THURSDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2020
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Karakia.
BUSINESS STATEMENT
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): The debate on the Prime Minister's statement will continue throughout next week. Other legislation to be considered next week will include the second readings of the Arms Legislation Bill and the Taxation (KiwiSaver, Student Loans, and Remedial Matters) Bill, the remaining stages of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill, and the first reading of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill. 





ORAL QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister
1. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government's statements and actions regarding gangs? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes. 
Hon Paula Bennett: Why are there 1,600 extra patched gang members on our streets since her Government took office? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Could I just say that one of those is because of the deportation policies from Australia. The other is the environment that was allowed to grow that ensured that gangs do thrive in this country, under the previous administration. The third one is the gangs have not got it through their heads that this Government means to deal to that sort of behaviour, because they're used to a party saying, "The day after the election we'll bulldoze the headquarters down." They said that and did nothing about it. 
Hon Paula Bennett: How many of the 20,000 extra victims last year were victims of gang crime? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, that is not known. As to whether there was a partial association, a full association, an intermediary association, or a historical association, that sort of information we don't have. But what we do have—and very shortly—is not 1,000 or 1,500, but 2,000 new front-line police being deployed to take on this area. That means boots on the ground, not dinosaur footprints. 
Hon Paula Bennett: How many of the more than 51,000 victims of burglaries and almost 18,000 victims of serious assault were victims due to the actions of gangs? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Can I say to that member, she can make out that sort of construction as though it's somehow a new feature of our society, when we know that under her administration, 90-plus percent of such crimes were not solved. We've got the front-line police to ensure today they are, and that's why we've gone way beyond our commitment for 1,800 new front-line police. We have given a commitment to go to 2,000 by March of this year. That's the greatest number ever, and 700 of them are going to be consigned to taking on the gangs in this country. 
Hon Paula Bennett: Is her Government's greatest achievement increasing the number of patched gang members by 1,594? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Again, holding up a chart like that is actually rather sad because what that chart represented yesterday was the highest house-building rate in this country since 1973. This fantastic news that should be celebrated has been—like the No. 1 lemon suckers in the country—turned around now to a chart about gangs. The problem is that we have got ourselves ready to deal to the gangs in this country. We've changed the laws, and there are laws we have changed with respect to the use of guns, which, dare I say it, is being supported over here, but not by them. So let's have a little less of the crocodile tears and a bit of on-the-ground common sense. 
Hon Paula Bennett: Does she agree with the Tauranga mayor, who said "Countries who are soft on crime tend to have crime escalate." following the double gang-shooting in Tauranga? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Can I say, again, Tenby Powell had a call from the Minister of Police this morning—that's the first thing. The second thing is he has been assured of the number of people we are putting on the ground and that the police will be provisioned with the utilities to do their job. The third thing is that quote could have been said by me—it sounds so original. 
Hon Paula Bennett: Well, is she satisfied with the response from New Zealand Police that they can't do much and they can't arrest their way out of increased gang violence? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, the police in this country may have had that sentiment at one time, but now there'll be no excuse because they will have the resources. They'll have the men and women and the power on the front line. In contrast, we saw the previous administration run the police numbers down—not going up; going down—and if I had that record, I'd keep my mouth shut. 
Hon Stuart Nash: Has she seen a report from Jarrod Gilbert that stated "When Australian gangs became established in New Zealand in 2011, the next year, police numbers fell by 150."? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I want to thank the Minister of Police for reminding us of the fact and not just allegations. But can I just say police will be on the ground. Expect to see more armed police on the streets of Hawke's Bay and the Bay of Plenty in response to this gang tension. Expect to see police openly carrying their rifles and pistols where it's required, expect to see police wearing new body armour, expect to see the Eagle helicopter in the air, and expect to see police executing search warrants at gang properties. Expect them also to be enforcing the new laws that we are about to pass with respect to their gang access or the provisioning of gangs with guns, which that Opposition party there is opposing. 
Hon Stuart Nash: Has she seen reports that in the last five years of the previous Government, police numbers actually fell? 
SPEAKER: No. That's not an area that the Prime Minister is responsible for. 




Question No. 2—Finance
2. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yesterday, the Reserve Bank released its latest Monetary Policy Statement. The bank forecasts New Zealand's GDP growth to remain slightly subdued at the beginning of this year before picking up again to be at 3.4 percent in the year to March 2021, supported by low interest rates and the Government's infrastructure investments. There's good news there for workers as well, where the Reserve Bank sees employment currently at around its maximum sustainable level, while according to its forecasts it will remain at around 4 percent over the next four years, and wage growth is also expected to remain strong. 
Willow-Jean Prime: What did the Monetary Policy Statement say about risks to New Zealand's economic growth? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The bank highlighted that global growth has been acting as a headwind to economic momentum through elevated uncertainty, rising trade barriers, and slower global manufacturing. The Reserve Bank said that despite some tentative signs of easing of trade tensions—including the signing of the US-China phase one trade deal—downside risk remains, including specifically the COVID-19 outbreak. The bank's current projections assume the effects of the outbreak on New Zealand's growth to be short-lived, but they stress that any economic implications remain very uncertain at this stage. 
Willow-Jean Prime: What is the Government doing to ensure the New Zealand economy is resilient to these risks? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Overall, the Government's economic plan will ensure we're adaptable and resilient by transitioning to being more productive, sustainable, and inclusive in our economic growth. Obviously, the recent $12 billion New Zealand Upgrade Programme is a critical part of that plan to futureproof our infrastructure, create jobs, and provide certainty. With regard to the COVID-19 outbreak, as the Reserve Bank said, it remains early days. The Government is actively monitoring the situation, working closely with industries, and supporting Ministers to provide advice on how we may respond to future developments. There is no doubt that there will be an immediate impact on New Zealand's first-quarter GDP as a result particularly of the impact on tourism. 




Question No. 3—Finance
3. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all of his policies and statements? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, in the context in which they were made and given. In particular, I stand by my comment yesterday that "We are getting on with the business of Government. We are positive about the future of New Zealand and we're focused on the issues that matter to New Zealanders." 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: How can he stand by his statement from October last year that "The New Zealand economy is in good shape." when, just yesterday, the Reserve Bank lowered its annual GDP growth estimate for 2019 to just 1.6 percent? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In answer to the first part of that question, I can say that because New Zealand's growth rates continue to outperform those of many advanced economies. We have unemployment at historically low levels of 4 percent. We have debt for the Crown at historically low levels as well. We've run surpluses. We're spending money in the parts of the economy that will stimulate jobs and growth. So I can say with confidence that the New Zealand economy is in good shape. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: So does 1.6 percent growth in 2019 mean that, per person, we didn't grow at all last year? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, the member is using a figure that includes a projection for the December quarter. We'll wait and see where that ends up. What I do know is on the official figures that we have, New Zealand's growth continues to outperform most advanced economies. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: How can we afford higher wages, better healthcare, and better public services when the economy is not keeping up with population growth? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, the same question. I think the member has got assumptions in his question that are not yet proven. What I would say is that the economy is sustaining that. In a period in which we had around 2.7 percent growth, we also saw wages increase by around 3.5 percent. That's catch up, I might here add, on 10 years where New Zealanders saw very few benefits of economic growth; under this Government, they are. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Well, does he agree that, ultimately, higher wages are not sustainable if the economy is not keeping up with population growth—as it didn't in 2019? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I do know is that higher wages are for New Zealanders the benefit of their hard work and their dividend from the prosperity of New Zealand. Of course we need the economy to continue to grow at sustainable rates, and, as I said, we continue to grow at a faster rate than many of our trading partners. This is a time to be positive about the economy, not just normal "Negative National". 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he accept that families will ultimately be less financially secure if the economy is not keeping up with population growth—as it didn't in 2019? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It's been a goal of this Government from the day we entered here to make families more secure. It's the very reason why we put in place a Families Package with $5.5 billion to lift the incomes of low and middle income New Zealanders. It's why we're pleased that we are seeing the wage growth that we're seeing. We always aim for solid sustainable growth, and in New Zealand we can say we are ahead of the curve internationally, but I am proud of a Government that is delivering a dividend to working New Zealanders through wage growth. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the economy keeping up with population growth was the concern, does the member have any comparison between 2018, 2019, and this year, compared to the years of 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, when we had all-comers' records coming into this country? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: While I don't have the exact figures to hand for that, what I can say for sure is that in those years, we saw net migration at record high levels. It would be fair to say that at that time, one of the things a responsible Government might have been doing was actually building the infrastructure that was needed to support that kind of population growth. We saw none of that. That's why the New Zealand—
SPEAKER: Order! Order! There is a limit to the free hits from a supplementary. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: How is it possible that a country with historically high export prices and a Government able to increase spending significantly can stall like New Zealand did in 2019? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I reject the premise of that question. 




Question No. 4—Justice
4. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Justice: Does the Government support the statement by the Electoral Commission that "the New Zealand First Foundation has received donations which should have been treated as party donations for the New Zealand First Party," and that "the donations were not properly transmitted to the party and not disclosed as required by the Electoral Act 1993"? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I refer the member to section 6 of the Electoral Act 1993, which states that "The Electoral Commission may, if it considers that it is necessary for the proper discharge of its functions … (b) make any inquiries:". I also refer the member to section 7 of that Act, which states that "The Electoral Commission must act independently in performing its statutory functions and duties, and exercising its statutory powers,". So, to answer the member's question, it is irrelevant whether the Government supports the Electoral Commission in any particular action. The Electoral Commission is independent of the Government, and that is as it should be. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with the Deputy Prime Minister's criticism of the Electoral Commission when he said this is a "very damning statement for the Electoral Commission because they have no evidence or proof for their statement.", and does the full Government retain confidence in the Electoral Commission? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: In relation to the second part of the question, yes. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with yesterday's statement by the Deputy Prime Minister that the major donors to the New Zealand First Foundation are entitled to keep their identities secret, and is this statement consistent with Government electoral policy? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It will have occurred to you by now that the Minister being asked these questions is not responsible for the basis on which the question is being put in the first place—that would be obvious to any experienced member of Parliament. The second thing is that this matter, in the interests of honesty and openness and candour, has been the subject of investigation, which we welcome. But for somebody to come here and make this argument out, who told Parliament that he had made a declaration to the parliamentary commissioner, who then wrote to me and said "No, he has not.", is a matter of grave audacity. He shouldn't be able to use this Parliament in that way. He can't substantiate what he's doing with respect to the Minister's responsibility, and he should be stopped in his tracks. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order, it's a long-established practice that you can ask the Minister to comment on colleagues' comments. Secondly, it's within the Minister's portfolio responsibilities of electoral law and whether the Minister agrees with his colleague on that. 
SPEAKER: I'm going to ask the member to rephrase his question. I'm surprised there wasn't an objection on another ground. I think the leader of the New Zealand First Party might have made a comment; I don't think the Deputy Prime Minister did. So if the member rephrases his question to get it appropriate, then he can ask it again. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We get, again, into the difficulty that this Parliament's faced on a number of occasions, where you have the various hats being pulled on and off by people, but the convention is that a Minister is always a Minister. You can't be a part-time member of the Government. So when the Rt Hon Winston Peters was speaking yesterday, unless he introduced himself in another role and made it very clear, then everyone has a right to assume he speaks as Deputy Prime Minister, a Minister in the Government. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I can help you there. The press statement I put out was put out as the leader of New Zealand First; not as a Minister, not as the Deputy Prime Minister, but in the name of the office of the leader of New Zealand First—the parliamentary wing. That serves the precise answer. It went out on Sunday at 2 o'clock—last Sunday—and that's my authority for what I'm answering to. 
Hon Chris Hipkins: This is very well-traversed ground in this House. In fact, when the former Prime Minister John Key was questioned about similar matters—party matters—he was often quoted in the media as Prime Minister John Key, and he made it clear in the House that he had been commenting as leader of the National Party. The House accepted that, and the then Opposition was prevented from asking him further questions about it. 
SPEAKER: Yes, and I'm not preventing the member from asking his question, because it is within order to ask a Minister if he agrees with a statement if it's in their general area of responsibility, and if it's not, the Minister can say so. But in this particular case, it is clear to me that there is nothing in the area of the Deputy Prime Minister's responsibilities that is being addressed by this. The Hon Dr Nick Smith—rephrasing the question. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Certainly, Mr Speaker. Does he agree with yesterday's statement by Winston Peters that the major donors to the New Zealand First Foundation are entitled to keep their identities secret, and is this statement consistent with Government electoral policy? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The statement is consistent with the Electoral Act, which allows within its framework for donations up to a certain threshold to be made and the donor to be concealed. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he share the concerns of commentators and political scientists that the large undisclosed donations from the racing industry to New Zealand First, alongside millions of dollars of concessions by this Government in its 2018 and 2019 Budget, raise serious probity questions about New Zealand's electoral system? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Look, throughout the last many years, there have been donations of all sorts of origins made to all sorts of MPs. I recall a donation from a labour hire company being made to the Hon Simon Bridges. He subsequently became Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety. So I think we have a level of transparency in our current Electoral Act. The question for this House will be and must be whether that Act—much of the drafting of which goes back to 1956—is fit for purpose in the 21st century. This side of the House is keen to see a ground-up review for that legislation that will bring it into the 21st century. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is he concerned that the party that determined the final outcome of the 2017 election breached as many as seven sections of the Electoral Act—
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: —notably, section—
SPEAKER: A point of order—the member sits when someone calls a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: This is a serious offence to the running of this House, when a member gets up and thinks he can mouth those allegations without any response. The first thing we have in this country, and it's a proud matter of law, is that you're innocent until proven guilty. The second thing is there is—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. Points of order will be heard in silence, and the indication which I gave very recently is reversed. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: He's about to listen. He began with the first one. Again, he has got no right or sanctuary in this House to make those statements when they're not backed up with one fact whatsoever. We are happy to wait upon an external inquiry as set up by the lawful authorities of this country, but what we won't do is to have someone think he can get away with making all sorts of libellous allegations in this House and get away with it. 
SPEAKER: All right—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order. 
SPEAKER: No, I'm not going to hear from anyone further on this. What I am going to do is I am going to allow Dr Smith to get a little further into his question and work out from that for myself whether he is making an unfounded allegation or whether he has, in very short terms, the evidence. I'll remind him that questions have two legs and they don't have seven. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave of the House to table the statement by the New Zealand Electoral Commission saying that the New Zealand First Party breached the Electoral Act 1993. 
SPEAKER: Well, that's been well published. I don't know why the member's seeking the leave for that. Further supplementary—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Well, the reason I'm seeking the leave is because members are disputing whether there's evidence they broke the law. 
SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. The member may have a further supplementary now if he wants one. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is the Minister concerned that the party that determined the final outcome of election 2017 has breached as many as seven sections of the Electoral Act? 
SPEAKER: Right—
Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order. 
SPEAKER: No, no, I'm going to rule that one out, it's all right. There's no—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Did he as Minister have any discussions with Labour colleagues on the Justice Committee regarding the request of the former New Zealand First president and treasurer to give evidence in the 2017 election inquiry that saw them ultimately block that request? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Minister share the concerns of Dr Andrew Geddis of Otago University that the breaches of the Electoral Act, as determined—
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Now he's about to quote from someone who claims to be a lecturer or professor of law—
Chris Bishop: He is a lecturer. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: —who seems not to understand—even though he has an office down at that university—the first principle of our law, which is that you are innocent until proven guilty. If I was to challenge Mr Geddis to give me the legal opinion and the authority on which he makes his statement, he could not. 
SPEAKER: Order! The acting Prime Minister will resume his seat, and Mr Bishop just lost, as a result of his interjection, the additional question which the National Party had just got. I want to hear the end of the question. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Minister share the concerns of Dr Andrew Geddis of Otago University's political science department, who says that the systematic use of the New Zealand First Foundation for the purposes of avoiding the electoral law amounts to the most serious breach of New Zealand's electoral law? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I'm aware of a number of concerns that Professor Andrew Geddis has raised by some parties under our Electoral Act, including actions by the National Party funnelling donations to electorate candidates through their party—including to Nick Smith, whose only declared donation in the 2017 election was a $25,000 donation from the National Party. What was he trying to conceal? 
SPEAKER: Question No. 5, Darroch Ball. 
Darroch Ball: Thank you, Mr Speaker—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: The problem was Labour MPs did the same. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Send that old joke home. 
SPEAKER: Order! The pair of you, the two most experienced members, or two of the three most experienced members, of the House should know better. 




Question No. 5—Defence
5. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Minister of Defence: What recent reports has he received of the New Zealand Defence Force delivering value to the community or world? 
Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): I can assure the House that while Parliament was in recess over the summer break, our women and our men in uniform have been very busy. In the community last week, an NH-90 helicopter with 11 personnel, two Unimog trucks, and 13 soldiers deployed to Southland to help people trapped by flooding; as part of the Government response to the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, the Tamaki Leadership Centre in Whangaparāoa, with the support of New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel, has been used as an accommodation facility for those in isolation after being evacuated from China; and many of you would have seen the brilliant Tri-Service Guard, Tri-Service kapa haka group, the Black Falcons fly-past, the army chefs, the military bands, and HMNZS Waitangi all at Waitangi this year supporting a range of events, including the opening of Te Rau Aroha, the Māori armed forces museum. 
Darroch Ball: Is the Minister aware of any recent examples where the NZDF has delivered value on the world stage? 
Hon RON MARK: Alongside our maintaining deployments to diverse theatres such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, the Korean Peninsula, and South Sudan, this summer the New Zealand Defence Force leant forward with our Australian and Pacific partners into a huge effort to support the response to the Australian bushfires. In total, 147 personnel have deployed to Australia, including military firefighters, New Zealand combat engineers, plant operators, environmental health personnel, and primary health teams, as well as three NH-90 helicopters, two C-130 Hercules, and one B-757—
SPEAKER: OK, OK. 
Darroch Ball: What challenges arose for helicopter crews on the mission to support the Australian bushfire response? 
Hon RON MARK: Well, that's a good question, because conditions for the helicopter crews were extremely challenging at times, with severe turbulence, dense smoke, dust storms, and electrical storms affecting flying conditions. Despite this, however, the crews and maintainers performed exceptionally and, with the exception of days when smoke and weather prevented flying, 100 percent of all missions allocated were flown. It is noteworthy that there was little to no respite between the return to New Zealand and redeployment of an NH-90 and crew down to Southland in response to the flooding down there. 
Darroch Ball: What challenges arose for C-130 crews on the mission to support the Australian bushfire response? 
Hon RON MARK: Once again, unfortunately, when the first C-130 arrived in Australia to contribute to the response, it broke down. A second C-130 had to be sent over, along with a new engine, before joining the Australian Defence Force firefighting effort. Once again, this reinforces the challenge of operating with ageing defence equipment and a problem we have inherited here. I am proud of the coalition Government for making the decision last year to select the highly capable C-130J-30 Super Hercules as a replacement for these old and ageing 1960s-era Hercules. Rest assured, Mr Speaker and the House, that front of my mind is progressing the procurement of the Super Hercules. It is our highest capability priority this year that this Government will address. 




