THURSDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2020
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Karakia.
VISITORS
Germany—Vice President of the Bundestag
SPEAKER: I'm sure that members would wish to welcome Wolfgang Kubicki, the Vice President of the German Bundestag, who is to my left. 
Wolfgang Kubicki, accompanied by the Deputy Speaker, entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair. 
[Applause]





BUSINESS STATEMENT
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Deputy Leader of the House): Today, the House will adjourn until Tuesday, 3 March. The debate on the Prime Minister's statement will continue throughout that week, concluding in time for the first members' day of the year, to take place on Wednesday, 11 March. Other legislation to be considered in the next sitting week will include the remaining stages of the Arms Legislation Bill and the second readings of the Abortion Legislation Bill and the Taxation (KiwiSaver, Student Loans, and Remedial Matters) Bill. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): To the Deputy Leader of the House, has there been consideration of perhaps extending the second reading of the Abortion Legislation Bill to allow more members to make a comment, if they should choose to do so, on what is, essentially, a conscience matter? 
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Deputy Leader of the House): I'm not aware that there has been any conversation about that, but the member is of course welcome to raise that at the Business Committee. 





MOTIONS
New Zealand Defence Force—Death of Second World War Pilot Jim Robinson
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice and without debate to mark the passing of Jim Robinson, one of New Zealand's last Second World War Spitfire pilots. 
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I move, That the House express its condolences to the extended family and friends of Jim Robinson, one of New Zealand's last Spitfire pilots from the Second World War, who passed away at the age of 99; note that he was the last of four New Zealand members of the RAF Squadron 81, which spent a large amount of the Second World War operating as a fighter squadron throughout Europe, North Africa, and India; and acknowledge the bravery of our Defence Force, past and present, and the sacrifice they and their families have made defending the freedoms and liberties of all New Zealand. 
Motion agreed to. 





ORAL QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 4 to Minister
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I'm asking you to have a look, before we get there, at question No. 4, and, in particular, as to what responsibilities does the Minister of Justice have for another Minister's opinion. 
SPEAKER: It is a question which it will not surprise members to know that I looked at quite carefully. The member will be aware it is a question that has been adjusted somewhat from the way that it was originally presented to the Minister of Justice's office. 
Where something is within a Minister's area of administrative responsibility, he can be asked whether he agrees or not with anyone's opinion. It might be a media commentator's opinion. It might be a fellow Minister's opinion. It might be the leader of a political party's opinion. It is, because of the independence of the Electoral Commission, something that I have considered very carefully, but my view is that the Minister does have responsibility in the area, and, if he does, he can be asked whether or not he agrees with opinions, even if he is not responsible for them. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. So if it should be, in the case of another political party, a matter of agreeing with the prosecution or the defence lawyers, which opinion is the Minister of Justice capable of saying he agrees with? 
SPEAKER: I think he's probably absolutely capable of saying that it's not something which he wants to opine on, as he can in this case if he wants to. 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just with regard to the same question, the Electoral Commission has in their statements—and I've seen the letters that have been sent back to parties that are involved—said that they have formed a view, not that they have made a finding. A finding would suggest that there was an investigation, and the reason that the Electoral Commission has passed this on to the police is that they have no investigative powers. So I'm just wondering around the wording of "finding", when it is actually in writing—and I could table the document, if it would help the House—where they have formed a view. 
SPEAKER: I think that is a very good point, and if that had been raised with me by any person at a point before 2 o'clock, I would have had the opportunity to adjust the question in order to meet what is, in my opinion, a valid criticism of my approval of the question. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order. 
SPEAKER: No. There's currently no point of order. Is the member going to make a separate and new point of order? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I was going to note the change that you have made in the question. 
SPEAKER: No. It's not your responsibility to raise that with the House. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: You seem to have a differing style to different members. 
SPEAKER: The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I withdraw and apologise. [Interruption] 
SPEAKER: The person who made that comment will stand, withdraw and apologise. Well, I'm not going to repeat it. It began with "s" and ended in "e". 
Hon Grant Robertson: I withdraw and apologise. 
SPEAKER: It's not helpful. 




