majority …” but the respect for this principle has to be balanced against all of the other points which we have clearly seen are not met by this legislation. Point No. 10 is “Parliament should be able to enact legislation quickly in”—it says—“(actual) emergency situations”. Well tell me where the emergency is beyond the fact that people are putting in claims to get back an average of $80 from the Government to be able to put some food on their table before Christmas to access a right that the courts have established very clearly and well over a year ago that they are entitled to—where is the emergency in that? This is a shameful use of the House and the process and a misuse of power by this Government.I would like in this very short period of time remaining to me to point out some of the issues that people have been raising that I have been able to see even though we have not had a select committee process sadly. One person’s comment was: “If only someone had told Greece that dealing with debt was as simple as passing a law saying they don’t have to pay.” People are seeing this. People who do not have much resource who have a fragile relationship with the State are watching this and their confidence is being eroded. People have talked about the fact—I have seen—that they would like to apply but actually their situation at the moment is that they would have to print out the forms sign them get down to a Work and Income office and they do not have a printer. They do not have access in terms of filling in the forms on email to be able to scan and sign them and they cannot get down there. Here are people who are being told or they have just found out that they have got this legal entitlement and they want to access it and they are going “I don’t know how to do this.” They basically will have too short a period of time because of where this cuts off unless of course it was after May 2014 and those people will have a few weeks until 8 January—over a holiday period over an incredibly stressful time of the year. People with other languages may not find out—the Government has made no commitment to notify anyone to let them know of their rights. We are also hearing from people that they are actually not in a position to be able to access the technology to be able to apply. Really we need to go back to the point that these are stand downs which is a debatable point and has been for a long time in this House because it impacts on people’s ability to provide shelter and feed themselves.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. During Jan Logie’s contribution she made the point that the advice to the Social Services Committee is obviously still with the select committee and cannot be part of the contribution of the House because the bill is before the select committee. This legislation that we are debating now has been removed at the select committee from that bill the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. So the primary bill remains with the select committee. We have got a bit of it here but we are not able to access the officials’ advice. It is not a usual situation and I wonder whether you could give that consideration and some contribution on whether we would be able to get particularly in the Committee stage access to that officials’ advice—just on the part that is relevant to this bill because that bit is no longer before the select committee; the rest of the bill is.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I was listening to Jan Logie’s comments and she was I think accurate in her summation of the situation notwithstanding the fact that the chair of the Social Services Committee Alfred Ngaro has assured us that this bill is substantially the same in its effect as part of the bill currently being considered by the committee and in fact he referred to the regulatory impact statement and referred members to that which is available. I am advised that the advice because it is still with the committee is not available to this House for continued debate. I think that is a matter that at some stage it would be appropriate for the Standing Orders Committee to have a look at.The other point that I would make is that in the end the House is the master of its own destiny and if a member especially the chair of the select committee thought that there was useful advice available on the effect of this legislation from departmental officials then it would be within his right to seek the leave of the House notwithstanding the particular Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings for that material—just that material—to be made available and I would put it if he did so.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wonder having heard your ruling whether you could give some advice because we are told in the departmental disclosure statement that there is no regulatory impact statement available and then we have a regulatory impact statement called Extension of the Youth Service dated February 2015. Is it possible to direct us because we cannot find it in this regulatory impact statement. Either one there is not one or we are told this is something and we cannot find where this part of the bill is mentioned in here. So have we got a regulatory impact statement that relates to this part of the legislation or not?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am sorry. I did rely on the assurance from the chair of the committee that the regulatory impact statement did cover this particular clause and I apologise if I misinterpreted him. If the member is saying that it does not and the member said it did that is a debatable matter on which I am not going to rule.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to the departmental disclosure statement. Where it says “Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this Bill?” the answer says “NO”. So could I ask you to ask the Government to clarify whether we have a regulatory impact statement on this bill or not.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The answer to the member’s question is no. I am not going to ask the Government to do anything. It is a matter for it to do something if it so wishes.DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I would like to just make a few points in my second reading speech and reiterate a couple. The first is the main reason why New Zealand First is supporting this bill is that it is a technical error in law and not a change in policy. I know that a couple of the parties in the House are arguing against that fact. In fact we have heard a few arguments from the Labour Party and the Greens about why they are opposing this bill. There was an argument that there was a trust issue or about the way that the process has been conducted.We have heard of emotive issues in regard to child poverty and poverty in general and of beneficiaries bearing the brunt of those issues of poverty and why they deserve to have that money back-paid. We also heard an argument that there was actually no intent at all or that the intent was not known for the original bill and that the beneficiaries are actually owed 1 day’s worth—on average $80—of back-pay and that the Government is in debt to them. But at best this is actually a loophole in the law because if you look at the intent of the original legislation—but not only the original legislation; if Labour wants to go through the Hansard and look for original comments on the original intent of the original legislation—we are talking about the way that the policy was implemented for the last 20-odd years.Like I mentioned in my first reading speech the intent was fulfilled by successive Governments. The 7 days of stand down was always the intent of the policy and like I said in the first reading if the legislative error that was written was written to the intent of the bill the beneficiaries would have received the exact same amount as they did receive. If the tables were turned and the intent of the bill was that they were supposed to get that extra day but the law was written differently that would mean that they were owed that extra day in pay and then New Zealand First would be stating that and holding the Government to account. But this is a legislative drafting error; this is not a change in policy. That is why New Zealand First is supporting this bill.The other reason too apart from the intent of the original bill is the actual intent of the stand-down period. I know that it has been brought up and there are some issues with the concept of a stand-down period but the fact is that the stand-down period is there it is in law and it is being implemented. I went to have a look at the Social Security Act 1964 to actually have a look at the stand-down period and why there was a stand-down period and the justification for the stand-down period. It says in section 80BA(2): “Every benefit to which this section applies shall be subject to a stand down period calculated in accordance with Schedule 28.” I went and had a look at schedule 28 and basically it takes into account and calculates and assesses the average wage or income for the individual. It takes into account the living conditions of the beneficiaries in regard to whether they have got children whether they are a solo parent—and all other issues like that: income marital status and children. So when the beneficiaries went in to apply for their benefit from 1998—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Excuse me. Can I get the member standing over there to crouch down. Thank you.DARROCH BALL: —until May their needs were assessed. So their needs for which benefit they needed and how much they were going to get which included their living status and included how long they needed to be on stand down were assessed.Like I said and like the Minister has said and other members have said the intent of the stand down was for it to last for a full working week so 7 days. It does not make sense that the benefit would start on the seventh day; it would occur on the eighth day. That was the intent and it has been happening through successive Governments. But New Zealand First does have an issue with the review period for the beneficiaries who applied for their benefit from May last year. If it is going through until January it has been extended to 7 weeks now. Obviously that includes the Christmas period—a busy period—and it would minimise the number of people who were actually able to go to apply in the first place. So I think that it is being a little bit disingenuous in extending it through the Christmas period.Like I said in the first reading there is the fact that we do not actually think there is a need for a review period because we believe if it is a matter of principle that when the Government actually knew that there was an issue with the legislation in May 2014 and it still did not implement that change then every single person who got the benefit from that point should automatically be getting the back-pay that they are eligible for. You know it was only May 2014. We have got the records. We have got the ability to do it digitally. We know exactly who is eligible for it and it can be done very quickly. We should not be expecting beneficiaries to have to go into their offices or go online and apply for this back-pay. We believe that it should be automatic from May onwards. That is where I will leave it at the moment. I will look forward to the Committee stage but at this stage New Zealand First will continue to support this bill.JONO NAYLOR (National): I just want to limit my contribution on this particular occasion to addressing a couple of things that were raised by the previous Green member. There were a couple of accusations in there levelled towards the Government that were pretty much unfounded and I think need to not go unchallenged.There was the way the bill was talked about in terms of the Government trying to save money. I think that is the role of the Government to a certain degree is it not? The only money that the Government actually has control of is in fact the money that it has received from the taxpayers of New Zealand. Sometimes they are not necessarily that willing to part with that money and so it is beholden on us to ensure that we look after it in the most prudent possible way. [Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I will just ask the member to sit. Could I also ask the junior Opposition whip not to interject as she walks along. Thank you.JONO NAYLOR: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. As I was saying I think it is really important for us to actually act in a prudent way on behalf of the taxpayers of New Zealand.The other point that was made was that originally this legislation was somehow buried in another piece of legislation and was just being referred to as “remedial matters”. Well if there ever was anything that was a remedial matter this matter is absolutely it. What we are trying to do is remedy something that was done—as the previous speaker from New Zealand First Darroch Ball said—in a legislative drafting error. We are just wanting to remedy that get it tidied up and get it sorted out. It is really important for us to get this legislation through to get things back on track to the way that they were always intended to be and that is why I think it is important that we do this under urgency and get it through in the best possible time.MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Again—again—all that we know about intent is what was written in the law and the law was very clear. I would like to pick up on the previous speaker’s reference to saving money being prudent and what is a fiscal risk to the taxpayer. I think we can just look at housing for example. If we want to look at managing money and managing investment for good economic outcomes we can look at how the Government has failed to invest in the needs of New Zealanders and families and in the long run we actually end up paying through the nose for it—all of us taxpayers. I just wanted to make that point.Again I absolutely know that this is poor process—that we are here under urgency debating this piece of legislation without any consultation. It is those voices that I would like to take a moment to uphold at this stage of this lawmaking and I would like to pick up most certainly on the point that my colleague Jan Logie referred to about the Work and Income regiment—about their clients’ responsibility often being cutting; nearly every time it is cutting. Just some months ago I sat in a room with a whole group of the Manukau community—job seekers who were talking about the barriers to finding suitable and meaningful employment including for example transport and about how in south Auckland the Work and Income regiment is made particularly hard with the lack of good accessible and affordable public transport. In those cases as we have heard missing any meetings has been cutting on those very people who are doing their darnedest to try to find work and to be contributing members of society—not just socially but also economically. This is absolutely the stage where we would have heard those stories from the people themselves who are going to be directly impacted by this very piece of legislation.I think at this stage I will talk about the fact that I have been in this job for 2 weeks and already I can see how easy it would be for MPs to be very removed and understandably so from the realities that many ordinary New Zealanders face. As an MP I am able to travel free of charge. I have an accommodation benefit so I can do my job. This has been 2 weeks of my life and I absolutely agree that we need the tools to do our job but the realities in contrast with the very people this is going to impact on are important particularly at this second reading. I salute all of those people who have struggled and have done amazing things with a small amount of money to do the best for their lives.I have a quote here. Jan Logie wrote a blog recently about this issue—this bill—and a person underneath wrote: “The New Zealand Government not matter who it is has tried to get as much money back from beneficiaries as they can. No sole parent on a benefit gets to see their child support paid by the other parent. All beneficiaries pay secondary tax at approximately $20 for every $100 earned yet they dock your pay based on your gross wages.” So it is those voices that I wanted to give my time and support to in this second reading. I reiterate that there is no urgency. There is no genuine case for urgency at this time. Thank you.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I just commend the comments that Marama Davidson just concluded her contribution to this debate with particularly in relation to the fact that there is no urgency for this. We have heard that the Government found out about this misinterpretation between the way the legislation was written in 1998 and the way it was interpreted subsequently over 18 years. We heard that it discovered that disparity in May last year. How can it be possible that between May last year and November of this year there has not been an opportunity for this to be rectified? But wait—it has been. There is a bill before the select committee right at this very moment. This bill was included with that bill and suddenly for some reason—we have not had an explanation from the Minister or the Government members of the select committee—that part of the bill was taken out and put as a stand-alone bill.I think that is a good thing because it is an entirely separate issue from the ones that are dealt with under the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. So it is good in terms of robust process that those bills are separated but it is not acceptable for this bill to get rammed through the House through all stages under urgency with lightweight contributions from members of the Government who are writing it off as a technical bill when clearly they do not understand it. The arrogance of first-year MPs is gobsmacking. It is just extraordinary—the number of MPs who have been here for 1 year and 5 minutes and who are so arrogant and born to rule—extraordinary.This is not an issue on which any party needs to blame another party. Both National-led and Labour-led Governments have taken the operationalising of this as the correct interpretation of the law. We were wrong. Both sides were wrong. Nobody is blaming Anne Tolley. In fact we have all commended Anne Tolley for engaging in the discussion with us about that. I do not know why the backbench of the National Party had to get up and throw rocks. It is not that sort of debate. Feel the vibe Todd feel the vibe. It is not that sort of debate.Todd Barclay: I’m not even speaking.Hon RUTH DYSON: I would say the surname if I could remember it but I cannot. What is it? Barclay—Mr Barclay; I apologise. I apologise even more because I was going to call you Todd McClay but I knew that was wrong. This bill is about a misinterpretation. The challenge for Parliament is: how should it be fixed?For 18 years we have been paying beneficiaries a day later to start their benefit than the law said. That has been determined now in a separate judicial process. Parliament needs to fix it. What the Minister has said is that the Government will accept that court determination but not right back to the beginning where it first started doing it incorrectly—just from the day it was told about it. That is an incorrect interpretation of the way the court has determined Parliament’s responsibility to not do anything but comply with the law. We either change it or we comply with it but changing it retrospectively is not a correct process particularly in this situation. So this is not a matter of blame. This is certainly not a matter of the current Minister or former Ministers wanting to cheat beneficiaries. It was just interpreted in a way that has now been determined as wrong.So in our view people right back to the very start of this from the day that it was first changed in 1998 right through until now should be able to apply if they choose. We should give them a fair period of time advertise it properly make sure that everybody knows about it as much as possible—that is fair—and say: “If you had a stand-down provision when you applied for a benefit you may have got your benefit a day later than you were legally entitled to. We—Parliament—have determined that you should get that day’s benefit paid to you.” How is that irresponsible? It is not. How is it anything but fair? It is not. It is the fair and proper thing to do as Parliament’s response to the determination that that Government received in May last year—that this issue has been misinterpreted.I would really recommend the Government to relook at its response. I think this is an opportunity for us to get it right. We have a chance now over the next 6 or 7 hours as we debate this further and I really urge the Government to just think again. We can get it right. It is a very small amount of money but I think it is worth it.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I am taking a short call just to talk on one component of this bill and that is the retrospective component. I see that members opposite have very short memories and I am going to revive their memories. It was the previous Labour Government that amended the Immigration Act in 2003. That legislation was rushed through the House. That lapsed tens of thousands of applications that were in the queue for 2 to 3 years. The applications were in the queue for 2 to 3 years.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Sorry; I was temporarily distracted but I do want to remind the member that we are talking about the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I was just reminding the Opposition members that they have passed legislation that was retrospective. That legislation was surprise legislation and it was labelled monstrous legislation.If we look at this bill before the House we can see it provides a fair opportunity to those who want to seek a review of the decision about the commencement date of their benefit as long as they seek that review within the allowed time frame. Having this provision in the bill is not going to undermine the original intent of the policy. The intention is that the benefit should commence after the stand-down period finishes. It is great bill. I support this bill and I commend it to the House.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): What is the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill all about? We are told it amends an error in the Social Security Act with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998. It was an error. It did not do what we thought it was going to do and we need to correct it. It has got a retrospective element to it no doubt. But we are not standing here saying that that is the problem. What we are saying is yes it does need to be fixed no doubt about it but the Minister of Social Development said it needed to be done in a fair way. So the argument I am going to put to the Government is: is it being done in a fair way and is natural justice being served in the way that it is being done? And I will get to that in a moment.I always go to what has been said about a bill before it comes to this House because none of us are necessarily experts and so we rely on the best of advice. I always go first of all to the regulatory impact statement. We have relied on regulatory impact statements on bills in this House for as long as I can remember. And we are told by the member Alfred Ngaro who was I think the chair of the Social Services Committee that there was a regulatory impact statement. I went and talked to him and said: “But your regulatory impact statement doesn’t address this bill at all. It’s all about the extension of the youth service.” So members opposite when you stand up to speak with such eloquence you do not know what you are talking about because your regulatory impact statement does not relate to the bill. So if the members are reading this as some sort of comfort you are not going to get much at all.So then members opposite go and read the department disclosure statement. Maybe it will tell you something about this bill that you did not know. Always look to see what it says. It says: “Are there any publicly available inquiry review or evaluation reports that have informed or are relevant to the policy to be given effect by this Bill?”. Answer: no. “Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this Bill?” Answer: no. This is one that I thought was interesting: “For the policy to be given effect by this Bill is there an analysis available on: (a) the size of the potential costs and benefits?”. What is the answer to that? It is no. And then we are asked: “Has advice been provided to the Attorney-General on whether any provisions of this Bill appear to limit … the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990?”. No advice has been given. So I go back to the point I started with: this has to be fixed but is it being fixed in a fair way?You see the Minister for Social Development has put up a Supplementary Order Paper saying that there are going to be some people who will be able to claim. And as my colleagues said the Government has known since May last year. So why has it not done something earlier? What it is doing in this is allowing some to claim the day they should have been paid. Is that fair? [Interruption]The Government is only allowing some to claim Minister Bennett from when it found out there was a problem. If you went to court and said “I didn’t know I was committing a crime.” is that a defence? Is it a defence when you do not know something? I think the answer is no. You cannot use that as a defence; it is not a defence. Just because the Government did not know and no Government has known it is not a defence. So Supplementary Order Paper 142 which my colleague Carmel Sepuloni has put up—and if it is accepted by the Government we will vote for the bill—is fair and gives natural justice. It says: “Give everybody who could have been affected 6 weeks to put in an application.”How many I wonder would put in an application for their 1 day if they were given 6 weeks but they were given a fair go and natural justice? What is so hard about that members opposite? All their heads are down of course because the members opposite know that is not natural justice and that it is not fair. And surely this Parliament should be about passing fair law just law and law that is based on natural justice. Do we not go out and make speeches about that and how fair we are in this democratic country of New Zealand? And then the Minister brings in a bill and allows some people to be able to claim their day’s benefit based on the fact that her department found out at a certain time. So when it found out from that time those people can be included. Does that sound fair? I do not think so.We would like to support this bill. In fact in respect of Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper if the Minister wherever she is is listening I would suggest that she looks at it and that she considers it. Would you not want to have the major support of the parties in this House to pass this retrospective legislation which we all hate? Retrospective legislation has been passed in this House on many occasions so the member who just sat down in her seat Parmjeet Parmar who was being all righteous about the fact that Labour had done some retrospective legislation has not looked at enough debates and Hansards of this place. Of course there are times when there is retrospective legislation. There are times when you have got to fix mistakes that have been made in legislation. That happens. But because it is retrospective and because we are doing it under urgency therefore denying a whole lot of comment and input on this particular piece of legislation then I would have thought a Government that really did care about justice—and I cannot believe that Chris Finlayson can think that this is fair. He is the Attorney-General. Actually he did not get to provide any advice. I cannot believe that he thinks this is fair or just when an arbitrary date can be set and that is used to give some people the right to claim money back but disregards everybody else.I do not believe there would be very many people at all who would even bother to apply because you would have to remember between 1998 and today when you left work and when the person did not get their pay at the right time. You would have to remember that. And that I would imagine would probably be beyond the ability of most people unless they are very good at bookkeeping and they have kept all their records and their payslips and so on. So I would not have thought it would be very difficult to allow anybody who was affected from 1998 in a 6-week period to put in a claim for their 1 day. So I am very sorry that the Government cannot see the strength of that argument and I look forward to the chair of the Social Services Committee Alfred Ngaro returning to this House with his comments on the regulatory impact statement that he mentioned in his speech. He said the comments we needed were in this one. They are not in this one. There is no regulatory impact statement on the department report there is no advice given to us and all I can assume is that there is a whole lot of bungling going on yet again. Surely this should have been done in a straightforward manner with the principles of fairness and natural justice at the centre of it. That is not what we are getting today.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well I do have to give credit where it is due. I think that was a masterful speech from a person who I think that the 150-odd people who were in Palmerston North the other weekend would prefer to see as their leader of the Labour Party Annette King. But that was a great speech.Hon Ruth Dyson: What an arrogant prat.Chris Bishop: A good speech from a good member.STUART SMITH: That is right.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No I am going to require the member to withdraw that interjection. [Interruption] Carmel Sepuloni.Carmel Sepuloni: I didn’t say anything.Hon Ruth Dyson: I think it was me. Probably me.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Who used “arrogant” and then another word?Hon Ruth Dyson: Me.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I require Ruth Dyson to withdraw.Hon Ruth Dyson: I withdraw and apologise.STUART SMITH: Well I am going to take that as a compliment that I have had someone withdraw and apologise.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Now the member will resume his seat. I am going to remind the member as I probably should have reminded my old friend Annette King that when the Speaker has ruled members do not refer to that ruling; they just get on with business.STUART SMITH: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker—lesson learnt. This piece of legislation corrects a 1998 legislative error. It is quite clear. Everybody agrees there has been an error and that 7 days actually is a week to everybody except for the courts in this case and we are fixing that piece of legislation. Retrospective legislation has been discussed for quite a bit of time here this evening and there have been some holier than thou speeches given across from the other side. But as to the residency provisions that were referred to by my colleague earlier people have been in the queue for 2 to 3 years—they did not get 6 weeks. It was summarily dismissed overnight. Sometimes you have got to make decisions around what is responsible what is right and what is good governance. That is what the National Party stands for and it is with that in mind that I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I raise a point of order Mr Assistant Speaker. I was momentarily distracted by reading your earlier contribution in the 1998 debate actually Mr Assistant Speaker. Earlier I raised a point of order in relation to the advice from the officials at the select committee and you indicated then that Parliament was in its own hands—we are the masters of our destiny or words to that effect. You suggested that a member could move that we agree that the advice on this bill that is still stuck at the select committee and that we cannot access could be made available to us. You indicated it would be appropriate for the chair of the select committee to do that. He has not been able to do that so far. I am keen to have that advice if we are going to get it before Committee stage. Can another member move it is my question.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I do not think that I indicated that a member could move. I did indicate that with the appropriate caveats leave could be sought. To be absolutely clear the mere tabling of advice does not mean that members can refer to it. If it were to be tabled it would have to be with leave sought for it to be tabled for the purpose and for members to have permission to use that advice. I also indicated that it is not for me to recommend that any member do that.A party vote was called for on the question That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be read a second time.Ayes 75New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 46New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.Bill read a second time.In CommitteeJAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for all clauses in this bill to be debated as one question.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. The matters will be debated as one question.Clauses 1 to 6CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): In standing up to speak to this particular bill I just want to speak to the purpose of it and then talk about the Supplementary Order Paper that I have tabled—Supplementary Order Paper 142—and that I am hoping will be supported by the Committee. I think one really important point to make before I even get started—Ruth Dyson just found out this little fact—is that legislation came to the House in 1998 and that is when the technical error occurred. The interesting part of that is that the bill at that time went through the House in urgency as well. So here we are again in urgency correcting a technical error that was made under urgency back in 1998.I guess that is the danger of rushing things through—not having the advice we need not having all the checks and balances in place not having the Attorney-General look over it and not having a regulatory impact statement. Those are all concerns we have when we look at a piece of legislation like this and even more so because of the fact that the technical error was made in 1998 when a bill went through in urgency. I really do hope that in 17 years’ time we are not back here correcting a technical error that was made when there was an attempt to correct the technical error that had been made 17 years beforehand as a bill went through urgency.As I pointed out to the House during the first and second readings we support the fact that there needs to be some correction here. We support the fact that we need to correct a technical error that occurred. Our concern here is the commencement date which can be easily addressed by the Supplementary Order Paper that I have put up. We are concerned about the commencement date because of the fact that it closes out the opportunity for so many people to be able to have natural justice and make a claim. We saw in the media in the lead-up to this bill coming to the House today that the Minister for Social Development has allowed in this legislation a window of opportunity for those who missed out on that 1 day between May 2014 and September in 2015 to be able to make a claim. The Minister’s statement is that because the Government had knowingly acted illegally during that time period it is important that that particular group of people who may have been stood down and denied a day of pay be given natural justice.We have heard from members in the House who are supporting this bill that their belief is that because this is a technical error anyone prior to May 2014 should not be given the same opportunity or the same level of natural justice. We oppose that because it is not actually the fault of the beneficiaries over the last 17 years that there was a technical error in the legislation. An example I used of where the shoe is on the other foot is the fact that the Government is still relentlessly chasing money owed to it in respect of the Novopay debacle. What we have seen in the media in the last week in that case is that $1.8 million is still outstanding to the Government because people were overpaid during that whole fiasco. That was not the fault of the people who were overpaid and yet the Government because it is money that it is owed to it is relentlessly chasing that money.Here we have the Government needing to make changes to correct a technical error But the way it can be read which I am sure is the perception of many is—oops—the Government owes a whole lot of New Zealand citizens and it does not want to pay out. So it takes the easy option and retrospectively changes the legislation so it does not have to give people the money. How great it would be for all those citizens who owe money to the State if they could retrospectively change legislation so that they were no longer held accountable or liable for the money they owe. I am thinking of those poor teachers who now have to pay back the money that was overpaid to them because of a Government disaster that we call Novopay.The Supplementary Order Paper that I have in front of me will delay the commencement of this legislation by 6 weeks. That is the window of opportunity we asked for right from the beginning. As the Minister pointed out—and I have alluded to it as well—we have tried to negotiate with the Government over this and the reason we have tried to negotiate is that the technical error has been allowed to exist under both Labour and National Governments. So it is an issue that we should be working on together to find a solution to. The one area of disagreement is whether or not these people prior to May 2014 should be paid out. Our solution to this is actually just to put up an amendment that would delay the commencement of this bill by 6 weeks. And as I said that is all we said to Minister Tolley at the beginning and that is all we asked for really—that there be a 6-week period where those who are entitled to claim would be able to make or put forward a claim.The explanatory note of Supplementary Order Paper 142 says: “This Supplementary Order Paper amends clause 2 so as to delay the commencement of the Bill for 6 weeks. This would give people who have been penalised by the incorrect payment of benefits a window in which to lodge a claim for back payment in line with natural justice requirements.” Some arguments have been put as to why we should not do that. One of those arguments is fiscal. The unfortunate thing is that we have no real knowledge of what the numbers are that we are talking about here because of the fact that there is no regulatory impact statement. No one has really analysed it.We were told by Alfred Ngaro that because the elements of this particular bill were originally in the extension of the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill we might be able to find the detail in the regulatory impact statement there for these particular measures. Actually I have gone through that regulatory impact statement. I know that Ruth Dyson sitting here has gone through it. Annette King has gone through it and there is nothing in there about the commencement of benefit side of things despite the fact that actually the commencement of benefits part was originally in the extension of the youth services bill. I think Poto Williams has gone through the regulatory impact statement as well.So I need to point out to Alfred Ngaro the chair of the Social Services Committee who pointed us in the direction of that regulatory impact statement that there is nothing in there about the elements that we are talking about today. So it is a real issue that we do not have a regulatory impact statement in here. No one can comment on the fiscal implications because there is no evidence to say how many people have been affected and how much money is