Question No. 6—Health
6. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Are the same 2019 novel coronavirus screening processes in place for all flights from China as announced on 26 January 2020 also in place at airports and ports that receive passengers from affected areas that have not arrived directly from China? 
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: Health staff are meeting all direct flights from China and can meet any international passenger, regardless of where their flight originates. No one, other than New Zealand citizens or permanent residents, who has been in China since travel restrictions were introduced is currently being allowed into New Zealand, and anyone on any flight who is identified at the airport—and passports are all being checked—as having been in Mainland China from midnight on 2 February that isn't on a direct flight from Mainland China will be treated exactly the same as people who arrive on direct flights. 
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Are there health staff meeting all ships and flights with passengers arriving from outbreak areas, and, if not, why did she, effectively, answer yes to that in the primary question? 
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Mr Speaker, the answer might be a little bit longer. There is a complex set of arrangements in place that identifies that anyone who's been in the affected area will be met by public health staff—yes. 
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he agree that if health staff are available at Auckland and Christchurch airports and not available at any other port or airport in New Zealand, then those screening processes are clearly not the same? 
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: What the member might not appreciate is that the only flights coming into airports outside of Auckland and Christchurch are coming through Australia, and Australia has the same checks in place as New Zealand. Outside of Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, the only commercial flights that I'm aware of arriving at airports in New Zealand have been tracked through Australia, where they have the exact same screening processes and, in fact, are not allowing New Zealand citizens or residents who are not normally resident in Australia to transit. 
Hon Michael Woodhouse: What does she say to traveller Harry Flett, who said of the screening process, "You could have said you were feeling fine [but] have a raging fever and they would have let you through."? 
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: With all due respect to anecdotes that are being reported in the media, I don't think that they paint the full picture. Clearly, that person did not have a raging fever and so is speculating. 
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he believe the reason health officials now have to track down 4,000 people who haven't registered with the coronavirus healthline is because none of the written material available at airports actually asks them to? 
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I am confident that health officials are acting under the best advice. We are reviewing our border response in light of the best evidence, science, and medical advice in a rapidly evolving situation. 
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Has he received any advice from his Associate Minister Julie Anne Genter on how to manage the outbreak based on her experience with the measles outbreak last year? 
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: On behalf of the Minister, I can assure the member that the health Minister works very closely with his Associate Ministers, and we're very proud of the fact that we're finally launching the catch-up campaign—that the previous Government never did—to finally address under-immunisation in respect of measles. 




Question No. 7—Social Development
7. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by her statement, "if that member ever asks me a question again in this House about a thing called the dole—which does not exist—I will refuse to answer the question"? 
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): Yes. What I have been attempting to convey is that her questions about a thing called the dole are unclear and ambiguous. [Interruption] The Ministry of—
SPEAKER: Order! I just want to say there's an important point of principle—[Interruption] Sorry, who interjected then? 
Brett Hudson: They coughed. 
SPEAKER: Oh, OK. All right. There's a serious point of principle that both the questioner and the Minister are attempting to establish as a result of this question. I think it's important that we listen, and it ill behoves people who shout down either the Minister or the questioner. 
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Shall I start again, Mr Speaker? 
SPEAKER: Yes. 
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Yes, what I have been attempting to convey is that her questions about a thing called the dole are unclear and ambiguous. The Ministry of Social Development does not have any products or services referred to as the dole. There is also no reference to the word in social security legislation. I feel it's in the public interest that the correct terminology for Government support and assistance is used during question time, and on that point, some actual examples of main benefits in New Zealand include jobseeker support, sole parent support, supported living payment, youth payment, young parent payment, and emergency benefit. 
Hon Louise Upston: Is she in denial about the fact that the Government has put an additional 27,000 people on to the dole and, in fact, a larger percentage of people are coming back on to the dole within 13 weeks of leaving than under National? 
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: There is no such thing as the dole in the social security legislation, and there are no Ministry of Social Development products referred to as or called the dole. 
SPEAKER: Before the member asks the question, I am going to assume that if the Minister is shouted down again, National Party members do not want to have any further supplementaries. 
Hon Louise Upston: When will she advise the Prime Minister about her statement about the dole being unclear and ambiguous, because that's how the Prime Minister has referred to it in this House? 
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I am referring to the use of terminology during question time. As the Minister for Social Development, I think it is in the public interest that we use correct terminology when referring to services and support that the Ministry of Social Development provides. 
Hon Louise Upston: Why is she not willing to correct the Prime Minister on 21 May last year, when she referred to people in Mana in Mahi who get the equivalent of the dole in this House, and yet she refuses me as a member of the Opposition when holding her to account for the additional 27,000 people who are on the dole? 
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: As the Minister for Social Development, I think it's important that we use the correct terminology when referring to the supports and assistance that are available through the Ministry of Social Development. I think, as the Minister for Social Development, it is important during question time—a very formal part of the process here in Parliament—that we do use the correct terminology, and that it is in the best interests of the public to do so. 
Hon Louise Upston: When will she correct the Prime Minister, who continues to use it, including on Facebook posts? 
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I keep referring to question time as the process where I think it's important to use the correct terminology with respect to Ministry of Social Development supports and assistance, and I stand by that statement. 
Hon Louise Upston: Does she believe people are better off having the opportunity to earn their own income through work, or is she happy for them to live hand to mouth on the dole? 
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: There is no such type of assistance referred to in the social security legislation or by the Ministry of Social Development called the dole. If the member would like to put questions down that refer to actual types of benefits that are paid through the Ministry of Social Development, then I would be more than happy to respond to those specific questions. 




Question No. 8—Education
8. JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: How are schools benefiting from the capital investment of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Around 2,050 State schools are eligible for up to $400,000 worth of capital investment, based on their roll numbers, to upgrade their classrooms and buildings. This is the largest capital injection for school upgrades in 25 years, and it's part of the Government's $12 billion New Zealand Upgrade Programme, which includes investments in roads, rail, hospitals, and schools. It will modernise our infrastructure and futureproof the economy. Schools no longer have to keep deferring modernising their classrooms and their property because they have to deal with more pressing and urgent repairs instead. 
Jan Tinetti: When will State schools start applying for funding for their property projects? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The good news is they already have been—for example, Arahoe School in Auckland, who have already started the recladding of their classrooms. They have used some of the $400,000 that they were allocated to modernise five further classrooms they didn't have the money to do before. Riverdale School in Palmerston North did a similar thing, where they used the $285,000 they received as part of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme to add two more classrooms to their existing refurbishment programme. 
Jan Tinetti: What other property projects in State schools have already had funding approved from the New Zealand Upgrade Programme? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I'm pleased to say that there are heaps, but I'll just cite a couple. For example, Rangiora Borough School, who wanted a new library, put it out to tender and found they didn't have enough money. They have now got that extra money and they are going ahead with their new library. Fairlie School in Canterbury was entitled to nearly $100,000 from the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, and by the end of last month, they'd already lined up a local building company to upgrade and modernise their classroom. Murchison Area School got in there quickly, too, and used some of the $112,000 that they have been eligible for to refit their science lab with new benches, carpets, and whiteboards. These are just some of the projects that are already under way around the country. 
Jan Tinetti: What actions is the Government taking to encourage State schools to get their projects under way with funding from the New Zealand Upgrade Programme? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Ministry of Education has already contacted every State school in the country about the funding that is available to them. Their property advisers have been working with them to look at their current property plans and look at what they can add to or accelerate from those programmes. We have already, in the first few weeks of term, seen an additional 91 schools identify the projects, and that rate is accelerating rapidly. 




Question No. 9—Regional Economic Development
9. JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: What recent Provincial Growth Fund announcements has he made? 
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): Consistent with being the most historically pro-infrastructure Government of the century, 47 Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) projects have been announced: over $200 million to aid the cause of expanding rail into an important province in New Zealand; aiding the cause of expanding water storage to deal with changing climate challenges, both in Wairarapa and in another important province in the nation; and $30 million to work practically with Māori groups to unleash the potential of their land and avoid litigation, which ensnared the last Government in their poor relationship with Māoridom over water interests. 
Jenny Marcroft: What other PGF announcements have been made this year? 
Hon SHANE JONES: I speak very briefly of the opening—
SPEAKER: Chance would be a fine thing, but carry on. 
Hon SHANE JONES: Sorry, I speak very modestly of the opening of the Te Rau Aroha whare taonga Te Whaka Maumahara, offering testimony to the ethic of service, otherwise known as the Māori Battalion museum; the National Party MPs from the South Island have privately communicated to me over their joy with the Kaikōura announcement—they have asked that I not out them, because they've been advised they're not allowed to speak publicly about such good news, although the mayors of those areas do—and $6.1 million for the Wairoa CBD build, including a $960,000 contribution to the Wairoa digital employment programme, which shows that this Government works—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why are dole numbers going up—23,000 more on the dole? 
Hon SHANE JONES: —down at the level of the earthy interests of New Zealand society, not the big end of town, which crippled the vision of the last Government. I have also been advised that in the event further assistance is needed in projects in Nelson, under no circumstances associate them with Nick Smith. 
Jenny Marcroft: How have these announcements been received in the regions? 
SPEAKER: Briefly. 
Hon SHANE JONES: Great friends of mine, the Federated Farmers—their president Mr William Beetham has welcomed the Wairarapa water investment, noting some of our largest companies and employers are under threat going forward as they were failed in their ambitions in the previous nine years—and the Kia Kaha programme and effecting a relocation and the development of North Port has been supported by Dr Reti and the occasionally seen Mr Matt King. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister report to the House as to how many times he's been knocked over by National Party MPs trying to get to the openings of these projects? 
SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think we'll just leave that there. I think he's not responsible for being knocked over. 




Question No. 10—Transport
10. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by his statement on 7 December 2017, "But I want to make it clear that it is not the role of the Minister of Transport to prioritise particular roading projects", and have any roading projects in the transport component of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme been prioritised? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: Yes, I stand by my statement in the context it was given. In answer to the second part of the question, all of the roading projects in the New Zealand Upgrade Programme are a priority for this Government. That's why we funded them. 
Chris Bishop: Was the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission involved in the selection of the projects to prioritise, and, if so, how? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, the main responsibility for the identification of projects was, as you would expect, with the New Zealand Transport Agency. As the Minister said, in the House yesterday, he had conversations with the Minister of Finance around the projects. I would have to get back to the member on the exact role of the Infrastructure Commission, but it would have been a minor, advisory one, if there were one. 
Chris Bishop: When did Auckland Transport find out about the transport projects selected as part of the Upgrade Programme? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, the member will have to put that question down in writing to give him a specific time and date. 
Chris Bishop: Why is the South Island receiving less than 5 percent of the nearly $7 billion committed to transport projects in the Upgrade Programme? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, the Upgrade Programme represents additional spending on top of the already impressive rate of spending through the National Land Transport Fund of around $3.5 billion in the South Island. I know that in the Canterbury community, where some concerns have been raised, $1.5 billion is going there from the National Land Transport Fund. So these projects are in addition to what is already being done. 
Chris Bishop: Did the Government consider prioritising the East-West Link project in Auckland as part of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, and when will the Government announce a decision on that important project? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, that was not a project that was included in the considerations. Obviously, it remains a project on the books. The concern that this Government has previously had is that that was going to be, per kilometre, one of the most expensive roads in the world. That project, obviously, can be relooked at as time and resources allow. 
Chris Bishop: Why should New Zealanders have any confidence in the ability of the Government to actually deliver these projects, when Ministers in the Government have spent years criticising the projects they say they are now prioritising? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, there is one very important reason why New Zealanders can have confidence in the projects in the New Zealand Upgrade Programme: we've actually funded them. 
SPEAKER: Question No. 11, Marja Lubeck. [Interruption] And I just will say to the member that now we have one member from north of Auckland being relatively quiet, there's not a need for another one to replace him. 




Question No. 11—Building and Construction
11. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister for Building and Construction: What recent information, if any, has she seen about a growing construction workforce? 
Hon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction): Building the homes, schools, roads, rail, and hospitals that New Zealand needs requires a growing construction workforce. It's great that this coalition Government's work, together with industry, is delivering a growing construction workforce. From the figures from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Tertiary Education Commission, it shows that the building and construction workforce is growing larger and it's becoming more diverse. In fact, since we came in as a coalition Government two years ago, an additional 11,000 people have joined the construction sector—a huge increase—and it's proof that our plan is working. 
Marja Lubeck: What Government policies have helped with this increase? 
Hon JENNY SALESA: We've achieved this record construction workforce by working with industry through the Construction Sector Accord, as well as through the Construction Skills Action Plan. This includes making trade training fees free for the first two years, raising the standard of trades in our schools through the Prime Minister's Vocational Excellence Awards, and prioritising apprenticeships through our new Government procurement rules. This has meant construction apprentices have increased by 20 percent since 2017, with an additional 4,700 apprentices being trained at any one time. 
Marja Lubeck: How is the construction workforce growing more diverse? 
Hon JENNY SALESA: We are recruiting more women, more Māori, more Pacific, as well as more Asian New Zealanders. In just two years, 1,000 more Māori have joined the construction industry, an additional 2,700 more women are in construction, and 600 more Pacific and 2,800 more Asian New Zealanders are working in construction. I'm proud of what we've achieved so far, and this Government will keep delivering the workforce that our country needs. 




Question No. 12—Housing (Public Housing)
12. SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): Can he confirm that almost 14,500 New Zealanders are currently waiting for a State house, and that the waiting list is more than double what it was when National left office? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): Yes. The Government has always been clear that it is going to take some time to reverse the damage that nine years of neglect caused. Five thousand State houses were removed from the State housing list under the last Government. Since we took office, we've created 4,258 new public housing spaces, and we have a further 3,480 houses under construction. If that rate of progress had been in place over the nine years prior to when we became the Government, we would not have a State house waiting list at all. 
Simon O'Connor: Can the Minister once again confirm to the House that a large number of those new builds were actually started, consented, or contracted by the former Government? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Some of those were at various stages under the previous Government, as would have been the case when the previous Government took office back in 2009. Had they sustained a rate of progress of building new houses during that time, we would not have had a waiting list. Unfortunately, they took the view espoused by Paula Bennett that if the Government sold State houses, other organisations like banks would step in and fill the void. It was that kind of befuddled thinking that created the mess that we have now. 
Hon Stuart Nash: Has the Minister seen reports that in the city of Napier, under the previous Government, over 140 State housing units were torn down and not one replaced? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, I can confirm that example. There are other examples—for example, in Trentham, where hundreds of State houses were demolished and replaced by the land being sold to private developers, so further State houses were not built on that. There are examples of that all over the country. 
Simon O'Connor: Is he able to confirm that if the number of people waiting for a State house is increasing and the wait times for such houses is over 3½ months, then, by definition, things are getting worse under this Government? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The waiting lists are increasing. That is an unavoidable fact, and the fact is that we do not have enough houses to accommodate those people. Our Government is working as fast as we can to build additional houses, but what we will never do is what the last National Government did when it purged people from the State house waiting list in order to try and create the impression that there wasn't a problem when there was. 
Simon O'Connor: Is the Government proposing to make New Zealanders who are having to live in motels still pay 25 percent of their income towards it because the Government is running out of money, after a 440 percent increase in emergency housing expenditure? 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No. It is because we don't want to create a situation where people in emergency housing are better off financially than people who are actually paying rent in normal houses or in transitional houses. 
Simon O'Connor: Is it still the Government's intention that "no one should have to live in a car", and, if so, why is the Government including an exemption in their Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill for people who do live in cars? 
SPEAKER: Order! That's not an area the Minister is responsible for. 