Question No. 1—Finance
1. 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 they were made and given. In particular, I stand by my statement yesterday where I stood by my statement from the day before about the situation this Government inherited, where "We had hospitals that had been run down, $2 billion not put into the health system that needed to be, kids being taught in school halls and libraries instead of classrooms, not enough teachers, and not enough police officers.", and that we're getting on with fixing that. For future reference, I will continue to stand by that. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Regarding his statement yesterday "We are in a good position to respond to any impacts of the virus because our economy, ultimately, is in good shape.", how does he regard an economy that grew at just 1.6 percent last year, as estimated by the Reserve Bank, as being in good shape? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I regard the New Zealand economy as being in good shape because we have net debt levels below what we inherited, because we continue to have economic growth that outperforms most of our trading partners, because we have run Budget surpluses, and because unemployment is down to record lows, at 4 percent. These are all indicators of the economy being in good shape. The member should just be a little bit less negative about New Zealand. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he accept that if the Government hadn't turned the surpluses it had inherited into a projected deficit within two years, New Zealand would be in a much stronger position to weather the economic impact of the coronavirus? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Not only do I not accept that; I don't accept the premise of the question. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: What is his latest estimate of the economic cost to New Zealand of the response to COVID-19, and what is he doing to minimise those costs? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As we've announced at the beginning of the week, we've put in place an $11 million package to support Tourism New Zealand to be able to reorientate their marketing. The IRD and the Ministry of Social Development continue with the work that they do to support people on the ground who have been affected, either as workers or as employers, through the provision of support or the delaying of provisional tax returns. We continue to work closely with all industries that are affected. Minister Nash, as the Minister of Fisheries, has made some changes to support the rock lobster industry to be able to return some of their catch into the sea, and we continue to work on that. As the member is well aware, this is a very fluid and evolving situation. That's why we've drawn together Government agencies led by Treasury, the Reserve Bank, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to do scenario planning if the situation continues, the virus spreads, or the spread goes on for longer. At the moment, as I said in the House yesterday, the best advice we have is that this will have a significant, but temporary, impact on the New Zealand economy. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Minister of Finance got any reports from IMF, OECD, or, for that matter, credit agencies which point to their not sharing this miserable, petty view of the New Zealand economy? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have a number of reports in that regard. We've had Fitch Ratings agency recently talk about the strength of the New Zealand economy and the IMF and OECD both projecting New Zealand's growth rate to continue the pattern of the last couple of years of exceeding that of countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK, and the eurozone. The New Zealand economy is in good shape. "Negative National" might want to say otherwise, but we're getting on with the job. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Did he have National's desire to reduce taxes for middle-income earners in mind yesterday, when he dismissed our policies as "selfish individualism"? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I didn't have a particular National Party policy in mind when I described selfish individualism. I more had the record of nine years of ignoring the problems in our housing system, of ignoring the problems in our health system, of ignoring the problems in our education system, and of making decisions to give tax cuts that would have benefited members of this House by over $1,000 a year, rather than focusing on lifting the incomes of low and middle income New Zealanders, which I am pleased to say we turned around. I frequently have the member in my mind, but it's more in a sense of pity that he has such a negative view of the world. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he think Kiwis would be being selfish if they wanted some tax relief? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I'm sure a lot of New Zealanders would like it if they were paying a little less tax, but what they know is that the taxes that we all collectively pay is what pays for the teachers in our schools and it's what pays for the nurses in our hospitals, and New Zealanders know that after nine years of his party running down New Zealand, we have to spend the money on our public services. So, you know, I'm not saying that any New Zealander who's out there thinking "Wouldn't it be great to have a tax cut?" is wrong; what I'm saying is it's going to take a long time to make up for nine years of neglect by his party. 
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is it selfish for Kiwis to baulk at higher fuel taxes? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I'm not accusing any New Zealander who goes to the petrol pump and says "Why am I paying that price?" of being selfish; what I am doing is I'm accusing the National Party of having a focus on individualism at the expense of all New Zealanders doing well. 