involved and to top it off we know that a large number of people who might be eligible to make a claim probably would not make a claim because of the efforts they would have to go to.There are many people who were briefly on a benefit but have been in work ever since that one period in their life when they may have found themselves unemployed and having to rely on a benefit—those are the vast majority of people who go on benefits—and they will not be wanting to put forward a claim. So we are concerned that so many people are being shut out in this process. We do know that many of them would probably not even want to make a claim but it is just the fact that natural justice is not being given the opportunity to prevail.I hope that Government members see the merits in having the majority of the House support them on a piece of legislation like this particularly when it goes through under urgency and is a retrospective piece of legislation and I hope as Annette King said not only that they see the merit of that but also that they see the merit of supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142. It is a small ask from us. We will support the bill if the Government or the majority of the House supports us on this Supplementary Order Paper to delay the commencement of this particular piece of legislation to allow that window of opportunity for all of those people who have the right to make a claim to make that claim rather than shutting them out completely from the process and honouring only the claims that have already been made—even though we are glad that the Government is doing this now—or honouring only the claims of those people who were affected post 20 May 2014 when the Government became aware of the fact that it was acting illegally.I do just want to say that a lot of the National Government MPs have stood up here today and said that there is a sense of urgency with getting this through—but unfortunately there was not a sense of urgency on 20 May 2014.JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to speak on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill in this Committee stage. And there is despite it being a very very small bill quite a bit to say about this though it has been pointed out in this Committee that this is happening through urgency that the provisions in this bill are—we are being told that they are substantially the same as the provisions that were included in the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. I sit on the Social Services Committee; I have been hearing evidence on that bill. These provisions—although some aspects of them are the same there is detail in this bill that is significantly different and in this process and consideration of this bill in this Committee stage we do not have all the information in front of us to be able to debate this properly.As has been pointed out the regulatory impact statement in the original bill made no reference to the provisions in this bill or indeed in the significant parts of the original bill. We are not able to put the departmental advice that was offered to the select committee on the original bill into discussion in this debate because it is still under the privilege of the select committee. I did want to bring that into the debate partly because I think it illuminates part of my concerns about this bill and partly because of the fact that I do not believe that the principles of transparency and good oversight from Parliament have been enabled through this process. I would wish for that to be properly debated and considered by this Committee because I think it goes potentially towards raising some pretty fundamental concerns about the relationship between the Minister and the department if nothing else.So what this bill does is it amends the Social Security Act to correct—we are being told—with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent that a benefit commences on the day after a stand-down period ends as opposed to the day on which the stand-down period ends. Already through the first and second reading debate we have had discussion on that particular point because we are being told that the intent was always for the stand down to end on the day after despite the fact that the legislation says very very clearly and unequivocally that the benefit should commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends. I do not believe there is any way of misinterpreting that but we are being told that the intent was for it to be the next day but somehow for 18 years this has gone unnoticed and that the policy has been operationalised in a way that does not match the law. That in effect has been a breach of the law.I do admit to there being a possibility—and I am aware that this has not come to the House’s attention or to a Minister’s attention because it has been pointed out to the Social Services Committee on numerous times in my short time in Parliament about the problems with the Social Security Act. It is legislation from the 1960s it has been amended so many times and there are so many regulations attached to this piece of legislation that it is one of the—if not the—most complicated pieces of legislation on our books. It is possible that although the language is absolutely clear—“a benefit commences on the day on which the stand down period ends”—people did not look at the legislation because it is so complex. We need to work on that because this is the legislation that enables the most vulnerable people in our country: people who through disability barriers in employment are unable to work people leaving violent relationships people who have been left responsible for the care of their children and people who have been made redundant. They are people who are trying to feed themselves and put a roof over their head when they are not able to be in the paid workforce.This is the piece of legislation that ensures those rights that we supposedly all uphold those fundamental human rights to food and shelter and the ability to participate in our society—although that last point has been so hopelessly eroded. So when the Government comes to this Committee and says that we need to fix a mistake that it has made we need to look at this very closely. That it had got it wrong was brought to the Government’s attention in May 2014 and it was not brought to its attention just once; it was through two rulings of the Social Security Appeal Authority that it had it wrong.If you were following the rule of law and the established relationships the process would have then been for the Ministry of Social Development to change its practice and to ensure that it was abiding by the law andfor Cabinet then to look at the fact that it thought there was a different intention to this and then bring in legislation to change that in the future so that the law matched what it wanted it to do. There is nothing in that good process that says retrospectively you deny people access to their rights as they were written in law and that is really at the heart of what this debate is.I do want to say that I really have such a struggle with the fact that the Government is saying that it will give people who have had the law misapplied post May 2014 a period until 8 January to be able to get in their review but that people who had the law misapplied before that date will have no chance of review. Once this legislation passes that is it. We have been letting people know about this so that they could get that review in because we believe that they should have that right of review as the law guaranteed them and somebody has just emailed me saying that Work and Income is not accepting the documents that have been previously accepted by other offices where people are being paid out up to this point. Several Work and Income offices I am being told are now saying that those emails do not belong to the Ministry of Social Development and that they are not accepting them.When you are going to cut off a deadline for people that gives people money and that gives people access to a fundamental right by law in this peremptory manner this kind of stress and confusion is more likely to happen. It goes back to my very very original point of the absolute importance of our seeking to ensure people’s trust in Government and that trust is being undermined significantly by this legislation and by this process. The people who are most affected have already had many of them very difficult experiences with the State and what they are now going to take away from this process is that they were entitled to something and the Government has decided that “Well yeah you were entitled to it but now we’re going to change the law so that you can’t get it.” That is what people understand from this.On average so far the people who have claimed have got $80. That is $80 that can go towards the rent that could go towards buying a Christmas present for their kid that could potentially let their kid go to a swimming pool—things we know that families on benefit at the moment are not able to afford. Those absolute basics that when I grew up I assumed everyone had access to of a holiday of a kid having their own bed of three meals on the table of the chance for a camping holiday—things like that are not going to be able to delivered by this bill and they would not have been able to be delivered by that 1 extra day’s payment but the principle is—Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): This is the question and answer time when the Minister in the chair gets to answer the questions posed by the Opposition. So Minister Wagner I have a couple that I would really appreciate you answering. First of all was the Minister aware that the original legislation passed in 1998 was also passed under urgency and does she think maybe that accounts for the fact that perhaps we—all the parties in the House—made an error at the time? And hopefully can the Minister assure the Committee that we are not going to be making another mistake and that we have got this absolutely right?I would also like to know what the financial impact is of this change because I have read what the Minister has said. She said: “We’re talking a day … it’s not a huge amount.” So if it is only a day and it is not a huge amount what would be the costof that—taking it back to May 2014 for the people who are allowed to apply—to the Government? I thought that work would have been done because the Government has known about this problem since May 2014 and 4 or 5 months ago it introduced a bill the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill that had this particular part hidden in it. I thought it would have done this work for the Social Services Committee and perhaps the chair of the select committee might be aware of what the financial impact is. Was that provided to the select committee? Because if it was not it seems to be a strange way to go about making a change to the law.But I suspect there was no work done on what the financial impact was because the departmental disclosure statement actually asks “[Is] there analysis available on: … the size of the potential costs and benefits?” and the answer is “No.” So this has been put together on the word of the Minister—and Minister Bennett is mouthing to me. I am not quite sure what she is mouthing but maybe Minister Bennett knows as she is in Cabinet what the financial cost of this is. Was the Minister for Social Development correct when she said that “We’re talking a day … it’s not a huge amount.”? If we are talking a day and it is not a huge amount quantify the huge amount. If it is not a huge amount what is it? Could the Minister—either the Minister who is in the chair Minister Wagner or maybe Minister Bennett if she would like to take the chair because she is in Cabinet—tell us what the financial cost is.Carmel Sepuloni: She was the Minister.Hon ANNETTE KING: I think she was the Minister for Social Development in May last year. Was that correct Minister? So did the Minister at the time seek to find out what the financial costs would be? Did she seek to find out what the costs would be if you allowed a period of time to allow anybody who was affected back to 1998 to put in a claim?We have put up Supplementary Order Paper 142 which I support saying why not allow this very small window—this very small 6-week window—to allow those people who might be affected back to 1998 to put in a claim. Did the Government do any work on the financial cost if there was a period of time during which people could put in a claim? Were there any costings on that? Because maybe the Government would find that it was not very big at all if we go by the Minister saying that it is only a day and we are not talking about a huge amount. So if that work has not been done why was it not done? What we are getting here is a closing-off of natural justice. That is wrong and I would have thought that before the Government closed off natural justice to people who had been affected by an error it would quantify what that impact is. What is the financial impact of it?The other thing that I wonder whether the Minister could answer is why there has been no advice provided to the Attorney-General on any provisions of this bill that appear to limit any of the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The Minister in the chair may or may not be able to answer this: was any advice sought by the Minister of the day on whether there would be any limits to the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders? I would have thought that was pretty fundamental when you are going to carry out retrospective legislation—that you would want to know whether there was any limitation on the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders. Could the Minister in the chair tell us whether any advice was provided to the Attorney-General to let him give some advice? Because I believe that Christopher Finlayson would have looked very carefully at this.Grant Robertson: As he does.Hon ANNETTE KING: As he does. He is a very meticulous man and very well related. He would have looked very carefully at this legislation to see whether it did limit their rights and freedoms. But he was not given the opportunity—because the departmental disclosure statement said he was not asked—so we do not know whether it does or not. So Minister in the chair I would like to know whether any advice was provided or sought from the Attorney-General. Would that or would that not have been an important issue for a Government that prides itself on human rights and democracy? Would that have been an important issue?I urge the Government to reconsider Supplementary Order Paper 142 provided in the name of Carmel Sepuloni who has said in this Chamber: “We will support this bill. We understand the problem. We know it has to be fixed.” But will the Government reconsider her Supplementary Order Paper to enable a window of time for anybody who is affected to put in an application? I would lay odds on that there would not be very many of them. I do not think a lot of us keep such good records that we can remember when we stopped and started work and went on a benefit and did not go on a benefit. “Was it 1999 or was it 2001? Was it on 29 March?”. I mean what are we talking about? Let us get real. How many—[Interruption]Chris Hipkins: Pre-pubescent; doesn’t have that problem.Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh well I do not believe the member from Clutha would have a clue when he stopped and started work! Give us the dates that he stopped and started work.I think they have made a mistake here and I am saying: correct the mistake now by accepting Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper. You would get the broad support of the parties in this House Minister. Perhaps the Minister in the chair does not have the authority. I know she is not the Minister in charge of the bill—she is in the chair; good on her for being in the chair. But maybe she has not got the authority to make this decision. I suggest a little whisper to Minister Bennett—Minister Bennett is a very powerful Minister. She may be able because she was there when this mistake was discovered to persuade the Government to accept the Supplementary Order Paper. It would not be the end of the world for the Government if you did. I can promise you that we would not crow very much if this Supplementary Order Paper was accepted because you know what? We would be providing natural justice and fairness to New Zealanders.I wonder whether we would do this if it was something that affected a business. I wonder whether we would have the same approach. But this is about people who are on a benefit and I just hope Minister that the Government has not been blinded by the words “benefit” and “beneficiaries”—that this is not just some sort of approach where because they are beneficiaries it is easy to deny them natural justice and fairness. I hope that is not the case. Give them the benefit of the doubt in this House. So I say Minister Bennett do your best: see whether you can accept the Supplementary Order Paper. Give a 6-week period and we would support the bill.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to pick up a couple of points from Annette King but I want to talk about two things: I want to talk about the issue of principle and the issue of practicalities. Up to now I have not spoken on this bill and as somebody who has observed this I fundamentally do not understand what the National Government is doing here in terms of the point of principle—the idea that a mistake was made an error occurred and people did not get what they were entitled to and the National Government chooses the date on which it discovered the error as the point at which compensation kicks in rather than going back to when the error was made. There is not a point of principle in that. That is the problem because if we were taking a principled approach it would be that an error was made.To quote the Attorney-General in this House recently—and he was quoting L V Martin—“It’s the putting right that counts.” The mistake has been made. The Government can now do what it needs to do in order to allow those affected by the error to make a claim. This legislation goes against the principles of natural justice which get talked about constantly in this House—the very thing that we are all charged with doing when we are elected as members of Parliament to uphold the rule of law and to represent the concerns of New Zealanders. It just seems to me that actually the National Government has taken a call for some reason to limit this on a financial basis and to trash the principle. That is what it looks like.That brings me to the second of my points—and I will come back to the issue of principle in a moment—which is as a member of Parliament and with this bill not having been through a select committee process I would want now to be reading a report from the Government that gave an estimation of costs. That is what would enable us to start making some good and sensible decisions. There is a factor that I know will make this difficult and that is the point that the Hon Annette King has just been discussing which is: just how many people would take this up? I have got an alternative idea about the information that we could get that would help us to decide the practicalities of this piece of legislation and that would be to get some information about the amounts of money that individuals who have already claimed have asked for. Was it $80? Was it $100? Was it $1000? How much money are we talking about at an individual level where we know who the people are?I accept the point that we are not necessarily going to know how many people will apply but I think the Minister in the chair or another the Minister might be able to stand up and talk to us about the amounts that individuals are getting because in total they will not be that much but they will be meaningful to those people who get them. We are talking here about teacher-aides people on short-term contracts students coming in and out of being a student and in and out of work and study requirements—people for whom $80 or $100 will make a difference. But you know what? That is not the point. The point is not the $80 or $100 even though it will make a big difference to those people. The point is the principle: that an error was made—an error that continued through different Governments; for nobody here can wash their hands of it. Perhaps some party members who have not been part of the Government might feel they can but nobody in here can really wash their hands of it because we have all been in Parliament. We have all got a shared responsibility in doing the right thing in actually saying “You know what? This was a mistake. We’re going to give a decent period of time”—and here I want to also support Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper 142—“for everybody to have a look work out whether or not it’s worth their while applying and go ahead and do that.”I simply cannot understand why a Government that tells us it believes in natural justice that tells us it believes in the rule of law that says that it upholds the rights of the citizens of this country would not come here to this Chamber and say: “We get it. The mistake’s been made since the law was passed in 1998.” Now is the time to make sure that we can do that. Perhaps the Minister may well be able to do that now.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am happy to take the first of what I hope will be several contributions—Hon Members: Many many.CHRIS HIPKINS: —many many contributions during this Committee stage on this bill particularly as the whole bill is now being debated as one question. There are many many aspects of it that I hope to dig into but first of all I want to start at a higher level and call this bill for what it is.This is a symbol of the National Government’s approach to governing the country which is that it is quite happy to break the law—and let us be clear that that is what has been happening for many many years now. The Government has been breaking its own law and then when it gets caught out it comes to the Parliament to legislate to make legal what was previously illegal.When Government members were in Opposition which we can remember that farback they railed against that kind of approach—how horrific it was that the Government of the day might legislate to make legal something that was previously illegal. Yet here we are under urgency legislating to make legal something that was previously illegal—with no public scrutiny no select committee process and a very truncated debate in the sense that we are now debating it all as one question. That of course is symbolic of the approach of this National Government. And yet no one from the Government side has spoken during this Committee stage debate to answer the many legitimate questions that are already being asked and I am sure that there are more to come.Why is it that the Government is in such a hurry to remove this right this monetary entitlement from people who are on benefits? Yes the Government may say that this is 1 day but what happens if somebody has been on and off benefits over that period of time? Seasonal workers teacher-aides many many people who could be affected by this are going to retrospectively have their legal entitlement taken away. Let us be really clear about that—they are legally entitled to this money. If a business was legally entitled by the letter of the law to a sum of money from the Government would we be here under urgency legislating to take that entitlement away from them? I do not think we would be. I do not think the National Government would do that.So why does the Government feel that it is acceptable to do that to someone who has been living on and off a benefit? They are the people who are most likely to be affected. They are the people who are making an effort to get out there and work. They may not be able to find full-time long-term sustainable work so they might be doing seasonal work or work that comes and goes which means that they have an on-again off-again relationship with Work and Income. They are the ones who are most likely to be affected by this.So why is the Government doing this if the Minister says that it is only a relatively small sum of money that we are talking about? That is what the Minister has said. Here is an open challenge. Question No. 1—how much? How much is “a small amount” of money? That is the first question—how much is “a small amount” of money? What is the total amount? I am not talking about per person. I am talking about what is the total liability that the Government is legislating to remove here. That is question No. 1 for the Minister and I am looking forward to hearing the answer to that.Question No. 2 is: how many people does the Government estimate are likely to be affected by this legislation? That is question No. 2. Question No. 3 related to question No. 2 is: within that group of people who are likely to be affected how many of them are likely to be affected more than once? If it is just simply that they applied once and they missed out on a day then that is one issue. But if it is that they have been on and off a benefit—and the seasonal workers whom I mentioned would definitely fall into this category—how many of them are there likely to be?Those are the first three questions that I have for the Minister and I am very much looking forward to those answers because my contribution as the debate progresses will in part at least depend on what the answers to those questions are—bearing in mind that the Government has known about this for some time. It has known about this for some time. The Government moved to close the loophole only when the public found out that this loophole existed and that this problem existed so it sat on this information for a significant period of time.The problem of course has been in existence since 1998—a significant period of time and only now are we addressing it. So why has it taken so long for the Government to bring this legislation to the House and why the rush? Why the hurry? If this problem has been around since 1998 and the Government has known about it for quite a long period of time now—a year and a half it has known about it—why the rush to suddenly do this?This brings me of course to a few other questions. Why is it that the Government is not giving people due notice so that if they have an entitlement they could actually gain that entitlement? Why is it that the Government is suddenly taking it away? Why is it that the Government is preserving the entitlement for only a very small subset?Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I am pleased to take a call in this debate. First can I start by apologising both to the House and to the chairman of the Social Services Committee whom I particularly misinformed about something to do with this part of the bill being in the regulatory impact statement that was before the select committee. My understanding and the advice that I have received is that because the proposed amendments are technical revisions that re-enact the current law to improve legislative clarity they are therefore exempt from the regulatory impact analysis requirement. So that is the first thing. I apologise to my colleague whom I misinformed about something in the regulatory impact statement.With regard to the questions that have been asked about a number of issues can I start by saying that in my first reading speech introducing this bill to the House I did actually quantify the number of benefits that we believe at this early stage have been paid since 1998 and that is 2.7 million benefits. It is impossible without doing a manual check to know how many of those are eligible first of all for the stand downs because not all benefits—movements between benefits sanctions etc.—are necessarily accorded a stand down. Without going through every single one of those and we have not done that work I cannot give the member any further details but 2.7 million benefits paid is a large amount.Secondly what I know is that as at this morning 8500 people have lodged reviews many of which will go back to 1998 and all of those are protected under this piece of legislation. That is because of the publicity and I have to say the very earnest work on behalf of a number of beneficiary advocates in particular Kay Brereton who I understand because of her personal circumstances and the remote place she has lived has done an outstanding job and gone without power in order to make sure that the power she had was made available to help people get their reviews in. So 8500 people as at this morning have taken advantage of that and I understand that the average payment is around $105.I have said both in the first reading speech and in the second reading speech that the Government has tried to strike a balance remembering that this is not a change of policy. The policy was clear back to 1996. A 7-day stand down means 7 days standing down. That is basic English. What we had was when an amendment was made to the law in 1998 it was worded badly. Nobody knew about that—neither a National-led Government nor a Labour-led Government. Neither did the beneficiaries. Everyone processed that stand down as though it was 7 days meaning 7 days without State assistance. So there has been no change of policy.The Government has tried to strike a balance between being fair to those who when that error in law was pointed out to the Government should have been entitled to that extra payment and we have made that available to them. I have got a Supplementary Order Paper to extend that through to that New Year break—so right through until 8 January. That is plenty of time and I have made every effort to make sure that it is as easy as possible to get that review in for those going back to May of last year. Anyone who currently has a review in the system will be treated as business as usual and they will go through that review process.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I have got a few questions for the Minister the Hon Anne Tolley and a few responses to some of the stuff that she has just said as well. Firstly I just want to raise the issue around the fact again because the Minister may not have heard this earlier argument that actually this technical error was committed in 1998 when this bill went through under urgency in a similar way to what we are seeing now. So is the Minister concerned that when we rush through legislation like this as was done in 1998 these errors do occur because of the fact that we do not have anyone looking over it we do not have any of our officials giving us advice and the Auditor-General has not had an opportunity to look at it? Is she concerned that that may happen again? Really we do not want to be back here in 17 years’ time correcting a technical error that happened 17 years beforehand to correct a technical error that had happened 17 years beforehand whilst the bill went through under urgency.The Minister has brought up the number of people whom they think may have been impacted by this. She said it was 2.7 million. She has not mentioned any fiscal cost but we know that this was highlighted in the departmental disclosure statement. It says basically that provisions in the bill have retrospective effect and that the retrospective provisions can be justified because of three different things including apparently financial costs to the Crown but we have no figures. Actually even in this departmental disclosure statement it points out the fact that there are no numbers or no figures around what this could potentially cost.The Minister has said that 8500 people have made claims so far. I guess with that in mind what is the rate of application that has gone on here? I know that really the applications started to be made after the Government started to pay out. I know that there was an increase in the number of claims that were being put forward once people knew that they could actually get paid out. So I just want to know from the Minister what that rate of claim has been. Have they been getting a thousand a day since then? Then we could maybe anticipate 6 weeks down the track if they were to delay the commencement date as I have asked for in my Supplementary Order Paper potentially what the cost to the Crown would be. But at the moment we are going blind because there is nothing here that we can see with regard to costings or anticipated costs for the Crown if they were to open it up so that all of those people could make a claim or as we suggested have that small window of opportunity for people to make a claim.The Minister talked about the reason why there is no regulatory impact statement and has cited the fact that these are technical changes as a reason for not having a regulatory impact statement. I just want to point out that I did look this up because I was interested to see where there would be a rationale for not having a regulatory impact statement. What I have found is—3.1 “Exemptions” says: “The value of completing even a modest Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) is likely to be limited in some circumstances such as those where the potential proposals would result in little or no change to the status quo legislative position or would have no or very small impacts outside of government.”That makes me question the Minister on what she was saying. Actually this does not have no or very small impacts outside of Government. This has huge impacts outside of Government because of the number of people—2.7 million people—whom the Minister cited as having gone on or gone through a stand-down period to go on a benefit over the last 17 years. So I think it is not fair to say that the Government is justified in not producing a regulatory impact statement because I do not think any person in this room would think that the potential to affect 2.7 million people outside of here is something that would not have an impact.So I really would like the Minister to speak to that. Again I would like her to answer the question around the rate at which the claims have been coming in so we can get some idea of potentially what that 6-week window of opportunity would mean for those people in terms of cost. I would like to know at this stage what the average amount is that people have been claiming for or what they have been eligible to receive. So the Minister would know in terms of those who have already been paid out what the average amount is that is being paid out there. How many days have they been claiming for? Has it just been the one day that the Minister mentioned?DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I would just like to speak on the Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward. I can understand the rationale behind why Labour and the Greens have put the Supplementary Order Papers forward based on their perspective on their argument that beneficiaries are owed a day’s stand down. That is obviously not what New Zealand First believes.The theory of the Supplementary Order Papers I can understand just not the execution of them or the justification for them. So a couple of the justifications for Labour’s Supplementary Order Papers are that it will not cost much because there will not be many people who will apply—the majority will not apply. If it is a matter of principle like we have been hearing about the Supplementary Order Papers and it being a matter of natural justice if it is a matter of a fundamental right by law if it is about trusting the Government then based on the principles in the Supplementary Order Papers from Labour and the Greens should not everybody be getting that day’s stand down extra? They should not have to apply for it. Should they not be getting it automatically?The Minister says that on average at the moment it is $105 per payout and we are talking about 2.7 million benefits that have been paid. Of course not all beneficiaries will be eligible but if we take even half of that even a good chunk of that where would that money be better spent than retrospectively thinking that a beneficiary should be owed that extra day’s payment when in fact the intent of the bill was fulfilled in the first instance?Like I said previously if the mistake was not made in the writing of the law beneficiaries would still have received the same amount of benefit as they did. That is because the intent was fulfilled. The Supplementary Order Papers from both Labour and the Greens—New Zealand First cannot support them because fundamentally that would be going against and contrary to what we are agreeing to with this bill and why we are standing and supporting the bill. We believe that the intent of the bill was fulfilled and that there is no money owing to the beneficiaries.I have just put a typescript amendment on the Table. If we are talking about natural justice then the point from where the Government knew that there was an issue—which was May last year—is the point where people should be eligible. They are and the Government is giving 7 weeks for them to apply. We actually believe that everybody who received a benefit who is eligible and who was not given that 1-day stand down should be automatically paid that amount. That is the point in time—from when the Government knew—that every beneficiary should be paid from. That is the natural justice aspect and the perspective that New Zealand First stands by.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): We find ourselves in an interesting situation this evening. What we are doing is we are under urgency rectifying a mistake that was made under urgency 17 years ago. It demonstrates the danger of using urgency for these matters. We do not have a regulatory impact statement. We have not had the select committee process to scrutinise the legislation.I want to look at the departmental disclosure statement but to say it is scant is a bit of an understatement. There is very very little advice for those of us who are being asked to vote on this legislation to actually give us confidence that we are getting this right. I have been a member of this House for only 7 years and in that time I have seen a number of errors made—a number of errors made—when we have been in a rush.My concern is that again quite unnecessarily in this case we are rushing this legislation and we are in danger of mucking it up again. To the best of our knowledge this legislation will meet the Government’s purpose and intent but it thought back in 1998 that it was going to do that and it was wrong then. There is every likelihood the Government is going to be wrong again tonight.There is another thing that I find slightly unusual. It is not that we are retrospectively making something that was previously illegal legal because as Chris Hipkins pointed out that has happened before. Parties in Opposition tend to rail against that type of thing and then when they find themselves in Government they suddenly discover that it is actually perfectly acceptable so I am not going to rail against that as such. But what I do find odd is that the Government was prepared to carry on acting illegally once it discovered that it was doing so.This is not something that the Government has realised in the last few days or weeks or even months. The Government realised this was happening in May 2015 a full year and a half ago. So the Government has carried on quite happily acting illegally until it realised it was a political issue for it. Now all of a sudden we are in a rush.The Government could have brought this legislation—I feel like it is sort of Groundhog Day because I was saying the same thing yesterday with the last piece of legislation under this urgency motion. The Government could have acted more swiftly and brought legislation—the legislation is only two or three pages long.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): It is tragic to interrupt the member.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is is it not?Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Immediately before the dinner break I was lamenting the fact that it had taken the Government a year and a half to bring this legislation before the Parliament all four pages of it. It really does baffle me why it took so long to bring this legislation to the Parliament and now after waiting for such a long period why the Government is passing it through all stages under urgency without any opportunity for scrutiny. There is no regulatory impact statement and no select committee process.What we do have is the departmental disclosure statement which I think raises some issues and questions. Is there any publicly available inquiry review or evaluation reports that have informed or are relevant to the policy to be given effect by this bill? No. Were there any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this bill? No. For the policy to be given effect by this bill is there analysis available on the size of potential costs and benefits? No. Is there analysis available on the potential for any group of persons to suffer a substantial unavoidable loss of income or wealth? No even though we in fact know that the impact of this legislation is to limit the opportunity people have to seek redress for having lost a portion of income that they were entitled to under law.Essentially for just about every question that is asked—the standard questions asked by the departmental disclosure statement—the answer is no. I think it actually demonstrates just how little work has been done to prepare this legislation and to make sure that what we do tonight rectifies a situation that was caused by legislation being passed under urgency back in 1998 and the errors that came with that.I would like to turn my attention though to the Supplementary Order Papers. There are three Supplementary Order Papers: one in the name of Carmel Sepuloni one in the name of Jan Logie and one in the Minister’s name. I would like to start with my colleague Carmel Sepuloni. The effect of her Supplementary Order Paper would be to delay the commencement of this legislation by 6 weeks and that is simply to give people an opportunity to actually seek some redress.I think we are particularly thinking here of the people who have been affected by the incorrect application of the law numerous times. We have spoken about the fact that for a lot of people this will not have affected them just once. There are many people particularly those on fixed-term contracts those who are in casual work and those who are in seasonal work in particular who will have moved in and out of work many many many times over the 18 years that this policy has been implemented inappropriately.For some of those people we could be talking significant sums of money. For most people if it has occurred only once or twice then probably the hassle of applying to retrospectively gain that 1 day’s worth of income is probably not worth it for them. But for some people there may well be some value in making that application.What Carmel Sepuloni’s proposed amendment would do is give people a very short window—and I think the Government could easily work with us on this—to allow people that opportunity to apply to receive the income that they ought to have had the legislation as it was originally drafted been applied appropriately. I have heard a couple of members dismiss this approach. I think when they do that they assume that everybody falls into that category of people for whom this has happened only once or twice. There will definitely be people—not that we know for sure because the Government has not been able to provide us with figures—for whom there would be value in exploring exactly how much they are owed by the Government and taking the time to do that.Jan Logie’s amendment is similar only it gives a 6-month window. Really what we are debating here is how long is an appropriate length of time for people to be able to make that application. Certainly on this side of the Chamber we have got no problem with the 6-month window—6 weeks or 6 months; either of those would be acceptable to us.Then we come to the Minister’s amendment. This is a really interesting one. This amendment allows people who have been denied what they were legally owed under the law during the period in which the Government knew it was acting illegally to be able to apply for that and to pick up retrospectively the money that they were entitled to. I find this interesting. I think it is good in a way that the Government is trying to rectify the fact that it was acting illegally but nevertheless it is a fact that the Government for a year and a half nearly knowingly denied people income that they were owed under the law even though the Government knew that the legislation as it was drafted said they were entitled to something different.We can support that as well but we do not think it goes far enough. We actually think that the amendments in one of those other Supplementary Order Papers—either Carmel Sepuloni’s or Jan Logie’s—need to be passed if we are to take a principled approach to this which is that people were entitled to some income it has been denied them and they should be given the opportunity to apply to receive what they were owed.My suspicion is that most people will not apply. It will not be worth their while to make that application but for a handful of people it will be worth their while making that application. I think there is value in supporting those two Supplementary Order Papers on that basis. I think I will end this particular contribution at that point.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am not doing this to trifle with your earlier considerations. I am doing it because the Minister for Social Development who is responsible for the bill is now in the chair. The point of order that I raised earlier which I now wish to repeat and seek further guidance on from you was that because this bill was introduced as part of another bill that is still at the Social Services Committee—this part of the bill has been taken out of the select committee process and is now before the Committee of the whole House under urgency going through all stages—we do not have the benefit of the officials’ advice. [Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The first thing is that Ruth Dyson will resume her chair. The member who interjected while I was on my feet will stand up withdraw and apologise.David Bennett: Withdraw and apologise.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Withdraw and apologise?David Bennett: I do withdraw and apologise yes.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Thank you Mr Bennett. I am ready to rule on this. I have previously ruled. I think the first time the matter was raised the Minister was in fact in the Chamber. It was raised by Jan Logie. What I ruled at the time was that I suggested that the chair of the select committee—and it would have to be a committee member I think to have the material—excise that material from a report and seek leave of the Committee in particular terms so that members are able to debate it. Then it would be up to the Committee. It would have to be a unanimous decision of the Committee and members would be able to do that. No one has done that and therefore I am going to rule that I have got nothing further to rule on.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I want to deal with a number of issues in this contribution the first of which is that I note that this bill at clause 3 refers to the principal Act. It states that this Act amends the Social Security Act of 1964. I am going to refer in many of the comments that I make to the actual original Act in the part that we are amending. But I do want to note at the outset that the Ministry of Social Development website notes that there is actually a full rewrite of that legislation under way and that it is due in the House by the end of 2015. I wonder in fact whether that has highlighted other areas that might need to be addressed which the Minister may want to alert the Committee to.The reason that I am referring to the principal Act is that I wanted to check with the Minister on what basis the Government is claiming that the wording in the Act was inconsistent with the policy intent at the time the original amendments in 1998 were passed. The reason that I ask that is that we are amending clause 80BA(4) and if you look at 80BA(3) the clause immediately prior to that—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The section.CHRIS HIPKINS: What was that?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The section.CHRIS HIPKINS: The section—sorry—immediately prior to that that defines when a stand-down period begins. The sections that we are amending amend when a stand-down period ends but if you look at when a stand-down period begins it is actually very clear: “… if the person’s employment terminated or the person is given notice of termination of employment before he or she applied for the benefit the day after the date the person’s employment ceased.” So in that section it is very clear that it is the day after that that the stand-down period begins. But then the very next subsection which was in exactly the same amendment—the same legislation that amended the Act which is what we are now amending—it goes on to say that benefits commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends. It seems to me that if the policy intent in the original drafting was to make that differentiation or it was to make no differentiation why was a different form of words used in the drafting of the Act?So really the question that I have for the Minister is on what basis is the Government claiming that the legislation was incorrect not that the application of the legislation was incorrect? If the application had been incorrect then I do not think that there is any justification for the Government to retrospectively go back and try to change the law to make right an incorrect interpretation of the Act as intended by the agency that was implementing it. On the other hand there may be some justification if it was a genuine drafting error in the legislation but I struggle to accept that when the subsection immediately prior makes a clear differentiation between the “day on which” and the “day after”.For anyone following along at home they will probably think “What on earth is he talking about?” but actually it is quite important because it comes down to the issue of fairness and whether in fact this was a mistake by the agency implementing the law in that it interpreted the law incorrectly or whether it was a mistake made in the passage of the law in the first place. I think given very careful scrutiny of the original Act I am actually falling in the category that it is the former which is that it is actually a mistake in the way the law has been interpreted by the ministry in its implementation. Therefore I do not think that there are good grounds to retrospectively change.If the Government is saying it is now changing the policy intent to bring those two things into line that is a legitimate call for the Government to make. It can pass that legislation going forward into the future which would make the two clauses consistent but what is the rationale other than it being a fiscal cost to the Government because the agency implementing this has made a mistake in incorrectly interpreting the law? There cannot actually be a justification for amending the law retrospectively in the way that the Government is seeking to do through this bill because the mistake is in the interpretation of the law not in the law as passed. The law as passed it seems to me made a clear differentiation in its intent and in the way it was drafted between the stand-down period beginning and the stand-down period commencing. That is specified very clearly that the stand-down period commenced the day after somebody’s employment ceased but that the stand-down period ended on the day the stand-down period ended.Therefore I do not think that there is a case to be made to say that it was a drafting error because the sections are inconsistent. That must have been picked up at the time. This went through a full scrutiny process I presume at the time and therefore trying now to say that the policy was not incorrectly implemented by the drafting of the law I do not think stands. I think it is perfectly legitimate for the Minister to say that the law was incorrectly applied by the agency responsible for paying out the benefits but frankly I think who should wear that liability? It was not the mistake of the beneficiaries receiving the money. It was the mistake of the agency. So who should bear the liability for that? Should that liability be with the Crown the Government or the agency responsible or should that liability be with the recipients? If it was the incorrect application of the law I do not think it should be the recipients who bear the liability. I think it should be the Crown the Government and the people who made the mistake who bear the liability for that. I would be interested in hearing further comments from the Minister on that.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Thank you to the member Chris Hipkins who has just resumed his seat. Thank you for that nice try. But in fact it is very clear that the Government policy that was developed in 1996 was in the legislation enacted in 1998. It has been Government policy since 1998 that the stand-down period would cover a full week. So a 7-day stand down meant 7 days without State support. That is what was intended.I do not know how the legislative error was made—none of us were here at that time—but the policy intent is clear. The operational intent has been clear and has been carried out. What the Government has said and we are talking about liability is that once the agency knew—so from that first appeal—that the legislation did not support the operational policy those people are entitled then to a review and that is what is protected in this bill.I do have to say to clarify a statement I made earlier that as at this morning just over 8500 people have asked for a review. That is not just from May of last year. They are perfectly entitled and protected under this legislation to that review going right back to 1998.JAN LOGIE (Green): Following on from that I really have had some of my concerns echoed in those raised by the Labour member Chris Hipkins around the interpretation of the law and whether that is the problem or whether it was a drafting problem. I am grateful that the Minister is here in the Chamber and is speaking and engaging on this bill. However we have heard from the Minister as we have heard from other members on this side of the Chamber that the policy intent was clear that it was for a 7-day stand down.But I believe if you are bringing retrospective legislation to this House to say what the intent of the law was when it is so clearly different from what was written in the law and from what the courts have decided is the meaning of the law then the onus really I believe should be on the Government to provide us with some evidence of that assertion. We have had no evidence of that assertion. We have not had anything in the Hansard debates. We have had nothing on paper from the Minister. We have just had the oft-repeated assertion that that was the intent. We have nothing to back that up whatsoever.I would now like to speak in my contribution to our Supplementary Order Papers which we have been hearing about that we have put forward on this bill. We have been hearing from Government members again that the Greens are being irresponsible for asserting people’s legal rights to access their legal entitlements. Somehow that is fiscally irresponsible and a certain definition of fiscal responsibility obviously overrides the rule of law and people’s access to their legal entitlements.I do want to just point out that actually our Supplementary Order Papers clearly demonstrate that we are willing to work with the Government to ensure the certainty that they seem to be seeking with this legislation and that we believe that that certainty can be balanced with what I believe is the primary responsibility of Government which is to seek to build trust in this Parliament and in our public institutions. So what we have proposed in our Supplementary Order Papers is to allow a 6-month period for everyone to be able to lodge applications for a review and to require the Government to advertise this opportunity. So if it was a genuine mistake it is OK to fix that in the future. If the Government has a particular policy intent that it would like to see implemented then we will debate that policy intent on its points. But if you are going to introduce retrospective legislation to deny people their legally established entitlements then I think a bit more should be required than what is in front of us with this piece of legislation.I really think that the proportionality—the Government needs to offer more particularly when we look at the balance of this and at somebody who is accessing the entitlements of Work and Income who may have missed a bus whose bus may have been late or who may have been at a tangi or in hospital for a psychotic episode and who misses an appointment at Work and Income and gets their entire benefit—or if they have children half of their benefit—cut. The severity of that penalty for what is in most people’s minds I would suggest a completely reasonable situation or mistake—for it to be penalised so harshly and then for the Government to come to this House and say “Well OK a mistake has been made. We’ll take that and we will give some of you 6 weeks to be able to put in an application and we are not going to mention it.” is completely unnecessary. And we have to point out that this will be reported in the media tomorrow and there will be people who would be entitled to money now if they had heard about it today who will hear about it tomorrow potentially after the Royal assent who will not be entitled to money.That is setting up a situation of grievance that is completely unnecessary when we could actively seek to build people’s trust and confidence and see the Government as recognising its wrongs and seeking to right them and give people access to an entitlement. That is possible in this debate and members can choose to support our Supplementary Order Papers to be able to deliver that.What we are going to get at the moment—and I do need to speak to that kind of process around those who have missed out on money because of the misapplication of the law from 1998 until May 2014. When they hear this in the news potentially tomorrow they could think: “Oh I’m an educational support worker. Actually the way the Government funds our schools means that I need to rely on a benefit outside term time. Gosh I might be eligible over each year for three lots of quite a lot of money coming up to this Christmas while I am really struggling to feed my family and doing a fantastic job in schools in helping schools run and our children being able to learn. Gosh I’d be entitled to this—but oh I’m a day too late. It’s all over the media today and I didn’t hear this in time and I’ve missed out.”I do not see how anyone in this Committee can think that is fair when we have educational support workers and we have seasonal workers in some of the lowest-income areas in this country who we know—you know there are not many job choices in particular areas in this country. There is seasonal work particularly in the area the Minister is from I think where we know that a lot of people are stuck into seasonal contract forestry work. They will have been on and off benefit and their legal entitlement as of today would be for quite a significant amount of money. But when this bill goes through and gets the Royal assent—probably tomorrow; I cannot be sure—they will not be entitled to anything.That is setting up quite a significant impact. We do not have a regulatory impact statement because we are being told there is no significant impact from this legislation. Well I would like to hear the Minister or anyone else tell me how it is not a significant impact for somebody in the community to have heard about this and then find out from their auntie tomorrow that they were able to claim some money and then they are not able to. That—in real terms in real life—is a major impact and I am at a complete loss to understand how that is not considered a significant impact.I would also like to speak about the fact that the law was interpreted by the courts in May 2014 and the Ministry of Social Development did not change its interpretation of the law or the way it enacted it knowing—and it was given two court rulings telling it this—that what it was doing was in effect illegal. The ministry continued that practice. The Minister has told me that she was shocked to find that out. Despite this law change apparently having gone to Cabinet at around the same time—so knowing that there was a problem there and there had been a court ruling—she had not checked whether the ministry had changed its policy. That to me raises some pretty significant issues relating to either the Minister’s oversight or the ministry’s responsibility in informing the Minister. That does seem to me a very worrying breakdown of relationships. I am particularly worried that it may not be isolated to this point.There was a report put out by the Child Poverty Action Group last year looking at the interpretation of relationships there is a very famous case Ruka v Department of Social Welfare and then the report by Frances Joychild which was instituted by the then Minister Ruth Dyson I understand looking at whether the Ministry of Social Development had implemented the changes that were signalled by the court at that time and it found out that it had not. So I am very worried and the Child Poverty Action Group report indicates that it still may not have implemented the changes. I would quote if I had the report right in front of me some of the strength of language of the report. It is deeply worrying for me when the courts have the role of interpreting law and the ministries and the Government have the role and the responsibility to implement it as it has been interpreted. If that fundamental relationship is being broken on a consistent basis by this Government or any Government then we have an absolutely fundamental problem that should worry many people.CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): I seek the leave of the Committee of the whole House to have the officials’ advice provided under the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill that is related solely to the matters under consideration in the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill excised from the select committee and provided to the Committee of the whole House.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member might want to add a little bit more: “so that members can use it for debate purposes.”CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): So that members can use it for debate purposes.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Because otherwise I would have to stop you. I think that is relatively clear. Is there any objection to that material being provided? There is objection. It cannot be.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I would like to thank the Minister who was in the chair a moment ago Anne Tolley for her contribution with regard to the concerns that I was raising about what the original intent in the passage of the legislation was. I have some further comments to make on that in response to the Minister because she raised the issue first of all of what the Government policy of the day was not what the legislation was. Ultimately the question therefore from a legal standpoint becomes: which takes precedence—Government policy or legislation? Actually the law is pretty clear: legislation trumps Government policy. Government policy informs legislation in the way the Government presents it to the House but the word of the law is what ultimately takes precedence. So regardless of what the Government’s policy intention was at the time the question was what the legislative intent was at the time and the legislation it seems to me from a very clear reading of the principal Act was actually quite clear.Then the question becomes: what remedy is there if there was an error in the Act? So we turn to McGee the authority on these issues in the New Zealand House of Representatives and it makes it very clear that if there is an error in the drafting of legislation the law that takes precedence the law that applies is in fact the law as assented to. Even if there are mistakes between the House’s passing legislation and it being signed by the sovereign—being given the Royal assent—it is the legislation that receives the assent that ultimately becomes the law. Even if the Government’s intention was not enacted by the law the fact is that that was the law that was signed by the Governor-General and therefore that was the law that applied. Therefore is there good cause for retrospectivity?I then turn to the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee’s advice on these matters. The Legislation Design and Advisory Committee guidelines are very clear. It is in the very beginning of the committee’s principles of legislative design—Chapter 3 Part 1.7—that it specifies “Legislation should not affect existing rights and should not criminalise or punish conduct that was not punishable at the time it was committed.” It goes on to say: “The presumption against retrospectivity: The general rule is that legislation should have prospective not retrospective effect.” Therefore the question that the Committee needs to turn itself to is whether there is good justification for effectively taking away someone’s rights—for making right something that was wrong or wrong something that was right previously.I think that the Parliament needs to be very very careful in doing that particularly when it comes to issues of individual rights and entitlements. This is not an authority that we are dealing with. It is not a legislative body. It is not so much a Government department. This is something that affects individual citizens. I think the Parliament needs to tread very carefully when we are trying to change the law retrospectively in that regard particularly as these retrospective changes go all the way back to 1998. It is the better part of two decades’ worth of previous application of the law that is being retrospectively changed by this legislation and I think we need to be very careful about that. I think that the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee is quite right in its guidance to the House and to those drafting legislation that prospectivity should be the main principle behind legislative drafting not retrospectivity.To recap those three points I just made—regardless of the Government’s policy intention at the time it is the legislation as given the Royal assent that takes precedence and that triumphs. Secondly if there were mistakes in the legislation that was given the Royal assent it is the version of the legislation given the Royal assent that ultimately is the law. Regardless of whether the mistakes were in Government policy or in the drafting of the law once it was passed and once it was assented to that was the law and that has been the law since 1998. The third point is about whether there is a case for retrospectivity and really I think the Parliament will be going against itself against its own advice and against its own better principles if we allow this legislation to go through with the retrospective clauses that exist within it. I think we enter dangerous territory when we pass the legislation in the way we are going to be passing it if this bill is passed now.There are further points I am going to make about the substance of clause 5 but I will do that in a further contribution. Thank you.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No the member will not because he has had four calls.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to expand upon the arguments that have already been made in the Committee this evening about the potential conflict. Are we talking about the issue of drafting errors or are we talking about the application and the implementation of policy? I think it is very clear from what my esteemed colleague has already provided that when we talk in clause 4 of the bill about section 80BA(4) of the Social Security Act which talks about the end of the stand-down period we have not included the previous subsection which talks about the commencement of the stand-down period and has the fullness of that period where the language in one talks about ‘the day after” and the language in the other talks about “the day on which” the period ends. We obviously have an issue here. The issue has been around the original drafting of the legislation which was rushed through the House under urgency and as another of my colleagues has noted we are again in a process of urgency to correct what may have been either a drafting error or a policy implementation error.I just want to pick up on the policy implementation part of this. We are in a truncated process and we have not had the ability either to have the input from officials or the input from people who will see the fullness of the application of this bill when it becomes law and is implemented in the workplace. There is obviously a problem a concern with that. If we had had the opportunity to have that if we were not in a truncated process and if we were not in urgency we would not be heaping in my view a problem on top of a problem on top of a problem. We could be doing this correctly. We could be crafting the legislation appropriately and doing what we should do which is to ensure that we either amend what happened in 1998 or amend the application of this policy this legislation in its application on the ground.We have heard very clearly that there have been calls from this side of the Chamber after the issue was raised initially by Jan Logie and then by my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson for an opportunity for us to have the information from officials as part of this process which would certainly add an opportunity to debate this more fully. The previous Minister in the chair Anne Tolley has been saying that the intent of the policy is clear. Well we are not sure of that because we have not been given the evidence of that. It would be in the best interests of ensuring that we get the legislation right to have that information. Clearly it is needed. Clearly the members on this side of the Chamber would like that information but unfortunately it appears that we have not been able to get access to that.But there is a real issue with what happens with bills over time when they become enacted and when the legislation is then interpreted by the courts and then we have the opportunity to implement that at the coalface. This legislation actually has a significant component within it that may provide opportunities to people to gain back what they are owed. It might come as a surprise to members but there are people who are watching this debate at home who actually contacted me during the dinner break asking about their ability to become part of this process. Would they be able to apply? The Minister spoke earlier of 8500 people who have applied for this process. What will happen this evening is that by virtue of the fact that this legislation will pass we are putting a stop to a whole lot of people being able to apply for what is owed to them. That is hugely unfair when the Government has not as it should do made every effort to contact people and to advertise the fact that this is a process—CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koutou Te Whare nui. I have been in this House for nearly 7 years and I thought I was pretty cynical. I look at legislation and I think it might be misguided but usually it has got some understandable merit. Then we get to this bill. This is extraordinarily mean-spirited it is extraordinarily bizarre and it is so arcane that the people who have actually suffered from being underpaid by the system—Darroch Ball: It’s not underpaid.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: “Not underpaid.” my colleague says—quite right. Well they are not receiving their full entitlement. [Interruption] No? It sounds to me like they are not receiving their full entitlement when they do not get a day’s pay that they were entitled to. They are going to have enough trouble understanding it let alone applying for it. So I think that we need to look very hard at ourselves tonight and ask “What are we doing in this House? Urgency to fix urgency.”First of all I would like to talk about why we do not support urgency for this kind of thing because look at the mess. There was a drafting error supposedly and the courts have ruled clearly that the spirit of this is not just a spirit; it is actually in the law already—that when you are going back after a stand down you get the money the day that the stand down finishes. This is not rocket science—thank goodness because I am not a rocket scientist. It is pretty clear but what about the people at the receiving end? It is fantastic for people to spend time having arcane debates on the clauses but what about the 70 people who contacted Jan Logie today—let alone any other person in this Committee—about whether they are going to be able to get their just entitlement?The reason that I am fired up about this as someone who has been a beneficiary advocate on the East Coast is that if a beneficiary dared to miss an appointment or if a beneficiary supposedly dared to do something wrong with their paperwork let us watch the benefit fraud unit descend on them. I have sat in meetings with the benefit fraud unit; I have seen what they do. If anyone who is on a benefit makes a mistake it is a ton of bricks time. And then in the last couple of years there have been sanctions—cutting money from people. Today on Lambton Quay I talked to a beggar. She gets $13 a week from Work and Income. She is a mental health survivor who cannot get the invalids benefit. And this is the kind of system that creates this kind of mess and then when we make a mess the willingness is not there to clean it up so that people can get what is fair.How can we hold our heads up in this House and do this kind of stuff to people who are at the bottom of the heap many through no fault of their own? And then when the Government makes a mistake it will not fix it fairly. It is pretty basic: fix it fairly Mr Chair. Do not be mean—do what is right. Actually it is pretty basic.Iain Lees-Galloway: Be fair Mr Chairman.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Yeah be fair and do not be mean. It is not very sophisticated language. After all this is about natural justice. Is it not about natural justice? If we make mistakes we have to own them. At the moment this bill does not own what it is creating. So people are going to be knocked out of being able to apply for what is fair. They are going to be knocked out because they were on the benefit before May. If you are after May you are in but if you are before you are out.If anybody here knows anything about what it is like to live at the tough end of society the person is on the benefit and then they get some work. The person gets some work and then they lose their job. The person gets stood down and the person then applies for a number of jobs. The person may get some part-time contract work. The person loses that work and then the person tries to get back on the benefit—the person is constantly on and off. This is not new. This has not happened just since May 2014. This has been happening to people for—well I would like to say since 1984 actually but that is going back rather a long way. The benefit system is not treating people the way it expects beneficiaries to behave.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to begin this contribution by taking us all back to 1998. This may or may not be a pleasant memory for everybody in the Committee—1998 was an interesting year. But during that year—in fact on 14 May 1998—this House was debating the second reading of the Social Security Amendment Bill which as best I can tell is the piece of legislation that is at the root of the problem we have got today.There is a large number of things I could raise about the debate that night. One of them involves an honourable member by the name of Trevor Mallard who raised a number of points of order during that particular debate including an exchange with Joy McLauchlan that involved a number of withdrawals and apologies some of which I could refer to. If I used some of the language—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No. I am now going to ask the member to come to the bill’s Committee stage. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON: But should at a later date in the evening you wish to hear that Mr Chairperson do let me know.I want to refer to a speech that was given during the debate by a Labour Party member Steve Maharey. I want to highlight three things that he said that are relevant to the reason that we are here tonight. The first of those is that early on in his contribution he made the point that the Minister of Social Welfare had that morning given to the Opposition the legislation that was being debated. That was the amount of notice it got. Is this ringing any bells for anybody? The reason we are here tonight with a National Government deciding to retrospectively take away the rights of a group of New Zealanders has its roots in the same rushed hopeless pace of legislation which this Government once again puts us through.Mr Maharey was very prescient as he occasionally was. He said: “Yet again we have an example of this Government running along behind itself trying to get legislation together and trying to get a programme together. When we look through the Bill we see that yet again there are many issues to be cleared up and cleaned up leaving hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries wondering exactly what it means for them.” That was in 1998. Fast forward to 2015 and the same thing is being done all over again. That is the problem members on this side of the Chamber have. Mr Maharey then went on to say “The Bill is being dealt with under urgency. It will not go to a select committee.” and he went on to tell us the problems with that.Once again we are in this Chamber tonight debating a bill that has not been to a select committee. As parliamentarians we have had our right to actually see the evidence that has gone already to a select committee about this matter denied to us tonight by the National Government. But again the problems are—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! No the member will resume his seat. I want to make absolutely clear that no member has been denied the right to see that evidence. There is a right to table it that was not allowed. Members can share evidence with other members. There is no restriction on that.GRANT ROBERTSON: Thank you Mr Chair and I will take up that offer in due course. So we have the problem here just to repeat how we have got to this point. A piece of legislation has not been thought through properly. A piece of legislation was pushed through under urgency in 1998 and here we are again. The Government is attempting to retrospectively correct that with another piece of legislation that has not been adequately looked at that has no regulatory impact statement and that is again being pushed through under urgency.Then there is this line from Mr Maharey: “This Government wants to see beneficiaries be the fall guys for its faults.” Well you could not get a better example of history repeating itself from 1998. What I want to know from the Government and I still have not heard a satisfactory answer since an earlier call when I asked this question. We have now been given an idea of the number of people who put in an application—$8500. What I want to know from the Government—Carmel Sepuloni: 8500 people.GRANT ROBERTSON: Sorry 8500 people—thank you. What I want to know from the Government is what amounts of money we are talking about here. Are we talking about $80 each for those people? Are we talking $1000 each? Can we actually get some information into this Committee about what it is that the Government is so concerned about here? Is it the cost? Just be up front with New Zealanders. Just be up front with New Zealanders and tell us tonight the sums of money that are at play here.I would actually be extremely surprised if we were talking about individuals with $5000 or $10000. We do not know. I do not know the answer to that question right now. The Government must have some idea. The Government must be able to do this otherwise what we will be sitting with here are members of the Government who are simply not prepared to get up and justify this legislation.I am really struggling here. You heard Chris Hipkins earlier talking about what this Parliament has effectively decided is the way in which retrospective legislation can work in this House. There will be from time to time occasions where retrospective legislation makes some sense. But how can a piece of legislation be retrospective for people after an error is discovered but not before the error was discovered? The error exists. The error has been there according to the Government since 1998.It is not a matter of finding a dividing line of when a Government official told a Minister and that happened to be in 2014 which means there is a limited scope to the number of people who can be involved. If it is an error it was an error made in 1998 and the Government should simply front up to that. But what we learn is that history repeats itself. History repeats itself because the Government tries to ram through legislation and makes mistakes and creates further errors and further inequities.What I want to hear from a Government member or from the Minister in the chair is some indication of the individual amounts of money that are being discussed here. This would normally have emerged during the select committee process. It is a dead-set guarantee that somehow someone in the select committee process would have said: “This is how much it is. This is the estimation. This is how many who have come forward to us today and asked for an amount of money.” Otherwise we are flying blind here and all we are left with is the impression of a Government that is determined to take away from a group of New Zealanders the rights that they should have. There is nothing that has been put forward in this Parliament that would give justification for that.The intention of Cabinet the intention of an individual Minister—we have got the names of them here. Shall we go upstairs and find Peter McCardle and ask him what his intention was when he moved this? It is irrelevant—it is absolutely irrelevant. It is irrelevant what Cabinet decided. What matters is what ended up in the law in 1998. That is the only thing that should matter to this Parliament. If we spend all of our time trying to work out what the intent of Ministers like Peter McCardle and Roger Sowry who were the Ministers who moved it was we could have any old thing come up. We have not seen Cabinet papers to justify that. All that we have got is the law. It is our job in this Parliament to make the law and then when there are mistakes to deal with them in a way that is fair and is equitable for New Zealanders and not to deal with them in a way that is convenient for the Government. That is the impression that I have got from this debate—that what we are doing here in the House is what is convenient for this Government.Let us all own this as parliamentarians. A mistake has been made. A group of people individuals in our community have been denied something that they should have got. Let us give them the time—all of them—to make an application to get their funding back. They will not all do it—lots of people will decide it is not worth their while—but that should not be the criteria either. The criteria should simply be that when Parliament gets something wrong it corrects it and it allows those people who have been aggrieved and who feel that they have lost their rights or their entitlements to be able to take the course of action that should be available to them.There is nothing that has been put forward in this Committee tonight that should justify overriding Parliament’s doing the right thing. I want to hear a National member get on their feet and give us a reason for this breach of the rights and entitlements of New Zealanders because without that and unless they are prepared to support our Supplementary Order Paper we cannot support the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I just seek some clarification around the official advice on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill that Carmel Sepuloni earlier on sought leave to table and to be debatable. As you have correctly pointed out to members we do have the ability as members to share that advice with other members of Parliament. What we are unclear about on this side of the Chamber is whether we are able to use that official advice as the substance for debate in the Committee given that it is still part of a select committee process.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I can answer that relatively easily for the member. The member cannot refer to the advice but the member can use the advice to inform himself or herself—all right. Is that clear?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Yes that is clear.STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I would like to talk on clause 4(2) of this bill which refers to section 80BA(4)(b) of the Social Security Act 1964. But just before I do I would like to read just one statement from the departmental disclosure statement. What the departmental disclosure statement says is a rationale of why we are putting in retrospective legislation. It says that this: “could be seen as contentious as generally legislation should operate prospectively not retrospectively. However in this case the retrospective provisions can be justified to ensure: … financial costs to the Crown that were not anticipated are avoided.” And that is important.So what the Crown is seeking to do is to avoid costs that were not anticipated. Let us look at section 80BA(4)(b) of the Social Security Act 1964. Let us look at the sort of people that this piece of legislation is potentially going to disadvantage. We are not talking about middle-class New Zealanders who can afford things and we are not talking about the wealthy for whom $20 means nothing; we are talking about these people.The Act actually outlines the people whom this is going to disadvantage: people who are on the benefit for “(i) sole parent support; or (ii) a supported living payment; or (iii) jobseeker support granted on the ground of sickness injury or disability; …”. We get the picture. These are the most disadvantaged people in our society. These are the people whom Parliament has decided need support from the Government. Therefore what Parliament has mandated is that we give these people a level of support that allows them to live a life of at least dignity or certainly allows them to stand on their own two feet while they get out of their circumstances.Section 80BA(4)(b)talks about “(iv) jobseeker support granted to a sole parent; or (v) jobseeker support granted to a person who has recently lost the financial support of his or spouse or partner by reason of death the spouses or partners commencing to live apart or the ending of a de facto relationship; or (vi) a youth payment; or (vii) a young parent payment.” Again I would like to emphasise that the people who we are looking at really screwing in a way or certainly denying natural justice to are those who are the most disadvantaged in our society. We have heard that that is about 8500 New Zealanders. In the scheme of things that is actually quite a lot of disadvantaged people in our society who could well do with this payment if they decide to take it up.The term “natural justice” has been used. Let us have a look at what that means. It is actually a legal term andwhat it actually means is the rule against bias and the right to a fair hearing. That is what natural justice means. That is why we are in this Parliament standing up for those who have an inability to stand up for themselves. We are the voice of these people who are disadvantaged and who look to us to do what is right. And when the honourable member Catherine Delahunty said that she was becoming cynical I disagreed. I am not cynical. I am hopeful that we are here for the right reasons and I am hopeful that we can actually do the right thing for those who are the most disadvantaged in our society and who need us to stand up for them and to do what is right.I listed a group of quite specific people under the legislation that is being amended by clause 4(2) of this bill. We can see that these are people who yet again are possibly—let us make an assumption here—some of the most disenfranchised. I would wage a bet that the vast majority—well a good number of them—will not know that this debate is going on.Some of them will have advocates in the community who when this law is passed—if we do the right thing and Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper goes through—will contact their networks and who will go out to these people as defined in section 80BA(4)(b). They will say to them: “Let me help you. Let me help you get that money back because it’s coming up to Christmas.” This bill is going to receive its Royal assent before Christmas of that there is no doubt. And they will say: “So let me help you and it might make a bit of difference.”Again I suspect what will happen is that the word will slowly spread out. When I see here that one of the three reasons for this retrospective legislation is that—Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): This is my first call and I am surprised that given the importance of the legislation that we are debating at the moment the only two pieces of information that are available to me are the Act itself and the departmental disclosure statement which does not provide a lot of information.I want to follow through on something that I do not believe that this Committee has really considered in depth in debating this particular piece of legislation and that is that we are amending the Social Security Act 1964 and this bill—the Government’s bill—does not really provide a lot of information in terms of the principles and purpose of the Act of 1964. I just want the Committee to cast its sight on that particular Act because that is what we are talking about. That is what we are amending tonight.The purpose of the 1964 Act is “(a) to enable the provision of financial and other support as appropriate—(i) to help people to support themselves and their dependants while not in paid employment; and (ii) to help people to find or retain paid employment; and (iii) to help people for whom work may not currently be appropriate because of sickness injury disability or caring responsibilities to support themselves and their dependants:”. That really underlines what we are missing in all of this.This is about vulnerable people and given that we do not have the select committee process and we do not have the benefit of advice from the general public I am asking the first question. How many of these people whom the vulnerable that this 1964 Act was set up for are affected by this retrospective legislation?How many sickness beneficiaries are affected by this retrospective legislation? How many disabled or people with injuries are affected by this retrospective legislation? Some people have caring responsibilities are unable to support themselves and their dependants and are dependent on the State to provide support. How many of them are affected by this? If the Minister is able to provide that information that can give us some clarity in terms of how much money is involved in this because I understand that Minister Tolley made a comment in an interview she conducted on Radio New Zealand National. She said on 16 September 2015 that we are talking about only a day so it is not a huge amount. So if it is not a huge amount what is the Government doing? What is it doing to the most vulnerable group of people in our community?All the Government has to do is ensure that those people who missed out on that 1 day of a payment are given it. At the community level the people on the ground would see that for the past 18 years a Government department has broken the law because it has not paid them something that they should have been paid. So it has broken the law. If a business breaks the law we take it to court. But in this case the harm or the damage was done by a particular Government department and now the Government wants to act on it by refusing to pay out 1 day to the most vulnerable people.As my colleague Stuart Nash said $20 is a lot of money to people who are in need. In the last 7 years the group of people in need has grown and continues to grow. So I am asking the Minister in the chair Nathan Guy to give us a total of the number of people in the various beneficiary brackets. How many are affected by this? Can the Minister also provide the amount of money that we are talking about because that has not been given to us.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I am very happy to take a call on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill and to put some further questions to the Minister in the chair the Hon Nathan Guy because we have been putting these questions but still do not have any answers. In the course of my contribution on this bill I want to share some of the questions that I have been asked by my constituents in Wigram and share some of the stories from there.I would like to echo the questions that my colleague Su’a William Sio just asked around what the numbers are that we are talking about here. We were told by the Minister for Social Development who was previously in the chair that we have so far had 8500 claims made since this has gone public but how much are they for what brackets do they fit into and what kind of quantum are we talking about here? That is a question that is really important to us here on the Opposition benches in order for us to understand the impact of this legislation. The Minister is dismissing it and saying that it is only 1 day but as my colleague quite rightly pointed out if it is only 1 day and it is such a small thing what is the problem? Why are Government members not looking to support Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper 142 which would allow for natural justice to occur?We also have a very big question around why we are doing this under urgency. The fact is that this was found out in May 2014—there was a High Court ruling—so why is it that we are here in November 2015 pushing this through under urgency and in real danger of making the same kinds of mistakes that got us into this place in the first place? My colleague Grant Robertson read very well from the Hansard of the debates of 1998 which showed just how we got into this predicament—sloppy lawmaking under urgency when we do not use all the tools at our disposal as legislators to examine legislation and ask the kinds of questions that we need to ask.Given that we do not have that opportunity for the select committee process and we do not have that opportunity for people to come and make submissions I would like to share some of the feedback I have been getting from constituents in Wigram. A group of constituents—I have had a lot of traffic into my office in Hoon Hay—are actually a group of teacher-aides. This is a group of workers many of whom stand down each term. So when the Minister says that this is 1 day only that is many days multiplied by the end of term. So for her to dismiss it as being just 1 day shows the Minister does not understand the problem.This is a group of workers—teacher-aides—who are reasonably low-paid. They work incredibly hard and make an incredible difference in our schools but these are largely women who when they stand down need to reapply for the benefit to support their families. This is a group of mothers who often struggle who have been denied assistance with raising their children—because let us be clear this is what they were entitled to. This is not people here seeking something that was not theirs; this is about asking that people be paid what they were rightfully entitled to.Something I have noted is that a number of the people who have come into my office to talk about this and who are employed as teacher-aides are actually people whom I have had to help with Novopay issues. This is a group of workers who have already had to deal with the Ministry of Education not being able to get their pay right in the Novopay debacle and now they are having to deal with another Government agency denying them what was rightfully theirs.I think this is a very unfairly treated group of workers and I would like to know from the Minister in the chair Nathan Guy how many of the 8500 are teacher-aides—another question. We would like to see you get on your feet Minister and answer some of these questions that we are putting to you. This is being done under urgency and there are real questions that the Opposition is putting to the Minister and we believe that they deserve to be answered. So for the Minister to just sit there and do his paperwork and not take a call and answer these questions it really is not giving the dignity to this legislation that it deserves. I would like to know how many of the 8500 who have already made a claim under this provision are from this group whom I have described—teacher-aides. How many days were these workers affected for? When the Minister says that it is just 1 day I know that many of the women whom I have spoken to have had a stand down every term. If you put that back—they have been doing this since 1998—that is many terms. That is many days of entitlement that they have been denied.So I look forward to the Minister taking a calling on that. I look forward to the Minister explaining to us why this is being done in urgency. I look forward to the Minister describing to us how many of the 8500 fall into what brackets and what the actual liability on the Crown is.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): It is customary when rising to take a call especially one’s first call as this is in this debate on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill—and what a lovely benign positive rosy title that is—to state whether one supports or opposes the legislation. Unfortunately my colleagues and I are not in a position to be able to do that because our support for the legislation is contingent upon the excellent Supplementary Order Paper 142 being put forward by Carmel Sepuloni MP—the gist of which is to delay the commencement of the bill in order to allow all those who have received a benefit between 3 June 1998 when the mistake first arose and 19 May 2014 which in the current bill is when the Government is prepared to restore their rights—to fill in that gap.If the Government assents to doing that Labour will certainly be supporting the bill but Labour cannot support it without that assent because to do so would be to deny people their legitimate rights after the courts found that the Government of New Zealand is in an unlawful position and thus to trammel the dearly and long-held principle that although Parliament is sovereign no New Zealand Government can operate outside the law. A retrospective law change to fix a 17-year-old blunder being passed through Parliament in urgency without so much as a select committee meeting is a travesty unless it retrospectively restores the rights that in error the Government and Parliament unlawfully took. So either we fix it—in which case we can live with the truncated process—or we have to remind the current Government that this principle is worth fighting for and vote against it. The Government is not helping anybody. It is not helping the public of New Zealand; it is not helping the Opposition parties which are showing willingness to cooperate under certain circumstances. That is because the legislation is being rushed through all stages under urgency and we are going to be here until midnighttonight and possibly thereafter debating this bill.There is no regulatory impact statement attached to the bill. That means there has been no set of alternative policy options put forward and analysed in the normal way. Therefore there has been no argumentation advanced by the Government as to what the best optionis and therefore the public has been denied the usual rigour and thoroughness of policy advice. There is no regulatory impact statement. To make matters worse no Cabinet papers have been released to the public or to Parliament to show the logic that Cabinet followed in making its decision. The Minister in the chair may wish to take a call to explain what the fiscal risk is that the Government is concerned about. Surely that can be the only reason for not restoring as the court has indicated the full legal rights of New Zealanders since they were inappropriately and mistakenly taken away in 1998 and thereafter.If it is a fiscal risk issue and if there is a fiscal veto of Carmel Sepuloni’s amendment then at the very least Minister take a call. Be up front with New Zealanders. You pride yourself Minister on being a rural chap who does not mess around with words. Well just stand up and take it on the chin. Tell us how it is; we are big enough to take it. If you think it is going to cost $200 million to fulfil the High Court’s orders tell us.Hon Nathan Guy: Mmm.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Was that a “Yes” Minister? Because there are those who think that Yes Minister apparently is a training video for the current Government and the Sir Humphreys are alive and well—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Come on—back to the bill.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —but we will not go there with your guidance Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No you will not.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: So there are no fiscal estimates contained in the bill. We do not know what the fiscal risk is. We do not know what the difference is between the 2014 fix and the 1998 proper fix and that matters actually because we want to know what the Government’s price is for sacrificing principle here. As I said there has been no options analysis so the public cannot tell. Why has the Government not—and the Minister may wish to answer this—considered an interest component in the payback because the time value of money wrongfully expropriated since 1998 would not be inconsiderable. If I can turn now to several of the clauses of the bill—CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I have got several questions to raise and points to make. I just want to start out by saying that because this is going through an urgent process we really have been denied the opportunity to access the information that would inform us better in respect of considering this bill. Because it has been such short notice and it is going through under urgency we do not have the opportunity to put in an Official Information Act request to find out why the Government has delayed and did not make this change on 20 May 2014 when it was informed of the technical error in the legislation. Because we have not been given the opportunity to go through a select committee process and have not had the time we also cannot put an Official Information Act request in for the Cabinet papers—the original Cabinet papers—that would have discussed this issue back in 1998 when the original legislation was going through the House. So it is really difficult for us to take the word of the Government in terms of the intent of this bill being something when clearly the legislation does not paint that picture.The Chair has made it clear to us that we cannot talk about the official advice that we have got through the Social Services Committee on the bill that this bill previously sat in which is the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. However I am assuming that we can talk about the submissions that were made publicly at that select committee where there was relevant information that was made there during submissions that applies to this particular bill. I want to talk about that because this is the only information that we have to inform us really given that this particular bill has not gone through a select committee on its own. So I do want to point out the fact that submitters on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill raised the point that they had concerns that the appeal rights provisions in that bill—which applied to this bill—would limit the ability to review and appeal decisions and they had concerns that the provisions may not be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.I now want to just reflect on the departmental disclosure statement on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill that we are looking at now and just point out the fact that this bill did not go to the Attorney-General. So when we look at the section on “Consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990” we are told here that this bill did not go to the Attorney-General and yet the advice is that the bill does not impact on the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Well actually the submitters did not feel that that was the case. They had genuine concerns that actually what the Government is trying to do which is retrospectively change the legislation is not consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So I think that we should be really concerned as a Parliament that the Government is looking to put something through tonight that potentially runs a high risk of not being consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.I really want to point out some of the points that were made during that particular select committee consideration where we had the opportunity to discuss the elements of the bill that we are talking about tonight. A submission that was made by the very effective beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton raised the concerns that I have talked about. She raised concerns that “The bill reduces the right to review for affected beneficiaries in this way people already experiencing significant barriers in accessing their review rights and we see this step in reducing their rights as a move away from the principle of natural justice where a person has a right to understand and review a decision which affects them.”I want to take that point and then I want to go back to the bill and I want to look at clause 5 “Retrospective effect of amendments to section 80BA” where we see that “subsection (1) does not apply in the case of any decision or determination made before the commencement of this Act—”. Those people who are quick enough to get in are not going to have the decision on them overturned. That is because the Government recognises that their claim was valid and I think we need to acknowledge that. The Government recognises that the claim was valid. That is why in clause 5 of this bill they are not—IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I would also like to take the opportunity to have a closer reading of clause 5 of this bill principally because of a comment that was made by Minister Tolley when she was in the chair in response to a point raised by a number of us on this side that this legislation acts retrospectively and that people will not be able to seek compensation for having been denied some of their benefit income. The Minister seemed to be saying in her comment that that was not correct and that people would be able to apply retrospectively. However I do not believe that that is what clause 5—Hon Ruth Dyson: They can apply but they’ll be turned down.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: My colleague says that they can apply but they will be turned down. That may be an accurate reading of what the Minister meant.But I just want to explore the Minister’s statement looking through clause 5. Clause 5(1) says that “The principal Act must be read as if the amendments to section 80BA(4)(a)(i) and (b) made by section 4 of this Act had come into force on 3 June 1998.” In other words this legislation acts retrospectively and we are to imagine that the changes made by this legislation came into force back in 1998 when the National Government rushed its amendment through under urgency and stuffed this up in the first place.That to me appears on the face of it to mean that people cannot seek retrospective compensation. However we have clause 5(2) which reads: “However subsection (1) does not apply in the case of any decision or determination made before the commencement of this Act—”. Then we have a series of paragraphs: “(a) that affects the appellant in Social Security Appeal No. SSA 001/14 and SSA 002/14 ([2014] NZSSAA 39);”. I have no idea what that means and that is the issue with doing these things under urgency. Here we are debating this legislation and I have absolutely no idea at all what that clause means. I would be grateful if the Minister or any member opposite could get up and explain that because I have zero understanding of that clause.Then there is “(b) that affects the appellant in Social Security Appeal No. SSA 115/14 and SSA 134/14 ([2014] NZSSAA 106);”—ditto paragraph (a)—“(c) that is a decision to commence a benefit on the day on which the stand down period ends;”—again I am not sure how that will be implemented—“(d) that relates to the commencement of a benefit on or after 20 May 2014 and is the subject of an application for a review under section 10A of the principal Act made at any time within 6 weeks after the commencement of this Act;”—that bit I kind of do get. The Government accepts that it was acting illegally for a year and a half and it will accept applications from people who were treated in a fashion that was illegal during the period in which the Government knew that it was acting in a fashion that was illegal. I get that one.Finally there is “(e) that relates to the commencement of a benefit at any time on or after 3 June 1998 and is the subject of an application for a review under section 10A of the principal Act made at any time before the commencement of this Act;”. I understand that one as well. I get that. It means you have to get your application in before this legislation receives the Royal assent which is probably why the Government is pushing this through under urgency—so as to reduce the opportunity for people to actually get their applications in.So I challenge what the Minister said which was that people will be able to apply although maybe Ruth Dyson is right. They can apply—apply away to your heart’s content—but the law will say that you cannot actually get compensation. I understand paragraphs (d) and (e) and I do not think they operate in the fashion that the Minister led the Committee to believe they would operate. I have no idea what clause 5(2)(a) through to (c) actually means and I would really appreciate a member opposite rising to their feet and actually explaining that. We are here in the Chamber debating legislation attempting—Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I wish to spend a few minutes going through the departmental disclosure statement. This is a very unusual disclosure statement for people watching—unusual because of its thoroughness or lack thereof. Here is the first page and here is the second page—they are mainly blank. There is a very pro forma series of tables thereafter in which there are only two substantive paragraphs. So the departmental disclosure statement which is really the only piece of analysis attached to the draft bill is only two paragraphs long. It replaces the normal release of Cabinet documents and the normal regulatory impact statement from Treasury.Let me then turn to the two paragraphs concerned. The first one attempts to answer the question “Does this Bill affect rights freedoms or impose obligations retrospectively?”. It answers truthfully that yes of course it does because these rights to the extra day’s benefit have been deprived since 1998.The bill attempts to retrospectively squash what is legitimately owed under the current law to beneficiaries. It might be that the current Government thinks beneficiaries are subhuman or that they do not deserve normal legal rights. It is here extinguishing 17 years’ worth of rights minus a 1-year exemption literally with a stroke of a pen under urgency and denying people the opportunity for the normal select committee process and with barely a fig leaf to hide its modesty. This departmental disclosure statement is the fig leaf and it is a pretty small one. It is pretty thin. It goes on—I think this is really interesting. Retrospective provisions are not normally allowed of course because that takes away people’s rights if Parliament is coming over the top and squashing rights that existed in the past. It says however that exceptions are “justified to ensure: the Government policy intent is upheld”. Well how on earth would we know what the Government’s policy intent is because there is no evidence of it from either 1998 or 2014 provided to the House or the public.My colleague Grant Robertson has gone to the extent of pulling out the old Hansard from 1998 and that made the point that it was a jolly rushed process and the mistake was made because the Government of the day another National Government acted with undue haste. But surely it cannot be sufficient justification simply that an undescribed and unvalidated policy intent—call that what you will—is upheld? If you accept that argument then the Government could intend anything and upholding any intention could by that argument be validation for retrospective law.Second dot-point—“practice and understanding that has been previously applied …”. Well you know that is simply saying that if you made the mistake consistently it is OK to keep making it. That cannot be a sufficient justification.Third dot-point—and this I think is the most telling of the lot—“financial costs to the Crown that were not anticipated are avoided.” Well there we are. That is what this all comes down to: financial costs that were not anticipated are avoided. But if the Government is going to override legal and constitutional rights on the basis of avoiding un-forecast financial costs then the least—the very least—that it can do is to make clear what those costs are. This arrogant out-of-touch Government does not even deign to tell the public of New Zealand what the costs are that it is overriding people’s legal rights for 17 years to fix. It does not care. The Government members do not even bother to take to their feet. I challenge the Minister in the chair Nicky Wagner: show us you care by taking a call and telling people what the cost is and telling them why it is justified to override a court-ordered right.The justification such that it is says that certain decisions of the Ministry of Social Development’s Social Security Appeal Authority are protected from retrospective validation. Well you can say that again. They are protected by a Government that is arrogant.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I look across the other side of the Chamber and I see several members of the Social Services Committee—Government members who were part of the discussion for the substantive part of this—where we were discussing the wider bill from which was extracted the component of the bill that we are now discussing. Not a single member has stood to give their view on this bill—not a single member. They have been in the Chamber for hours probably looking at Facebook and not actually taking this seriously. I challenge them—[Interruption] Oh you are actually reading some other things. Have any of you got the legislation in front of you so that you can actually track what the Opposition members are saying with regard to this bill? I suggest you have not.Let us talk about the people who are impacted on by this who could be positively impacted on by this: the beneficiaries of New Zealand who were denied a day’s payment because of an inaccuracy an error that was made 17 years ago in a piece of legislation that was rushed through under urgency. We cannot stress enough that here we are back to the future doing it all over again 17 years later.What kind of information has the Government provided for us to make and pass and debate this piece of legislation? A flimsy departmental disclosure statement but no regulatory impact statement no idea of the cost—there is nothing on which we can base the assertions of the Minister for Social Development that the policy intent of this legislation is clear. There is no clarity. There is very little information. There is no evidence. There is no select committee process. There is no ability for anyone to feed into this process. It is only for the members of the Opposition to stand and take calls to review old Hansards and actually to do the work the Government should have done before this piece of legislation hit the Table. It has not been done. Where have you been? Why are we debating this under urgency when the Government clearly has not done the work?When I was taking my last call I was starting to refer to a beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton who according to Minister Tolley has run out of electricity in her attempt to ensure that beneficiaries are made aware that they actually have a process that they can apply to. Surely it is the job of the Government and the Ministry of Social Development to do that work and not to rely on someone—at their own cost at their own expense—to find people who may benefit from this bill. It is extraordinary that the Minister actually congratulated Miss Brereton for her work but has done nothing to support her in doing it. The Government has got the resources with which to advertise for people to come forward.I want to just quote something that Kay Brereton has said: “Beneficiaries are not able to fix a mistake they made which created an overpayment in any way but by repayment of the debt. If a person’s benefit ceases a day later than it should have under law that person must repay the overpayment in full. There is no clemency shown to people who owe Work and Income money. This is a debt to the Crown and will be collected from the person their estate or any other party that can be held liable. This money currently owed to beneficiaries by the Crown would make a significant difference in the lives of many and would be a windfall albeit small and only a day or two’s payment for families and individuals struggling with bureaucracy that gives them no leeway.”However when the Government underpays them what is the response from the Government? It is to actually change the legislation so that it actually does not have to meet its obligations. Clearly what is happening here is that when the Government found it had made its mistake it put the line in the sand. It put the line in the sand and said that from this point forward until the legislation is passed—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you for the call on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill which is proposed to amend the Social Security Act of 1964 with retrospective effect.I feel compelled to speak to and to address clauses 4 and 5 of this bill. Clause 4 of the bill would amend the principal Act to entrench in law the so-called day after principle so that the benefit starts to run a day after the benefit stand-down period ends. Clause 5(1) provides that the “day after” amendment will have retrospective effect up to and including 3 June 1998. Retrospective effect is not something that Parliament should be taking lightly particularly in passing legislation. We are here today discussing a fix and this is something that my colleagues Carmel Sepuloni and Grant Robertson as well as others have spoken about previously. We are trying to fix legislation that was actually passed under urgency by yet again passing a bill under urgency without going through the full process of this House.The Legislation Design Committee and Legislation Advisory Committee was established to provide advice to departments and agencies on the design and content of Government bills. In its guidelines in 2014 it notes that legislation should not affect existing rights and that New Zealand law operates on a presumption against retrospectivity. The general rule is that legislation should have prospective not retrospective effect. Clause 5(2) carves out expectations to the “day after” amendment in certain cases but the retrospective effect of this bill would deprive many vulnerable New Zealanders of their right to a payment. Retrospective effect in this instance is designed to take away a full day’s benefit from many Kiwis who over the last 18 years have been owed money by this Government.Just today the Salvation Army came out with a report that basically said that particularly in Auckland we have so many vulnerable families. I know that many members in this House—I am not talking about members on this side of the House—prefer to walk around with their eyes closed to the fact that there are so many vulnerable families in New Zealand. What the Salvation Army report found was that 50 percent of these families are children—those who are homeless and living in cars today in Aotearoa New Zealand in the biggest city that we have the city of Auckland. This Government is trying to change the law that would wipe the rest of the arrears so that those who are not in the know will miss out.The current unsightly scramble under urgency to change the law is clearly ruled more by economics rather than by concern for people or for the welfare of some of our most vulnerable citizens. Beneficiaries advocate Kay Brereton told Radio New Zealand National recently that this legislation would apply to almost every benefit that has been granted in the last 18 years. For some people they might have gone on and off the benefit a number of times. Every time that they have gone on again they have been short-paid by a day. These are clearly underpayments under the law. The Minister has admitted that for nearly two decades this has been the standard practice. The Minister has been quoted as saying: “We are talking a day so it’s not a huge amount.” I can tell this Committee that although it might not be a huge amount to someone on a Minister’s salary rectifying these underpayments could make a real difference to people’s lives—the type of good people who live in South Auckland in my electorate of Manukau East those who are struggling every day just to feed their kids clothe them and to pay their rent.It is appalling that the Government is acting in this way to take away the need to pay money owed to people on the lowest incomes who need every cent to make ends meet. This situation has been known since last year yet here we are today watching this Government scrambling under urgency without the benefit of proper scrutiny to manufacture a patch simply to save money. This is yet another instance where money comes before people. Thank you.