DEBATE ON PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT
Debate resumed from 12 February.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti): Now, two years ago the Government of these three parties set out an ambitious programme to tackle the long-term challenges that had been neglected for years, and we've made great progress on addressing those issues. I'm just going to rattle through a few: furthering our work in child poverty, rolling out our investment in front-line mental health services, responding to the review of our health and disability services, reforming the skills sector and promoting skills in trades, investing in vital infrastructure—and we could go on. But the one issue that I'd like to really raise in this speech is the progress that we've made to continue to build on our Māori-Crown relationship. Now, all we have to do is cast our minds back just to last week to see the progress that this country has made in the Māori-Crown relationship.
I want everybody to just cast their minds back even further, though, to 5 February 2017. That was the last Waitangi Day that the previous Government was in charge of organising. If anyone has forgotten, let me describe the chaos, the mayhem, the bedlam, that ensued at that occasion at the pōwhiri. There were people hanging up blue tarpaulins around outside the perimeter of the marae to stop media going in and seeing what was going on. The National Party—"National No Friends"—instead of having supporters go in and support them going on to the pōwhiri, what they did was they told every public servant, every CE of every public department, to go there and support them, to make it look like they actually had an army of support. We in the Labour Party would round up about 200 people in red shirts and would show that we actually had real support. 
Now, we have to, as politicians, take responsibility for the part that we played in creating that bedlam and that mayhem. It's because the whole show was about the politicians. There's some parties in this Parliament that actually love the bedlam, that love the mayhem, because then they could rail against Māori and they could point the finger and say that Māori are the problem, and it just appealed to the sea of mayonnaise that supported those parties, Mr Speaker. We need to take responsibility.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me—"Madam".
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Sorry, Madam Speaker. So we made it a flashpoint because we as politicians made Waitangi about us, and we should not be the largest part of what goes on at Waitangi; we should be the smallest part.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Shouldn't be there at all.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: And there we go. That comes from Gerry Brownlee, and that is an indication of the disdain that the National Party has towards Māori. It's absolutely disgusting.
The other emblem of this disdain that the National Party shows is that their spokesperson for the Māori-Crown relationship is the Hon Dr Nick Smith. Now, what on earth possessed Simon Bridges to name the Hon Dr Nick Smith, as if he's an expert on Māori-Crown relations? What is he doing? What has he done? What's his contribution to Māoridom? He's actually part of the problem.
Let me just take you through the week of peace and calm and national unity from last week. It started off on the Sunday, when the Hon Shane Jones, in his modest way—and he's already described what he did, in question time—made announcements around helping Māori to create productivity on their land. The Hon Nanaia Mahuta made an announcement about reducing the rates burden on Māori so that they could actually have capital to invest in their land.
Then we roll on to Monday. We all moved from the Bay of Islands—sorry; when I say "we all", no one from the National Party turned up. We all rolled over to the north of Hokianga, where we unveiled a statue to Te Whaea o Te Motu, Dame Whina Cooper, where we acknowledged our Māori heroes who have done so much for our people. 
Roll on to Tuesday. I'm going to just come back to Tuesday, because that was the day of the pōwhiri—the infamous Simon Bridges pōwhiri.
Wednesday: Wednesday morning I was told that the opening of Te Rau Aroha museum was going to be a quiet dawn service. When I walked out of the hotel at 4 o'clock in the morning, there was a line of traffic stretching from Paihia right up to the Treaty grounds a couple of kilometres long. This was not going to be a quiet dawn service.
I stood at the back of that queue in the darkness, and I estimated there were 2,000 people there—2,000 people at that dawn service.
Nicola Willis: I was there.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Nicky Willis says she was there, so she can actually validate what I've just said.
Then we come to 10 o'clock at the public opening of this ceremony—10 o'clock; the exact same time Simon Bridges calls a press conference to announce that he's leaving. Now, why on earth would Simon Bridges call a press conference to announce that he's leaving Waitangi, when no one cared that he was there in the first place and fewer people cared that he was leaving?
Then we come to Waitangi Day itself: 2,000 people attended the dawn karakia, and then there was no Simon Bridges there. Then, when we went out to the Prime Minister's breakfast, again 2,000 people lined up at that barbecue. There were half a dozen people who didn't line up at the barbecue—they were the National Party MPs. They were about 3,000 metres away, and, despite the noise—the hubbub of the crowd—the National Party members, we could still hear their stomachs rumbling. What they needed to do, instead of sitting there looking all forlorn, was just come down, grab a pair of tongs, and join in with all the other MPs to feed the crowd.
But let me go back to the Tuesday morning—to the pōwhiri. We put a lot of effort into making sure that the mayhem, the bedlam, of three years earlier didn't reoccur. We put a lot of effort into saying it doesn't matter who the speaker is, but we're all going to stand up as a Parliament and support that speaker. We made sure that we were inclusive. We included Simon Bridges. We gave him the honour of picking up the first challenge that was laid down. Then James Shaw had the honour of the second, and the Deputy Prime Minister had the honour of the third. Before we got up to the Treaty grounds, we were all in a room and we practised the waiata so that we all knew what the words were and we all knew what everyone was going to do.
What I've said throughout the three years that we've been organising the Waitangi Days is that we must uphold the mana and the dignity of Ngāpuhi, the local people. Everybody—everybody—bar one did it. For the first time in my life I am glad that there is a Māori who could not understand Māori. It's sad to say. The bollocking that Simon Bridges got for his absolutely tone-deaf speech—
Hon Louise Upston: Oh, rubbish.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Rubbish? Somebody who doesn't speak Māori is saying rubbish. Oh, no; that's right. That was the other impressive thing we've done: we've given all the MPs that are there headsets so they can have a simultaneous translation. This is how inclusive we are. Let me tell you now, when the MPs get things together, we set an example for the rest of the country. 
We spoke about the bridge. We spoke about the bridge that Māori have had to cross since Europeans have been here, the bridge that means that Māori can cross from the Māori world into the European world. We've learnt the language, we've learnt the customs, we've learnt the tikanga, and it's almost always been one-way traffic. What we need and my vision for New Zealand in 2040, the bicentenary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, is that by then, Pākehā, Europeans, will be able to cross that bridge to the other side and know our language and know our customs and know how we think and feel and why we act and behave the way we do, and that New Zealanders can be crossing that bridge freely and communicating in whatever language we decide and we're not talking past each other.
So this is my question for Simon Bridges, who in his tone-deaf speech believes that he's a statesman and that he has got some sort of mana and kudos. I'll tell you what, he's so uncomfortable in his Māori skin he seeks affirmation from non-Māori. That's where he gets his affirmation. In the meantime, he tramples on the mana and dignity of Ngāpuhi. But here's the thing. I have a question for Simon Bridges: Simon, are you prepared to cross that bridge? Are you prepared to cross? Even though he's Māori, he was born on the non-Māori side of things. Is he prepared to cross that bridge into the Māori side? And I say if he is not prepared to cross that bridge, I question—and I say this to everybody in this House. If we are not prepared to cross that bridge freely and communicate with the people on the other side, then I question our place as politicians, as parliamentarians. That is the vision that I have for Aotearoa New Zealand: that we can cross that bridge freely.





Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I'm surprised at the previous speaker. The deputy leader of the Labour Party took his whole 10-minute speech to refer to Waitangi Day. It's an important day. It's an historic day for us. I personally have been going to Waitangi myself since 2011. We haven't always had a warm welcome there, but we continue to front up, and that's what our leader Simon Bridges did this year. He made a very direct speech, and he feels that that's the place each year to come together and talk honestly and talk openly. He wasn't afraid to do that, and he did that.
I don't think that Ngāpuhi are shrinking violets, and I don't think that they are afraid to stand up and speak openly and clearly to both the Government and the Opposition. I had a translation device with me. I listened to all those speeches. I thought they were all outstanding. I thought the bravest speech of the day was the speech of the National Party leader Simon Bridges, because he wasn't afraid to talk to some of the serious issues that actually face us as a nation.
I find it very interesting that the deputy leader of the Labour Party would stand up and attack Simon and his whakapapa. He attacks him because he doesn't sound like him. Because he doesn't speak like him, for some reason his status, his mana, is diminished, and that goes against everything that they're meant to stand for and what they continue to attack us on. So while the deputy leader of the Labour Party was standing and delivering that speech, he's also the Minister of Corrections. I can tell you that I've seen an email in the last two days from the Corrections department saying that they're under serious pressure because of the rise in prison numbers. They don't have the beds for serious offending. The reason why they need them is because serious offending is going up under this Government.
Let's have a look at National's record. Let's have a look at National's record when we were last in Government—nine years with police Ministers like Judith Collins and the Hon Anne Tolley and the Hon Paula Bennett. Under their leadership, some of the stats we look at, youth crime reduced by 31 percent. It reduced by 31 percent. That's from 2011 to 2017. Overall, crime reduced by 14 percent. Violent crime reduced by 2 percent. Here's the most important one. Here's one of the most important ones, because in this House I think we all believe in rehabilitation. We don't want people coming into our criminal justice system, but once they're there, we want to try and rehabilitate them and give them the best shot of rejoining society when they come back out. So let's have a look at our reoffending rates: reduced by 26 percent—26 percent.
Let's have a look at the current Government's record. In the year ending November 2019, the number of serious assault victims resulting in injury has increased by almost 40 percent—40 percent. The number of active serious harm cases before the District Court has risen by 25 percent. We've got 1,400 new patched gang members in this country—1,400. In the last three weeks, we've seen running gang warfare in the Bay of Plenty. We've seen firearms used, and we saw a tragedy unfold last night that resulted in two deaths. We avoided an absolute tragedy in Taradale two weeks ago when an infant's car seat ended up with a shotgun pellet in it as a result of a gang confrontation between 30 patched gang members in the middle of Taradale in the middle of the day in New Zealand.
Hon Nathan Guy: Whose electorate is it?
Hon MARK MITCHELL: That electorate is the Hon Stuart Nash's—
Hon Nathan Guy: What's he doing about it?
Hon MARK MITCHELL: —who also happens to be the police Minister. Well, let me come to that. So who in this House will put their hand up and say that we should accept that in a modern New Zealand, we have 30 patched gang members in the middle of a provincial town with—banned now—military-style weapons fighting? There's no hands showing, so we all agree on that one. Who agrees in this House that after having 30 patched gang members in open warfare in Taradale, there's been four arrests? Who thinks that that's appropriate? I can tell you it's not.
I do want to speak to our police service, especially in relation to Tauranga. The current district commander there is a guy by the name of Superintendent Andy McGregor. He was my armed offenders squad (AOS) commander when I was on the AOS in Gisborne. He spent years on the coast, policing the gangs and, at that time, the Rastafarians from Ruatōria down to Wairoa. He understands what the challenge is; he knows how to deal with it. I've got no problems at all with the police and their operational capability. We have got a world-class police service that is capable of taking these gangs on.
The district commander down there made an important statement, and I totally agree with it: they can't do it on their own. They can't. It takes a joined-up approach, whether it be from local government—and I spoke with Mayor Tenby Powell this afternoon in terms of what he wants to see in response. We need to see iwi leaders and iwi get involved with this. We need the community. This Government here—the Minister stands up in Taradale and he says, "We need the community to respond. We need the community help." I'll tell you something. Let me tell you something: you will not get the community standing up and wanting to put their head above the parapet in front of gang members unless they are absolutely confident that the police are controlling and running the town. If they feel the gangs are, of course they're not going to want to come forward. Of course they're not wanting to incur that personal risk.
Let me read you just a piece of this letter that was written to the local MP and Minister of Police Stuart Nash from a 12-year-old girl that lives in his electorate. She wrote "I'm very confused and concerned. On Thursday last week, there was a group of Mongrel Mob members breaking the law at Maraekakaho - Orchard Rd intersection. Amazingly, there were not one but two police officers standing right there at the intersection when the Mongrel Mob got there. But it's not all about what the Mongrel Mob members were doing but what the police were doing about it. The Mongrel Mob members were sitting in the windows of their car."—so they were hanging out of their cars, sitting on the windows—"They were driving through red lights."—so they were driving through red lights—"Other cars were struggling to drive across without getting hit." Again, this is in the middle of the day. What does she want to see? Does she want to see the police responding and actually taking action against Mongrel Mob members that are flagrantly breaking the law, that just a couple of months before had taken over a public car park to do a patching ceremony, or do they want to see the police standing back and allowing them to get on with it?
The problem is this. I'll tell you what the problem is, and the Justice department highlighted this. It is that the Public Service will react to the signals sent by Government, and this comes back to the heart of the problem of what we're experiencing as a nation right now. When you see 1,400 more gang members, when you see a rise in gang violence and organised crime activity, it's because this Government is a soft-on-crime Government that has sent a clear signal—
Michael Wood: Rubbish.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: —to our Public Service. Rubbish? Get up and talk about it, Mr Wood, because I'm telling you now: your communities are not feeling safer under a Labour-led Government. They're feeling more exposed, and if you're sensitive to your ethnic communities, you will be seeing a very clear message that they do not feel safe under this Government.
This is a soft-on-crime Government. We're seeing every single measure in terms of public safety heading in the wrong direction. I can tell you right now: our leader has been very clear, and he spoke about this at Waitangi, that we are going to take action against gangs. We are going to take action against organised crime. We do have the will and we will provide the leadership, because we believe that for too long in this country, it's been normalised and we've put up with it. You've created a permissive environment in this country where they will continue to operate like that. They know that under a Simon Bridges - led National Party in Government those days are over, that the pressure is going to come on them, that we will implement a gang policy.
Very, very quickly, let me talk about that meeting in Taradale. I took over a bill in 2013 banning gang patches in public buildings. Do you know the only power that the police could use on the day? On the day of that public meeting the Black Power turned up. A patched Black Power member came into the hall to try and intimidate the community in Taradale. The police were able to remove him. You know how? By using that power. I talked to the detective inspector afterwards—Labour didn't even support the bill. They wouldn't even support the bill when it came through the House. They should hang their heads in shame. They voted against that bill. Do you know why they voted against that bill? Because they said that it would be an impingement on gang members' freedoms of expression—that's what they said. That was the only power the police had that day to remove that gang member from a situation in a community hall where he was intimidating members of the community.





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That this debate be now adjourned. 





A party vote was called for on the question, That this debate be now adjourned.
Ayes 63
New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.
Noes 56
New Zealand National 55; Ross.
Motion agreed to.





EDUCATION (VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING REFORM) AMENDMENT BILL
Second Reading
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move, That the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. 
This is a significant day for vocational education and training in New Zealand. This Government is putting trades and vocational education back on the map. We are bringing together a coherent system of on-the-job apprenticeships and off-the-job training for the first time in 30 years—the first time since the National Government abolished apprenticeships in the 1990s.
This bill will help us to create a new system that's simple to understand and easy to navigate, that's responsive to the needs of learners and employers, and that's flexible enough to keep changing and evolving as the needs of New Zealanders change and evolve. This bill gives effect to our objective of creating a unified and cohesive vocational education and training system. The bill helps to create a new, unified network of off-the-job education and training, support for on-the-job apprentices and trainees, and newer learning modes like online and blended learning.
The bill puts industry and employers in charge of determining what their skill needs are through the creation of workforce development councils. Unlike the industry training organisations (ITOs) that they replace, workforce development councils will have a standard-setting role in off-the-job training as well as on-the-job training. A new, unified funding system will bring an end to the perverse incentives that we have in our current system, where on-the-job training and off-the-job training compete with one another, rather than being seen as integral parts of our skills development system. Contrary to the claims by some who should know better, this bill will not result in on-the-job apprenticeship training being moved into classrooms. In fact, quite the opposite: this bill is about ensuring that we have more on-the-job learning opportunities available to more people and that they and their employers have more support in the process.
For learners, the changes that we are progressing through this bill will result in more support while they're training, and courses and training that are more relevant to their work. It will result in an easier pathway for them to continue their learning when they have to move—as people often do: they have to move employers, they have to move places, and sometimes they have to move between on-the-job learning and off-the-job learning.
For employers, the new system will deliver a much greater focus on ensuring that they get the skilled workers that they need—something that employers are crying out for. Employers will get more support to upskill their own workforces—something that we know they are keen to do. It will result in greater consistency in the skills, courses, and qualifications that are offered, with a much bigger focus on supporting those employers who don't currently engage in on-the-job training.
These reforms respond to huge changes that are taking place in the world around us, and they recognise that learning is no longer limited to a classroom. Learning is something that can happen in any place, at any time, and trying to draw a distinction between learning that happens in a work-based context and learning that happens in a classroom or tertiary provider - based context is arbitrary and unnecessary.
The reforms signal a significant paradigm shift in the way we think about education and training—away from thinking about learning as a system or as an institution that learners need to organise their lives around, to, instead, thinking about learning as something that needs to flex and fit around the lives that people lead, including their work. We're talking about practical, purposeful, real-world learning. That's what vocational education and training is all about.
I do want to thank the members of the Education and Workforce Committee for their diligent consideration of this bill. I want to thank the 236 individuals and organisations that took the time to submit on the bill. The select committee's proposed amendments demonstrate that their submissions have been carefully considered. Some submitters thought, for example, that for the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology (NZIST)—the new, unified network of delivery that I spoke of—academic freedom should be unfettered by the functions of workforce development councils, while others indicated that the current provisions provided too much academic freedom to the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology, and more preference needed to be given to industry. That is probably a good sign that we're about in the right place, but there are improvements that can be made. The committee amended the bill to clarify, in particular, how academic freedom provisions interact with the workforce development councils.
They've added a requirement for the councils to collaborate with providers, in particular the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology, when they're performing their standard-setting functions and developing qualifications. They also are designed to ensure that they're not limiting the freedom of staff and students to comment and engage in research and on the ability of the providers to appoint their own staff. However, the particular functions of a workforce development council do sometimes overlap with the provider's freedom to regulate the subject matter of its courses and to teach and assess its students in a manner that it views appropriate. That's why these provisions have been further clarified to provide greater clarity. I do welcome the committee's amendments to these proposals. They make sure we're getting the balance right between academic freedom and ensuring that we achieve our objective of putting industry in the driver's seat.
The New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology's charter sets out the enduring principles by which it must carry out its functions. Following recommendations from submitters, the committee has amended both the functions in the charter of the NZIST. The functions are amended to clarify that the NZIST is to conduct research with a focus on applied and technological research and that they will deliver a wide range of vocational education and training, including vocational, foundation and degree-level and above provision. The changes to the charter include the requirement for the NZIST to work collaboratively with workforce development councils to strengthen their commitment to equitable outcomes in pursuing equitable access for learners across all regions, and requiring the NZIST to work to expand training to more small industries and businesses. There is huge opportunity for us if we can get more training and more apprenticeships in small businesses across the country. I welcome the committee's amendments in that regard.
Several submitters expressed their support for workforce development councils to be owned and led by industry, and the committee has made some amendments in order to strengthen those provisions, including an outline of how industry can be involved—that the Order in Council must now include an outline of how industry can be involved in the councils, requirements for the redistribution of assets and the transition between ITOs and workforce development councils, and any conditions on workforce development council functions. The Minister can also amend or revoke an Order in Council on reasonable grounds or if requested by specified industries. I do support the committee's amendments in that regard.
There was some concern from submitters about ITO staff who could lose jobs in the transfer to the new system, and the committee has inserted similar job protection provisions for ITO staff, as were already in the bill for those who were working at one of the existing polytechs and institutes of skills and technology, and the Government supports those as well.
At the appropriate time, I'll be moving a Supplementary Order Paper that prevents a provider from charging a trainee a compulsory student services fee until 2022. It's important to note that once trainees are transferred from ITOs to providers, they become students as well as trainees, and the Government did not want to see that meaning that they would automatically be charged the compulsory student services fee. That would be a significant impost on around 50,000 apprentices in the vocational education and training system: potentially $15 million of additional costs in fees. We want to stop that from being something that happens, so we put those transitional measures in place—bearing in mind, of course, too, that most trainees are not eligible for student loans in order to meet those kinds of costs. So it'll be a transitional provision, and I'll be moving that one by Supplementary Order Paper, along with several other small and technical changes.
The changes outlined in this bill are ambitious and they are transformational. Our Government isn't willing to stand by while New Zealanders are denied the education and training opportunities that they deserve and while employers are crying out for the skilled workers that they need in order to deliver for New Zealand and fulfil their objectives. We are not going to accept the ongoing decline of our vocational education system, which we have seen over the last decade. That is something that we will never do on this side of the House. We want a robust, vibrant vocational education and training system that delivers to all New Zealanders in every region across the country, that meets the needs of all employers. That is what this bill is about. I commend it to the House.





Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, It's a pleasure to lead the National Party response to the reform of vocational education. The second reading is an opportunity to report back on select committee deliberations and construct a line of argument going forward, and for us, that line of argument will be why we will not be supporting this bill. This bill is quite clearly the next fees-free flop. It will damage the regions, it will damage polytechnics, and it will damage vocational education. Mark my words: this bill will bankrupt tertiary education.
The Minister of Education spent the first five minutes of his time talking about the ideology. It's almost as if he needed a testimony to himself. He needed to reaffirm that the ideology is still there, because the delivery won't. We know that's not going to happen, and the detail behind it isn't there as well. So why don't we just spend half the time talking about the ideology behind it all, and then we'll worry about the delivery later.
I'm going to talk to the submissions we saw in the Education and Workforce Committee. There were 236: 148 individuals, 19 unions, nine of the industry training organisations (ITOs), nine Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand (ITPs), 41 representative peak bodies, and nine others. I thank them all for their submissions. I would also note that 75—that is roughly only a third—were in support of the bill, of those who expressed an opinion. There were also 65 changes that were made by officials in consultation with the select committee. I'm going to address eight of those. I'll discuss the change, the advantages—because some of them I think actually did improve the bill—and then the disadvantages as we see it as well.
To the first point, changes one and three, clearly, this is hurried legislation, because even in the definitions of the bill, we can see there are substantial issues arising. In paragraph 37, the wording is a "training contract", and the point was made that that sort of verbiage, that wording, had caused problems in the past, particularly for volunteers and those who are self-employed, and so a reference back to "training agreements" was used. You'd think that would've been self-evident in the first draft.
It also talked about work-based training. It was added as an amendment to the definition that work-based training also needed to include assessment. So, again, the very first part of the bill—amendments made pointing out how hurried this is. Now, this is also consistent with the submission from the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG), who said, "We have some concerns about the timetable of the reforms. A longer transition programme might reduce some of the risk." So here we have an independent body saying, "Too rushed, too hurried—stretch it out, if you're going to do this at all."
I want to move to the second of the eight points. I think there is some improvement in the requirement for workforce development councils to collaborate with industry. I think that it makes a lot of sense, and I'm pleased; it's a good addition. However, to us, the functions of the workplace development councils are still not clear, and there's deep unhappiness in the sector with the clustering of ITOs together into these workforce development councils. How do we account for information technology being put with quarries and being put with manufacturing? What is their commonality as a group? How will their voices be represented? So a lot of unhappiness in industry around the clustering of workforce development councils.
The third point I wanted to talk to is the training levy. The training levy was raised as a concern by a number of submitters. Federated Farmers and the Master Electricians had concerns that the training levy would replace Government funding. I think that is a valid concern. The Crane Association of New Zealand said that levies would be a significant burden for not-for-profits. Now, on the other side of that—and I said I'd be balanced in my approach to this—we need to remember that a levy requires 60 percent of the weighted headcount ballot by members. So, hopefully, there is an opportunity for each sector to offer what they think a levy should be, whether it should be in place or not, but we do need to take on board some of the submissions we heard and make sure that it doesn't replace Government funding and that we do take some cognisance of not-for-profits.
The fourth part I want to talk to, the fourth change, is ITO assets. I think this is one part that was strengthened. What happened here was there's no compulsion—or what the amendment is is that there'll be no compulsion for ITOs to hand over their assets to workforce development councils. This also makes a lot of sense, because a number of the ITOs—their founding documents and their charters are based on trusts, all sorts of other things. It'd be very difficult for them to undo their assets and pass them across. Furthermore, the cash balance that they were required to hold to show they were representative of an industry—surely, that wasn't going to be handed across to a workforce development council. So I think that addition, change number 29, is actually quite useful.
The fifth I want to talk to is academic freedom, and this received a lot of submissions from people who were very concerned that their academic freedom was going to be compromised. The solution that the committee came to was to, effectively, put in a removal-of-doubt clause, and I think that goes some way towards resolving that issue. However, net-net, I would submit that academic freedom is less in this bill than before. The reason for that is the academic boards from the regional ITPs, the regional polytechnics, are disestablished and aggregated back to the one mega polytechnic, the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology (NZIST). How can that be improving academic freedom? The bill is taking it away from the regions. That is a net-net loss of academic freedom. So we still have grave concerns that that's not addressed, and we do not believe that a mega polytechnic will satisfactorily respond to that.
I want to then talk to administrative regions, change number 54. This is a very strange thing, and I've WPQed this and I'm really no wiser, I have to say. But administrative regions, what are they exactly? Do they cross iwi boundaries? Are they geographic boundaries? Furthermore, when the assets are sucked up into the NZIST and we're told "Oh, don't worry, they'll be applied back in your regions.", is it the regions as we understand it now, the territorial land authority regions, or are they these strange administrative regions? What is this nebulous administrative region? That needs a lot more explanation than has been put into this bill.
The seventh of the eight changes I want to talk to is the conversion of polytechnics to Crown entities. Now, one part of the bill I think is better: the reporting of the subsidiaries is picked up a little bit by including them in section 45L of the Public Finance Act, which then allows them to have more formal reporting than was in the bill beforehand. That's a good thing, particularly over this transition period, particularly, I think, if we look at the January to March—so ITPs are disestablished on 1 April, and what the proposal is from January to March there'll be a revaluation at the end of March, and that's the end of the financial year, and then from April through to December. I think quite sensibly, what the recommendations were were that by including ITP subsidiaries in the Public Finance Act, we actually will be able to report year-long. We won't have two reporting periods—one three months and one nine months—and that's very important for comparative analysis.
The problem here is—and it was pointed out by the OAG, and I'd ask the Minister of Education and his team to look at it as another Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). The problem is the Public Finance Act allows a transfer of functions to allow that reporting across a year, not a conversion of functions, and yet the wording in the bill still talks about the conversion of polytechnics. This is the advice we're getting from the OAG: why would we want to not make that simple change, make it easy for ourselves? It's going to be hard anyway revaluating at the end of March, hideously hard. Make it easy—why would we not take that advice? I'd put it to Government that they think about an SOP that just changes that wording from "conversion" to "transfer".
The last point I want to talk to is around employment protections, and, very, very wisely, this Government saw the danger coming towards them. What on earth was in your head removing employer protections? That transition from the subsidiary ITPs through to the big mega NZIST, the mega polytechnic, in the bill in its first place—Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act was removed, and all employment protection provisions. How on earth did that get through in the first draft? My goodness! Thankfully, you've seen the danger to it. I'd submit it's because we pointed it out in the first reading, that it absolutely needed to be reworded, although it concerns me the intent underlying it. It concerns me the intent for workers' rights. It concerns me the intent for job losses, because the first statement we made when this bill was announced, around about 6 February last year, was that there'd be a thousand job losses in that, and I think that number's increasing. I'll absolutely stand by that number and submit that it's increasing.
So this is a failed process. It's an ideology that will fail. It will bankrupt the tertiary system. If I reflect on the Tertiary Education Commission, who were in front of us at the select committee yesterday, we asked the chief executive, "At any point, have you said to the Minister, 'We don't support these reforms.'?" He quite honestly—and I appreciate his honesty—said, "Yes, initially, we said we do not support these reforms. They will not work." Well, clearly, they then got along to a position where they think they can deploy it. I don't think they can, and we have grave reservations on this side of the House for this bill. Thank you, Madam.





JAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm absolutely delighted to be standing here to speak in the second reading of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill. I just want to start, though, by saying that we've just heard a speech talking about the different components of the bill, but what we didn't hear in the previous speaker Shane Reti's speech was a solution to the issues that are currently facing the vocational training sector.
Matt Doocey: Well, you're the Government.
JAN TINETTI: What would the solution have been from that previous Government? Thirteen of the 16 current polytechs are running deficits; the enrolments have been declining since 2010. I heard someone over there—I'm not sure who it was, but they said, "Oh, you're the Government." That's right. That's why this side is doing something about it, because by doing nothing, the previous Government had already put vocational training under serious threat—serious threat. If we as a Government on this side of the House continued to do nothing, we would see the vocational sector go further into decline, and we've already heard the Minister of Education say that he refuses—he refuses—to take that position.
Now, this is an exciting bill. This is a day where we are putting vocational education back on the map. I'd have to say that I was actually really delighted—you would think, that we had actually sat in different select committee hearings, and I can actually say, even though we split up into subcommittees, that I sat with Dr Reti for most of those same select committee hearings, but you would think that we were listening to different people in those select committee hearings. Most of those 236 submitters, many of them individuals, some organisations, were actually in support of the intent of this bill. Even those organisations and people who wanted to see changes made in the bill, most of those people and organisations were actually fully in support of the intent of this bill.
This bill addresses the four challenges with the current system. Our skills shortages across sectors—we hear about that a lot, and we heard about that a lot in the submissions during the select committee process. That's the first one. The second one: the untenable split in vocational systems. It was confusing. You had people or organisations that were competing against each other. So this is a bill that will consolidate those particular systems. The inequity of some polytechs doing well and others not—as I said, we have 13 of the current 16 polytechs that are running deficits; only three that are not running those deficits. There is a huge inequity there. We've been told in this House that, "Oh, no, maybe we should be looking at this quite differently because there are three that are doing all right." Well, I don't think it's OK that inequity exists like that. So this is what this bill is addressing. The fourth issue that this bill addresses is the lack of industry input in the current system, and that was something that we heard time and time and time again from industry saying that they want that tidied up. So the select committee did that.
Now, I actually want to thank the Education and Workforce Committee, the full committee, in the work that they did. Due to health and my forced absence in the end, I wasn't there for the final deliberations in this bill. But I was very, very glad that I was able to be part of the committee up until that point and hear the many submissions that we heard. I'd have to say that, of all the bills that we've had before us as a select committee, in the Education and Workforce team, I think this is one that we probably put a heck of a lot of diligence into the work that we did. You can see that looking at the departmental report. It is extensive, and the changes that were recommended are ones that the subcommittees went through and deliberated on and talked about, and our officials in those subcommittees were amazing. They were incredible because they came back time and time and time again—so thanking all those members of the select committee but also the officials, who were so diligent in the work that they did as well.
We've heard today that this bill is around modernising the learning of the sector. We're actually starting to look outside the square, looking to the responsive changes in the world. Learning doesn't just have to keep happening the way it's always been because that's the way we've always done it. We need to look at the issues, we need to hear from the sectors, and we need to change up what we're doing to make it better. Now, we heard all of those points that Dr Reti took out and said, "These won't work." Well, I challenge Dr Reti that we actually went through as a committee and based these changes on evidence. We based them on evidence of learning and modern learning, and changing up that way of how the world is existing. And we based it on the needs of the sector and what the sector asked us to look at.
As Dr Reti rightly pointed out, there are lots and lots of changes that were made from select committee. I've already pointed out that the departmental report is extensive, but a couple that I just want to briefly, briefly touch on, because I know that I've got colleagues here that are touching on the rest, is that a number of submitters expressed support that the workforce development councils be industry owned and led. As I said before, that came through time and time again: industry were really concerned that that had to be a major component. So as a committee we looked at that, and the Minister outlined the changes that we made, but we were responsive to the needs of industry, and those changes can be seen having come through from the select committee process.
The other important consideration was the one that Dr Reti talked about right at the end of his contribution—around the important consideration given to the concern shown from submitters that industry training organisations (ITO) staff would lose jobs in the transfer of the new system. We heard that we'd taken our eye off the ball. I would actually challenge that because, if you read the original bill as it stood, clause 33 in that bill already had the provisions for the transfer of polytech staff to the NZIST. So it already existed. What we were told, though, was that this didn't cover the transitional ITO transfers, and even though there was the intent that that would happen, under clause 33, it wasn't transparent enough in people's minds. So that was where the changes were made. And, yes, that's a great thing because we now have that protection for those staff members.
I have heard from people who are working in the sector who are absolutely delighted at this change, around the surety that it gives them in their positions going forward. So I'm absolutely delighted to see this bill come through to the second reading. I'm delighted to also see the ongoing work that we heard from the Minister about the Supplementary Order Paper that he has expressed will be coming through when this bill gets to the next stage. So, without any further ado, I commend this bill to the House.





Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity. I'm taking this call to oppose this legislation. We have been very clear about our concerns from the day this legislation was introduced, and during the select committee process, yes, I acknowledge changes have been made to this legislation, but still this legislation does not address concerns that were raised by us when it was introduced before the House.
The member who just resumed her seat, Jan Tinetti, said that there were some solutions needed to fix the polytech sector. I acknowledge that, but this is not the solution that we need. Just going in single-handed and bringing in a centralised approach is not going to fix the polytech sector. The polytech sector is also suffering because of the policies of the current Labour Government, because of their stance towards immigration, because of their stance towards international students. We know that there are several polytechs that have students already enrolled but they are still overseas because they cannot come to New Zealand to fill those empty seats.
So there are several polytechs suffering because of the policies of the current Government, and then this Government thought, "OK, let's do something" and came up with this reform, which is a disastrous, I would say, reform in the tertiary education sector in the past 30 years—the past 30 years. This is not actually going to solve any problem in the vocational education and training sector; actually, it's going to create more problems because these polytechs are struggling already—and with, later on, amalgamation and other changes, the transition to the new system, they'll be struggling even more.
From day one, we have said that loss of jobs is a big concern for us with this legislation. Building capability in any sector takes several years. We need those people in the tertiary education sector. But, with this reform, I fear that we are going to lose that capability, and then it will be up to us when we come back into Government, after the 19 September, to restart again and build that capability to support our vocational education sector. I think that this is actually going to be a big loss for our workforce that is already there in the vocational education and training sector, and we cannot afford that.
During the select committee process, as I said, changes were made. I want to acknowledge all submitters. It's because of their concerns that they expressed in the select committee process that changes to the legislation have been made. But, of course, there were other concerns expressed by submitters that were not taken fully into account, which I will touch on later on. I want to thank all the 236 submitters—those who submitted—and I also want to acknowledge the 71 submitters who appeared before the Education and Workforce Committee. Of these 236 submitters, the majority of submitters were individuals—148 individuals submitted; 19 submissions were received from unions; nine submissions from industry training organisations; nine from institutes of technology and polytechnics; and 41 from representatives and other peak bodies. I'm really, really grateful to all these submitters.
But then, because of the pressure on the select committee to report back this legislation as it was stated to be reported back, we had to sit in subcommittees. This is very important legislation, and for us in Opposition, all our education spokespeople wanted to be on the select committee to hear from these submitters, but they didn't get the opportunity because we were sitting in subcommittees. Some submitters also were wondering why we had only so few members on the select committee. So we had to explain that to those submitters. So it would have been really nice to get enough time to work on this legislation in the select committee process, especially to have had all members of the select committee have the opportunity to hear from these submitters.
Now, as we have just heard from the Minister, there is going to be a Supplementary Order Paper to address some other concerns. So we can see that this process is a very, very rushed process, and anything to do with students and the future of our country should not be rushed like this. But this Government doesn't care, because it's all about this Government's agenda to push this through. This process of pushing it through the select committee process by putting the time line, which didn't work with the number of submitters that we had—we had to sit in subcommittees—works only for the Government. It doesn't work for submitters; it doesn't work for members, especially Opposition members on the select committee.
As I said, yes, changes were made. I want to acknowledge that. The other change that I want to acknowledge in the select committee process, as I have said before, is that the redundancy conditions for workers is something that we have been talking about from day one, from the day this legislation was introduced. That was addressed during the select committee process because, as the legislation was introduced, it was overriding the Employment Relations Act for workers that would be made redundant. The speaker before me, Jan Tinetti, said that it was about workers that will be transitioned from workforce development councils (WDC) to the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology (NZIST). It's not just about that. We know that some New Zealand Qualifications Authority staff will also be losing their jobs because their responsibilities will be transferred to WDCs.
The other issue that was addressed during the select committee process, which I want to touch on briefly, is academic freedom. This was actually a big concern expressed by several submitters, and it was important that it was addressed in the select committee process and that it was clarified, because with WDCs, the workforce development councils, having that kind of overarching leadership role, it appeared that they will have full control of that; so that local freedom, academic freedom, was lost as the legislation was proposed.
So I want to acknowledge these changes and several other changes which were made in the select committee process, but still the approach that this legislation takes is the problem. The approach of this legislation is to reform this vocational education system by bringing in a centralised model. That doesn't work, and we are quite concerned about that centralised model, because that centralised model takes away that localism, takes away that regional autonomy, and we really want to see that that regional autonomy and that localism is maintained, because if you're talking about supplying a skilled people to local industries, we have to know what those local industries need. So that's why that localism is important, and National is quite concerned about that. We will restore that localism in our vocational education and training.
As we have just heard from the member who resumed her seat, she talked about there being no opportunity for industry to provide their input in the current system. And, actually, industry said that they are not supportive of these changes. I don't know what kind of industry she was talking about. We know the Tertiary Education Commission is not supportive of these changes. Treasury is not supportive of these changes. So the Government is just pushing it through, wanting to look like they're trying to fix the polytech sector. They're not going to fix the polytech sector with this. Actually, they're going to create more problems in the polytech sector.
With workforce development councils, in regard to that, there were several submissions. Those submitters said that they were concerned about the disestablishment of ITOs—industry training organisations—but that concern is out of the scope of this legislation. So there were several concerns that came through during the select committee process. They were put in that category of "out of scope". So how can we say that everybody was heard and that each and every concern has been taken into account in this legislation? It hasn't been—it hasn't been.
Going to the point of localism, I want to bring this to everybody's attention: there were more submitters, those who supported localism, who didn't support a centralised model, and there were fewer submitters who supported that. Fifteen submitters were opposed to that centralised NZIST model which is being proposed through this legislation. Only three submitters supported that centralised model. So that is very clear, and we are very confident in our position. We are opposing this legislation because we truly believe that this legislation is actually going to create more struggle for the vocational education sector. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Associate Minister of Education): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. First speech of 2020, here I go! I've been told to be short and snappy and to the point. So the first thing is, just with regard to comments that—
Simeon Brown: Particularly the "to the point" part!
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I mean, I know it's the embodiment of me: short and snappy and to that point. Just to start this off with the amazing comment made by the previous speaker, Parmjeet Parmar. Now, it's been recognised that 13 out of 16 of the polytechs, when this Government came into Government, were going to fail. They were failing. They were in deficit. It cost this Government $100 million to keep them open. That's taxpayers' money; $100 million of taxpayers' money because the previous Government and the previous Minister for Tertiary Education—I think his name was Steven Joyce—knew that there was a budgetary hole, and maybe this was part of his budgetary hole because he knew that a hundred million dollars of taxpayers' money would have to be put into the polytechs to keep some regional educational vocation provision. But the previous speaker just blamed it on this Government's policies around international students, who can't now get into the country. 
I'm going to make a jump—I'm going to make a leap—but I'm going to say that that speaker is talking about the actions we've taken to protect this nation from coronavirus. That's the only thing I can think of, because with regard to international students, it's been a couple of years and the polytechs were already in deficit before we even came in and we even made any changes. So I think it's an enormous stretch for the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee to then say that the reason why polytechs are in trouble is because of the coronavirus. It's a stretch. I've got to say, it's a stretch. Somebody else might be able to connect that, but it's a wee way out for me.
So the other comments that have been made by Shane Reti—and I like Shane Reti. I enjoy listening to Shane Reti. I mean, there is a man of intelligence and integrity. I believe that to be true. Sometimes he's wrong, but he has intelligence and integrity. Now, what he talked about there was he said that this legislation is rushed.
There is a reasonable amount of urgency. Definitely that is true around fixing the vocational education system in this country. One of them is because we can't keep pouring $100 million into a broken system. The three polytechs that actually were making money, even if we talk about their ability to do that locally and regionally—the only reason why, for example, the Southern Institute of Technology was able to stay in the black was because not only do they have an amazing community and a wonderful trust down there that supports them but they had a campus in Auckland. So they were not able to actually keep themselves in the black based on their localism; they needed a campus in Auckland. That goes to show that the regional provision was not able to work under the way that it had been set up previously.
The other thing I find fascinating—and I want to thank all those business owners and industry training organisations (ITOs) and Māori enterprise and so on that came to see me specifically so that I could draw them and go through with them where the areas of concern are in the model that we've got here because of the scaremongering put together by the National Party.
Simeon Brown: Could have done a Facebook video.
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: So the young man calling out is Simeon Brown. He doesn't actually know the topic, ladies and gentlemen, but he's happy to call out.
Anyway, so what they were—and it was actually employers and the ITOs. They came and they said, "We absolutely know that this has got to change. This has got to change. We've got young people coming out with debt and they've got qualifications that are useless when they show up at our door. We need to make sure that we have industry input into the standards."
The workforce development councils—there are twofold parts to them. One of them is based on the Ōtorohanga model—that is the New Zealand First influence inside the workforce development councils. Go and google the Ōtorohanga model and the model about finding out from local business what the local skills are that you need to train up local young people. Simeon Brown wouldn't know because he doesn't talk to business, but let's actually make sure that the rest of us do. So go and check the Ōtorohanga model.
The flip side of that is that for the first time in a long time, actual industry is going to have control over 80 percent of the spend in vocational training through the workforce development councils. They are going to say, "This is workforce planning that that Government, they took away the leadership around workforce planning from the ITOs deliberately under Minister Steven Joyce." I sat on the Education and Science Committee when they did it. They said, "We don't need any workforce planning leadership." Now we get in question time a whole lot of questions about "Where are all the specialists you need? Where are all the doctors and the nurses and the speech language?" Well, we had no workforce development because that Government—that Government—which was the previous National Government took away any leadership around it.
The workforce development councils are going to take us back to the support we need, talking to business and industry and sector and saying, "These are the skills we need for New Zealand to go forward. These are the skills and these are the numbers of skilled young people that we need to make sure that they can be in employment, the right employment, trained, retrained, untrained, and retrained again as they go through their lives. This is the way forward. That Minister Chris Hipkins—he's visionary. He's got it down pat and we support.





SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and happy New Year. It's great to be back. The only part of that speech that I agree with the Associate Minister of Education on was, "I like Shane Reti.", because I do like Shane Reti, too. He's a good man.
The Minister said in her speech that 13 of the 16 polytechs were failing because they were in deficit. Well, according to her logic, 11 of the 12 DHBs must also be failing because they are in deficit, and also this Government is in deficit, so is this Government also failing? An extraordinary thing for this Minister of the Crown to be saying about her own Government.
It's a pleasure to be able to take a call on the second reading of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill. I'd like to just start by acknowledging the Minister of Education for bringing this bill to the House. This bill does make significant reforms in this area. I'd like to also acknowledge the chair, Parmjeet Parmar, who was able to shepherd this very complex bill through the select committee. It's several hundred pages long and it's something which I and all the members of that committee spent a lot of time reading, those submissions, and trying to get a good understanding of what the Government's changes are. I'd also like to acknowledge all the submitters who submitted, and the 94 who came to appear before the select committee.
These reforms represent a significant risk to training and apprenticeships here in New Zealand. The Tertiary Education Commission programme business case says that this bill will lead to 18,000 fewer trainees across New Zealand over the medium term, and 2,300 fewer apprenticeships. When the Minister says that this bill is putting trades and apprenticeships back on the map, he could not be further from the truth. This bill does exactly the opposite. Also, the additional cost of these reforms—a cost of $200 million to $400 million over six years to bring these reforms into place, and an additional cost of $50 million per year just to make the system work.
I'd like to also just point out from the submitters their concerns over what this will mean for their industry. I'd like to quote from the submission from the New Zealand Association of Registered Hairdressers, where they said that, "While we understand the desire for some change, we do not support the level of risk for our apprentices and our industries associated with the implementation of this … bill. … In fact, members are already holding back from taking on new apprentices as they struggle with the uncertainty of Government statements on this issue." This bill is already having a negative impact and it hasn't even been passed.
The second point I'd like to raise is the loss of regional autonomy in this bill. There has been mixed views from our polytechs to this question, but what is true is that they are all losing local decision-making. They are losing control over their local assets, and they will no longer have control over these decisions at a local level.
I'd like to quote from two submitters from two polytechs where they raised significant concerns about these issues. Firstly, from Otago polytech, where they said that this bill will impede "local decision-making and flexibility and compromises innovation by providing for the dissolution of subsidiaries, defines an excessively narrow mission for the NZIST, and compromises academic freedom." And I'll touch on academic freedom shortly. The Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) said—
Hon Clare Curran: You didn't even turn up in Dunedin. 
SIMEON BROWN: —in their submission—and there's the member for Dunedin South complaining about the SIT and talking about how bad they must be at their job, when in fact they're one of the most successful polytechs in the country. I think that she should be ashamed of the comments that she's making. The SIT said, "SIT and our Southland community are concerned that this proposal will inhibit the innovation and competitive edge that has made SIT successful in the past." They go on to say, "these SIT initiatives are a crucial driving force of SIT's recruitment ability, and are integral for SIT to attract and retain domestic and international students to our Southland community to address Southland's pressing skills shortage requirements." That goes again to the heart of how this bill is affecting the regions and affecting their need for skills across New Zealand. 
Finally, I'd like to touch on the issue of academic freedom, where there has been a range of submissions from all sorts of sector groups on this issue. The Tertiary Education Union even submitted, making it very clear that they were not pleased with the crackdown, essentially, of academic expression and academic freedom in this bill. They made significant recommendations, which have only just been partially fulfilled in the changes the select committee made. I raise this issue because whilst there may have been a change made by the select committee to ensure that academic freedom is put back in place, in part, for the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology, this does not flow through to any subsidiaries that it currently allows for, and that is a point which I think there will need to be more debate on in the House. 
So, overall, Madam Speaker, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. The National Party continues to oppose it for a variety of reasons, but we do thank the submitters, we do thank them for their views, and we look forward to the committee of the whole House stage. We will be bringing rigorous Supplementary Order Papers to the Table to make positive changes so that we can make this bill work in a better way for New Zealanders. Thank you, Madam Speaker. 





CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It's a pleasure to rise and speak on the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill in my first speech in the House this year. Happy parliamentary New Year, colleagues. 
I want to first ask the question, because it's come across from both speakers on the Government side of the House and, actually, arguably from members of the Opposition that we have the same shared values in what we're trying to achieve here, with that being a coherent, connected-up, working sector for institutes of technology and polytechnics, and industry training organisations of polytech vocational education—however you want to characterise it. It does, however, seem that the rubber hits the road, or the argument really starts to get quite argy-bargy, when we talk about how we're going to achieve that. From what I've managed to discern from speakers from the Opposition, they'd prefer to keep the status quo on life support. That status quo—as was raised by the Associate Minister of Education Tracey Martin—is such that we, as this Government, inherited from the former National Government a situation whereby 13 out of the 16 polytechs across this country were in the red financially. They required support to the extent that since we have come into Government, we have had to put up over $100 million in order to keep them alive. 
Speaking to a number of those who are engaged in the polytech sector, those who are quite high up the hierarchy, who I'd hope that members of the Opposition—the likes of Dr Shane Reti—have also spoken to, it would very much seem as though the implication that has been derived by those members of the polytech sector community is that the former Minister for Tertiary Education Steven Joyce was trying to run the sector into the ground and, essentially, disestablish it publicly to such an extent that it had to be turned into private provision. This is something which I have heard from a number of those within the polytech sector. 
Nicola Willis: It's hearsay. 
CHLÖE SWARBRICK: If the Opposition are able to mention anecdotes and conversations with those out in the community, I will quite happily refer to those out in the community in Southland—the likes of Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) and Otago. So, again, I want to really draw attention back to the fact that we seem to have shared vision, at the very least—if you could call it that—or a shared understanding of what we're trying to achieve here: a unified vocational education sector. It just so happens that this side of the House actually wants to do something about it, whereas the other side of the House has a lot of critique, but not a whole lot of substance about any forms of alternatives. 
For example, the speaker who just sat down—Simeon Brown from the Opposition—mentioned the fact that it's going to cost between $200 million and $400 million for these reforms. What's the alternative? Well, the alternative is to continue pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a system which is not serving communities, which is not currently serving all of the learners, and which is not currently—obviously—serving those who are in charge of these polytechs. So I'm genuinely quite confused about what the National Party is proposing here, except the tearing down of what appears to be an opportunity to work constructively to build the best possible vocational education sector for this country. 
Indeed, as many submitters before the Education and Workforce Committee mentioned—I'm stoked that I got to sit in for a portion of it. Unfortunately, now, I'm no longer a member. But many of those submitters spoke about how this was the most transformative change to the vocational education sector in a generation, and there was an opportunity here to do some really exciting things. So it might surprise members of the Opposition, but I'm quite excited to see what Supplementary Order Papers they bring to the Table, because hopefully, thankfully, we there will have some constructive debate—I hope. 
I'm also fascinated to hear from members of the Opposition—the former National Government—that they are big fans of localism. I'm really, really excited about the potential that that offers for us to work together as the Greens and as National on reforms to local government and handing over more power to local government and more resources. I'd like to mention my good colleague and my mate Ron Mark—Minister Ron Mark over there—for the work that he did during his time in local government, because we have seen on this side what can really happen if community members are engaged in the decisions that are made at higher levels. 
Nicola Willis: And yet you've centralised the polytechs—what a contradiction. Have you read the bill? 
CHLÖE SWARBRICK: So when it comes to what we are trying to achieve here—it is contained within the bill; it is contained within the bill, Nicola Willis—there will be the establishment of the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Training. The pathway, the transitional means by which we get there, is laid out in one of the explanatory notes within the commentary, which states—and I quote—"Initially, each polytechnic would become a Crown entity subsidiary of NZIST, until its undertakings transferred to NZIST (or another NZIST subsidiary) by the end of 2022." The really important thing to recognise about that, if you speak to people who are in the thick of the sector, is that this offers an opportunity for a sense of contraction, to get an understanding of the environments that these vocational providers are operating in, and then to expand in a conscious and meaningful way, whereby we have a network of joined-up providers. 
I'd also like to touch on a number of the points that were raised in the first reading—which I'm thankful that the Opposition are no longer speaking about, because it's demonstrably untrue, if you read the bill—that there will no longer be on-the-job training. There will absolutely continue to be on-the-job training. In fact, that's a really important component of the vocational education sector. What this vocational education and training reform amendment bill does is bring it together in one piece of legislation, so it is more accessible for the general public. It amends the Education Act 1989 and integrates provisions of the Industry Training and Apprenticeships Act 1992. 
So too, I want to talk about the charter, because I think that that is a really critical point, and I'd note that a number of submitters, including those from polytechs, raised that they thought it was really crucially important that we had this charter here to outline the principles that will guide NZIST. I think it's really important to speak to within Schedule 3—that being clause 3—that the role of NZIST is to meet the needs of regions throughout New Zealand. To do so it must—and I quote—"(a) offer in each region a mix of education and training, including on-the-job, face-to-face, and distance delivery that is accessible to the learners of that region and meets the needs of its learners, industries, and communities;". That is critical for the sake of future planning, and when you add to the mix the opportunity that's presented with workforce development councils and specialisation in regions, where they get to do and show off what they do so well, we have the potential to turn this ship around. 
I just, finally, want to touch on the experience of those who are actually inside the system and navigating it as learners. The average age of those who are in the vocational education sector who are educating or upskilling themselves and taking on that task of learning is 27 years old. That is substantially older than the average entry age of those who go into university, for example, and the reason for that is the different life experience that somebody within the vocational sector brings to being a learner within that sector. They are, typically, those who got straight out of school and decided to go into work, or they are those who tried a bit of study, found out it didn't quite work for them, and then decided to go into work and study something else. There is a variation—Tim Macindoe—of different ways in which this could play out. But the really important thing is that these are people who are deciding to retrain after they have got some adult life experience, and I think that demonstrates the need for there to be some real structure, some real rigour, and a real blueprint of opportunity for them to pick up after they graduate from that vocational course.
So, in summary, I'm really confused about what the National Party are putting forward. I would invite them to share their Supplementary Order Papers that they are threatening to drop on the Table, last minute, in the committee of the whole House, because if they really want to collaborate, there's an opportunity to do that. I'm always open for a yarn; always open to creative ways of problem solving. I think on an issue like this, when we're talking about tertiary-level education that's outside of the university system and that is providing for those who are edging toward their thirties, who have a little bit of work and life experience already, that we should be doing our utmost to come together as a Parliament to actually make it work in a cross-partisan manner.
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand is proud to support this bill at its second reading.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I apologise to the member for not giving her her two-minute warning bell—I was engrossed in Speakers' rulings on interjections—and if I could just remind the member who's about to take the call that a number of Speakers' rulings refer to interjections being rare and reasonable. I'm sure she won't interject on her own speech, though.





NICOLA WILLIS (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was struck by the contradictions in Chlöe Swarbrick's speech in which she spoke of the value of localism and then championed a bill which absolutely defeats localism, defeats regional control, and puts absolute primacy on centralisation—on the Government knowing best and the regions not being trusted. That is why, and on a fundamental level, National opposes this bill. I reject the member's characterisation that what is most important here is a unified sector. Actually, what National thinks is most important is students being served well, our workforce being prepared appropriately, businesses getting the skilled people they need, and communities having the skills and training they need. We think those goals are far more important than some idea of unity and perfect centralisation. We absolutely reject that ideal.
Now, you have heard speakers on this side of the House address many of the challenges and problems that this bill will create for our tertiary sector. But sometimes the words of the Opposition aren't given as much credence as they should be.
So I want to turn to the words of the Tertiary Education Commission, an entity, controlled by the Government, who did a risk assessment of the proposals in this bill. Now, what that risk assessment said was that the following risks were almost certain. Let me run you through them. The first was that there was an almost certain risk of extreme workforce disruption. In an economy which already has external threats and is slowing down under poor economic management, extreme workforce disruption is the last thing that we need.
The next thing that the Tertiary Education Commission warned was that there was an almost certain likelihood of a major drop in participation in vocational education—an almost certain risk of a major drop in participation in vocational education. That risk has been quantified. This is on-the-job training. This is the training that members around this House, when we go and visit small businesses, when we go and visit our trades people, when we go and visit developers, they say to us that this is what we need more of. They've quantified that the risk of these changes—in their programme business case, they said that New Zealand could lose 1,800 industry trainees; 1,800. That is people who would be training on the job to get the skills they need for a growing economy, doing the work that our businesses and industries need done. We're at risk of losing 1,800 of them because of this job, and, furthermore, 2,310 apprentices. The people that we need to learn on the job and get the skills that they need to contribute to our economy won't have those opportunities because of this bill. Remember this isn't my assessment; this is the assessment of the Government's own Tertiary Education Commission.
The third risk they warned of was that, they said, there was an extreme risk that the needs of industry and employers would not be met, and that this would have an extreme impact—the needs of industry and employers won't be met. So instead we'll have this centralised entity running all of our polytechs and industry training, the Government-knows-best model, and, actually, the needs of industry and employers—the very people who will be employing the people being trained—won't be met. There will be a poor match up because of the loss of regional autonomy, and that is very concerning indeed.
The Tertiary Education Commission also warned that there was a likelihood that the needs of regions would not be met and that this would have an extreme impact, exactly as we've been saying on this side of the House, that contrary to Chlöe Swarbrick's assertion that this was some version of localisation, actually, the needs of regions won't be met. They also warned that it was likely the new model will not achieve the desired outcomes and that it would have an extreme and negative impact.
This bill will be opposed by National because it is a typical Labour example of centralisation and Government knows best. We have grave concerns about the loss of regional autonomy. We have grave concerns that the regional leadership groups will be advisory at best and that there will be a significant loss of community-controlled assets. When I hear those numbers about the potential risk to those on in-the-job training, I know that this bill will let down the businesses that I speak to regularly who tell me that what they need more of is employees and people coming through with skills that match the needs of their industry. They don't trust that a centralised polytech body will be able to deliver that. This is a terrible bill and National opposes it. Thank you.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): This is a split call. Jo Luxton. 





JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm really pleased to stand and take a call on this piece of legislation. Before I begin my contribution, I just want to reiterate what some of the other members have said that we constantly hear: this negative, negative, negative from the other side—it's all doom and gloom, but no solution, no alternatives, just negative. Well, actually, we can't keep going as we have been going within our vocational education space because the polytechs are suffering and if we continue to go the way we are, we're going to have to keep continuing to pump millions and millions and millions of taxpayers' money into them, which is not going to be a very good outcome for our taxpayers.
What this piece of legislation does is take into account students and employers. I will say that the previous speaker, Nicola Willis, is the only speaker from the Opposition that I've heard talk about students and their needs. So I would like to acknowledge her for that. What we have seen is that there's been a total mismatch between what skills employers require from their students and the skills that students are coming out from polytechs with. What this piece of legislation does is going to streamline that; the industry will have more say in the training.
I'd like to commend our Minister of Education for being ambitious for our vocational education system and aspirational for our learners. I commend this bill to the House.





ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): I'm pleased to rise to take a call on the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill. I'd just like to briefly speak to the last speaker's contribution. Jo Luxton said that we cannot carry on as we were, spending millions of taxpayers' money on some sort of failed model. And yet here we are spending, as my learned colleague Simeon Brown said earlier, $200 million to $400 million over six years on a policy that the Tertiary Education Commission have said quite clearly, as my other learned colleague Nicola Willis pointed out, will fail. The reason that it will fail is because centralisation, the grand mother ship of Labour, that they like to vacuum everything up into because they know best, is destined to fail because it is the local people, the local workforce who know best how to cater for the needs of their region.
The speech from Chlöe Swarbrick, which was basically based completely on contradictions and hearsay, brilliantly summed that up, where she talked so strongly about the need for localism and then backed a bill that does exactly the opposite. This grand centralised mother ship of Labour of "we know best", they did it in education with charter schools, sucking them up into the grand mother ship model because they know best. But, actually, all of the evidence and their own Tertiary Education Commission have said that this is a policy that is destined to fail.
I don't need to say much more on this. My learned colleagues have already pointed out all of the failures of this bill, so I'm not going to go into any more detail other than to say that we strongly oppose this bill.





MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I'm excited to take a super-brief call on this bill, because, actually, a lot of it has been said and it actually has all been said on this side of the House, obviously. But it is so clear that this side of the House is doing the hard miles, tackling all those long-term challenges facing the country that have just been lying dormant, ignored by the Opposition. 
I would like to do a brief thankyou to our 236 submitters, because, as we have already heard, as has been extensively traversed, many changes were made by the Education and Workforce Committee that I'm also a part of, as a result of all of this feedback. One particular comment, though, I would like to put on the record. It was made by Wintec, the Tertiary Education Union branch. They mentioned unhealthy competition, and we've heard it already. It was unhealthy competition that saw 13 out of 16 polytechs in deficit that needed to be bailed out by taxpayers' money.
When you ask the Opposition what their plan is, obviously they have no plan. They basically take their ideas from the Leader of the Opposition, who spent 17 minutes on Tuesday telling us that he had no plan. So what I would like to do is I would like to commend the Minister of Education on his vision for the education sector, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.





Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I doubt whether there are tens of thousands of people listening to this debate at this point around the country, but I am reliably informed that there are a few people who are eagerly awaiting this contribution from me, including a Mrs Sally Woollams of Whitford, who, along with her husband, Bill, yesterday celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary. So I would just like to wish the happy couple a very happy golden wedding anniversary. Like you, Madam Speaker, and many other members of the House, I've written many congratulatory cards over the years to couples with similar wonderful milestones, but that was the first time I'd ever written one to a couple whose wedding I'd actually attended myself, albeit as a very young fellow. Now, that has very little to do with the bill, so let me turn my attention to the bill. 
Could I thank Chlöe Swarbrick for so generously mentioning me towards the end of her speech. I have no idea why she did that, other than the fact that I was smiling sweetly at her at the time. But I do want to say that I agreed with the point that she made towards the end, because I too am eagerly looking forward to the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that the National Party will be bringing forward in the committee stage of this very flawed bill.
It is a serious matter. It has huge implications for the tertiary education sector and for industry training, and throughout the course of this debate this afternoon, members of the Government parties who have tried to sell its benefits have studiously avoided the very real concern and criticism that we've had from the Tertiary Education Commission and from Treasury, both of whom have seen this as a very dire measure that will do enormous damage to industry training and within the tertiary education sector. So we will need to pay careful attention to the SOPs that come forward. I do hope that, as Ms Swarbrick said, she will be looking creatively and reasonably at all the measures that are being promoted because we have to improve this bill. Too much will be very much at risk if we get this wrong.





Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Goodness, Madam Speaker. I am the last speaker on this bill. When we became the Government in 2017, there were huge issues in this sector, and under the management of that great manager, Minister for Infrastructure, Steven Joyce, there was a $53 million loss in 2017 alone, and we had to immediately inject $100 million into the polytech sector. So there are some facts for the Opposition over there, who spent nine years in Government and left our vocational sector in such disarray.
Unlike the National Party, the Labour Party spent its time in Opposition actually coming up with ideas in policy, and one of those big projects, which we're starting to see the fruits of, was the Future of Work. I really want to pay tribute to the work that Chris Hipkins has done in this area. This is huge reform of our vocational sector. It attacks and addresses the change in cultural norm that we have towards vocational education as being of significant value in our country, working with your hands and doing vocational work. It is something to be really valued. That's what this Government is doing with this reform, making it work in a much more significant way.
I also just want to point out that the supposed huff and puff of the Opposition on this issue was not borne out by their behaviour on the select committee. In fact, they didn't even bother to turn up to the region when the Education and Workforce Committee went down there deliberately, in Otago and Southland, to hear directly from those polytechnics. They didn't even bother to turn up and hear what they had to say. 
I heartily commend this bill to the House. I look forward to its passage throughout the House. It's an incredible piece of work that's been done, and it will bear fruit for our country.





The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee by majority be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.
Ayes 63
New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.
Noes 57
New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.
Amendments agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 63
New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.
Noes 57
New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.
Bill read a second time.





ELECTORAL AMENDMENT BILL
Second Reading
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move that the electoral amendment bill (No 2) be now read a second time. There are a lot of twos in this legislation. This bill amends the Electoral Act—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry, could I just clarify with the member. It might be just Electoral Amendment Bill.
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: It is, sorry. You're absolutely correct. 
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): No more twos.
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No. I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
This bill amends the Electoral Act 1993 and the Electoral Regulations 1996. This bill will improve New Zealand's voting experience by making it as easy as possible for New Zealanders to vote. And isn't that a good thing in a democracy? I want to thank the Justice Committee for its diligent consideration of the bill, and those members of the public who made submissions. The committee received 131 submissions from interested groups and individuals. The committee also heard oral evidence from 11 submitters. Most of those submitters strongly supported the bill, which provides greater accessibility for voters and helps increase voter engagement. 
I was interested to note that many of the submitters took the time to raise other concerns and offer other suggestions for electoral reform. This includes 23 submitters in support of removing the blanket ban on prisoner voting. Now, although that issue could not be addressed in this bill, as I announced late last year this Government will be bringing forward a further bill shortly which will restore voting rights to people sentenced to less than three years in prison. As with the changes in this bill, we are committed to helping people engage with the democratic process as easily as possible. 
I'm pleased to see that the Justice Committee has adopted some of the suggestions made by submitters and has recommended some helpful changes to this current bill. That includes making it clear that ballot boxes should be accompanied at all times by polling place officials, adding terrorism as a particular example of unforeseen or unavoidable disruption that may warrant the Electoral Commission using emergency measures to protect the integrity of the electoral process, and requiring the Electoral Commission to inform both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition if there is an adjournment of polling because of an unforeseen or unavoidable disruption. 
I'd like to briefly reiterate a number of specific changes that the bill makes. As I've already mentioned, the most significant change the bill makes is to enfranchise more people by enabling electors to enrol on election day. This bill will enable New Zealand - based electors to enrol or to update their enrolment details on election day, just as they already can during the advance voting period. The obvious question is why would you distinguish between the two, and that's the question the National Party has to answer. Why do they want to discriminate? Why do they want to disadvantage some voters—19,000, indeed, at the last election? Why would a party in this Parliament want to do that to voters? Well, let them speak for themselves, as I know they will, in the most constitutionally outraged way they possibly can.
At the last election, as I said, 19,000 people were disenfranchised because, although they voted on election day, they were not enrolled. Thousands more had their constituency vote discounted because they hadn't updated their address details to their new constituency.
Simeon Brown: They should enrol early.
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: It's interesting hearing the member interject, because that does define the National Party: they love punishing people. They love punishing innocent people going about their busy lives, stressful lives. When they come to exercise their democratic right, the National Party loves to punish them, and that's the difference between parties on this side of the House and the National Party. We want to help people and facilitate people exercising their democratic right, and we should do that.
Now, the position that, of course, the National Party's adopting is, in my view, totally unacceptable. No elector should be disenfranchised when they've demonstrated their commitment to the democratic process by going to a voting place to cast a vote.
The bill extends the period for the return of the writ from 50 to 60 days. Dr Nick Smith has claimed, in the minority view from the National Party, that somehow I misled the nation by not making this explicit. It has been pretty clear in the bill from the outset, and, if you want to facilitate more people voting, you've got to give more time for the counters to count the vote. That just makes sense.
This is the first extension in the period for the return of the writ since it was increased from 40 days to the current 50 days in 1953. And we know who was in Government then: it was Sid Holland—Sid Holland was the Prime Minister—and it was the National Party. They were quite happy to extend it by 10 days under their Government, but apparently not good for this one. Well, I ask you: how could that possibly be consistent?
This extension supports the introduction of election day enrolment by ensuring that the Electoral Commission has additional time both before and after the election to prepare, check, and verify the increased number of post - writ day enrolments and to process the expected increase in special votes.
The bill also makes it easier to designate venues such as malls and supermarkets to be voting places. These are familiar places used daily by the public and so will help make voting more accessible for voters. Currently, venues cannot be used as polling places if they are a licensed premise. This applies even if no alcohol is consumed in the part of the venue being used as a voting place. Other venues—for example, shopping malls—may be used for advance voting but are not able to be used as voting places on election day because all voting places need to have sufficient room for the preliminary counting of votes to be conducted on site. This bill removes the prohibition on designating a licensed premise, such as a supermarket, as a voting place, and it also allows the Electoral Commission to designate a different place for the preliminary count of the votes cast in a polling place if this is necessary to enable votes to be counted in a more appropriate space.
The bill also updates the provisions for managing elections in the event of an emergency. The Electoral Act's current provisions for managing elections in the event of an emergency are very limited and inflexible and are not well suited to the MMP system, which involves both electorate and party votes. The changes made in this bill will ensure a more flexible and pragmatic response to a wider range of potential polling disruptions, maintain the integrity and conduct of electoral processes, and ensure those affected by polling disruptions are still able to vote in the election.
I'd also like to mention two other changes this bill makes that cannot be implemented for the 2020 election but are being made now to help the Electoral Commission prepare for future elections. The first of these is to enable any voter whose application to enrol has been accepted and who can be electronically marked off the electoral roll to be issued an ordinary ballot paper rather than a special voting paper. The second change is to enable the Electoral Commission to permit the special vote declaration to be treated as an application to enrol or update enrolment details. These changes will improve vote issuing and counting processes at the 2023 general election and beyond. Changing the law now will give the Electoral Commission sufficient time and certainty to make the necessary operational changes. The bill will be followed by changes to the electoral regulations to improve the efficiency and timeliness of overseas postal and dictation vote issuing processing.
In the time available, I'd just like to make some concluding remarks just about what the issues of contention are here. It is disappointing that the National Party so vehemently opposes same-day enrolment and, therefore, voting. It's interesting hearing the cry of Dr Nick Smith when he says it's screwing the scrum or it's giving an unfair advantage. He doesn't stop for a moment to reflect that perhaps the current system is unfair if it denies—as of 2017—19,000 people who turned up to a ballot booth their rights to have their vote counted and the many thousands more who, because they hadn't changed their address details, could not have their vote properly counted as well. That's what's unfair.
It is time for this Parliament and long-serving members like the Hon Dr Nick Smith to accept that life has moved on. People lead busy lives, and the way people organise their lives means they don't always get around to making sure they're on the roll. They change addresses, and sometimes the post doesn't get where it should go and they're not alerted to the fact they are not on the roll or should be on the roll or they should have changed their address details. 
Let's just accept the humanity of the situation. We should have a system flexible and sensible enough to accommodate these very human incidences where people turn up and find out they're not enrolled, cast a special vote, and then find that the vote isn't counted. That is wrong, and this House should be doing everything it can to extend the franchise to those who by current definitions already have it, and should remove the obstructions and the obstacles that prevent some people, if not from voting, at least from having their vote counted.
This is very important, and it is very important equally to have flexibility in the allocation of places where people can vote. The truth is people do go to malls on election day as well as during the advance voting period. If that is a place where people gather—which is what the original voting booths 100-odd years ago were set up for: churches, schools, places where people went—then we should put polling booths in places where people go on election day. This bill does that. It'll be good for democracy, good for New Zealand, good for this House, and good for everyone. I commend the bill to the House.





Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): This bill is another example of the Government playing fast and loose with New Zealand's electoral laws. The only good thing that can be said about this bill is that it is the least offensive of the other three electoral bills that this Government and this Minister have rammed through our Parliament.
New Zealand is unique in that we don't have a constitution and we do not have a second Chamber. We've had a long convention that electoral law is developed on a cross-party basis. This matters because New Zealand should not be one of those countries where the Government of the day screws the rules of the scrum to make it easier to be able to win the next election. That's not the Kiwi way.
National has consistently adopted that practice in Government. Take the nine years in the 1990s when we completely rewrote the electoral law for MMP. Every single one of those 468 provisions of the Electoral Act 1993 were agreed on a cross-party basis. Equally so, from 2008 to 2017, under the Prime Ministers John Key and Bill English—nine bills—every Government electoral bill was developed in consultation and compromise with the Labour Opposition of the time.
Yet this is the fourth bill of which Labour has ridden roughshod over that convention. The first bill we had wasn't even supported by a majority of this Parliament. It gives Draconian powers to party leaders to be able to fire members of Parliament that don't do what they're told. Little wonder New Zealand First MPs are silent on the skulduggery going on with the New Zealand First Foundation, when any one of them knows that if they call out the truth—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Dr Smith, back to the bill, please. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —they could be fired by New Zealand First. We also have—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Back to the bill, please.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, this is the fourth bill, Madam Speaker, and it's important to give context.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): And this is the one that I'd like you to address, please.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: And we had the Government riding roughshod with its changes around referendum, taking away the power of Parliament to determine the questions at referendum and that now being determined by Cabinet. We've also had the other appalling practice—never seen in my 30 years—of an electoral bill being announced, introduced, and passed all on the same day.
Now, the context of this bill is that the electoral laws are reviewed after every single election, and that's occurred since 1946—every Parliament. When that inquiry concludes, then there is a bill. Every one of the issues in this bill was part of that inquiry. This Minister—
Hon Andrew Little: Why did it take two years?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and Government ride roughshod over that process by absolutely overriding it. Now, the Minister asks, "Why did it take two years?" I'll tell you why. Firstly, they did not start it until nine months, the latest inquiry was started, and that was something controlled completely by Labour. 
Secondly—and here's another good one. I'd love Mr Little to explain this. The biggest concern from the 2017 election was the shenanigans of the New Zealand First Foundation. I would love Mr Little to explain why Labour members blocked the former president and treasurer of New Zealand First's writing to the select committee and wanting to give evidence on the inquiry. Is there a single member of the Government that will say why they blocked that? Is there an answer? Where's Mr Little now? Does Mr Little support the former president of New Zealand First, and treasurer, who has been—
Darroch Ball: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —terrified by lawsuits—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The member will resume his seat. I'd just like to remind members that the microphones are live, so they do amplify your voice.
Darroch Ball: For the last four minutes of the last five that member has not been addressing the bill; he has been speaking about everything else other than that. He needs to get back to the bill or needs to be told to sit down.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Speaking to the point of order.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm not sure that I need much help. Let me have a go, and I'll take your assistance if you're not satisfied with where I go to on this. Mr Ball, the member was speaking—could the member please resume his seat. Thank you. The member was referring to the inquiry, which generally leads to the electoral bill, and he made that point. The point he was making was that this bill was introduced prior to the inquiry reporting back. So in my view, he was referring to the bill.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: My point of order was going to be—in fact, Mr Little asked why there were delays—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): We've dealt with that.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and one of the delays was because Labour members refused to allow the inquiry to look at the most significant issue of the 2017 election, where the New Zealand First Party determined the final outcome of that election but is now being shown to have hidden, against the electoral law, hundreds of thousands of donations from some of the richest people in New Zealand. We on this side of the House say that's wrong. Members on that side of the House are prepared to be apologists for electoral law breaches, and we will not have—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Dr Smith, please return to the bill.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —a bar of that. The shenanigans on this bill began with the Minister's announcement of its content. Here's my question for the Minister: when he issued the press release—when the Minister announced this bill—why was he silent over the provision that delays the election outcome being announced by 10 days?
Hon Andrew Little: The member's wrong. It doesn't delay the election outcome at all.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The press release—the Minister says I'm wrong. I seek leave of the House to table the Minister's press release that made no mention of that sneaky, dirty little provision in this bill. I seek the leave.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Dr Smith, I think you've been here even longer than me—which feels like quite a long time on a Thursday afternoon, I'll tell you. You know that you can't seek leave to table something that's already public. You have three minutes 47 left. If you don't start addressing the bill directly, your time will be terminated.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Government's pretty sensitive about it, eh? They don't like a bit of criticism—shut down the Opposition! Typical of your approach around electoral law when you test this Government on its dodgy carryings-on, whether it be the New Zealand First Foundation or whether it be the provisions of this bill.
Here's the issue: the Electoral Commission recommended against same-day enrolment for the 2020 election. The Electoral Commission recommended against the 2020 election providing for same-day enrolment and voting because—
Hon Member: Why are we doing it?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We're doing it—my colleague asks—for one reason: Labour wants to cheat the rules to make it easier to get elected later this year. That is why it is going against the advice of the Electoral Commission. That is why it does not understand the principle that just as candidates are entitled to have to disclose who they are before election day, so too should voters. The Electoral Commission rightly expressed concern to the committee that if we allow same-day enrolment, why would we bother having people enrol at all? That is a legitimate concern, and that is a flaw in the bill.
I do want to make note of a very important statement that was made by the Deputy Prime Minister during the first reading of this bill. Mr Peters said that on the issues and allegations that surround the foundation, the proper authority for determining whether the law was broken was the Electoral Commission. That's pretty interesting. This week, the Electoral Commission has concluded he did breach the law. What does Mr Peters say now? Well, now he attacks the Electoral Commission and says that their judgments are wrong and not based on evidence and fact.
What is most telling about this bill is what's not in this bill, because the real issues and the laws that have been rorted by this Government around hiding hundreds of thousands of donations through the New Zealand First Foundation are not being touched in this bill. They are not being touched, and Mr Little has become an apologist for New Zealand First and their illegal dealings. I say to members of this House, and I particularly say to New Zealand First, this is déjà vu. This is what happened in 2008. Every member of this House will recall—Ron Mark will recall—the famous "No" sign about the $100,000 donation from Owen Glenn that Winston Peters swore never occurred. It's happening all over again, and the saddest part is that New Zealand First is not accepting any responsibility and Labour has learnt nothing from that experience.
If there's anything that New Zealanders out there love about this country, it's that we are the most transparent and least corrupt country in the world. National is proud that in 2017 we ranked number one in the world. Members opposite will pay a very dear price for being an apologist for the shenanigans and goings on within New Zealand First, and the sooner we tie up the electoral law and prevent those things, the better for this country.





Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I runga i te tau hou, ka nui te mihi ki a koutou katoa.
[Madam Speaker, greetings. To the members of this House, greetings to all. Because it is the new year, I pass on my greetings to you all.]
I'm pleased to rise to talk to the Electoral Amendment Bill. For those members that may not know, we are a split committee—the Justice Committee. But I am pleased that despite the committee agreeing on this bill, some constructive discussion was had and some amendments were recommended. I want to acknowledge the Minister in both highlighting those recommendations, those amendments, that the committee worked on.
The purpose of the bill is to enable people to enrol and vote and uphold the integrity of the electoral system and to conduct elections efficiently and securely and to ensure that future elections are upheld. In summary, in terms of those submitters that came before the select committee—131 we received in the select committee—34 focused on the changes in the current bill, and 11 submitters chose to present to the committee orally. I want to thank those submitters that took the time to submit on this particular bill.
There are three areas I want to canvass, in the amendments that the select committee made, to the Minister. One was on the election day enrolments. Can I just reference, for the House's benefit, the election day enrolment in terms of this particular bill refers to clauses 4, 6 to 12, 19, and 22. Twenty-two of the submitters who commented on the bill discussed election day enrolments.
I want to particularly acknowledge some submitters who made comment around election day enrolments. I want to talk about Gafatasi Endemann, who believed the election day enrolment would increase youth voter turnout. There probably isn't a member in this House that doesn't want to see more of our young people participating in our electoral system. Of course, Professor Andrew Geddis also submitted under election day enrolment, supporting that, obviously, if we're going to have advance voting, it makes absolute sense that we also have election day advance enrolments on the same day. And there is, of course, the New Zealand Law Society, who also supported the election day enrolment.
Of course, there were some submitters that didn't agree with election day enrolment, and that's Daniel Church, who also talked about the deadline for the return of the writ, considering it may undermine public confidence—and even Alec van Helsdingen, who also believed the extension may be unfortunate. What he did draw to the committee's attention, which I thought was very useful, is that in the future we may repeal the early day, when digital rolls are introduced. So in terms of the election day enrolment amendment, the submitters were well canvassed and the committee's amendments were made.
In terms of the voting places—clause 13, 14, and 16—I want to acknowledge the submitters that submitted on that particular area; 11 submitters commented on that. The Minister touched on the ability to open up places where we traditionally don't have polling booths—of course, supermarkets, malls, and some hotels. There were discussions around the consumption of alcohol—but we've made that clear that this has to be a place that doesn't inhibit electors on that particular day—and, of course, within that gambit of the voting places, the right for scrutineers to accompany the ballot boxes should they be transferred from the malls to other places in which they are accompanied. So that was a very useful and constructive piece of recommendation.
Finally, managing polling disruptions—the Minister has well canvassed those, particularly as it relates to clause 17, and, of course, making sure that we are very clear when a poll can be disrupted, the period in which it can be disrupted, and then also the triggering of informing both the Prime Minister and the deputy of the Opposition party. So I'm proud of the work that the Justice Committee did in making these practical amendments despite us not agreeing on the bill. Having said that, I think it's a piece of legislation that does protect the democracy and grows our commitment to democracy in this country by allowing voters, the 19,000 that were disallowed in 2007—to enable them to have their vote, to have their say, and to increase participation in our voters across this nation. I commend this bill to the House.





Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to stand and take a call on this, the Electoral Amendment Bill. I'm not going to relitigate the issues that the Hon Nick Smith raised—they were pertinent to our decision in not being able to support the bill to the House.
I want to acknowledge the other committee members. The one thing about parliamentary select committees is that they should run independently and they should stand on that independence and that's what makes our democracy strong, and it gives the public confidence, when they come before the committee to make submissions, that the committee will deal with that with a high level of independence. We felt very strongly that the committee came under the control of the Minister, and especially in relation to the fact that we had a critical opportunity to actually hear from two submitters—
Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is a very serious allegation to make that members of a select committee were under the pressure of a Minister, and, conversely, that a Minister in this House put undue pressure on a select committee. I invite Mr Speaker to reflect on that statement. I take offence at that statement, and I do not think that statement should be made in this House.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I'm going to take some advice on this before I rule.
The member should actually refer to the topic of the bill. My issue is actually around relevance rather than members taking offence, but he is on the edge of that cliff. So be careful, Mr Mitchell, not to fall off it. I'd ask him to come back to both the content of the bill and the process of the select committee.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No I've ruled.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: So the reality of it is the select committee was presented with an opportunity to hear from submissions from the most recent member present of the New Zealand First Party, who had resigned his position because he was—and he publicly said this—very concerned at the way donations were held and dealt with inside the party. It was a natural process and course that the select committee, tasked by this Parliament to review the way donations were held—and I'd remind the Minister that Labour gave up their slot to have Jami-Lee Ross come and sit on the committee. So I'd remind them of that. I don't know how that's working out for them at the moment. We felt that it was very important that we heard from them; that we understood. There is no good reason—and I'll ask one of the Government members to stand and explain to us very carefully, lay it out, why they would not agree to hearing evidence from those people who had left high political office and had signalled that there was a massive issue and breach in terms of the way donations were being held.
I have to acknowledge the Minister of Defence, who's in the House: the future leader of New Zealand First, I think, we're looking at here—it's the defence Minister. He's on manoeuvres—he's on manoeuvres. I can see it in his face, he's on manoeuvres. He's deciding; what's he going to use? A HALO jump? High altitude, low opening, or is he going to go full infantry, with a full frontal attack? He used to be a very good deputy leader; he's on manoeuvres without doubt.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And now back to the bill, Mr Mitchell.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry, Mr Speaker. So anyway, getting back to the point that I was making on a simple fact like that. The committee had been working very well together. We were cooperating because we realised the importance and the significance for this in terms of a Parliament that doesn't operate under a constitution and that there should be bipartisan work done on it. But when something as simple as asking two critically important witnesses to come and make a submission to the committee was shut down—and I know the Minister is very sensitive about this—
Darroch Ball: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. What the member has been speaking about for the last four minutes has got nothing to do with the bill at all. He keeps talking about two witnesses. I know they've got a sick obsession with New Zealand First over there, because the last two speakers of National have just spoken about New Zealand First. They need to just start talking about the bill.
Tim van de Molen: Speaking to the point of order.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, I don't need any help.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: There's another leadership speech.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, no. Order! I've already spoken about relevance.
Hon David Bennett: It was very relevant.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The Hon David Bennett will stand, withdraw, and apologise. He knows that when the Speaker's on their feet, they do not interject.
Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Thank you. I've already spoken about relevance. I was hoping that the member might get to a point about what he was talking about relevant to the bill. So far that hasn't happened. Now the member will speak to the bill. If he does not speak to the bill, I will terminate his speech.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: I'm happy to finish my speech there, Mr Speaker. Thank you.





DARROCH BALL (NZ First): That says it all, really—it sums it all up. That member Mark Mitchell has got nothing to say about the bill itself. I know it might be a little bit disturbing to hear this, but I've learnt to grow to admire Dr Nick Smith a little bit, actually. The fact that he can stand up with a straight face and start attacking this side of the House about what's not in the bill, about the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), right—and he knows all the while he's saying one thing, but at the back of his mind he knows that that's the only party that's been charged by the SFO—charged by the SFO. Not even investigated but they've been charged, four people—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! 
Hon Mark Mitchell: Point of order, Mr Speaker.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, I don't need any help. I'm going to deal with this, and if he still has a point of order, I will give it to him. The member, before taking his call, made a point of order about another matter, and he is doing exactly the same thing. Mr Ball must come to the bill and speak to its content or his contribution will be ended.
DARROCH BALL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. One thing that Nick Smith said in his contribution—and he said it in the first reading too, and I don't know why he's repeating it—he said New Zealand shouldn't be one of the countries that screws the scrum. We shouldn't be one of those, out of principle, right? Screws the scrum. He's saying that we're cheating over this side because, why? Because we are getting more people to vote. We are enfranchising more people to vote. Nick Smith said—
Hon David Bennett: No you're not; you're corrupt.
DARROCH BALL: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member said an unparliamentary word and he needs to withdraw and apologise, and if he does it again he needs to be kicked out.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The Hon David Bennett fully knows the rules of this House. If he uses that word again—he knows which one—he'll be leaving the Chamber, but he will stand, withdraw, and apologise.
Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.
DARROCH BALL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The National Party speakers so far, but particularly Nick Smith, have said that it's a matter of principle that they're not supporting this bill. What I don't understand is why—if it's a matter of principle that anything that goes through this House in regards to electoral laws should be bipartisan and have cross-party consultation—did that member and the rest of the select committee vote for the changes in the bill through the select committee process? Why?
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Because we're a constructive Opposition.
DARROCH BALL: Well, I thought it was a matter of principle, Mr Smith. I thought it was a matter of principle, Mr Smith. It seems amazing to me that that National Party speak with forked tongues when they stand up and they say that it's a matter of principle that they are not supporting this bill. They wax lyrical about the fact that they're not supporting this bill because it's a matter of principle, but then, what's amazing is that they have already supported the changes in the bill. They voted for it. It amazes me.
Hon Ron Mark: And now they're going to vote against their vote.
DARROCH BALL: And then they'll vote—that's right Minister Mark. In this reading—
Hon Mark Mitchell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
DARROCH BALL: —they're going to vote against the proposals that they—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): When a member seeks a point of order, the member speaking should sit down.
Hon Mark Mitchell: The member appears to be ignoring your earlier ruling and his comments are completely irrelevant. They've got nothing to do with the bill at all.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And that's entirely my discretion as to when, but I will take the opportunity to again remind Darroch Ball to speak to the bill. And if we don't hear anything about the bill, I've probably only got one avenue to address that.
DARROCH BALL: With the greatest of respect, Mr Speaker, I have been literally talking about—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Yeah, I'm not going to argue with you. You either speak to the bill now or your speech will be over.
DARROCH BALL: So I want to go through—and I want to make it quite clear for the people that are watching this—why, in the National Party's minority view, they're voting against this bill. Let me say, first of all, it's like three pages long. The whole first page, they get nothing to the substance of the bill apart from the third line from the bottom.
The first thing they talk about—they whinge about; because that's what it comes across as: whinging—is lack of consultation. They're voting against 19,000 people, and it's going to be more than that, because 19,000 was last election. They're going to vote against tens of thousands of people from getting the vote—when it's in the bill of rights, quite frankly, that they have that right to vote. They're going to stop 20,000-plus people from voting because they weren't consulted—because they weren't consulted. That's the number one reason why they're not voting for this bill.
Hon Mark Mitchell: Stay on the bill.
DARROCH BALL: You're not listening, Mr Mitchell. I'm literally reading out your minority view. Did you know you had a minority view?
The second reason, before they get to any substance of it, was the late timetable of the inquiry. This hasn't got to do with the bill. None of their reasons why they're voting against it have got anything to do with the bill, it's because they're whinging about a lack of consultation and some late timetable in the committee.
Then they get it. Then they get to their main reason, on the second page, mind you—on the second page, mind you. "National does not support allowing same-day enrolment [of] voting." As Mr Smith has said, one of his reasons was—and I'll read it here: of the 2.6 million voters who were responsible enough to enrol, 19,000—or less than 1 percent, right—they'll cause a 10-day delay—10-day delay. So they're going to stop someone's right to get in there and vote because of a 10-day delay—because of a 10-day delay.
Not only that, but they say 2.6 million votes. Here's the contradiction—here's the contradiction of what they're saying. A fortnight before election day, everyone can go into an election booth and enrol on the same day that they vote—enrol on the same day that they vote. The percentage who did that before election day was 47 percent. Of all voters last election, 47 percent did it before election day, and they had the ability and the right to enrol on the same day. What the National Party want to do is take that away from the tens of thousands of people who want to do it on the same day.
Now, if they want to talk about fairness—because that's what they talk about here: fairness—then they need to have a look at their minority view and get it right, Mr Mitchell—get it right, instead of making stupid faces over the other side of the House. What they don't get is that it's not election day any more; it's election fortnight. You can't have 13 days with one rule and then election day with another, because that ain't fair and it's taking away people's reason to vote.
The funny thing is that the rest of the bill they support—the rest of the bill they support. Ten-day delay and they're whinging about not being consulted—that's why they want to take away people's right to vote and ability to vote in one of the best democracies in the country.
We are supporting this bill because it is the right thing to do, Mr Mitchell—and you should be too, if you hadn't been so contradictory in your minority view.





Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): E Te Mana Whakawā. Well, that was a compelling and coherent contribution from Mr Ball, wasn't it! Absolutely not. It'll be worth pointing out to members of the public who might be listening at this moment that Mr Ball is not a member of that committee, therefore he was speaking then without any knowledge of what the Justice Committee has been deliberating on for a very, very long time. One of the points I would like to make to him—because it was very hard, actually, to discern exactly where he was going with much of that rant, quite frankly—is that the National Party did not submit a minority view, because we are not in the minority on that committee. It is a split committee, Mr Ball, and when you try to lecture Mr Mitchell on getting it right, I suggest pot, kettle, black.
Darroch Ball: I seek leave to table the National Party's minority view, which is in the report from the select committee.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, the member ought to know the rules by now.
Hon TIM MACINDOE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. That report, of course, has been tabled in the House and is now a matter of public record. Mr Ball seems to be going from bad to worse in this debate.
I want to go back to the opening contributions from the Minister of Justice, because the Hon Andrew Little was telling us how good this bill is, and I say to Mr Little and to members of the Government parties who are supporting him that if this bill was half as good as he claims it to be, they would have followed many, many decades of established and important constitutional convention and ensured that they had consulted with all the parties in this Parliament before they introduced it.
Hon Andrew Little: You've got to have smart people on the other side, Mr Macindoe, and Nick Smith isn't that person.
Hon TIM MACINDOE: Also—Mr Little is now interjecting—they would have waited until the Justice Committee had concluded—
Hon Andrew Little: Two years—two years.
Hon TIM MACINDOE: —its report into the general election, because that's a triennial exercise that we have after every general election. I'm happy for Mr Little to point out that it's two years, because the reason it was two years was that his own Government took so long to initiate the inquiry in the first place. I've been a member of this House for longer than Mr Little, and I can tell him that never in my 12 years here has a Government taken anywhere near as long to initiate the inquiry or to consult upon the terms of reference that underpin its deliberations. So when the Minister of Justice has the audacity to try to tell the country that he had to introduce this bill because the Justice Committee had taken so long to report, he is fundamentally ignoring the reason for that delay.
As Dr Smith noted in his opening contribution, it was also because the Government parties refused to allow the committee to inquire into the scandal that is now becoming a matter of considerable public interest, and that is the Serious Fraud Office's declaration that they will be looking into the New Zealand First donations, because that is a very serious matter. I reiterate the call that members of the National Party have been making in recent days, that it is absolutely essential that that inquiry should be concluded and its findings be made public well before this year's general election. The Electoral Commission says that the New Zealand First Party broke the law, and yet the Labour Party, with the Minister of Justice sitting here, and presumably the Greens—although I acknowledge that they're not members of that committee—agreed that the inquiry shouldn't look into those serious matters. Well, this Government is defying, as I say, longstanding constitutional convention that electoral law changes are made on a cross-party basis following that triennial Justice Committee inquiry.
Mr Little argues that the changes are non-controversial. Well, I think anybody listening to this debate will have been able to hear, in the last half an hour or more, that that is clearly not the case. He could have avoided it, this controversy, simply by following the longstanding constitutional conventions. If that were true, surely he would've consulted us before introducing this bill. It is outrageous that he has done so without consulting the parties of the Opposition. That's the sort of conduct that you expect from a banana republic. That's the sort of conduct that you expect from South Korea or another country that tramples on human rights and has no respect whatsoever for democracy.
Chlöe Swarbrick: That's the wrong Korea, Tim. It's North Korea; it's not South Korea.
Hon TIM MACINDOE: Did I say South Korea? I apologise humbly to South Korea, a country for which I have great respect, and I do actually appreciate Chlöe Swarbrick correcting me on that, because I would hate that to go uncorrected. I am, of course, referring to North Korea.
I point out that the National Party respected all of those conventions right through our history, from the beginning under Sid Holland, the first National Party Prime Minister, through to more recent times, the Bolger-Shipley Government and the Key-English Government, of which I had a great privilege to be a member. We always respected that convention, and I believe that when we are next given the privilege of forming a Government, we will respect that convention again, because not to do so is appalling.
There is much more that I would like to say on this bill, but I'm supposed to have sat down after five minutes, so I better do what the whip has told me. But I do want to finish by—
Greg O'Connor: Well, you do what Nick Smith tells you.
Hon TIM MACINDOE: Mr O'Connor, what a bizarre suggestion that is. I do just want to make the point that we will return to the issue of same-day enrolments during the committee stage, in the hope that the Government will look at the very serious complications that arise. It's not just about the delay in the return of the writ. There is much more to it, including the necessity, if you are part of a democratic exercise such as a general election, of having the ability as a candidate to reach out to all the voters to convey your messages to them. This particular measure will take that away from candidates of all stripes in a way that is fundamentally undemocratic. I'm sure that's why Britain doesn't do it, Australia doesn't do it, and much of the United States doesn't do it. So it's not as if we are currently out of step with comparable jurisdictions, but we will be under this bill. It's a very flawed measure, and I'm very disappointed to see the Government charging ahead with it in such an undemocratic and unconstitutional fashion.





CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Tēnā koe as well to Tim Macindoe, who's just taken his seat. I'm very happy to have assisted in avoiding what could've been an international incident. Very proud—stoked—on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to be standing today in support of the Electoral Amendment Bill. There's nothing quite like a piece of legislation like this, which talks about the rights and freedoms in this country, to really elevate the blood pressure and get both sides yelling at each other, so here's hoping I can bring some profound earnestness to this debate.
I want to just really clarify or actually dig into and fact-check the statement that's been made by a number of National Party MPs on this legislation, or pertaining to this legislation, because it goes broader; it's about enfranchisement of voters in this country. They've spoken about how, in every single piece of legislation which impacts the ability of New Zealanders to vote, they have utilised the constitutional precedent of extending the, kind of, olive wreath across the political aisle and seeking to build consensus. They, however, didn't do that when they disenfranchised prisoners and revoked their right to vote while they were in Government, and did so on a slim governmental majority. So I just want to fact-check that, because in that moment where they disenfranchised New Zealanders, they didn't seek parliamentary consensus. What we're seeking to do here with the Electoral Amendment Bill is enfranchise more New Zealanders, and they are disagreeing to that—so, interesting contrast there.
Just to clarify for those who may be attempting to follow the debate at home—it's probably been a bit difficult given all of the yelling back and forth, but there are three key things that this legislation does. I really want to commend Minister Andrew Little for the work that he's done to get this moving, because it is really exciting. It also notes, on the point that I just raised earlier around prisoner voting rights—reading through the select committee report from the Justice Committee, it's been highlighted by Government members that a number of submitters spoke about the need to re-enfranchise prisoners, and it was Minister Little, in working with our colleague in the Greens Golriz Ghahraman and New Zealand First who worked to reinstate prisoner voting rights for those who are serving a term of less than three years, which I'd note actually went explicitly in contravention of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—and the National Party knew that—on the advice of the Attorney-General when they decided to move to revoke it.
Moving now to the content of the Electoral Amendment Bill, there are three core things that this legislation does, which you might not have derived from the screeching across the House. They are quite simple measures that I think will profoundly make a difference to people's ability to participate in our democracy. The first is to enable election day enrolment, and that is to also require the extension of the period for return of the writ. That was the kind of back and forth that you heard from my colleague Darroch Ball, who was making the point that it is quite an interesting, if not bizarre, position for the National Party to take that they don't quite agree with the trade-off that to empower approximately 19,000 more New Zealanders the ability to vote—they're not quite happy to trade off another 10 days of certainty in the returning of those writs.
So, too, there is the ability inherent in this legislation to enable supermarkets and malls to be used as voting places. That's a really exciting development and, I'd note, based on my read of the National Party view from the Justice Committee, something that they actually agree with. So I think that, thankfully, there is some consensus on that point at least, and that bodes well for our democracy, that we want more places where people can engage.
Then, finally, the third and final thing in this legislation—it's another thing which the National Party agree with, based on their report—is to make provision for what is to occur in the advent of an emergency and what happens to the election and the voting and everything contained around those circumstances. That's something which the Nats agree with, too.
So the real argy-bargy is on the ability for people to enrol to vote on the same day. I just want to touch on what has been raised by the National Party in their view—not their minority view, given that it is a split committee, but in their view from the Justice Committee—because I wasn't quite able to discern what they were saying in their numerous contributions, because, indeed, it seemed to spill over into other political issues of the day. There are three reasons that they have given in this Justice Committee report to opposing that ability for same-day enrolment, and the first is—and I quote—"[the] balancing of the objective of maximising participation with concluding the election efficiently." Fast-forwarding through that point (1), they say, "We do not believe that 99 percent of voters who did enrol should face the cost and uncertainty of delay for less than 1 percent who did not bother to enrol." I think that's kind of lacking in empathy. There are a number of reasons that people face in their day-to-day lives. For both sides of this House, who regularly talk about the day-to-day struggles that people are facing and how, you know, we should give people a little bit of slack to make decisions about their own lives and how we need to streamline processes, I would've thought that the party that talks about being the one of consumer choice and freedoms would be on board with this move. So I find that a perverse or interesting rationale.
The second is, they're saying, "There will be no incentive or need to enrol if people know … anyone can vote without enrolment." Again, an interesting kind of tautology there, but I think it doesn't quite fit the muster in terms of the trade-off that we're thinking about here. It's that 10-days extension for the 19,000 extra New Zealanders having the ability to vote.
The third point that they raise is also quite confusing. They say—and I quote—"(3) Candidates are required to register well in advance of the election so that voters have time to get to know them." That makes sense; I think that's something all of us can agree on. But then they go on to say—and I quote—"It is reasonable that candidates know who the enrolled voters are so they can communicate with them on their ideas, values, and policies." Interesting. I think that it's really critical that all of us, in seeking to be elected into this place in Parliament and representing the people of this country, go out there and talk to everybody, not just those who are over the age of 18 but also to children, which I know a number of us in this place do at school visits and otherwise.
So I think, really, the Opposition's opposition to this legislation is nothing more than a bit of politicking, kind of providing a platform for yelling. I think that we deserve a bit better than that; so the Green Party is proud to support this legislation and move on greater enfranchisement for the people in this country. Kia ora.





CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. May I start by wishing you a happy New Year. Since the last time I spoke in this House, we've had a New Year as marked by the Gregorian calendar, the Lunar New Year, and now we have the parliamentary New Year. If I have a New Year's resolution for this place, it will be that I speak in shorter sentences!
I stand here at the second reading, and, of course, it's worthwhile reflecting on the select committee process as part of the second reading. I did have the privilege, if we were to call it that, of being a member of the Justice Committee throughout almost all of that time. The report was late to start, and it was consequently and subsequently late to finish, but we got there in the end.
The bill is, at its heart, about democracy in the sense that every amendment of the Electoral Act is about democracy, and so I want to acknowledge the democratic participation of many of our citizens, or New Zealanders more broadly, in the process whereby at select committee we received a number of excellent submissions and enjoyed hearing those and discussing those along with other aspects of our deliberation.
As far as the substance of the bill itself goes, a number of its provisions were pretty keenly scrutinised. The extension of the writ from 50 to 60 days was one that we discussed, including in the context that more time might be needed following the counting of votes being combined with the process of enrolments on election day itself. Traditionally in New Zealand in the last several years—the last couple of decades, in fact—the period following election day is used for counting votes and recounting votes and, in the case of one member of our democracy, counting his baubles.
We also talked about the venues at which voting can take place. That was universally agreed to be a positive move whereby we have a greater range of different places at which voting can occur. Examples of supermarkets have already been given, but also licensed premises. The select committee did, you'll be pleased to know, turn its collective mind to the idea that it might be helpful to allow a place that is licensed to supply alcohol, in the case of, say, a country pub where that's a natural hub for the community, but not for that to occur in such a way that those other activities might impinge on the democratic practice of voting.
So we considered that, including in the related matter of allowing votes to be counted away from the place that they've been cast. That's a change in New Zealand law, but it fits, really, with the idea that, if we're going to open up a greater range of places at which votes can be cast, it will be appropriate in some cases to allow those to be moved securely for the purpose of the count. Much more detail on that; no doubt we'll get to that at the committee stage. So I'll leave my contribution there. Thank you very much.





Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is one which is traditional in the sense of an electoral cycle—that there are some changes made to the election rules that are necessary to have a better electorate representation and better electoral result—and there is one key change in this piece of legislation that the Green member Chlöe Swarbrick has identified, and that is the voting on the day. Now, that hadn't been done in the past, because it has a number of issues with it, and it has suddenly become something that the Labour, Green, and New Zealand First parties have mandated as being exceptionally necessary for greater governance in New Zealand. It can only be for one reason, and that is because they see advantage in it for themselves.
It is very clear to anybody that's been through an election campaign how especially the Labour and Green parties—and New Zealand First to a limited extent, because New Zealand First doesn't have the resources of the other two parties—do try and utilise and take advantage of people during that last part of the electoral cycle. We see that quite often in how they try and round up people to vote and then tell them what to vote. That's the plain reality of what goes on. Anyone that's been in an election has seen that before, and the Labour Party and the Green Party are just feathering their nests in this legislation, because they know those are the tactics they engage in with vulnerable people at election time, and they will continue to do that. This is just legitimising an activity that they undertake in every election that I have seen.
Darroch Ball: So vulnerable people shouldn't vote? Is that what you're saying?
Hon DAVID BENNETT: No, no, no, no. It's the way that they're taken advantage of, and if anybody has any doubt, go into the political world, go see what happens in election campaigns, go see how those two parties act with voters out there, how they remonstrate to them, how they tell them, effectively, a lot of rubbish about who they should vote for, and then try and dictate, try and pick them all up on election day, and what we will see is swaths of people being picked up by Labour and Green members, taken to election booths, told to register, and told how to vote. That is exactly what will happen, we know that will happen, and that's why they are doing this legislation to feather their own nests.
It will not work. It will not work, because people will rebel against that, and they will see through the Labour and Green parties, which are just trying to take advantage of them through the electoral cycle.





GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I support this bill. This is a bill which is quite clear. The National member opposite, David Bennett, has just spoken to say that they don't want vulnerable people voting. This is a Government that stands up for all people, and they have the right to vote on election day. The only reason they've given in their minority view is that they think that the 19,000 people who didn't vote on election day outweighs the 10 days of waiting for the other general population. This is about giving people the right to vote, and I support it.





KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. First of all, I would also like to wish you a happy New Year. This is my first contribution, and I would like to start with acknowledging Chlöe Swarbrick for her contribution. At least she had the courtesy to talk about the minority view given by the National Party—the viewpoint of National Party; let me correct that.
Darroch Ball: Do you have one?
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Yes, it is over here. You should have taken the courtesy of reading it before pointing out what it is. So at least she had the courtesy of talking about what we said in our viewpoint. It's not that we are in Opposition and we are trying to oppose everything, whatever it is, in this bill, but there are a few things which are positive. I would like to touch upon those two points which we feel are positive in this bill, because this is the last contribution on this second reading. Those points are that we have more polling booths where people would be able to go and cast their vote. We want to make sure people get the opportunity to enfranchise their right to democracy. We want to have more people participating in this election process.
The second thing, which is very important, is in case there is any emergency. Then the Minister has got the right to take some points where he can make sure that people who are affected by those conditions can participate in the election process. So with these words, these two points, which are very important, which we support from this side of the House—that's why we've mentioned in our viewpoint that these are the points we will be supporting, but we won't be supporting the same-day registration and casting of votes. Thank you, Mr Speaker.





Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I just apologise to the people of New Zealand who are listening to this debate this afternoon for the appalling lack of quality of the speeches coming from the National Party. Can I just remind the House and inform the public that the essence of this debate is about a piece of legislation that will enfranchise more New Zealanders to vote at the next election because they will be able to enrol and vote on election day, which the National Party heartily disagrees with. They have obfuscated and deflected, told us fake stories all afternoon, and it's, quite frankly, been pretty appalling.
Paul Eagle: Disgraceful.
Hon CLARE CURRAN: Disgraceful is the right word. The reason that an election inquiry has been discussed is because it took 18 months for that election inquiry to report back to the House after the 2017 election. With this bill, the Minister couldn't wait in order to ensure that New Zealanders could enrol and vote on election day, and I want to thank Andrew Little for the work that he's done on this bill.
There have been a lot of accusations passed around. I do encourage New Zealanders to go and look for the inquiry into the 2017 general election and 2016 local elections report, which is available if you google it, and to please read the Government members' views on page 75, which refer to the unconscionable behaviour by former Ministers in the National Party and the previous National Government around procuring a $150,000 donation from the Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry that was received by the National Party and declared on 17 May 2017. I'll leave it there. I commend this bill to the House.





A party vote was called for on the question, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 63
New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.
Noes 57
New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.
Bill read a second time.





SMOKE-FREE ENVIRONMENTS (PROHIBITING SMOKING IN MOTOR VEHICLES CARRYING CHILDREN) AMENDMENT BILL
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 12 February.
GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): I wish to say that I support the bill.





MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I'm rising on behalf of the National Party in support of the Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill in its second reading. Can I begin, as it's my first contribution for 2020, to wish everyone well for a busy and successful year ahead.
I think this bill actually sums up this Government: potentially good intention—because I think no one disagrees with the principle that adults shouldn't be smoking in cars with young kids in it—but poorly delivered. I mean, how did we get in a position where vaping is not included in this bill? The reason is because the current Government has dragged its heels on vaping—told the House last year that it was a matter of weeks away, new vaping legislation, and that has not appeared. So here we have a bill that's half-baked. It should have had vaping in, and it's an area that we cannot now address.
The second issue we have with this bill—a bill with good intention but that actually fails to deliver, because actually what it should have had as its title is "Smoke-free Environments (Prohibiting Smoking in Moving Motor Vehicles Carrying Children) Amendment Bill", because this bill actually only applies to cars that are pretty much moving. My point is that if they're stationary because people are living in them, because this Government has not delivered on its pledge on removing people out of cars in its first term, now they're having to legislate to allow people to continue to smoke in their cars if they're living in them. How did we get to a point where we did not include vaping and now we're saying, "In fact, if you live in your car, you're excluded."? The child is still going to be impacted by that cigarette smoke whether the car's moving or stationary.
Equally, now we have written into this bill around enforcement—in fact, there pretty much won't be much enforcement. So, yes, a good bill—I don't think anyone disagrees in this House that adults should not be smoking in cars with kids—but a bill that has been poorly delivered. We received 120 submissions. I would like to take some of the credit for that number of submissions, because I boldly got up in the House and said it was such a good bill that we would only get about three or four submissions, and people, obviously, heard that. 
We had a great range of submissions—a lot of young people turned up—and that led to one of the most bizarre situations I think any select committee saw last year. We had one person turn up who was a submitter that tried to argue the proposition that second-hand smoke for kids was not bad for them and, in fact, over time, their body would repair. Alarmingly, we found out retrospectively that that person's argument was based on research that had been funded by the tobacco companies themselves, and I think that that very much calls into question the intent of some submitters. 
I think what is agreed, irrespective of what party you're in, is that it's not only the physical impact of being exposed to second-hand smoke, but we also know from young people that it's the psychological impact of being trapped in that car while adults are smoking. So here we have a bill in its second reading that failed to actually deliver what the intent was, and I'm looking forward to the National Party—the Opposition party—turning up with the Supplementary Order Papers in the committee of the whole House stage to actually do what the Government should have done, and that's deliver. That's what we're going to deliver in this bill, and, in fact, that's what we'll be doing in 2020—delivering. Thank you, Mr Speaker. 





GREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Just once—just once—I would like to see the Opposition look at a bill. It does exactly what it's meant to do. It protects children in cars. I commend this bill to the House. 
Bill read a second time.





OMBUDSMEN (PROTECTION OF NAME) AMENDMENT BILL
Third Reading
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
It's a great pleasure to move that the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill does something that's very simple: it affords the proper protection that the Office of the Ombudsmen should properly have in this country. The way it works at the moment is that it is possible for a Chief Ombudsman to grant the use of the name "Ombudsman" to other organisations who wish to use it. The current wording in the Act actually started a proposition that the name should not be used by other organisations, but there is this discretion, and that discretion has been exercised so that on at least a couple of occasions, private organisations doing investigations similar to what the Government Ombudsman does can use that name. 
The difficulty is that there's been a recent application for use of the name that was declined. That denial or rejection or decline of that application to use the name was then litigated, and it led to a very interesting decision by the Court of Appeal that said that because the decision has been made on earlier occasions for other private organisations to use the name, it would be wrong—effectively, a distortion of the market—if future applications were declined for private organisations to use the name. Therefore, the Chief Ombudsman, on that occasion and on future occasions, really had to consider the fact that other organisations—private organisations with the name—would have some market advantage. Now, that is not in the spirit of the law as it is right now, and so it's been important for us to clarify that and correct it. 
The reality is that the Office of the Ombudsmen has a very sacred origin, and that is that it is a fearless advocate for the citizen when it comes to their relationship with Government departments and agencies. It started in Sweden, and was picked up in other Western democracies and by us back in the 1960s and 1970s. We've had it all that time, and it has become a very effective office. We need stern and fearless people in the office—the current Chief Ombudsman is such a person—and we need that to continue. What we don't want to do is dilute the gravitas associated with this office, and this bill does that. 
I know members opposite have been concerned and they think this is trivial. They think that it's not very important. But in the life of a Parliament—in the three years of the life of a Parliament—a Parliament has to do a number of things. They have to do big transformative things and sometimes they have to do just the little bitty things but that are significant and material and can make a difference. This is one of the little bitty things that it gets to do, and it ought not to detain this House unduly, as it's been very clearly examined. The committee of the whole House stage lasted for four or five minutes, last night, actually examining the bill, because, actually, it is very simple: it is about protecting the gravitas of the Office of the Ombudsmen. It does that and it does what, I think, the original Act intended to do.
It does one other thing, too. It preserves the existing use of the name by private organisations who have it, so they don't lose anything, and for the one organisation who has applied to use it and is awaiting determination, it preserves them the right to have that application determined, but, of course, it doesn't predetermine what the outcome of that application will be. But now it is very clear that the name "Ombudsman" cannot be used willy-nilly by private organisations or any other organisation. It is very clear about the basis in which it can be used.
This is a very good bill. It restores the mana of the Office of the Ombudsmen. I commend it to the House.





KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's very rare that I get a chance to speak twice in a short period of time, but it's my pleasure to stand and take a call on the third reading of this bill. I have got a lot of respect for this Minister, but I never expected this Minister to be wasting the time of this Parliament by introducing this bill. When introduced, this was the fourth bill by this Government in the justice sector. This was totally a waste of time for this Parliament, as it was for the Governance and Administration Committee.
What this bill is doing is just preserving the name of "Ombudsman", which I think—
Paul Eagle: Sit down now.
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Yes, I will sit down. I'll give you the opportunity to stand up and take a call. The Minister just took less than five minutes to wrap up this bill. So it shows that this bill doesn't have much content, and that is the reason why we have been, time and time again, complaining about this bill—that this is a waste of time.
This Government, in its first term, is known as a passionate Government, a compelling Government which will be looking after the poor people and child poverty. Nothing is happening on that front, but we are wasting the time of this Parliament by introducing such bills. I think this is totally ridiculous and we should not be doing this. Thank you, Mr Speaker.





TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Taking a call on this at the third reading is an interesting position to be in, because here we are in election year now, and this is the agenda that the Government's putting forward. Now, I don't doubt that there are some people who would find this particular piece of legislation to be important, but on the base of it I would have expected from this Government, with their failure to deliver on so many other areas, that they might have prioritised some other pieces of legislation rather than the protection of the name "Ombudsman".
Now, we've seen this Minister bring forward and try to justify exactly why this is important, but in reality this minor change should be something that perhaps we see from Paul Eagle as a member's bill, for example, put forward, given that he's quite eagerly interjecting from the other side of the House on the value of this. I'm sure he's about to take a call after I sit down on this particular topic.
But this piece of legislation, as I mentioned, is largely unnecessary. Surely the Government, in election year, should have other priorities, especially as we've seen, time after time, their inability to deliver on areas that they've promised throughout last year, which was supposedly the year of delivery. Yet here we are, now in election year, prioritising the Ombudsman (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill. Well, if that's what this Government is prioritising and looking forward to, I'm sure that they won't have a long future on that side of the House to worry about what their legislative pipeline might be in the future.
Look, we oppose it. It's unnecessary. On that basis, I look forward to hearing from someone else perhaps on that side, who might actually make a contribution in regards to this.





KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It's a privilege to rise and stand for the first time this year in this House. Ngā mihi o Te Tau Hou ki a tātou, those that are watching the House this afternoon. Bills of this significance, whilst the Opposition might say that they are no longer relevant or aren't that interesting, they're actually very critical to the operations of the way that our democracy runs. The Ombudsman is a significant office that we must all ensure is protected and, I guess, upheld.
So I want to commend the work that the Hon Andrew Little has done, and we commend this bill to the House. 
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.