Question No. 2—Finance
2. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Last week, Xero released its Small Business Insights data for December, showing "the decade finished strong for New Zealand small business … With 56.42 percent of small businesses cash flow positive, December recorded the third strongest month in the 2019 calendar year behind November and March. Compared to the cash flow numbers from December 2018, the data showed a solid year-on-year improvement of 1.13 percentage points." David Bell, director of business growth at Xero, said the data pointed "towards a sector getting smarter around how they operate their businesses and use their capital." These results are yet more real data that demonstrate the strong recent performance of New Zealand small businesses and the solid underlying fundamentals of the economy. 
Kiritapu Allan: What reports has he seen on the rural economy? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The rural economy continues to be strong. According to the latest Rural Economic Note, though, ASB has trimmed its milk price forecast for the 2019-20 season by 10c to $7.40 per kilo. They are clear that the disruptions from the coronavirus—COVID-19—outbreak have driven dairy auction prices slightly lower. However, the price fall was in line with expectations. What this does demonstrate is that the New Zealand economy is not immune to the impacts of global economic developments such as COVID-19, but we are well positioned to manage them. 
Kiritapu Allan: What reports has he seen on the global economic context of the New Zealand economy? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In its latest Global Macro Outlook, Moody's has downgraded its expectations for global growth this year. While Moody's said it was too early to make a final assessment on the impact of COVID-19, it has downgraded the growth forecast for China, Australia, Japan, and Korea, in particular. Comparing Moody's revised forecasts with the consensus bank forecasts for New Zealand, New Zealand is still expected to outperform our counterparts, albeit in an environment of slower global growth. As I said yesterday, the Government remains vigilant on this issue. We are currently working through scenarios with Treasury, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and the Reserve Bank to ensure we are prepared if the virus outbreak is prolonged and the economic effects are sustained. That is not the advice we are receiving at the moment, but it is best to be prepared for all possible scenarios. 




Question No. 3—Housing
3. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing: Does she agree with the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development when he said, "So Kāinga Ora and the community housing sector are, as I said, being very careful not to displace people from the market—that's the intention"? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Yes, and, as I explained to the member on Tuesday, in 2018-19, just 22 percent of Kāinga Ora houses were buy-ins, down from the 62 percent high achieved under the previous Government. In the current year to date, the number of buy-ins is down to around 15 percent. 
Hon Judith Collins: When she told Parliament on Tuesday that she had sought assurances that there was only one case of Kāinga Ora displacing first-home buyers, did she receive that assurance? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: When I said I had sought assurances from officials, I had asked if there was any other situation similar to the Onehunga case, where first-home buyers were to have their contracts cancelled, as was the case in the Onehunga case. I have received some information from officials, and I will continue to discuss it with them. 
Hon Judith Collins: How does that answer reconcile with Kāinga Ora's statement to Parliament's Social Services and Community Committee yesterday that they could not provide any such guarantee? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: What the chief executive and the chairman of Kāinga Ora said to the select committee, from my understanding, when they went there yesterday was that they certainly were doing everything that they could to reduce buy-ins, and the evidence is there that that is occurring. I go back to the fact that we're down from 62 percent buy-ins under the previous Government to 22 percent, and 15 percent respectively for this Government, and that they were ensuring to see that we could get that down even further. But there are occasionally times when Kāinga Ora has to go out and buy a very specific property to meet the needs of a referral through the Ministry of Social Development. 
Hon Judith Collins: How does her statement to Parliament on Tuesday that she had sought advice that there was only one case of displacement reconcile with her officials' admission yesterday that there were, in fact, eight such instances of gazumping of first-home buyers in one development alone—people who had signed—
SPEAKER: Order! 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The member is conflating two very different things. I said that I had sought assurances from officials that there were not similar situations where first-home buyers had had contracts cancelled. That is an ongoing discussion that I am having with officials. But this is nothing new. I go back to a situation in 2013, and an article in the New Zealand Herald where a bidder at an auction said, "The Housing New Zealand rep was going up in $10,000 bids while other bids were going up in $2,000s. How many working families are missing out because they'll come along with big pockets and buy at auction?" That, of course, was under the previous Government. 