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I know that it is not appropriate to bring the Chair into the debate but could I invite the Chair to join in my little quiz?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No.Hon RUTH DYSON: I have a little quiz that I want to start my contribution with tonight. The answer is a day of the week. That is my clue for you. Consider this statement: “If a stand down period applies under this section benefits commence as follows: (a) benefits except those described in paragraph (b) commence on the later of—(i) the day on which the stand down period ends;”—let us say that Thursday is the day the stand-down period ends—“or (ii) the day on which the application for the benefit is received:”—whichever is the later. Here is my question: if the stand-down period ends on a Thursday what day does the benefit start?Iain Lees-Galloway: Thursday.Hon RUTH DYSON: Right. I heard the buzzer from my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway. He said “Thursday” but for 18½ years Work and Income has said “Friday”. In May last year through a series of events Work and Income was told that it has had it wrong all this time. It has been paying people their benefits starting on a Friday and it should have been a Thursday. That is the problem that we are seeking to address in this question. I want to particularly urge New Zealand First members Māori Party members and the Hon Peter Dunne to think about that.The words that I read out are the actual words in section 80BA—as only social security legislation can be numbered—(4)(a)(i) and (ii) of the Social Security Act 1964. That is what it says. If the stand-down period finishes on the Thursday the benefit starts on the Thursday. Work and Income started it on the Friday for 18½ years and we are fixing that problem tonight. So we have two choices. We can say: “Oh well we’ll just fess up. We got it wrong.” It was not deliberate of course. Nobody in Work and Income read that and decided to short-change anybody by a day I am sure and I am certain no Minister has over any of that period regardless of which party they are from.So we could just say: “Let’s fix it. We got it wrong.” We could say to everyone going back to 1998 since that legislation was passed: “Put in a claim and we will look at it and if you got short-changed by a day because we misinterpreted the law we will pay it to you.” Or we could have a nasty mean-spirited response and say we are not going to do that—we are not going to fix a wrong that was clearly created. We could say we are going to pay only the lawful amount to a very small percentage of people. That is what this Minister has decided.This Minister has decided that instead of paying what the law required she is going to pay only from the day her department heard about it to the day it was determined that it had been paying it wrong. That is outrageous. It is outside the law. What the little National Party people across the Chamber are going to do is vote to retrospectively make an illegal action legal and take away a day’s entitlement from a beneficiary.Well I hope they sleep well because frankly I would not feel too good about that being my contribution under urgency in the New Zealand Parliament. I would be thinking: “Truly? I worked so hard to get in here so I could cause the law to be changed retrospectively because it does not suit us to comply with the law?”. That is what they are doing. I would be ashamed actually. I would be worse than feeling not good about it. I would be ashamed to be a New Zealand member of Parliament saying we got it wrong and we are not going to fix it—well we are going to fix it for a very small number of people but not for all those who were legally entitled to get their benefit on the day their stand-down period finished.That has really frustrated me and puzzled me. Why would members of Parliament do that? All MPs have worked hard to get here. Whether they are list MPs or electorate MPs they all worked hard to get here. Is that the goal? Is the goal to change law retrospectively to take money off people who currently are legally entitled to it? Those members are lacking ambition I would say to them if that is their goal.I want to also comment on the process. I think the process has been outrageous. We have been denied the tabling of documents and advice from the officials. We have got no regulatory impact statement. The question for the Minister to answer is—KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is my pleasure to take a call in this Committee stage of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I would like the theme of my contribution to be mistakes. We are correcting a mistake that happened here in this Chamber back in 1998 as the previous National Government was in its last throes and its members were preparing to take the Opposition benches.Hon Ruth Dyson: A bit like now.KRIS FAAFOI: A lot like now—ready to come back over here. A mistake was made that has taken some time to fix. But the worst thing about making a mistake is when you try to fix that mistake and you make things worse by making more mistakes. It is for a mistake that we are here under urgency—again without the transparency that should be afforded the public and this Parliament—rushing this piece of legislation through.Looking to clause 2 it is a mistake that the Government may not—and is probably likely not to—support a couple of Supplementary Order Papers one from my colleague Carmel Sepuloni and another from Jan Logie to look at making things fair for those people who are affected by pushing out the commencement date by either 6 weeks or 6 months. That is a mistake. Those people who are affected have not had the opportunity to go to a select committee because we are here under urgency pushing this piece of legislation through.The Government could right the mistake that it is about to make and seriously consider supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142 from my colleague Carmel Sepuloni. It is a very simple Supplementary Order Paper. It would change clause 2 the commencement clause. It reads: “In clause 2 after ‘on the day’ … insert ‘that is 6 weeks’.” That is to give those people time to be able to mount a case to say: “It is the right thing and the fair thing for us to be able to ask for a review and if this money is rightly owed to us we should get it.”Can I just use an example where we think the Government would potentially add some time on to the commencement date. Let us say big corporates found out that they were entitled to money because there was a slight discrepancy within taxation law. I can bet your bottom dollar—and probably millions of them—that corporates would find a way to make sure that they could get what they thought was properly owed to them. But in this case this Government is not willing to amend clause 2 probably because of the people who may benefit from it. It is not willing to help those who are on a benefit to rightfully claim what is theirs to give them an opportunity to say: “Hey the right thing and the fair thing is that you should consider paying me what I think is rightly owed to me and giving us more time to be able to do that.” That is why I think the Government should seriously consider supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142 in the name of my colleague Carmel Sepuloni.It should also seriously consider righting its mistake of not consulting people by rushing through this piece of legislation under urgency. Supplementary Order Paper 144 in the name of Jan Logie from the Green Party looks to add a new clause 7 after the final clause in this bill to ask the department to have a period of prescribed time to undertake an advertising campaign to let those people who are affected by this change in legislation know that they should have the ability to ask for an appeal ask for a review and ask for what is rightly theirs.If you look at this process at the moment this piece of legislation is being rushed through with little or no fanfare. In the time that I have been watching this debate there has been very little contribution from members across the Chamber. They want to sweep this under the carpet in a late-night session of Parliament so that nobody knows about it. The less that people know about this the better in terms of the Government. That is why there is no select committee process that is why we seem to have no regulatory impact statement and the departmental report that we have got does not really add too much to what is going on here. So that paints a picture of a Government that would rather not have this out there in the headlines and that would rather not pay back or give the opportunity for those people who are affected to have their say and I think that is a shame. That is why I think the Government should seriously consider the amendment to insert new clause 7 as proposed by Jan Logie to give those people some time—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes I am going to accept the closure motion. We have had 2 hours 50 minutes. We have heard 34 calls. It has been well canvassed over that period of time.A party vote was called for on the question that the question be now put.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. At the beginning of the debate the member who has actually moved the closure motion sought leave for this debate to be taken as one question or at least to have a single debate. That then elicits a wide-ranging debate and it also restricts the number of calls that members can take. A number of members have reached their—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have heard the member yes. I look very closely at relevancy; I look very closely at repetition. In that period of time the Labour Party has taken 26 calls of the 34 that were taken. It has been well canvassed. I have listened to all the points that have been raised in the last hour that I have been here and that is why I am prepared to accept the closure. The Committee will decide whether that is accepted or not. So I intend to put it.CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Is this a new point of order?CARMEL SEPULONI: It is a different point of order. I am just seeking your advice because you have been privy to the debate that has gone on here tonight. I just want to get clarification from you. Given that the point was made that the technical error that we are here debating tonight was made because the same sort of legislation went through under urgency 17 years ago I just wonder—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No you are canvassing a point that could well have come up and did come up during the course of the debate. That is a debating point. It has got nothing to do with my putting the closure. The Committee will decide whether we accept the closure or not. I intend to put it.A party vote was called for on the question That the question be now put.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.Motion agreed to.CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There are particular clauses that we want to support and then at least one clause that we want to oppose. So can I just clarify with you that we can vote clause by clause rather than as a whole.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes I will be putting the six clauses separately so you will have the chance to exercise your preference at that point.Clause 1 agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 142 in the name of Carmel Sepuloni to clause 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 48New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2.Noes 73New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 143 in the name of Jan Logie to clause 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 48New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2.Noes 73New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes 75New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 46New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.Clause 2 agreed to.Clause 3 agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That clause 4 be agreed to.Ayes 107New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 14Green Party 14.Clause 4 agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 141 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley to clause 5 be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Darroch Ball to clause 5 be agreed to:delete subclause (2)(d); andafter subclause (2) add the following new subclauses:(3)Subsection (1) does not apply to any person that receives or has received a benefit that commenced on or after 20 May 2014.(4)Any person to which subsection (3) applies is entitled to and must be paid any additional benefit owed as if the amendments made by section 4 had not been made.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendments be agreed to.Ayes 12New Zealand First 12.Noes 109New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That clause 5 as amended be agreed to.Ayes 107New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 14Green Party 14.Clause 5 as amended agreed to.Clause 6 agreed to.New clause 7 Department must advertise review processThe question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 144 in the name of Jan Logie to add new clause 7 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 48New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2.Noes 73New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.New clause 7 not agreed to.Bill reported with amendment.Report adopted.Third ReadingHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) on behalf of theMinister for Social Development: I move That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The welfare system delivers assistance to more than 1 million New Zealanders each year and it is important that people are treated consistently and as intended by the Government.The Government’s policy that benefits commence on the day after a stand down has always been clear. This technical error discovered in the legislation last year is providing people with an additional day of benefit that they were not intended to have. This is not right. The legislation needs to be changed to avoid unintended costs to the Crown and to the taxpayer.The bill validates previous ministries’ practice but also provides as a measure of the Government’s good faith a reasonable opportunity for clients who feel their interests have been compromised to seek recompense. The bill corrects the technical error and ensures that legislation reflects the Government’s consistent and longstanding policy. I commend this bill to the House.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): We are really disappointed on this side of the House. We engaged with the Government in good faith over this matter recognising that actually this was an error that occurred under both National and Labour Governments. What has come to light during this process is actually that that technical error occurred during a very similar process that we have gone through today. It occurred under urgency. It occurred because of the fact that due diligence was not given to that bill a select committee was not called to look over it and submissions were not made. Clearly when we rush things through in urgency like this then we increase the chances of technical errors like that being made. So it seems ridiculous that we are here 17 years after that bill passed going through the same process that saw that bill fail in the first place.All we had asked with this bill all we had put to the Minister for Social Development and all we had put to the National Government MPs was that they support our Supplementary Order Paper 142 to delay the commencement so that natural justice could prevail. Unfortunately the Government could not even do that. We have seen very little argument put up during the Committee stage against what we were saying. We have seen in the departmental disclosure statement that there were fiscal considerations here and yet we still never got an answer from the Minister or from the National Government in the House today about what exactly those fiscal considerations were what the dollar amount was that the Government was so concerned about in respect of the claims that could come forward.We heard from the Minister that there have been 8500 claims made by people who think they may be eligible to claim back that day and I say to those people and to the beneficiary advocates out there who have pushed them to put their claims in well done good on them. I am glad that at least those 8500 people will have their claims honoured. Who I am very disappointed for are the other thousands of New Zealanders who are now going to be denied the opportunity to put a claim forward because it does not suit the Government’s agenda. What the Government is doing here tonight is legislating retrospectively to deny them the opportunity to claim what they will be entitled to up until the point that this bill passes and commences.We had so many concerns raised at the Social Services Committee when the elements of this particular bill were still in the other social security bill. Those concerns should have been taken into consideration here because clearly there was no select committee opportunity to hear submissions on this particular bill. But we have discussed the intent of this particular bill during a select committee for another bill and we should have taken seriously the concerns that were raised.There have been numerous reports about the numbers of people who may have been affected. One number we heard come from the Minister was something like 2.5 million people who have gone on and then off benefits over the last 17 years. I guess that acts as a reminder to the whole House that actually a large number of New Zealanders at some point in time are going to need to rely on that welfare safety net. I think that that is something that we need to be reminded of. It is not about people wanting to be long-term dependent on the State necessarily. It is about the fact that we have a lot of New Zealanders who at some point in time are going to find themselves out of employment and needing to rely on the State during that period.So many other elements of this bill are concerning such as the fact that it never went to the Attorney-General and the fact that there are concerns that it may not be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act as pointed out by so many of the submissions made to the other bill in relation to this subject. We have made it really clear that our concern too is for the people who work in jobs that are more likely to have been in and out of work over a period of time. We referred to teacher assistants teacher aides seasonal workers and those who go in and out of temporary work. Those people are the ones who stand to lose now because of the decision that the Government has made.Actually for many of them they have gone in and out of work over a long period of time. Some teacher aides are employed term by term. Some at the end of each term go on that stand-down period as they wait for their benefit to come in during the 2 weeks or whatever it is during the school holidays that they are no longer getting paid from the school. Those workers deserved the opportunity to make a claim. The Government has now denied them of that.I say that they deserve it because of the level of insecurity in the work that they do the expectations on them in terms of the service they provide the children—our children—whom they are looking after on a daily basis the fact that they are so poorly paid and yet this Government was so mean-spirited that it could not take into consideration workforces like those teacher aides like the seasonal workers like the temporary workers. It could not take into consideration that actually those workers had something to gain here. It was not just a matter of 1 day—and the Minister has pointed out in press releases that it is only 1 day and that it is not much money. Well to these people it actually would have been a lot of money and actually to many of these people it would have been more than just 1 day.Here we are in November heading into Christmas and that Government is so mean-spirited that now it has denied them the opportunity to make that claim and what a difference it could have made to their families. I have spoken to so many people out and about. There are lots of people who may have gone on a benefit once over the last 17 years maybe even twice who actually have said to me: “I wouldn’t have made a claim.” But it is not about whether or not they would have made it; it is about ensuring that natural justice does prevail and that they were given the opportunity to actually do it.That is why we put the Supplementary Order Paper up. We understand the Government’s need to correct this technical error in the legislation. We support that. But what we could not support is the fact that it was going to deny the groups of New Zealanders whom I talked about in this speech the natural justice that they deserve. All we asked was for a 6-week window for those people to be able to put in a claim. All we asked was that the Government provide that 6-week window by delaying the commencement date of the bill by 6 weeks and it is so mean-spirited that it could not even agree to that one small ask from us. We have nothing to gain in doing this. We did it because it is the right thing to do and all we hoped was that the Government would acknowledge that it was the right thing to do as well.We have had several speeches tonight from my colleagues and from colleagues in the Opposition parties talking about this idea: what if this was retrospective legislation that applied to businesses? Would the Government be so quick to enact such retrospective legislation if that was the case? Of course it would not. And do you know what? The unfortunate thing is that if it was retrospective legislation that might apply to businesses they would have the means by which to take out a case against the Government they would have the influence to change the Government’s mind or to force it not to do it. But unfortunately we are talking about New Zealanders here who do not necessarily have the means they do not necessarily know what is happening in Parliament and they do not necessarily know how the decisions we make affect their everyday lives. The Government knows that. The Government knows that the beneficiaries we are talking about who stand to lose here are often unfortunately the people with the quietest voices.I want to finish this final speech by just again expressing my disappointment in the Government. We really did want to work with the Government on this. I also want to just thank people out there who have been pushing this as quickly and as hard as they can to anyone who might be eligible—all of the beneficiary advocates. Particularly I want to acknowledge Kay Brereton who brought this to my attention who brought this to the media’s attention who brought this to the attention of the House. She has done a fantastic job advocating for beneficiaries. There are 8500 beneficiaries who now have their claims in. The only reason they really started to come in in numbers is because the Ministry of Social Development did start to pay out and people realised that actually this is not a hoax and they may actually be eligible for some money and Kay Brereton is responsible for getting the word out.I also want to acknowledge the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. It put the word around to the unions as well. The meatworkers union I know put the word out because it has a lot of workers who are on work and then off work and then forced to have to go on benefit and so may have a number of stand-down periods as well. To all those who have tried to get the word out there I want to acknowledge them. And finally I just want to say “No thanks.” to the National Government for being so mean-spirited and I am very disappointed—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member. Her time has expired.ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a call in the third reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I do so because one of the things I want to make a point about which has been made is that we know and we have talked about the date of 1998. So like a previous member of the House who actually went to the Hansard I too decided it would be of some interest to look at the Hansard of 1998—and it was on 14 May.It was the Hon Roger Sowry who was the Minister of Social Welfare who put this legislation through. I want to just take a couple of lines out of that and this is what he says: “The bill also extends work obligations to some groups of beneficiaries with expectations about their capacity to take up part-time work.” So that was the intent of the bill. There was a sense that there was going to be welfare change. He also concludes his speech and contribution saying: “In conclusion the changes to welfare benefits contained in this bill herald a radical change in the direction of welfare in New Zealand.” So that has not changed—the intent of that bill. Obviously it is the technical aspect of that bill that is of some concern.As I was reading through the Hansard with some interest not looking on Facebook and so forth I actually came up to the Rev. Ann Batten from New Zealand First. I thought that New Zealand First and Mr Darroch Ball may have some interest there. This is what she said: “One thing I’ve learnt in my time here is just how shallow and simplistic the howls of outrage that emanate from Opposition parties often are whenever the Government attempts to make any improvements whatsoever.” So I think that there is some precedent there that Mr Darroch Ball is taking—that the Rev. Ann Batten a member of New Zealand First also too was in support of this bill and that is what she was saying there.Barbara Stewart: Years ago. Years ago.ALFRED NGARO: That is just here in Hansard Barbara so I think that is important. One of the things that I think is important that also has been raised and also came through in some of the 26 speeches in the Committee stage by the Labour Party members was the need for urgency. Again how wonderful history is. I know that Mr Faafoi is a great historian. He loves reading history though—Kris Faafoi: Someone’s going to be history.ALFRED NGARO: OK—and here is what it says. The attack from the Opposition was around the fact that here we are in urgency not going through the select committee process. Well in 2003 there was the Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill. I know that the Hon Ruth Dyson will remember this and in the first reading the Hon Rick Barker said this: “I move That the Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. Because of the urgency accorded to this bill it is the Government’s intention that the bill be passed through all stages without referral to a select committee.” Throughout this afternoon and into the evening we have heard from the Opposition about the fact that there was no robust process and about heading to select committee.But it gets even better—and here are the little Ginsu knives—because here is the next one in 2006. That is right. They may not want to hear this. This is from the Hon Michael Cullen and this is the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill—in other words that was the pledge card. Mr Cullen said: “I move That the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill be now read for the first time.” There was a point of order around the fact that the National Government asked for the bill because there was no bill at that time. The Hon Dr Cullen said this: “Speaking to the point of order I say that a copy of this was made available to the National Party … this morning …”. There has been a lot of criticism about the process. I think that the honourable Minister Anne Tolley has actually been working alongside as well as possible with Carmel Sepuloni to try to come to some compromise and agreement about the intent of this bill.I want to just finalise my comments by saying that this bill has been under urgency. We know the importance of the bill for that: 8500 applications so far for review and on average involving around $105. So there is not a point that is there. The Supplementary Order Paper by Jan Logie talked about the ability to advertise this. We know that there has been a promotional campaign by those departments which has already begun—a few weeks—encouraging clients to seek reviews about their entitlements. The Government has made every step possible. It takes responsibility and knowing the fact that this is a technical area that it needs to correct we have ensured that as well as possible we can not only meet the needs of the requirements of the vision of this Government but also too meet the needs of those clients. I commend this bill in its third reading to the House.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): All that last speaker Alfred Ngaro proves by his contribution is that he can read. That is all he proves. He makes no valid points. I want to say that one of the points that we made on this side of the House was that the Government MPs did not take a call throughout that whole Committee stage—Alfred Ngaro: I might need to talk to Ruth about that.POTO WILLIAMS: You might not need to. However you should be defending your bill. After all the points that we raised I was sure that the member Alfred Ngaro as the chairman of the select committee that saw the original bill would have wanted to make a contribution. But no Government MPs sit there and they throw the occasional lob but they do nothing constructive when they have required us to sit in urgency to pass a bill that obviously does not require urgency. There has been no justification given to this House as to why urgency is required—none whatsoever.We started the day debating the reason we were here for this particular bill and it is really about a couple of phrases. The two phrases in contention are “on the day which” or “on the day after”. That is all this argument has been about for the whole of this debate. We know that when we go back to the original section 80BA of the Social Security Act—the principal Act—it says “on the day which”. So we have been having an argument for the last—how many hours has it been Ruth Dyson? Several hours—to say that 17 years ago it was right and it was implemented incorrectly for the last 17 or 18½ years.It is a simple argument—let us fix it. Let us go back to 1998 and say: “You know what? All those people who missed out on that day because of those two clauses ‘on the day which’ or ‘on the day after’ the people who were actually paid on the day after you know what we are going to restore that. We are not going to say: ‘Hey we found this out in 2014 and that is the day from which we are going to actually fix this.’ No we are going to go back and have a look at the whole shebang and correct it from the beginning.” What has happened because we have put that line in the sand and said that we are going to go from May 2014 is that there are a whole lot of people who have missed out on this and there has been a lot of discussion about the principles of natural justice. They have been excluded from this process because of it.The Minister said that to date they have received 8500 claims. The previous speaker seemed to intimate that that is because of the work that the Government and the ministry have done. Well actually that is not correct. It is because of the work that beneficiary advocates have done and the word of mouth that has gotten out there as beneficiaries have been able to claim and receive what they are entitled to that people have started to claim this process. But from tomorrow that stops for most of those people who should be included in this process. That is frankly unfair and not good enough. The Government takes responsibility just from the date that the mistake came to light and not actually from the date of the original error which was when the bill was passed under urgency in 1998.We could have actually provided a little bit more fairness in this process if we had looked at Supplementary Order Paper 142 submitted by Carmel Sepuloni and Supplementary Order Papers 143 and 144 submitted by Jan Logie to actually extend the period and give people an opportunity to review where they had been and what they had been doing and potentially make a claim. We know that there are sections of the working population who are going to be impacted more than others and those are the seasonal workers those are workers who participate in school and education activities where their contracts cease at the end of term and they are clearly not able to engage in this process.This piece of legislation came to the House with no regulatory impact statement with no clarity that the policy intent was actually met through any evidence there were no Cabinet papers to support it and we have had to rely on the word of the Minister that the intent of the policy of the bill is actually that. This side of the House has been working all evening to look through Hansard for evidence. We have had nothing from the other side of the House nothing at all. This has been a really truncated process when it did not need to be. We have had no external examination and we have had no official input whatsoever. It is a flimsy bill and it has been poorly drafted. We will be coming back to the House probably in time to fix it.We have no idea how much this is going to cost us. There has been no financial examination of this bill whatsoever. There has been no financial examination of the cost of this whatsoever. If there has been it has not been presented to the House nor has it been provided to members to debate. That surely is not good enough. When we are spending the precious time of the House to debate this bill surely we should know and the people of New Zealand—the taxpayers of New Zealand particularly—should know what the fiscal implications of this bill are going to be. We have not had the opportunity to examine that. The resources of the Government are vast. They should have been used to ensure that members of the public were well informed about the implications for them and the opportunities for them to actually make claims and not leave it up to our beneficiary advocates.The Minister herself said that Kay Brereton had exhausted her electricity source trying to contact beneficiaries and she applauded Kay Brereton for it. I was absolutely astonished. Surely that is the job of the Government to do that work when it has clearly made a mistake and it needs to advise those who could benefit from that error being corrected. Surely it was the job of the Government to do that.This is the second of three bills that we will be passing through this House under urgency. Frankly this one did not need to come to the House under urgency; it could have gone through the normal process. There are bills languishing on the Order Paper that are far more important and far more urgent. There has not been sufficient justification from this Government about why it needed to happen now. Clearly the bill has been rushed. Clearly there is a lack of evidence and a lack of a regulatory impact statement and the other information that should have come to the House for a full and thorough examination has not occurred. There is not much more to say. We have well traversed this bill in the House. Unfortunately we will not be supporting it.