Hon Judith Collins: So when the Minister wants to go to ancient history, is she also saying that Housing New Zealand actually had contracts cancelled for first-home buyers because they wanted to buy the property? Is that what she's now saying, because that's what's happening under her watch?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: We talked about on Tuesday in this House the situation in Onehunga and that I have talked to officials. Of course it is not our desire that first-home buyers have their contracts cancelled when looking to move into a house. Kāinga Ora will continue the practice that has operated for a number of years where sometimes developers or real estate agents come before any other efforts in the market have been made and offer those properties, and I also point the member to the fact that this is a practice that is declining under our Government. Under the previous Government, we reached highs of over 60 percent of those properties being buy-ins. We are building not only more houses but a lower proportion of them are buy-ins. 
Hon Judith Collins: When her ministry says that it is careful not to displace first-home buyers from properties that they have signed for—contracted for—then how can that be if they can't actually tell her how many people they've done this to? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I have had some initial conversations, but, of course, this is less than a week ago. It is a conversation I will continue to have with officials—that is my job as the responsible Minister. But, again, I point the member to the fact that she is not coming from a strong position when her Government failed to build State houses and only went out and bought to the tune of over 60 percent on the open market. We are building more State houses than any Government in years, and we are buying in a far lower proportion—
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Stop making it up. 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —than the previous Government did. 
SPEAKER: Order! Who made that interjection? 
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I did. 
SPEAKER: Stand, withdraw, and apologise. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I withdraw and apologise. 
SPEAKER: If the Hon Judith Collins is finished, I am going to just make a brief comment. I have on occasions held her up as an exemplar for the asking of supplementary questions which are within the rules. I've had on occasion criticism from both sides of the House for what people have described as excessive flexibility with the member, but, generally, she has been very good. On this occasion, I think she knows that on at least a couple of the supplementaries, she went further than she generally does, and I want to ask her to go back to her normal practice of obeying the rules. 




Question No. 4—Justice
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question as lodged has been changed, and I wish to—
SPEAKER: Yes, Dr Smith—the member will resume his seat. Notice was given to the member's party that the question had been changed. The member has—and I've seen him being given—the question as it was changed to. He will ask it in that form, and if he does not do that, we will go on to question No. 5. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We certainly were not notified that the question was going to be changed. The sheet was simply distributed and put on to the members' desks. What I would take up with you, though, is that I didn't challenge anything that the Hon Tracey Martin had to say before because I felt that you had ruled that you had allowed the question to stand on the basis of information presented at the time, but you would have considered another argument. But in that effort, you would've also considered what we would say about that, and it is an utter nonsense to suggest that someone makes a finding without investigating. 
SPEAKER: No, we're not going down that track again, and I do want to make it absolutely clear to members that I have been advised that the appropriate people were informed of the change to this question before midday. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Point of order, Mr Speaker. 
SPEAKER: Now, if the member wants to ask the question, he will ask it as it is on the sheet now. If he wants to argue about it, we'll go to question No. 5. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Of course I want to ask my question. 
SPEAKER: Well, ask it. Go ahead, then. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can you please explain why I'm not allowed to raise a point of order? It's a practice that—I've seen many points of order raised in this House. It's an important one, and I should at least ask you to hear me out. 
SPEAKER: I will hear the beginning of the member's point of order. If I consider it does not have merit—and that is often the practice with this member—it will be rapidly interrupted. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My point of order is that the verification I provided to the Clerk's Office referred to the Deputy Prime Minister. The Hansard of the Deputy Prime Minister speaking on this issue—where he's speaking on the very issue of the question, the Hansard shows him listed as the Deputy Prime Minister. 
SPEAKER: OK. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: And so my question—
SPEAKER: Thank you. I looked at the authentication. It referred to both the Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the New Zealand First Party. I made the ruling that in my opinion, the comments were made not as Deputy Prime Minister, because there were no deputy prime ministerial responsibilities for this. If the Deputy Prime Minister made comment in this House on that, he was not making it in his deputy prime ministerial role. So the member will either ask the question as it is there now, or we will go to question No. 5. 
4. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Justice: Does he agree with the Leader of New Zealand First's description of the Electoral Commission's finding that, "the New Zealand First Foundation has received donations which should have been treated as party donations for the New Zealand First Party. In the Commission's view, the donations were not properly transmitted to the Party and not disclosed as required by the Electoral Act 1993", when the Leader of New Zealand First said it's a "very damning statement for the Electoral Commission because they've passed a legal opinion without having the evidence or the proof"? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I do not agree with that member's supposition that the Electoral Commission makes findings. As the Electoral Commission itself notes in the very same statement that the member refers to, it "does not have the investigative powers to form a view." The Electoral Commission does not determine guilt or innocence of any breaches of the Act. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with Mr Winston Peters that the Electoral Commission did not have any evidence or proof for making its statement that the donations were not disclosed as required under the Electoral Act? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have no knowledge of the processes that the Electoral Commission goes into when it discharges its statutory power to make an inquiry. It has made an inquiry and it has passed matters on to the police, who have subsequently passed it on to the Serious Fraud Office. That is as far as it goes. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why will the Minister not back the Electoral Commission? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member is being completely absurd. I have backed the Electoral Commission. I will back the Electoral Commission every day. They do a fantastic job. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: On the question of disclosure and the mentioning of the questioner's electoral return just the other day in this House of over $25,000 from the National Party, which part of that $25,000 was disclosed in particularity and itemised to the Electoral Commission? 
SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think we'll put that one again in the category of a nice try. It does not flow from this question. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Minister back the Electoral Commission in their statement that the New Zealand First Foundation has received donations which should have been treated as party donations and were not disclosed as required by the Electoral Act? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I go back to the answer I gave in my primary question, which is that the Electoral Commission, in fulfilment of its statutory power to make an inquiry, has made an inquiry. It does not make findings; it doesn't have the resources or the power to do so. But it is capable of referring matters to other authorities for investigation, and that's what it has done. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is the reason he will not back the Electoral Commission's statement because hanging on to power is more important than doing what's right? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The reason I choose to answer these questions the way I do is that that member is consistently tricky, and I do not trust his questions. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is it Government policy that political parties be able to form associated foundations as a mechanism to avoid disclosing significant donations? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The House's proceedings are beginning to become absurd, because now we're asking the Minister of Justice to give us an opinion on an establishment which was made in the year 2010 by the then Government of the day—the National Party, in control. Now, we're having a Minister being asked an absurd question, and he has no responsibilities for that. Mr Little was not the Minister in charge at the time, and he's still not responsible for that 2010 decision made by the National Party. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order. 
SPEAKER: I don't need any help with this. The question was a pretty simple one. The original question referred to a foundation. The question of whether or not it's Government policy that such foundations can be formed is one this Minister can answer. 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I know that the member asking the question is having difficulty progressing through their seven stages of grief after the 2017 election, but I make this point, and that is that the Electoral Commission provides some oversight of the way our electoral laws are complied with and are rolled out. It has expressed concern about a number of issues across more than one party, including that member's party. We have processes at the moment to deal with claimed breaches of the law, and we have a pledge from this side of the House following the next election—if we're in a position to do so—to do a full-scale review of our electoral laws to make sure they're fit for the 21st century and that New Zealanders can continue to have confidence in our processes. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was: is it Government policy that political parties be able to form associated foundations? That was not addressed by the Minister. 
SPEAKER: Well, the Minister can have another go. 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The Government's policy is to make sure that from time to time, we ensure our electoral laws and the institutions who are responsible for overseeing them and upholding them do their job have the means to do their job and do that job. They are, and I'm very pleased about that. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with the statement in Hansard by the Deputy Prime Minister, prior to the referral to the Serious Fraud Office, that the Electoral Commission is the appropriate expert body to determine whether the New Zealand First Party and foundation broke the law? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: At the risk of indulging that member in his absurdity, the law is very clear about the power of the Electoral Commission. Its power runs to conducting inquiries. It is not an investigatory body. It's not a prosecuting body. It's made an inquiry in this and, no doubt, other circumstances, and where it has considered it appropriate to do so, it has passed matters on for further investigation and, potentially, subsequent prosecution, as they did in relation to the National Party's two dodgy donations. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. What are the consequences for a member of Parliament who asks a question based on what he says is a quote from another member of Parliament when he knows that that statement is not true? 