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): What a great privilege it is to be able to stand up here and make a couple of comments with regard to the third and final reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. Was it not great to follow Alfred Ngaro who put into context some of the interesting comments that we have heard in the last hour or so when he talked about a bit of history in regard to parties that have put historical retrospective validating legislation into the House. For those who have been totally opposed to this suddenly hearing some of their history repeated back to them you could tell it was not particularly comfortable. It was a shame that he stopped. It was a shame he did not carry on for another 2 or 3 minutes.We are retrospectively validating 17 years of policy intent. Of course some of that covered our party but interestingly it also covered the time when the Labour Government was in power with the Minister for Social Development and Employment Steve Maharey and of course towards the end of that terrible Government the Hon Ruth Dyson no doubt had officials come up and talk about the stand-down period being 7 days and the commencement of the benefit being on the 8th day. As the Minister she would have nodded and said: “Of course that is the policy intent. I’m glad the legislation reflects that.” Alas though a legislative error was subsequently identified and ultimately we had to find the balance between fairness for those who have been caught up in that process and ensuring that what we come up with has appropriate fiscal prudence. We have done that. It is a great bill and I commend the bill to the House.JAN LOGIE (Green): It is with a certain amount of dismay that I stand and speak in the third reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill which has been rushed through in urgency with a very shady process that preceded that. But before I start my final contribution on this bill I would also like to join the Minister for Social Development and the members on this side of the House who have acknowledged the beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton for her work in bringing this to the attention of the House.The truth is that if she had not noticed this hidden in the bill the advice that we had would not have alerted us to the significance of this bill and we would not have connected this to the decisions of the court and been able to understand the true impact of this bill. Kay Brereton as the Minister for Social Development acknowledged is a woman who is doing a lot of work for people who are really struggling and she is struggling herself. She has had we have been informed by the Minister her power cut off due to the financial consequences of her trying to inform New Zealanders of their right to have their entitlement reviewed. There is something just so deeply perverse about that situation where a member of our community who is trying to look out for other people is living without power from the consequences of that when this Government has refused to take action. That to me is not something to honour without acknowledging the Government’s responsibility in creating that situation.What we are doing—it needs to be said again—in the House today is passing legislation that retrospectively removes the legally established rights of New Zealanders for the primary purpose of saving this Government some money. We have heard on that side of the House: “Well other parties have passed retrospective legislation; nothing to see here.” Well yes this House does pass retrospective legislation at times. I think that every time that happens it needs very close scrutiny and when that legislation is being passed retrospectively and removing rights for the most vulnerable New Zealanders it deserves additional scrutiny. And I would say two wrongs never make a right but that is the argument and pretty much the depth of the argument that we have heard from the other side of the House. I really think we need to review how this has happened and the process in my final contribution.There was legislation introduced under urgency on 3 June 1998. That legislation under what is now section 80BA of the Social Security Act said that the stand-down period applies in this way: for benefits to commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends not the day after. For 18 years since that law was passed the Ministry of Social Development has been starting benefits on the day after that stand-down period despite the fact that there is no room to misinterpret “the day on which the stand-down period ends”. I would ask anyone in this House to misinterpret that—to think that that meant “the next day”. Nobody could interpret it that way. But the Government has been paying as if it had said “the next day” for the last 18 years. I asked the Parliamentary Library to search the Hansard of the debates for discussion to clarify that that was the intent because we have been told again and again and again from this side of the House that the intent despite the clarity of that piece of legislation was always for it to be the next day. There was not one mention in those Hansard debates that that referred to that clause—not one. We have not been provided any evidence of Cabinet decisions or discussions that would have illuminated that intent either. We have just been told that was the intent.I think that if you are going to pass something under urgency that retrospectively removes people’s legally established rights you need to provide some evidence at the very least. I personally think the rule of law is pretty important. I think that actually for everything to work well in this country we need our courts to be able to establish the law and interpret our legislation and to have primacy of that and for any Government to follow that law as it is written. Well the courts established in May of last year—in 2014—that in fact the Government was misinterpreting the law. And here we are about to remove and change that law and remove up to that point all of the people’s rights to their legally established entitlements. After that one of the very significant parts was that the Government continued denying people’s legal rights despite the court having established it was misapplying the laws. And again that was established and went to court twice—not just once twice—and the Government continued to deny people their legal entitlements.Then over a year later on 29 July this year this Government introduced a bill called the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill a title that you know would obviously—not—provoke discussion of this issue that we have had in the House tonight which brought in this retrospective law change. Submissions closed on 9 September. There were only 10 submissions and only one of them from Kay Brereton actually recognised the significance of this clause and made a submission on it. So we are being told by the Government that there is no need for a select committee process in relation to this piece of legislation because that process has already been gone through and people had the chance to submit on it even though what we have been given today is significantly different to the clause presented in the original bill. But even then it was so hidden that nobody knew. Nobody had the opportunity to submit and offer their views and their interpretation of the legislation. So then what we had was departmental advice that did not even alert us to the significance of it. Then the first media attention on this issue was on 16 September prompted by Kay Brereton in relation to her submission. You know we saw an operational change on 29 September 13 days after this came to the media—what is that 18 months after the court ruled that there needed to be a change in the policy enactment of the law.We do not even have a regulatory impact statement relating to this. There has been very little opportunity for submissions no opportunities for submissions on this actual bill and no regulatory impact statement. Technically the only ability for there not to be a regulatory impact statement is if this legislation makes no significant change to the law—well of course it makes a significant change to the law because that is what the Government said the intent of it is: to significantly change the law because it thinks the law is wrong—or for it to have little or no impact outside of the Government on real life’s people. Well what this does is very very significant. As soon as this passes—probably—and gets Royal assent in a day or so there will be a group of people who will find out that they were entitled today to money from Work and Income. Some of the poorest people in New Zealand who could really really do with some extra money will find out that today they were entitled to that money but oh sorry the day has passed the Royal assent has happened and they are not entitled to it. That is what this legislation does. That impact is real. That impact is harsh. I think it has been said already that this is mean.We put forward Supplementary Order Papers 143 and 144 to give the Government certainty by allowing people to have 6 months to get their application in and to require the Government to advertise that it was doing this. That would have given the Government certainty some fiscal limitations and ensured people’s trust in the public institutions and in this House. This piece of legislation fundamentally erodes people’s trust and confidence in our fundamentally important social security system and it is with deep deep disappointment we will be opposing this.RIA BOND (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and take this call on the third reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill and I will endeavour to outline why. My colleague’s contribution earlier in the first and second reading and throughout the Committee stage of this simple bill is quite correct. This bill is merely seeking to amend a technical glitch and put in place a simple fair and clear process to fix this glitch.New Zealand First has an amendment that basically asks the Government to automatically include those beneficiaries who clearly can be easily identified by the records of Work and Income New Zealand and will qualify for a payment under this bill we are debating tonight.The purpose of this bill is relatively straightforward as set out in the general policy statement which is outlined in the departmental disclosure statement. The general policy statement reads: “This Bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to correct with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent that a benefit commences on the day after a stand down period ends as opposed to the day on which the stand down period ends. It also provides that certain people are protected from the effect of the retrospective amendment including those who apply for a review of a decision of their commencement date before or in the case of benefit that commenced on or after 20 May 2014 within 6 weeks after the Bill comes into force.”I have gone over this bill to get a clear understanding of the impact of the technical glitch this Government finds itself dealing with tonight. I noted the departmental disclosure statement asks valid key questions especially in “Part Four: Significant Legislative Features”. Point 4.3 asks: “Does this Bill affect rights freedoms or impose obligations retrospectively?”. Clearly the answer is yes it does. Point 4.3 goes on: “Provisions in the Bill have [a] retrospective effect which could be seen as contentious as generally legislation should operate prospectively [and] not retrospectively. However in this case the retrospective provisions can be justified to ensure: [that] the Government policy intent is upheld [that] practice and understanding that has been previously applied by the Ministry of Social Development is validated [and that] financial costs to the Crown that were not anticipated are avoided. The amendment to section 80BA”—of the Social Security Act—“to correct the commencement date of a benefit so that a benefit commences on the day after a stand down period ends will be retrospective to 3 June 1998 in order to validate the Ministry of Social Development’s previous practice and decisions.”It is the general understanding of New Zealanders that the Government has the legal and moral duty to pay beneficiaries what it says they are entitled to. Once this assessment is processed at Work and Income people go into a stand-down period. Therein lies the problem: the stand-down period itself. From listening to previous members speaking it seems to be the sinking ship. Clearly members do not agree with this mandatory stand-down period which in many cases can sadly force people into the early stages of poverty.This is one of the consequences and barriers that people in New Zealand face when they are standing in line to ask for assistance to keep a roof over their heads meals on their tables and shoes on their feet. I am referring to casual workers teacher-aides seasonal workers freezing workers people who have been made redundant or people whose current job and current employer are just not a good fit. They go into Work and Income New Zealand to apply for a benefit and get hit with that mandatory stand-down period and they hope like hell that the last 50 60 or even 100 bucks will see them through the stand-down time.I find it amazing that legislative muck-ups have occurred over many years under both National and Labour Governments such as this bill we are debating tonight under urgency. To recap for those viewers watching the Social Security Amendment Act (No 2) in 1998 amended section 80BA of the Social Security Act and it incorrectly changed the wording to mean the day the stand-down ends. The wording change was not picked up until it was identified in a Social Security Appeal Authority’s decision in May 2014—and thank goodness too. Now 18 months later here we are under urgency debating this amendment and fixing a retrospective law to simply close this loophole up for good.The legislative error was unfortunate and operational practice was changed from 29 September 2015 so that payments were technically in line with the wording of the law until legislative change is passed. This will now add clarity to Work and Income stand-down periods. I understand that it has always been Government policy that a benefit will commence the day after a stand-down period ends. For example that means if you have a stand-down period of 5 days then your benefit will kick in on the sixth day. This I know—I am not doubting it—was how this legislation was intended to work and of course the operational practices of Work and Income support should match up.The Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill corrects the error with full retrospective effect to 3 June 1998. This New Zealand First believes addresses the unintended consequences to beneficiaries and the cost to taxpayers. It means that any beneficiary who has lodged a review of a decision related to a benefit commencement on or after the 1998 amendment and before the passing of corrective legislation will still have their review process in the usual way.Just quickly before I finish I do empathise with beneficiaries because no matter which way this bill that is being debated under urgency tonight is covered or how members in this House choose to debate this bill comments on social media sites are already slamming them for expecting to benefit from the Government’s “honest mistake”. This has been an embarrassing oversight and I am sure a regrettable moment on both the National Government’s and Labour Government’s books. New Zealand First supports this bill.JONO NAYLOR (National): I rise to take a short call on this because as was said by Poto Williams earlier on this is a very simple bill. It does not need a lot of explanation. It has certainly been well canvassed for the 2 hours and 50 minutes that it took through the Committee stage—although there was not a lot said from this side of the House; the bill speaks for itself you see. It does not need a lot of extra input because it has actually been well drafted and well put together by a good Minister who is dealing with what is actually essentially a very simple remedial matter.On that there is not a lot more to be said other than the fact that this will actually put something right that needed putting right. It is good that we are getting it done quickly and getting it sorted so that there is no more ambiguity going on for a long period of time. I commend this bill to the House.MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I would stand by a bill that would legislate to clarify current practice but this is not that bill. As I said at the beginning of the first reading retrospective legislation to deny people what is owed them is an affront to the rule of law. When that affront to the rule of law harshly impacts on those already doing it tough then that is a stain on a civil society on a transparent society and a stain on good governance. This is bad governance because the Government cannot budget to meet its legal obligations.I have applied for this legal entitlement and will be paying forward all funds received to the Auckland Action Against Poverty group. The Auckland Action Against Poverty group is an advocate for those people with the least power and those people who have their power cut off and without them supporting people like Kay Brereton this blunder would have stayed secret. Let us role model good governance put right a wrong and for people to receive their legal entitlement.I have listened to the hours of this debate and the non-debate as well and the silence and I am disappointed that the standard being put forward by the Government is that: “Oh well they did it too.” Really? Is that our standard? I do not think it should be at all. It is disappointing to know that this process of making decisions relies on people to stay disconnected and to feel that the legislation being proposed does not have relevance to the realities of their ordinary lives and I am dismayed by that.I do not want to forget—I do not want to forget—what it is like when $20 or when $10 will make a big difference. I remember scraping that together to feed a family of five. Actually that is luxurious for many people—$20 is a luxurious family dinner for many people. I do not want to forget that. I hope this House does not just remember it but reaches back to that connection and understands those realities and that we are relying on those people to feel disconnected from what we are doing here.So this is another slap in the face for the tens of thousands of those not holding the balance of power who have been consistently getting bad outcomes from this Parliament during the tenure of the current Government. It is time they received some help from this place which is why I am proud to oppose this bill. Kia ora.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call—I call David Seymour.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill. We have had a couple of contributions from the Green members characterised by melodrama and an exhibition of empathy. The reality is that there are always transaction costs for any kind of system. Whether it is a company or an insurance programme there is actually a cost of administering it and making the connections between the different parts of the machinery that need to be made. And that is one of the reasons that in most systems people design we have a statute of limitations. We say that things that happened a long time ago are going to be very very costly to relitigate now and so we are going to draw a line at some point in the past and not litigate prior to that.If you would like a practical example what we are dealing with here is a kind of insurance scheme where if you fall on hard times you get a benefit from the Government. If for example my car insurance company was to tell me that it was going to put up my premiums and add excessive costs to me and everybody else who contributed to the company so that it could relitigate a very large number of low-value claims stretching back 17 years then the common-sense empathic response from someone who really cares about the long-term overall welfare of the people of Aotearoa New Zealand would be to say: “That is not a good use of resources.” They would not come into this House and give us melodrama and exhibit their flow of empathy; they would actually say that is not a good use of resources.What we are doing here in this House tonight is saying that rather than paying excessive transaction costs to relitigate long-lost transactions that happened a long time ago we are actually going to set a statute of limitations and move on and deal with the real business of empathically serving New Zealanders with an efficient welfare State. That is what this bill is about. Hopefully one day the Green Party members will pull their heads out and support similar sensible measures. Thank you.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): I am taking this short call to support this bill in its third reading. The 1996 tax reduction and social policy legislation technically provided for the benefit stand-down period to finish a day earlier than it is intended to but the explanatory note clearly states that the stand-down period should be a full calendar week. That means it should be for 7 days; that means the benefit should start after the 7 days of the stand-down period finish. So we see that the practice has been in line with the intention of the bill but the legislation has not been in line with the bill. It is important that people are treated equally under the law and that the legislation reflects the treatment that people receive.It is unfortunate that since 1998—since we had this practice—this was not picked up by any Government until last year when it was picked up by the court. We know that the promotional campaign is already on to inform people inform clients of Work and Income that they have the opportunity to seek a review of their entitlement regarding the stand-down period.Finally I want to thank all the people those who have put in the effort to bring this bill before the House under urgency. I support this bill and I commend it to the House.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): The explanatory note of this legislation says that this bill gives effect to the policy intent of the original legislation passed—well the debate occurred on 14 May 1998 but it came into effect on 3 June 1998. This whole debate and this whole legislation has been predicated by the premise that there was a clear policy statement from the 1990s National Government that it was its intention that the stand-down period should last a full 7 days. I do not think a single member of this House has been able to find any evidence that that was in fact the policy intent. The only reference that we have to turn to to try to find out what the policy intent of the Government at the time was is the Hansard. I have spent a fair amount of time this evening as I have been listening to the debate thumbing through the relevant Hansard and there is no reference at all to the stand-down period or to what the length of the stand-down period should be—certainly not in the Minister’s speeches and it is the Minister’s speeches to the House that we often go to to find out what the policy intent actually is and there is no reference in there at all.At the outset the purpose of this legislation stood on very very shaky ground indeed. Then we have a variety of other issues that have been raised throughout the debate this evening. Principal of those is that if it was the policy intent of the then National Government for the stand-down period to be a full 7 days and if this was a genuine mistake then it was a mistake born of rushed legislation. The original legislation was passed under urgency—actually during Budget urgency which appears to me to be a gross abuse of Budget urgency because this was not a Budget measure at all. It was passed under urgency and it was not shown to the Opposition until a few hours before the debate took place. This is the kind of error that occurs when you push things through under urgency. In a way it is deeply ironic that the current National Government is seeking to fix a mistake made by a previous National Government—a mistake that was made under urgency—by passing legislation under urgency; legislation that the Opposition has not had an opportunity to scrutinise properly which we have been given no regulatory impact statement for which we have been given no background documents for and which we have a very very scant departmental disclosure statement for. We are at risk once again of making bad law that is not fit for purpose and that does not actually achieve the policy intent that is being stated by the Government.I wonder what would have been the harm of taking this legislation to a select committee because it has been more than a year and a half since the Government actually realised that it was acting illegally—and let us be clear about that. I have heard from members opposite that this is just a technical amendment to tidy up a technical mistake. That is not quite the truth. The truth is that the Government has been acting illegally the Government has been acting illegally for some 17 years and Governments of both hues have been acting illegally. But the interesting thing is that when this Government discovered that it was acting illegally it made a conscious decision to continue acting illegally and it was only after that illegal action became publicly apparent that this Government decided to take action. So I think that speaks to the values of this Government. It is one thing to make a mistake; it is another to know that you are acting illegally and to continue to do so and hope that you can hide it from the public for as long as possible and act only when that information becomes publicly available. That is what the Government has done.This is more than a technical amendment; this is actually retrospectively making legal what was illegal and through that process denying people who have been adversely affected by the improper implementation of the legislation as it was enacted back in 1998 the opportunity to seek compensation for the illegal activities of the Government. So when members opposite get up and make very brief speeches about how this is nothing more than a technical amendment I say that there is nothing that could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth because that Government knowingly acted illegally and in a way that detrimentally affected the incomes of potentially thousands of New Zealanders. We know from the one bit of information that the Minister was able to give us that over 8000 people have made claims within the narrow opportunity that is available for people to make claims. That is 8000 people. That will be a tiny subset of the total number of people who have been affected by this legislation.There is another thing that I also want to challenge which members opposite have been saying throughout the debate and it is that this legislation is about a large number of very small claims. I think that was the thrust of the ACT Party leader’s contribution: that these are small claims that are of no real significance and that Parliament and the Ministry of Social Development should not waste resources on dealing with them. In fact what we suspect—and what we really know; again we do not have details—is that there will be a group of people who are severely and adversely affected by this.I know this is a source of great amusement for National Party members but there are a number of vulnerable working people who are severely and adversely affected by this and those are people who are on temporary work people who move in and out of fixed-term contracts people who are on temporary contracts people who get work through labour hire companies and people who move in and out of work on a regular basis because every time they move out of work and have to apply for a benefit the stand-down period applies to them. We have had the example of teacher-aides but there will be numerous other examples of people who by the nature of their work move in and out of work and they will have had a number of these days where they have been illegally denied income through the benefit system and that will total up. Over 17 years—moving in and out of workmaybe 5 times a year—there could very well be some people who have been significantly impacted by this. Again I say it is a source of amusement for the National Party; that is not so for those of us on this side of the House. We are actually concerned that there are people out there who have been severely and adversely affected by the failure of this Government to appropriately address this illegal activity that the Government has been engaging in.As I said I have been looking through the Hansard looking for any indication that it was the Government’s original intention for the stand down to be 7 days not 6 days. I could not find any but I did find this and I think it is an appropriate way to finish this debate. It is a quote from my predecessor and friend the Hon Steve Maharey who said at the time during this debate: “This Government wants to see beneficiaries be the fall guys for its faults. This Government wants the victims of this Government to pay for what it is not able to achieve. There is no opportunity in this Bill. There is no chance for a person to get a decent job with a living wage. There is nothing about families in this Bill. There is nothing about getting ahead in this Bill. It is all about the Government saying: ‘We can’t get the economy to grow we can’t give you a chance to get a job we can’t get wages to go up and beneficiaries are going to wear it.’ ” Those words are as true today as they were in 1998 and that I think is a very appropriate way to finish this debate on what is an appalling bill which has been a shambolic process to tidy up a classic National Party shambles.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): This has clearly been a long night. I think one of the members over there is almost asleep and dreaming given those last few words. It is actually my pleasure to have the last words in this debate and it has been a wide-ranging debate. I think there has been agreement across the House that there is an error in the legislation and the issue is now how far back the decision goes as far as the applications for review. Being a good Minister and a good Government is about balance and we have an excellent Minister for Social Development who has struck the right balance. With that it is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.A party votewas called for on the question That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.Ayes 75New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 46New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.Bill read a third time.Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment BillFirst ReadingHon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections) on behalf of theMinister for the Environment: I move That the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. The purpose of the bill is to provide more flexibility to the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel to help ensure that it can deliver its recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan to the Auckland Council by the statutory deadline of 22 July 2016.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Can I just ask the member’s colleagues—it is quite rude to do that Mr Naylor. Thank you.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. In order to achieve this the bill has three main components. Firstly the bill reduces the quorum required for hearing sessions from three members to two members. Secondly it will allow an increase in the possible number of appointed hearings panel members from seven to 10 excluding the chairperson. Thirdly the bill will enable the hearings panel to make its recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan in stages after hearings are completed on a particular topic rather than in one final report.Before I discuss these components in more detail I think it is important to reflect on the context of these changes. In 2010 this Government embarked on a reform of Auckland’s governance arrangements including the development of a single combined plan covering the whole region. Auckland’s first unitary plan is the biggest exercise of its kind undertaken under the “RMA” or the Resource Management Act and it includes the review and the rationalisation of the seven district plans the Auckland Regional Policy Statement and regional plans inherited from the former councils into one new comprehensive unitary plan.The streamlined process was designed to significantly reduce the time to produce a plan for Auckland than what would be needed under the standard Resource Management Act plan-making process. It will reduce the uncertainty the cost due to complexity and also it will enable speedier implementation of improved rules and regulations to support the need to increase the supply of housing as well as business land in the Auckland region. The unitary plan of course is critical to responding to Auckland’s growth and the resulting demand for development opportunities for both housing and employment.The Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act established this streamlined plan-making process and it went through this House as you all know including an independent hearings panel that was created to hear submissions on that proposed plan. This is intended to result in a faster delivery of a high-quality operative Auckland Unitary Plan but to meet this need for fast delivery of the hearings panels it is required to make recommendations by 22 July of next year.The hearings panel made good progress. Approximately 79 percent of the hearings have been heard to date but the independent hearings panel published 13 items of interim guidance on regional policy statement topics and subsequently on district plan level topics of regional significance. Hearings on site-specific matters are due to begin in mid-January of next year but the focus of these topics will be the impact of proposals on specific sites and thus potential impacts on individual property rights. Accordingly the level of public interest for these topics is quite high.The matters due to be heard represent approximately 57 percent of all the matters raised in submissions and 39 percent of those submitters have indicated that they want to be present at a hearing session. Auckland Council estimates that these submissions contain approximately 20000 separate requests for a change of zoning relating to more than 150000 properties across the Auckland region. If a high percentage of the submitters who indicated that they wished to be heard actually attend the hearings then more days of hearings will be required than the current time frame allows and that is why we need to make a dramatic increase in the expected workload of these panels and it raises the risk that these panels will not be able to deliver on those recommendations at that due date in July of next year.So it is critical that the hearings panel be able to continue its good processes and to make the recommendations to the council on time and that is why a number of changes to the Act are required via this amendment bill. The first main component of the bill of course reduces the quorum required for hearing sessions from three to two members. Currently a quorum of a minimum of three members of the panel must be present at each hearing session.Reducing the quorum from three to two of course will allow for up to four concurrent sessions to be held at any one time and it allows for more submitters to be heard within the existing time frame. I consider it possible for many site-specific topics to be heard by only two members without any loss of quality of those particular hearings. For more complex or controversial topics the existing quorum of three should be maintained but I have every confidence in the panel’s ability to use its discretion about what is appropriate for each hearing session.Secondly the second component as I have already described earlier will allow an increase in the possible number of appointed hearings panel members from seven to 10 excluding the chair. Currently the panel comprises a chair and seven other members—a maximum of eight members on these panels. Allowing the appointment of an additional three panellists will ensure that the submissions again can be heard by three or more panellists and allow up to three concurrent hearing sessions at any one time and this would raise the overall number of panel members from eight to a maximum of 11 including the chair.Again the third component is to enable the hearings panels to make recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan in stages particularly on a particular topic after hearings are completed rather than one final report. Currently the panel is required to make its recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan on one report after it has finished hearings of all those submissions.Enabling the panel to make its recommendations in stages again is to expedite this system and give increased flexibility for the panel to run this process as it sees fit and again reach that deadline of 22 July of next year. I believe it is a sensible and it is a pragmatic proposal as it would give Auckland Council more time to consider the hearings panel recommendations. To avoid confusion Auckland Council will still be required to issue its decisions on the entire Auckland Unitary Plan. This will be done within 20 working days of receiving the final set of recommendations from the hearings panel.To support these policy changes additional recommendations are required. Firstly the bill will create a requirement for the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation to consult with the Auckland Council the independent Māori statutory board and the chairperson of the hearings panel prior to appointing additional or replacement hearings panels members. Secondly the bill will clarify that the hearings panels may hold hearing sessions concurrently and that an additional chair may be appointed for the purposes of chairing a hearings session.It is critical that the hearings panel contributes to the good progress that it has made and deliver the recommendations to the council by its statutory deadline of July of next year. This bill needs to be passed by the end of this year to ensure that the policy changes can take effect prior to the expected increase in workload which of course will start in January of next year.This bill represents a great opportunity to ensure that the country’s largest planning process remains on track to become operative as soon as possible. It is Auckland’s first unitary plan and it is significantly larger in scope and more complex than any planning exercise undertaken in New Zealand to date. Having been a member of the Auckland City Council which put together the last unitary plan I understand the real complexities and the time that it takes to put such processes through. With pride I recommend this bill to the House.