SPEAKER: That is not the appropriate way to raise it. If a member quotes from a document in a way which is deliberate and inaccurate, then that is potentially a breach of privilege and it should be dealt with in that way, either by letter to me or by a motion to the House. 




Question No. 5—Workplace Relations and Safety
5. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Will the Screen Industry Workers Bill restore rights that he says have been lost by people working in the film and television industry, including collective bargaining rights removed under the previous Government; if so, how? 
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes. The bill restores screen workers' right to bargain collectively, allowing workers and employers to negotiate binding terms and conditions across the industry and for individual productions. Alongside this, workers in the screen industry will be entitled to protections against bullying and harassment, unjust termination, and a dispute resolution system. Everyone deserves decent work conditions and fair compensation for their work, and this is just one more step in the Government's plan to build a productive, inclusive, and sustainable economy. 
Jan Logie: How did the process for developing this bill reflect this Government's commitment to involving unions and sector representatives in developing durable workplace protections? 
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The bill will enact unanimous recommendations from the parties representing the major players in the screen industry, including unions, guilds, and producers. The parties worked together to create a tailored solution that worked for all participants. That is the way this Government works. There will always be a seat at the table for workers and businesses, and they will always be carefully listened to. 
Jan Logie: Does he agree with former Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly that "It was outrageous that the Government removed worker rights as it did", and does he believe that this bill honours her work and the thousands of workers who challenged the previous Government's "Hobbit law"? 
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I do agree with Helen Kelly. The passage of the "Hobbit law" through all three stages under urgency on a single day in 2010 was a dark day for workers and for democracy. It was done to film industry workers with neither consultation nor care. In contrast, we have developed an enduring solution by working with workers and the industry. That is the kind of industrial relations that Helen Kelly promoted. 
Dan Bidois: Can the Minister guarantee that the law changes won't result in any workers losing their jobs in the film and television industry? 
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: We live in a dynamic, open economy. I challenge that member to guarantee that anybody will keep or lose their job. Can he guarantee that Simon Bridges will still be the Leader of the Opposition next week? 
Jan Logie: How will the occupation-wide bargaining rights for film and TV contractors under this bill lay the foundation for better workplace conditions through fair pay agreements in other industries? 
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: When the participants in an industry sit down together to work things out, they can come to a much better solution than one that is imposed upon them. That is what this bill demonstrates, and it's exactly the framework that we intend to create with fair pay agreements. Everybody wins when we all work together. 




Question No. 6—Transport
6. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by all his statements on NZ Infra's unsolicited bid for Auckland light rail? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Yes, in the context they were made. 
Chris Bishop: What is unique about the NZ Infra proposal for Auckland light rail, in comparison to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) proposal? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, it's different to the NZTA proposal in that, first, it was unsolicited. Second, it's proposing that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, in partnership with its Canadian partner, designs, builds, finances, owns, and operates the light rail line for a considerable period of time. 
Chris Bishop: Has he ever received advice from officials that the NZ Infra proposal might not have met the Government guidelines for unsolicited bids? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: To the best of my recollection, no. 
Chris Bishop: How does NZ Infra's proposal meet the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's procurement guidelines that such proposals "are not advance proposals for a requirement that has already been identified, and perhaps socialised in the market", when the Auckland light rail project has been discussed between the council and the Government seriously since 2015? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, that was one proposal and one solution that was developed by Auckland Transport and then worked on by the NZTA. The proposal by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and its Canadian partners is quite different in many ways. The advice from Treasury and from the Ministry of Transport to Cabinet was that it was an unsolicited proposal and it should be dealt with in line with Government procurement rules. 
Chris Bishop: How does NZ Infra's proposal meet the procurement guidelines—for example, proposals are not readily obtainable in the market place—when there are numerous potential vendors for Auckland light rail? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I think the answer is contained within the member's question. There are numerous potential suppliers and contractors that might contribute to the design, building, financing, and construction of the light rail line, but I'm not aware of any other proposals for an entity like NZ Infra to design, build, finance, and own and operate in perpetuity the Auckland light rail project. 