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): That speech by the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga would have been one of the sleepiest deliveries of any introductory speech that I have heard during my entire time in the House. I know that we are under urgency that we have been meeting since 9 o’clock this morning and that it is a quarter past ten and probably past the Minister’s bedtime but I thought that he could have put a little bit more enthusiasm in the speech than that. The Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill is a bill that is supported by the Labour Party. In fact it has been requested and supported by Auckland City and this party is certainly supportive of Auckland City and the desire to make that a great city. I hope that this bill is a sign of a change of heart by the Government a new readiness to cooperate with Auckland City in the future because in the past it has seemed that that has not always been the case. In fact Auckland City and the central government often seem to have been working down different paths. I am sorry that the Minister who is in charge of the bill the Hon Nick Smith is not here to say this to directly—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!Hon PHIL GOFF: —but I regret that some of the time when the Minister makes comments about problems that Auckland faces he is scapegoating Auckland as the cause of the very problems that his central government refuses to address. So I hope that this bill working to implement something that Auckland City wants is a sign of a better future in the relationship between central government and Auckland City. I hope that the Minister realises coming as he does from a smaller town that with 36 percent of the population of the country and 36 percent of the production of the country for New Zealand to succeed Auckland has to succeed and for Auckland to succeed we need a decent unitary plan. That is what this bill is designed to help facilitate.Actually the bill does two things. First of all it corrects mistakes in the principal Act the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act of 2010—and I will get to those errors because we have had a couple of days of urgency where all this House seems to be doing is correcting mistakes made by a Government that has been hasty and has ill-considered the legislation before it. Urgency is never a good way to correct mistakes because when you force a bill through under urgency in the middle of the night when the Minister is barely awake and you do not send it to a select committee you do not get a chance for the public to have scrutiny of the legislation nor the committee to have scrutiny nor the experts who could have corrected the mistakes that led to our doing this now under urgency. It is a vicious cycle but the Government never seems to learn from its mistakes.The first thing this bill does—and I will come back to it later—is to correct errors that were made in the principal Act and because those errors need to be corrected we are from the Opposition and we are here to help the Government. The second thing and the most important thing that this legislation does is to facilitate the processing of submissions on the draft Auckland Unitary Plan. This plan is the most complex and far-reaching of any plan that has been considered probably in the history of this country. It is incredibly important. The unitary plan brings in 13 different district and regional plans and it brings them together into one. And it means that we will have a resource planning mechanism for Auckland that is less complex less fragmented and hopefully better able to facilitate sound development sustainable development and housing affordability in Auckland.Towards the end of my speech I want to focus on housing affordability because the Minister in his comments about this bill has emphasised that this is a way to help address Auckland’s housing crisis. Well it may but it will not come anywhere near the need to address the level of crisis in Auckland’s housing where house prices are now on average over $900000 where they have gone up in a year by $180000 where rents are increasing by three to four times the rate of overall inflation and where homeownership has dropped to its lowest level in 64 years. Although the Minister may be optimistic that the unitary plan can address all of this I have got news for the Minister: he is going to have do a whole lot more than this and he needs to do a whole lot better than this in order to address that problem. The unitary plan is one aspect of the solution for Auckland’s crisis but it is only one aspect and a lot more needs to be done.What the principal Act did was instead of relying on the Resource Management Act to bring together these 13 different plans—that would have taken a decade—it brought in a streamlined process whereby the unitary plan could be notified submissions could be heard on it by the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel and then that panel report back to the council. A statutory deadline for that report back to the council with recommendations has been set it is 22 July 2016 and there is a huge amount of work still to be done—it has heard thousands of submissions but it has another 5000 submissions to be heard on site-specific issues. There was a real risk that this unitary plan was not going to be completed by the statutory deadline would not be considered by the council before the council elections in October next year and as the Minister said the council would not have the new unitary plan in place at the time that the special housing areas legislation is due to expire.I am not quite sure why the Minister should be worried about the impact of the special housing areas legislation being due to expire because the Minister set a target for Auckland of 39000 extra houses. Does that not sound good—39000 extra houses for Auckland over 3 years? Even if it achieved that it probably would not resolve the imbalance of supply and demand but it would go some way towards it. But the special housing areas legislation the expiry of which the Minister is so worried about was due to facilitate that and what did it do? Well here is the business section of the New Zealand Herald. You know 2 out of the 3 years now having passed towards the goal of 39000 houses how many houses have been built in the special housing areas?Phil Twyford: Let me guess.Hon PHIL GOFF: Let us have some bids. How many houses out of the 39000 that were needed by Auckland have been completed?Phil Twyford: 10000.Hon PHIL GOFF: 10000—do I hear something a bit better than that? That is very optimistic from Phil Twyford.Phil Twyford: 5000.Hon PHIL GOFF: 5000—he has halved it but he is still not there—nowhere near there. Do you know Mr Assistant Speaker how many houses have been completed in the special housing areas?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No.Hon PHIL GOFF: No you do not know. Well let me tell you. It is 102—102 whole houses completed under the special housing area legislation but the Minister says that we have got to rush this legislation through under urgency for fear that the special housing legislation expires. Well I welcome 102 houses but 102 houses when the goal was set by the Minister himself of 39000 extra houses is not good. Although I have made a little bit light of it it is a serious problem. It is a serious problem because Aucklanders no longer can achieve the Kiwi dream of owning their own home. Aucklanders can barely afford to rent their own homes. In fact the Government is spending $2 billion a year in subsidising rentals because people cannot afford to make their rental payments—$2 billion a year and a lot of that is going into Auckland.So let us come back to the question of the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel and how this Government is trying to facilitate it getting through the workload it has in front of it. It does it by three mechanisms and we are in favour of those. Firstly the bill reduces the quorum for hearing sessions from three to two members. That might have a marginal impact in terms of the quality of the input but I think the impact would be just that: marginal. I think two members can cope with that particularly on the very specific nature of the issues that they will be hearing from January next year. Secondly it allows an increase in the possible number of appointed hearings panel members from seven to 10. That is a good thing because there will be more people available to serve on the panels. And thirdly it enables the hearings panel to make its recommendations in stages rather than in one final report. So it will make its recommendations after each point is reached in the hearings rather than as one. So we support those three measures. We support the measures to correct the mistakes of the past but we are utterly disparaging of the Minister’s claim that even if we get this unitary plan right—and I hope we do—that that is going to solve the massive housing crisis of availability and affordability in New Zealand. It will barely touch on that. Much more needs to be done.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well there we have it. The contrast could not have been more apparent tonight. After the careful deliberate measured introductory speech from the Minister we had the first version of the campaign speech for the Auckland mayoralty by the member for Mt Roskill who has suddenly rediscovered his Auckland roots and is in full-blown Auckland campaign mode. He has ditched the Labour Party red tie. He has got his new campaign tie on. It has that sort of bluish greenish tinge and there he is practising his speech for the 22nd this coming Sunday and he is going to be into it.There he was about to desert the Labour Party’s ship about to leave all that he has been practising for 30 years in this House and all for this speech tonight on this new bill which is being introduced as I say after the careful deliberate and measured contribution from the Minister who did such a good job in setting out why it is that this House is considering this bill at this time on this night. It is an important piece of technical legislation that needs to be passed before Christmas.The legislation needs to be put in place so that as the member for Mt Roskill so rightly said Auckland can continue to succeed. Even in the provinces even in the beautiful Coromandel electorate it is important that Auckland succeeds because when Auckland succeeds the rest of the country succeeds and so too do the provinces. That is why I am very pleased to be able to stand in this first reading debate and support the introduction of this bill.Effectively when the principal Act was introduced in 2010 the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel was established. It was established to hear submissions on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan. This plan is a very big piece of work. It is a huge undertaking. The submissions that have been received on the plan have been many and varied and it is important that they get due hearing and that they are well considered by the hearings panel.So this piece of legislation proposes to amend the principal Act to essentially do three things. First of all it will reduce the quorum required for the hearing sessions from three members to two members. I want to spend a minute or two just going over some of these points a little later in my contribution. The second thing that this bill does is it increases the maximum number of members of the hearings panel from seven to 10. The third part of this bill is to enable the hearings panel to make its recommendations in stages after hearings are completed on a particular topic rather than having to wait for the complete submission process to have taken place.So what will reducing the quorum of the hearing sessions do? Well it will reduce the number of members required to be a quorum from three to two. Currently the three panel members have to be present at every hearing session so reducing this will mean that a flexibility can be applied that will enable up to four hearings to take place at the same time. That will speed up the process. It will speed it up and improve the efficiency.Although three members could well be present for some of the more complex and controversial hearing topics the panel can be relied upon to exercise its discretion. I have faith and I am confident that they will be able to exercise that discretion easily and well and without fear of concern about that process.The second major point is that the increase in the size of the panel increases the membership from seven to 10. This will help ensure that that process of concurrent hearings can occur in a seemly and timely way. The third major change enables the panel to make its recommendations in stages. That has not been the case until now. So this is a good little technical adjustment that will help this unitary plan hearings process; it will help Auckland succeed.I want to be the first in this House to wish the member for Mt Roskill Phil Goff well in his campaigning intentions. I am pleased that he has delivered the opening campaign address tonight here in this Chamber. The few of us who are here have been privileged to hear that speech. No doubt we will hear it again on Sunday afternoon. I commend this bill to the House.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I thought the contribution from Minister of Corrections was a very lacklustre pitch for the local government portfolio. But you know local government is a great portfolio and I can understand why Sam Lotu-Iiga would like to have a crack at it. With Alfred Ngaro sniffing around the corrections portfolio after the Minister’s rather underwhelming performance I can understand why he would want to have a look around and see what else might be available. But on that performance—on the performance of that Minister in this debate—I do not think he has got much of a shot of picking up local government off Paula Bennett.The theme of my contribution tonight is a message to the members on the National benches: what took you so long? After 7 years in Government with 2 years spent brutally and undemocratically imposing the Auckland super-city on a very reluctant and unwilling Auckland community and the last 5 long years spent fighting and quibbling and bullying the Auckland Council and being a block on the progress and prosperity of our country’s biggest city finally we see the National Government bring to this House a bill that shows that it is cooperating with Auckland. It is actually doing with this bill what Auckland has been asking for. It is the first sign of any kind of real cooperation that we have seen in these 5 long years. I want to talk about that period a little bit in this first reading contribution.For the folks at home wondering what a unitary plan is I think it is worth just touching on a little bit of the recent history. In 2010 after a process of designing what the new amalgamated super-city would look like in Auckland there were the first elections of the Auckland council electing representatives to the structure that Rodney Hide had put in place at the behest of the National Party in Auckland—the highly centralised over-corporatised Auckland Council. We then saw the council acting really on the vision that the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance had set out for it to develop the Auckland Plan and as my colleague Phil Goff said the intention was the pulling together of all the threads in an integrated unified plan that would set out the vision for the city.In 2013 there were the second elections and then the development of the draft unitary plan to replace 13 different district and regional plans and to give effect to that vision of one unified spatial plan for the city. It is bigger than Ben-Huras I think anyone who has looked at it will know. It is a huge huge undertaking. As many have said before it is really kind of the rule book for the future development of Auckland.What we are seeing here tonight is a kind of a fix job by the National Government and not only for poor drafting and errors in the original legislation. National decided to design a bespoke planning process for the unitary plan because it had rejected Auckland Council’s request to give early legal effect to the draft unitary plan which would have been a much simpler and cleaner process by the way and would have saved everybody a lot of trouble.But no the National Government knew better. It insisted on designing a whole new bespoke process for this. It had not really thought it through. It had not thought through the quantity of public submissions and hearings that would be involved in an undertaking of this size. So what we are seeing tonight really is a bill that attempts to fix up some of those problems.To really understand the context of this bill we have to talk about two things. The first is the National Government’s tortured relationship with Auckland over the last 5 years and the second is the deeply problematic handling or mishandling of the Auckland housing crisis. As the Minister Nick Smith has said his main motivation for pushing through this bill is to ensure that the draft unitary plan completes its process before the housing accord and special housing areas legislation—aptly named the HASH legislation—expires later next year. So it is about those two things: the endless fighting and quibbling that has been going on between this Government and Auckland over the last 5 years and the housing crisis.It started in the 2010 election when from the point of view of the National Government the wrong guy won the mayoral election. National members spent the 2 years prior to the election trying to design a super-city structure that would allow the National Government and its cronies to dispose of the assets and run Auckland as their personal fiefdom and then Len Brown—the wrong guy from their point of view—won the election. That is why they have not been able to get over themselves ever since. It has been 5 years where the culture of entitlement and born-to-rule attitudes have been held in check by the fact that someone else has been running Auckland and they have been bitter and twisted about it ever since—in contrast to this bill.This bill is cooperative. It is about moving Auckland forward and it is about making decisions. For years we saw Steven Joyce and Gerry Brownlee pouring scorn on Auckland’s No. 1 transport project the City Rail Link. I cannot even repeat this House the words that Steven Joyce routinely used when describing the City Rail Link to business audiences in Auckland. Nick Smith rampaged around Auckland like a sort of a rogue bull elephant blaming Auckland Council for—let me remember what the quote was—killing the dreams of Aucklanders. That was what Nick Smith said. That was kind of the beginning of a whole pattern of several years of this National Government blaming and scapegoating Auckland Council for the housing crisis. And now Nick Smith wants to pass this bill because he is worried that if he does not there will be nothing to replace his special housing area records which have been a spectacular flop when it comes to actually making a difference to the supply of houses in Auckland.Part of the problem I think is that the National Government simply has not had anybody in its Cabinet who really understands Auckland. Auckland has had to put up with a string of mostly South Island and small-town Ministers who have travelled to visit Auckland to tell Auckland what it should do. Steven Joyce is I think from Palmerston North Nick Smith is from Nelson Gerry Brownlee is from Canterbury Amy Adams is from Selwyn and none of them understands Auckland or has any kind of feeling for how a big city or an urban economy works.Bill English is the other one who has spent much of the last 5 years railing against the Auckland Council for having this vision for a compact city which this bill is designed to address by actually reforming some of the planning rules and getting a better balance between the city growing up and growing out. But Bill English from Dipton the great urbanist of the National Government spent much of the last 5 years railing—Chris Hipkins: He’s from Karori.PHIL TWYFORD: Oh yeah. He is not from Dipton. He is from Karori—sorry. He spent much of the last 5 years railing against the compact city as if was some great conspiracy. But what we have seen is that over these 5 years the National Government has been dragged kicking and screaming towards this moment—this moment of cooperation and a kind of a sensible pragmatic working with Auckland Council to try to get a response and deliver the unitary plan within the desired time frame.First we saw it when they got rolled on the City Rail Link basically. They gave up. After 3 years of opposing the City Rail Link they realised they were hurting in the polls. They realised they were losing support in Auckland because they were seen as a brake on the prosperity of the city. People like the Employers and Manufacturers Association and the chamber of commerce were saying to John Key “You are a roadblock to Auckland’s prosperity and Auckland’s development.” and that is what finally shifted them.So it is not a good look for this Government. It has been dragged kicking and screaming to this moment. At least this bill is a good pragmatic response to the unitary plan and that is why Labour is supporting it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I thank the member for his comments. Before I call Todd Muller I am going to issue a bit of a warning. I think that at least three of the last four speeches have been very much just at the edge of the bill. I know that we are sitting under urgency and that gives a bit more latitude but I am going to ask members now to focus more of their comments on the bill.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to say a few words on the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. “What a shame.” is all I can say to your previous ruling Mr Assistant Speaker. I was all ready to go. It was almost general debate time. But anyway—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I have had to warn other relatively new members recently that when a ruling has been made by the Chair it is not something for members to comment on. The member must just move on with the debate. [Interruption] Order!TODD MULLER: Is it not great to be part of such a participatory democracy particularly up in Auckland? When this bill was first introduced and we were thinking about how likely it was for people to be involved in the submission process I am sure none of us had any sense of the thousands of people who would become involved quite to the level that they have.We have heard one or two good speeches thus far particularly the previous speech by Mr Goff who was so enthusiastic about this bill and the opportunity to make a difference. Was it not such a contrast to have the negativity and depression of the subsequent Labour speech? Will it not be incredible in a year’s time when he is the mayor and the Opposition spokesman comes in to talk about housing? How very depressing for you “Your Worship”.However as Mr Goff mentioned there have been many many thousands of submissions already heard and there are many many thousands still to go. It makes sense does it not when we have an opportunity here to be able to consider a bill that allows those submissions to be heard in a way that gives them due opportunity to contribute. The last thing we would want is for those submitters to have the opportunity to impart their views about the future of Auckland—as expressed in the draft Auckland Unitary Plan—to be constrainedin any way.Of course what we have here are three particular areas relating to the reduction in the quorum for the hearings sessions. That is very appropriate. There is to be an increase in the size of the panel and I think most important the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel will be allowed to make recommendations as it completes a particular topic as opposed to waiting until all of those topics that are included in the Auckland Unitary Plan are complete.In many respects the reason that we are having this conversation is that we are almost the victims of our own success. We had no sense that there would be such involvement by the Auckland people. They have become involved and it is absolutely appropriate to give them this opportunity. That is what this bill enables and that is why I support it at its first reading this evening.DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take the first call for the Green Party on the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. I always find it quite useful when we are looking an amendment bill to go and look at what we are actually amending. This bill amends another local government Auckland Council bill that was introduced in 2013. At the time that it was introduced it was one of three different parts of the Resource Management Reform Bill 2013 which was split into three bills at its third reading and voted on separately.At that time we had serious concerns that all three parts of that Resource Management Reform Bill were a serious attack on local democracy and basically eroded the protections of the Resource Management Act making economic imperatives a primary consideration when consenting for land use and the like. I mean it even removed protections on urban trees for example. What that bill was really about was the usual Government approach of delivering legislation that makes life easier for its mates—in this case essentially developers—all under the guise of really trying to do something about the Auckland housing market which by the way it failed to do.The Government at that time was saying that if it sped up the resource consent process then it would enable developers to get through the consenting process quicker and they would be able to build more houses faster and it would be cheaper for the developers as well because they would not have to go through the notification process. But the thing was it did not fix that because essentially what was happening was that about 90 percent of the consents that were going through Auckland were going through unnotified anyway. Essentially that was not what it was about; it actually was just about degrading the Resource Management Act.So yes the original Act was just another way to make life easier for developers. I cannot think of another reason for the constant meddling by this Government in the affairs of the Auckland Council. The original Act was about forcing the Auckland super-city to develop a unitary plan for the entire region and the Government was putting huge pressure on the council at that time to change its focus away from a compact city to extending the metropolitan urban limits. And we have heard the précis from the member Phil Twyford about the spatial plan that had been occurring up until that point.When the original bill which we are amending tonight came to this House we opposed it—not just because our vision for Auckland is for a livable city and for a more compact city with a mix of medium and high-density housing along public transport links where walking and cycling are part of the transport options not just roads and where we have affordable homes where we have a clean environment clean water a clean sea where we have affordable housing and where we have safe and thriving communities. That is our vision for a livable Auckland.We opposed that bill because we did not think that the measures that the Government was taking were actually ever going to deliver that but we also opposed that because we thought it was about taking yet another slice away from local democracy. The original bill said that the Auckland Council would have to deliver the Auckland Unitary Plan the planning document for about the next 30 years and that they would have to report back the recommendations to the council by I think September next year.Essentially what the bill did was it set out a 3-year programme to develop an incredibly complex planning document that will basically guide the future of the city for generations. Others have talked about it as well. It was about amalgamating the council plans from the previous seven councils the regional policies and regulations—so really really complex.We opposed the original bill because we saw that the council was having very little control over that process. We saw the Government’s interference in the democratic processes of the local authorities removing the right of the council to determine who would be hearing the submissions on that planning process and on being able to even decide whether they would be on those hearings themselves—whether there would be councillors on them. That right was removed from the councils. So instead of that the Government—and by that I mean the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation—was the one that essentially decided who would be on those hearing panels.We are concerned about the way that happens because it seems to be an ongoing theme from this Government. It does it all the time. The latest one today was the appointment of the former MP Tau Henare to the board of directors for the Housing New Zealand Corporation and today’s revelations as well about Paula Rebstock and her huge daily payment for reviewing the Child Youth and Family Service—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Sorry to interrupt the member but I had warned members earlier that it would be good to focus on this bill. It would be good if the member did.DENISE ROCHE: The point I am making is that I am surprised that the Government did not appoint either of those two to the hearings commission to be hearing commissioners. Never mind.Anyway so it is really not surprising that the bill we have got here tonight is designed to fast track the hearings process as there are still around 5000 submissions that are specifically site based with submitters who want to be heard. A previous speaker from that side of the House said that he was surprised by that number but actually that is just an example of democracy in Auckland. Certainly people who really really care about what happens to zoning in their communities submit on these issues and that is what creates the number of submissions.So once again this bill gives the Ministers the power to appoint hearing commissioners to speed up the hearing process so that the panel can meet the deadline that the previous Act set for the recommendations to be reported back to the council which is July next year. That is when they have to do it.So much of the legislation that this Government has introduced over the last 7 years is really about fixing a bunch of mistakes or adjusting for unrealistic expectations to more reasonable requirements. We agree that we do need a unitary plan and that it is critical for Auckland’s development. We acknowledge that despite our misgivings and worry about the lack of democracy around appointing the hearings commissioners to the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel they are doing a reasonable job.But for all that we are still concerned about the inroads into local democracy in Auckland the constant meddling and the number of pieces of legislation that this Government has introduced to hobble Auckland Council for things as far as the introduction of council-controlled organisations which have made a whole range of council assets and council facilities unaccountable to the local people—the people who are paying for them. We have got some strong misgivings about this bill. In order for us to remain consistent with our previous approach we will be opposing it because we think that it does not really do much for the democracy in Auckland.RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): This is a really interesting piece of legislation to come before the House. In fact when I first started looking through to find out exactly what it was the Government was wanting to put through the House under urgency I was quite surprised that I had to go all the way down to item No. 15 on the Order Paper dated 11 November. I had to go all the way down to item No. 15 Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. That led me to actually do what all MPs should do—that is we go checking our reference material. I went on to the parliamentary website and lo and behold what should I find but a list of Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment bills which added something to my confusion because clearly the legislation that this seeks to amend actually came through the House back in 2009 led through the House at that time by the Minister of Local Government who was Rodney Hide in what was known as the famous Auckland super-city bill.So reading into it it interested me that here we have another Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill and on the back of something like five or six others. In fact just going through it the number of times that this Parliament has amended the Auckland super-city legislation since 2009 I do not know whether members of the House even the members of the select committee have taken time to have a look at it. We are talking about legislation that went through in 22 September 2009 amended 14 June 2010 26 March 2015 11 December 2012 22 October 2013 19 September 2011 3 July 2015—it must have been a Statutes Amendment Bill amendment bill No 3. Auckland Council bills 19 November 2015—that is the one we are looking at now I guess—11 December 2012 3 September 2013 14 June 2010 and then there has been a number of attempts to amend this legislation also through members’ bills. The one that I did pick up was Darien Fenton’s Local Government (Council-Controlled Organisations) Amendment Bill which was defeated by the Government back in 2012.What it tells me is that we seem to have here a well-established track record of fixing things that were not right right from the get-go. In fact if I recall in my time as the mayor sitting outside—in fact I was not the mayor in 2009 I was just “Joe Blow” ordinary citizen out there doing what I was doing; listening to the debates reading the newspaper reports watching the television news and seeing the controversy around the 2009 legislation and if I am not mistaken there were often heard criticisms about the speed and the level of consultation that the Government of the day was engaging in with the public and the fact that the Government really was not interested in listening to what people had to say about their legislation. They just wanted to ram through a super-city piece of legislation and create the biggest super-city in the southern hemisphere or this part of the world certainly in New Zealand anyway.So here we are on the back of numerous Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment bills once again in the House addressing another problem that has been identified. I have to say that this time it appears as though—and other speakers before me have already said the same—the Government has listened to the Auckland Council and the independent Māori statutory board has taken advice from the chairperson of the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel and is moving through legislation that is aimed at making the hearings process more expeditious more flexible and that it is able to get through what is clearly a massive workload required in producing the unitary plan for our nation’s largest city.I guess New Zealand First has to put on the record that we never were big fans of an Auckland super-city. We prefer democracy being delivered at the grassroots level in a meaningful way not all the rhetoric that the super-city would reduce rates; that super-cities would reduce the rate of increase of rates; that super-cities would be more efficient; that this super-city piece of legislation that we are now amending again was the end-all be-all to fix all problems in Auckland; that we would see greater efficiencies; that everybody would be happy ever after living in the never-never land of Auckland because the National Government had generated a “super super duper duper whooper” city that everybody would simply love.Here we are again amending the legislation for the umpteenth time in order to make perfect something that was touted as being perfect in 2009 was clearly criticised by many people up and down the country as not being perfect and in fact was criticised because it would create such a big monolith of machine that it would be slow bound with inertia and find it difficult to respond to the needs of the public. I guess that is what this very piece of legislation is all about: making that big monolith that is simply laden with inertia slow and difficult to turn around like the Queen Mary in the ocean into something more flexible so that they can actually get through the work that has been laid out.No one underestimates the seriousness of the work that has to be done. No one underestimates the amount of work that has to be undertaken by the commissioners and the hearing panels. We see that they are reducing the quorum. I have to say that the idea of reducing a quorum from three members to two made me sit back a little. I am not used to having committees with quorums of two but the fact that you are making it possible to have concurrent hearings run simultaneously does go some way to explaining that. At this stage we see no need to not support that.We are looking at the increase in the possible number of appointed hearings panel members from seven to 10. Given the workload it seems eminently sensible to us. Enabling the hearings panels to make recommendations on proposed changes in stages seems eminently sensible rather than waiting until the final report if one is trying to move the hearings along and meet the deadline and time line imposed by the perfect piece of legislation that was passed in 2009; which is clearly not perfect because once again the House is back here amending it. Clarifying that the hearings panels must hold hearings sessions concurrently and that an additional chairperson can be appointed seems sensible.What also struck me was looking at—peeling through my notes—the departmental disclosure statement. I have done a quick thumb through that. It is all pretty standard. Clearly the Hon Chris Finlayson has ticked it off with respect to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Well no surprises in there; consistency with the Treaty of Waitangi obligations—no surprises in there. What I did find a little surprising is: “For the policy to be given effect by this Bill is there analysis available on: (a) the size of the potential costs and benefits?”. Answer: “No.” Well I am looking forward to hearing some explanations as to why that has not been provided by the Minister in the Committee stage. And: “(b) the potential for any group of persons to suffer a substantial unavoidable loss of income or wealth?”. Well that would be interesting. The answer on that is a “no” as well. I would be interested in hearing why nothing has been provided to us in that respect.Regulatory impacts—extent of impact analysis available: “Has any further impact analysis become available for any aspects of the policy to be given effect by this Bill?”. That is a “no”. Cost-benefit analysis—I think that is the one that really stuck out for me because I would have thought given the level of the rhetoric the volume of that rhetoric back in 2009 when people justified the formation of a super-city for Auckland on the back of reducing costs creating efficiencies making it cheaper; as we go into yet another amendment of that Act I am surprised that this Government which prides itself on being very prudent with the management of the books and fiscal understanding has not been able to produce for the House a cost-benefit analysis on this piece of legislation and how it is going to improve for—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National):Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. In rising to speak on the Local Government Auckland (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill I do want to thank members of the Opposition who have indicated that they will support the bill in spite of some of the rhetoric we may have heard during their speeches—rhetoric that I can only assume is driven by the internecine machinations within their own parties.This is a very simple measure. It reduces the quorum for hearings on the Auckland Unitary Plan from three members to two. This is not an alien concept to us; we are doing the very same thing on our Education and Science Committee in Parliament—something with which Opposition parties are fully engaging. A reduced quorum will allow us to get through hearings in our inquiry into special needs. So this is not a new theme.Secondly it will allow up to four concurrent hearing sessions. This is a very practical measure to allow the panels to get through the work. It increases the number of panel members from seven to 10 and it will allow the hearings to be reported back in stages as they complete pieces of work rather than as an entire piece of work at the very end. This is a practical measure from a practical Government. I welcome support from the Opposition and commend the bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Jan Logie—5 minutes.JAN LOGIE (Green): It is with some pleasure I think although it is quite late and my brain is a little foggy and I do need to say to the people of Auckland to whom this bill is important that I apologise if I am not at my sharpest right at this moment but another consequence of urgency—Phil Twyford: Come on Jan. Spark it up.JAN LOGIE: —I know I should toughen up toughen up—is that we are not necessarily at our sharpest and showing our best abilities at this time of night after sitting in the House for 11 hours.We are now about to discuss the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. I understand that since 2009 there have been 16—16—separate bills in this House dealing with Auckland local government. And this is the fourth Auckland transitional bill since just 2009. I think that is a bit of an indication of a problem and it does seem—I mean the idea has been expressed already in this House—that there is a bit of a battle going on between this Government and the local communities’ leaders. There is a battle for control of Auckland and for control of the vision for Auckland.The Green Party we have a vision for Auckland. You know we have a vision for a vibrant connected compact city with medium high-density housing along public transport lines where people know their neighbours where they have the resources to be able to feed themselves the air is fresh the school is close and it is safe to get there and the people know their local leaders and that they can talk to them and tell them what they want from their local community. This is our vision. Inherent in that vision is our willingness to adapt to what we are told is needed by that local community. At the very very heart of the Green Party vision is the belief in appropriate decision-making. Those people who are affected by decisions who are closest to those decisions should be the people who have control over those decisions. Yet we have had successive legislation coming through this House that erodes that principle.David Seymour: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We are 3 or 4 minutes into a 5-minute call and the member has not addressed the bill at all.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No I am the judge. This is the first reading of the bill and it is a 5-minute call. I am listening to what the member is saying and I invite her to finish. She has 1 minute and 53 seconds to go.JAN LOGIE: The member considers my contribution to be tiresome. I guess that is his view of democracy and his depth of reading this bill. The detail of this bill is that—David Seymour: What’s in the bill?JAN LOGIE: It has quite a bit to do with democracy you might be surprised to know Mr Seymour. It reduces the quorum required for hearing sessions related to the unitary plan from three to two people. It allows for an increase in the number of Government-appointed Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel members from seven to 10. Clearly it is a demonstration of this Government extending its reach in terms of removing decision making and participatory representative decisions from communities and local Auckland people. It enables the panel to report back in stages which is something we probably would not have a problem with and it enables the hearings panels to hold concurrent sessions with a stand-in chairperson. Again that is something that we probably would not have a problem with. It is about speeding up the process but in a way that would ensure people’s voices can be heard.But the core principle here is around democracy and who has control over the vision of Auckland. This House is again considering under urgency—a process that removes democratic participation in the decision making in this House—a bill that puts extra additional power in the hands of central government and takes it away from local government. That is inappropriate and we will not be supporting it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call David Seymour—5 minutes.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): When the member who has just resumed her seat Jan Logie apologised for her state of mind I thought she was just being gracious but as her speech proceeded I realised she was actually being quite honest. I rise in support of this bill. It is somewhat regrettable to be here discussing it so late at night to make a number of technical changes to the dimensions—not to the process not to the people involved and not to the accountabilities but to the dimensions of the hearings of objections to the Auckland Unitary Plan. It is a very small technical change that is being made to the legislation and it is worth reflecting on quite why this small technical change to the dimensions of the process not to the process itself is actually required. The reason is that in order to meet the statutory requirements for a new plan we are going to have to change the balance between the demand for hearings from Aucklanders and a lot of people from the Epsom electorate who have hearings required under the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan process on the one hand and on the other hand the supply of people to do the hearings and hear their objections.The reason that there is this imbalance of supply and demand is ultimately that the plan that the Auckland Council has attempted to impose upon the people of Auckland is so at odds with the national growth of a city and with the preferences of Aucklanders for how their city will grow and develop. At the base of the problem is actually epistemology—the fatal conceit on the part of the planners that they know what the correct density of Auckland should be in 30 years’ time how people should live how they should work and how they should travel and that the planners are able to tell us what sort of housing we should have and how our particular communities should grow regardless of what our preferences for those communities might be.This hearings process is an opportunity for the people of the Epsom electorate and the people of Auckland more broadly to be heard. The planning orthodoxy with which we are being confronted has been so out of whack with how the city should grow that we find ourselves here late at night in the House being heckled by simpletons in order to increase the supply of hearing time to meet the demand from people who wish to object to this conceitful plan that would change the shape of our city if it were allowed to strangling the supply of housing to Aucklanders pushing up the price of housing and leaving us in a situation where we have to be here late at night to right what is a simple technical matter.I am here to support this bill because it allows the people of the Epsom electorate and the people of Auckland to have their say in this planning process. But it would be a far better world if we had a model of growth for cities where the planning profession were put back in their box where they respected the desires of communities rather that conceitedly impose models of development upon them where we had a situation where cities grew organically based on the property rights and the expectations of people who are already in those cities and where we did not have Byzantine rural/urban boundaries at the perimeter of the city strangling the supply of housing to Auckland and where the city could continue to expand and give people big backyards where big dreams could grow up.Yet we are here in order to give the people of the Epsom electorate and the rest of Auckland the opportunity to have more time to contribute their views about how they would like their community to develop across Auckland City into the future. With that I commend this bill to the House.JOANNE HAYES (National): I rise to take a very short call on the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. The Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel stems from the principal Act—the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act 2010. Its role is to hear submissions on the unitary plan and then to make recommendations to the Auckland Council as most of my colleagues have already discussed and spoken about in the House tonight.This amendment bill as many speakers have already spoken about tonight makes four changes to the principal Act which provides for the hearings panel—for some of the changes. The first one as we have heard is a reduction in the quorum from three to two members. Extra panel members are to be appointed. The bill clarifies that the panel may hold concurrent sessions and appoint alternate chairpersons and it enables the panel to make recommendations to the Auckland Council by 22 June 2016.This is a very important amendment bill for the people of Auckland and the Auckland Council. It is an opportunity for the people of Auckland to have their say to go and put their submissions in and maybe even—and I do not want to denigrate what the Greens said tonight about their “Kumbaya” type future and what Auckland may look like with neighbours all loving each other and being this whole community-type thing which I doubt will ever happen in Auckland. But anyway it is an opportunity for the people of Auckland to come in and be able to submit their plan to the hearings panel.As Mr Len Brown the Mayor of Auckland said the unitary plan will be the rule book for the future of Auckland. That is what Mr Brown said and I believe that that is what it is going to be. There are huge benefits as I have said for the people of Auckland. I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House. Thank you.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Given that this is an Auckland issues bill can I firstly with your indulgence Mr Assistant Speaker take this opportunity to acknowledge the death of Jonah Lomu and convey to his wife and extended family our condolences and just acknowledge the fact that Jonah was a great friend of Pacific youth particularly in South Auckland. He will be sorely missed by many not just in New Zealand but throughout the world.I now want to come to the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. Because we are amending the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act 2010 I want to just reflect on that for the sake of the House and particularly for those who were not involved in the initial debates in 2010. Members may recall that when we debated the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Bill in 2010 that debate included two other major and significant pieces of legislation arising from the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill: the Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Amendment Bill and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill. In fact what happened was I think that the House concentrated on the two significant pieces of legislation and we paid little attention to the Auckland transition legislation. It almost appears that a pattern has emerged where when this Government is intending to hide things it will include it with other significant bills so that nobody pays attention. People may recall that when public consultation went out on that legislation it was during the Christmas period and people did not have a lot of time to make submissions on it.Today I have to say I think Aucklanders will be equally sad that again we are debating issues that affect them without the privilege or without the benefit of having their experience their expertise and in fact their criticism of what this Government is doing. I want to say that members on the Government side paint it as if they are doing Aucklanders a favour. They are saying that this bill will allow Aucklanders to have a say. Well Aucklanders will have a say. What this bill is about is it is going to fix some mistakes that the Government has made mistakes that it has failed to fix as a result of the pattern that it has created for itself of rushing through things when it does not want the general public to have a view or to share a view in terms of what the Government is doing. And again you may recall that during that whole Auckland super-city debate Aucklanders were outraged at the way that this Government collapsed the whole process and was determined to corporatise that whole Auckland super-city and that is what we have seen.In fact the 2010 Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act enabled the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel to be appointed by the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation rather than what existed at that particular time where councils appointed hearings commissioners. If we had councils continuing to appoint hearings commissioners we would not be in this situation now of again trying to fix the mistake that the Government made. The Government made those mistakes and it is amazing that despite the views of the people of Auckland this Government continues to think that it is doing OK that it is smart and that it knows what it is doing. The reality is we have a unique select committee process and all legislation ought to go through that particular process because that gives us the benefit of enabling the public enabling those with deep experiences and enabling those with expertise in these particular matters to have their say and for us to have the benefit of that experience and of that knowledge. Sadly again this Government just does not seem to have learnt from its mistakes and that rushing things through will inevitably end up with mistakes being made.Here is the mistake—and I want to point out what we are clarifying. We are clarifying that the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel can hold hearings sessions concurrently. And so here is the hearings panel which has been holding hearings for the public since September this year and this bill is now saying: “You can actually do that legally.” Here is another mistake the bill is fixing—it allows the hearings panel to appoint an additional chairperson who can chair concurrent hearings when the chairperson is not available because they are chairing the other concurrent hearing. I suspect that the panel is already doing that and it would not have this mistake if the Government had not rushed through the original 2010 legislation determined to corporatise the whole Auckland region for the sake of trying to control those assets and had allowed the council to appoint the hearings commissioners. Here is another mistake that this bill is designed to fix. It will validate any hearings sessions that were held concurrently prior to this clarification—another mistake. It validates 28 February 2014 as the closing date for submissions on the unitary plan and it validates that any submission received between 14 January 2014 and 28 February 2014 is acceptable as if it had been received within the statutory time frame for submissions. Another important mistake that we are having to fix in this bill is the error in the drafting of the principal Act relating to procedural requirements for the filing of appeals on questions on law with the High Court.I do not have any problems with appointing additional hearings panel members because if we consider the work that they are having to undertake they are having to consider over 9000 submissions. I understand based on what is on the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel website those 9000 submissions are raising around 100000 points concerning possible changes to the plan. There is no doubt in my mind and in the minds of many of my colleagues that the unitary plan for Auckland city is an important plan but we said right at the outset that it was flawed in many ways. It was flawed because although this Government would talk the rhetoric about the principal subsidiarity in actual fact after some years of experience of the Auckland Council now we now know that the structure is designed exactly as we predicted in those earlier debates of 2010. The public will have difficulty being involved in the decision making because this hearings panel is a professional hearings panel of people who are well versed in the areas of unitary planning—and so it is a professional panel. When this Government says that this will give the public the opportunity of a hearing they already have those rights. This is predominantly about fixing the mistakes that this Government made in the original legislation.I want to say that when we went through the 2010 debate many many people in Auckland all said that the way that the Auckland super-city was structured with its independent council-controlled organisations would ultimately divide the community from fully participating in our democratic processes that we have become accustomed to and that we in New Zealand value. I would have hoped that this Government had learnt its lesson from the consistent mistakes it has made with the various amendments to the principal Acts of that period but it has not. I think—and I hope—that Aucklanders listening to this particular debate will recognise once and for all that that super-city structure was not set up to allow more democracy; it was set up predominantly for this Government to control that city and control its direction and control its assets in the same way it now appoints the hearings panel. I am hopeful that come the next local body election in 2016 we can get some good people on that council who can stand up and tell this Government where to go.NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare e mihi atu ki a koe mō tēnei pō. Before I begin talking about the bill I would also just like to acknowledge the short poroporoaki by Mr William Sio for a great Aucklander and a great New Zealander—Jonah Lomu. Kia ora. It has been interesting tonight listening to the debate on both sides of the House. When I got the “midnight shift” as they call it I thought it was going to be quite a drag but it has actually been a shift of enlightenment because I have heard from both sides of the House a really good overview of the passion that comes out of Auckland. I have heard a speech from a former mayor a potential mayoral candidate and a housing spokesperson and I have also heard an excellent introductory speech on this bill from this side of the House.This is just a short call on the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. To me as the final speaker this bill provides the flexibility that is needed particularly around the recommendations that are proposed by the Auckland Unitary Plan and the council’s statutory deadline—and it is a deadline; it is 22 July 2016. The other thing is the components of the bill—the three main ones that actually deal with reducing the quorum and also with increasing the number of members from seven to 10 as we have heard so many times. Around the reporting factor of the bill it will also enable that instead of doing one report it can be done in stages. They are the major sorts of components.Just to highlight the fact though that this bill represents a great opportunity to ensure that the country’s largest planning process remains on track and becomes operative as soon as possible. That is the real essence of the bill itself. When we talk about Auckland it is not just about Aucklanders; it is actually about the whole of New Zealand because of Auckland being our largest and most populous city. I appreciate being able to take this short call and I commend the bill to the House. Kia ora.A party vote was called for on the question That the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.Ayes 107New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 14Green Party 14.Bill read a first time.Second ReadingHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): on behalf of theMinister for the Environment: I move That the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act established the streamlined plan-making process including an independent hearings panel to hear submissions on the proposed plan. This is intended to result in faster delivery of a high-quality operative Auckland Unitary Plan. The Auckland Unitary Plan is critical to achieving the city’s proposed growth targets as well as planning land use critical infrastructure and housing supply.To recap briefly the purpose of the bill is to provide more flexibility to the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel to help ensure that it can deliver its recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan to the Auckland Council by the statutory deadline of 22 July 2016. The panel has made good progress. However hearings on site-specific matters which are of high public interest due to their impact on individual property rights are due to begin in January 2016. The panel has indicated that the expected increase in workload as a result of these hearings poses a risk to meeting the statutory deadline.It is critical that the hearings panel is able to continue its good progress and make recommendations to the council by the deadline. In order to achieve this the bill has three main components. First the bill reduces the quorum required for hearings sessions from three members to two members. Secondly it is going to allow an increase in the possible number of appointed hearings panel members from seven to 10 excluding the chair. Thirdly the bill will enable the hearings panel to make its recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan in stages after hearings are completed on a particular topic rather than in one final report.To support these policy changes additional amendments are required. First the bill creates a requirement for the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation to consult with the Auckland Council the independent Māori Statutory Board and the chairperson of the hearings panel prior to appointing additional or replacement hearings panel members. Secondly the bill clarifies that the hearings panel may hold hearings sessions concurrently and that an additional chair may be appointed for the purposes of chairing a hearings session when the chair is unavailable due to their chairing a concurrent hearings session. The bill validates any hearings sessions that were held concurrently prior to this clarification being made. Finally the bill validates 28 February 2014 as the closing date for submissions on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan.I should also say that there is a minor and technical amendment required to fix an error in the drafting of the principal Act relating to the procedural requirements—Chris Hipkins: Wouldn’t have happened if this Minister had drafted it.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —for the filing of appeals on questions of law with the High Court. What was that?Chris Hipkins: Never would’ve happened if you’d drafted it.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Well that is very kind of the member to say so. It would never happen in Wellington either because nothing ever happens in Wellington in terms of local government reform.Chris Hipkins: His chances in Rongotai aren’t looking any better now.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Well that is a remarkably perceptive insight by the member from Rimutaka at 11.35 tonight.I want to reiterate that the first Auckland Unitary Plan is of national importance and the success of the submissions and hearings process is critical as it could set a precedent for similar planning approaches throughout the country; probably not in Wellington. I commend this bill to the House.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Just to begin with the Minister glossed over a number of areas talking about clarifying and validating. The Government is clarifying that you can hold the sessions concurrently but he glossed over the fact that it has in fact been doing that without that explicit authority for months and months. This is a cock-up that is being fixed up. So let us call a spade a spade and a cock-up a cock-up in this and not gloss over it.The Minister also glossed over the fact that the Government validated February of last year as the closing date for submissions. Well that is a long time ago. That was another cock-up. Then he did acknowledge that it fixed an error in the main Act about procedural requirements for the filing of appeals on questions of law with the High Court. That is a third cock-up.The reason I raise these things is that these mistakes have been made in the legislation we are fixing tonight but we are fixing this legislation at 20 minutes to midnight after sitting since 9 o’clock this morning and without the benefit of a select committee process. Is there any better way to continue stuffing up legislation than doing it in the way that the Government is doing it tonight? A wise Government would learn from its mistakes. This Government is simply repeating its mistakes.This is the second reading. During the second reading normally we would rise to our feet to discuss the submissions that we have heard from members of the public and experts in the area. We would discuss the consideration that the Parliamentary Counsel Office had given to the drafting and the errors that the Parliamentary Counsel Office would have found in the legislation and would have corrected before reporting back to the House. We would talk about the hours of analysis that the select committee had put into the legislation. None of us can do any of that tonight because that process was not followed.The question I have to ask the Government is: when Nick Smith could announce the details of this legislation on 16 September more than 2 months ago why did this Government not get its act together and have the first reading of the bill at that time so we could have honoured the democratic principles of this House in giving the public the right to be heard on it?I have heard members of the Government and the ACT Party tonight singing the praises of a democratic process where there is the opportunity to be heard. They were talking about the hearings that this bill is legislating for but they did not acknowledge that they were totally contradicting themselves in supporting legislation that forbade the public—blocked the public—from being able to make submissions on it.It is bad process to have urgent legislation. I accept this legislation needs to go through before Christmas. I agree with the Attorney-General that it will be a good thing if we could get these hearings processes operating effectively so that the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel can meet its statutory deadline and report back and we can get a unitary plan in place that will allow for better planning process and better resource management process. I agree with that. But it was not necessary to ram this thing through in the middle of the night and not allow the public to have its say.I listened with interest to the ACT member because he was damning the process that his predecessor from the ACT Party in the same electorate of Epsom had put in place and he did not see the contradiction. And then the ACT member said: “We’ve got to have a change in the unitary plan process so we can remove the rural-urban boundary so the city can move out.” But the city cannot move up. The city cannot intensify. It cannot become more compact.I listened to the Productivity Commission and Murray Sherwin and his team yesterday and they said: “Why have we got a problem with the availability and affordability of housing?”. He said: “If you create a situation where the city can neither move out nor move up there is only one thing that gives and that is prices.” We have a crisis in availability and affordability because we have blocked the city from moving either out or up. It should not be an either/or; it should be a both/and.The unitary plan will be about having a more compact city and I agree with my colleagues from the Green Party on that. And inevitably because the population of Auckland is going to increase by a million in the next 30 years it is going to have to move out as well. I of course would argue that it is good to allow that city to move out but only however if you have got the infrastructure in place to make that happen.I was down at the Karaka Lakes subdivision the other day and I drove by Pōkeno—I drove by Pōkeno. There are huge huge developments there—I am sure that you would recognise them Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch—but what is not there is any infrastructure to support those people. A huge percentage of the people in Pōkeno are going to be working in town but we have got a motorway that is already clogged we have not got a railway line that is sufficient to meet the needs and we do not have a busway. So if the Government is going to allow this growth to happen—and the growth will happen—then for heaven’s sake let us get a unitary plan. Let us not only get a unitary plan that puts infrastructure in place but let us get a Government that is committed to ensuring that we have the infrastructure so that Auckland can grow without losing the quality of life that that city offers to its people.I agree with what Scott Simpson said. I thought it was very big of the member for Coromandel to acknowledge that New Zealand cannot succeed if Auckland fails.Scott Simpson: That’s right.Hon PHIL GOFF: That is absolutely right and I agree with the member. We are on the same path on that.I have to say that I disagree with the point made by my friends in the Green Party that this is about taking power away from local government. Auckland Council is in favour of this—absolutely in favour of this—including people like Penny Hulse who has done so much work in actually getting this unitary plan going forward. David Kirkpatrick chair of the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel is also in favour of it. If I believed that the changes being made would diminish the quality of the hearings process I would not be recommending to my colleagues that we support them tonight but I have seen no evidence that the changes that are being made do diminish the quality of the scrutiny of the submissions. In fact I believe that they allow that panel to get through its work more effectively.Auckland desperately needs to have a proper planning process. It desperately needs a planning process that can ensure the sustainable development of housing and business not only in the urban environment but also for the rural area and the marine environment. The unitary plan covers all of those things. It will be good to have a unitary plan—one plan for what is effectively one city—instead of the complexity and the fragmentation that existed and still exists right now actually because of the old structure.I want to come lastly to a comment that Nick Smith the Minister in charge of this bill made about it. He said “This bill is needed to maintain the momentum of lifting Auckland’s housing supply …” and he also said that this bill is needed because the legislation allowing for special housing areas is going to run out. Well I commented on that in the first reading—the latter point. Nick Smith has set a target of 39000 houses. The special housing area was his big initiative to achieve that target.Sue Moroney: How’s that going?Hon PHIL GOFF: The goal is 39000 houses and Sue Moroney says: “How’s it going?”. Well we have reached just over 100—102 actually. I have not got my calculator here to see what 102 is as a percentage of 39000 but it ain’t much—it ain’t much and we are not going to get there.So I want to challenge the Minister in charge of this bill about this bill actually doing what he says it will do because it is not going to hugely affect the supply of housing and the problems of availability and affordability. For 7 long years the housing crisis has been ignored. The Government has ignored the impact of speculation. Only in the last few months have we had the brightline test. The Government has ignored the problem of the affordability of infrastructure for housing. It has ignored the market failure of the slow-down in building houses after the global financial crisis. It could have built houses then. It could have avoided this problem but it did not.So my message finally is that the unitary plan—if it is done well—will help but it will not do it on its own. The Government needs to do much more.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a pleasure to take a very brief call in the second reading debate. Even though it is late at night the member Phil Goff who has just resumed his seat has used the opportunity this evening to twice run his lines through for the campaign launch that he will be giving on Sunday 22 November. I commend him for running the practice lines. I think they are helpful. I think that they are good lines and he will no doubt get some traction with them. He makes a good point I think about how important it is to the regions and to the provinces—and in fact to the entire country—for Auckland to succeed.This piece of legislation will ensure that the hearings process on the unitary plan actually goes more smoothly than it has. It will be more efficient and more effective. Members across the House have I think given a very good account of the purposes of this bill earlier on in the first reading debate and I want to just also endorse the comments made by the Hon Phil Goff when he was addressing the Green Party. I would also endorse his comments and suggest that maybe the Green Party might like to at second reading reconsider its position because Auckland Council does want to have this legislation passed and it would be a good and useful thing if the Greens did do that. I commend this bill to the House.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): It would be nice in this stage of the bill’s progress through the House to be reporting back on select committee deliberations. It would be nice to be sharing the advice of officials. It would be nice to be reflecting on public submissions. But sadly we are not going to have that opportunity tonight and it is an irony as Phil Goff said that the passage of this bill through the House which is about ensuring proper public participation in the planning process for Auckland is being—Ron Mark: You stole my line.PHIL TWYFORD: And Ron Mark said it as well I think—or he is going to. It is an irony that this process denies people the right to have a say. It denies this bill the scrutiny that it deserves at select committee. It is a bill that is about public participation in the planning process. It is a bill that is at least in part about fixing the defects of another bill that was earlier pushed through under urgency. The National Government never seems to learn the lessons from its mistakes. My colleague Su’a William Sio pointed out that so much of the Auckland legislation that was put in place to establish the super-city was pushed through under urgency and so much time has been spent cleaning up the messes that were made by the rushed and chaotic processes around that law.Why is the unitary plan so important to Auckland’s future? Well it makes the critical zoning decisions. It includes the rules on the urban growth boundary and the introduction of new land into the supply and all of the rules on height and density that will have such a critical impact on the pipeline of new construction—new urban development and particularly housing. Given the importance of development in housing supply to fixing what the rest of the country has come to think of as the “Auckland plan” it is critical that the unitary plan is of high quality and that it is signed off in a timely way. What I think is interesting is that the critical outcomes of the bill that will make a difference to the supply of new land and housing in Auckland are the rules about the urban growth boundary and about height and density.While the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel has been beavering away hearing public submissions and deliberating on those two essential points it is worth noting I think that the National Government’s views about density have been evolving and have been moving. I thought one of the most odd chapters in this whole process was the then Minister for the Environment Amy Adams actually sitting up at night writing a huge submission as the environment Minister to the hearings panel on the Auckland Unitary Plan because the Government recognises that getting it right in Auckland is not just of critical importance to the people in those neighbourhoods where particular zoning decisions or consenting decisions are made; it is actually of national importance. If we do not improve the responsiveness of the housing market in Auckland to demand and if we do not build more affordable housing and the kinds of the types of housing that people want in places where they want to live then we will never ever fix the Auckland problem.But the great urbanists of the National Party Bill English and Nick Smith spent years during the tenure of this Government railing against the compact city and basically saying that unrestricted sprawl—getting rid of the urban growth boundary—was the only way that Auckland could move forward. That was their view and I have heard them say it in this House a dozen times if I have heard it once. But to be fair they have moved—they have moved. I think it is probably the work of the Productivity Commission and it is talking to people like the Property Council that has made them realise that good cities must have an element of density otherwise they will never produce affordable housing and they will never produce a livable environment that people actually want to live in.National has moved so far that earlier this year the Prime Minister issued an edict and said that Aucklanders must get used to living in apartments. I do not know whether the prime ministerial memo has been sent out to the National Party apparatchiks on the Ōrākei Local Board and in the leafy neighbourhoods of Kohimārama Epsom and Parnell that the Prime Minister wants to build apartments. Not apartments in Hawaii not apartments in London or maybe in St Stephens Avenue Parnell but I do not know whether the good people of Remuera and of Epsom—certainly David Seymour is not happy about the idea of apartments and density in Epsom. I do not know whether those good people have received the memo from the Prime Minister that he wants to build high-rise apartments in their neighbourhoods. I think that if he gets his way they are not going to have much of a say in that process.This new-found enthusiasm for intensification has recently seen National Party acolytes on Auckland Council enthusing over an expensive study by Ernst and Young and Cameron Partners advocating a multibillion-dollar sell-off of Auckland Council’s assets including building houses on the Remuera and Takapuna golf courses. So I look forward to the good citizens of Takapuna and Remuera—Hon Phil Goff: What do the local members say about that?PHIL TWYFORD: Ha ha! I want to know what the local National Party acolytes in Remuera and Takapuna think about their own people advocating building houses on the Remuera and Takapuna golf courses because I think that I would like to be a fly on the wall when that particular discussion is had.Nick Smith the Minister for Building and Housing justified in talking publicly about the introduction of this bill that it was very important that this legislation was passed quickly before Christmas not only so that the unitary plan recommendations could be made back to Auckland Council before the deadline but because he was worried that otherwise it would not be passed and completed in time for next year’s council elections—I think that is probably a good idea—and he also tied it to the expiry of the housing accords legislation.In a way he is quite right that the unitary plan will have a major impact on fixing the Auckland housing crisis. There is no doubt about that but as Phil Goff pointed out earlier this evening it is a very long bow to suggest that the expiry of the housing accords legislation will have any impact at all because the legislation itself has not had any impact. As the New Zealand Herald reported recently only 102 houses have been built in the 96 special housing areas established over the last 2 years under this Government—96 special housing areas and only 102 houses. It is not a very good batting average and it is a singular failure of this Government’s housing policy and its much-hyped attempt to actually increase the supply of housing. It has done everything but take meaningful action to fix it. As Phil Goff said it failed to tackle the role of property speculators in the Auckland housing market. It failed to actually build new houses that people can live in.Bill English and Nick Smith have been talking about the Resource Management Act and blaming Auckland Council for the last 10 years. Since they were in Opposition they have been blaming the Resource Management Act for the high cost of housing in Auckland but they have done nothing substantive to reform the Act and the way that councils operate within the Act—the way they set the planning rules. They are truly the hollow men on this issue. Actually the draft unitary plan that this bill seeks to facilitate is the first real bit of reform of the planning rules in Auckland. It is the first attempt actually to use urban growth boundaries in a smarter way—to avoid having them driving up section prices. It is the first real attempt to liberalise and free up density and height rules so that more houses can be built in places where people want to live. Unfortunately this Government has not pulled its weight. It has been all talk and no action when it comes to reforming the planning rules but Labour is supporting this bill because we believe the unitary plan will make a difference.CHRIS BISHOP (National): When we talk about Auckland housing these days the two Phils come down to the House—Phil Goff and Phil Twyford. From Phil Twyford we got what we always get which is an angry bitter tirade about how much he does not like Nick Smith and how much he does not like all the Ministers in the National Government. From Phil Goff we got a campaign speech because that is what we get from Phil Goff these days—campaigning for the mayoralty of Auckland. As my good colleague Scott Simpson said he should have put an authorisation statement on those speeches. They were political advertising. It was actually not a bad speech from Phil. This is a sensible—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.Debate interrupted.Sitting suspended from12 midnightto9 a.m. (Thursday)