Chris Bishop: How does NZ Infra's proposal meet the procurement guidelines that such proposals "include sufficient detail so … the government can assess whether it is worthwhile" when his own talking point to Cabinet of December last year notes that there are significant unknowns and risks, and more needs to be done to test the offering? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The answer is that, obviously, there was sufficient detail for it to be considered on the advice of Treasury and the Ministry of Transport as an unsolicited bid that required serious examination, and more detail has been elicited through the twin-track process. 




Question No. 7—Transport
7. RAYMOND HUO (Labour) to the Minister of Transport: What recent actions has he taken to encourage more and safer walking and cycling? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Last week, I kicked off construction of the Tamaki Drive cycleway, with Mayor Phil Goff. The project includes a 2.8-metre, dedicated off-road cycleway which will be separated from the existing shared pathway, meaning that both pedestrians and cyclists will be safer. Upgrading one of Auckland's busiest cycle routes makes sense. There's an average of more than 1,500 cycle trips on that route every day, and we expect even more people to use it once the upgrade is completed. 
Raymond Huo: How does this cycleway help motorists on this key route? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, every winter, during storms and king tides, Tamaki Drive is quite often underwater and impassable. The project will raise sections of Tamaki Drive by around half a metre to reduce the impacts of flooding, meaning that drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians will have a more reliable route. 
Raymond Huo: What other recent announcement has he made about walking and cycling infrastructure? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The recently announced New Zealand Upgrade Programme includes nearly 100 kilometres—100 kilometres—of shared paths across the country to give people real transport choices. The programme also fully funds SkyPath and SeaPath so that Aucklanders will finally get the ability to walk and cycle over the Harbour Bridge. Our Government is creating safer, healthier, and more accessible cities for people of all ages and abilities so that they can choose to bike every day. I want to acknowledge the Greens for their strong advocacy and role in this policy. 




Question No. 8—Education
8. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Associate Minister of Education: Is she confident she is delivering on her promises around additional learning support for children? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Associate Minister of Education): I want to thank the member for asking this question today, because this morning I addressed the new learning support coordinators that are here in Wellington for the first of three induction forums. So far, 505 of the 623 learning support coordinators have registered to attend an induction forum, and they will begin work this term. This morning at the forum, I also had the pleasure of launching a new kete of resources to strengthen support for students with dyslexia, and improved and extra tools for the new learning support coordinators as they start in schools this year. Can I acknowledge Matt Strawbridge, from Dyslexia Potential, who created Dyslexia Potential to show our children with dyslexia that this is their superpower and not a negative. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: Can she confirm that she has failed to deliver the 623 coordinators promised by the Prime Minister by the beginning of this year, in light of her answer? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: What I can confirm is that at this stage, we have 505 of the 623 learning support coordinators registered for the forum. At this stage, because there has been only two weeks of the school year and we have not had any payroll data in, we can't say whether we have met the 623 or we are sitting at over the 80 percent mark. But what I can say to the member is that as soon as we have the payroll data and as soon as the schools that are still advertising for learning support coordinators get in contact with us, the Ministry of Education will move in and assist them as soon as possible to put learning support coordinators on to the ground. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker—
SPEAKER: Nikki Kaye—she's allowed two, and then the member will have a turn. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: Can she confirm that 623 new learning support coordinators are in school, as per the Prime Minister's promise last year? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: As I just mentioned to the member, there's been only two weeks of the school year. Until the payroll data is in, I cannot confirm or deny whether there are 623 coordinators, but I can say to the member that 505 learning support coordinators—experienced teachers—are on the ground now. We have over 86 percent of our schools inside the new learning support delivery model. We've put $133.5 million into Ongoing Resourcing Scheme funding. We are moving forward. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: How many of those positions were filled before the present Government and the Minister came to power? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: There were absolutely zero of these positions when this Government came into power, because the National Government at that time refused to accept this as a recommendation of the inquiry by the Education and Science Committee into dyslexia, dyspraxia, and children on the autism spectrum. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: Does she take responsibility for the months of delay before schools knew what the allocation was, the inequity of the allocation, and the broken promise that the Prime Minister has made? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I reject all parts—
SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. The member will ask the question without the unauthenticated addition to it. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: Does she take responsibility for the months of delay before schools knew the allocation and the inequitable allocation that the Government provided? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I reject the basic premise of the question. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: How does she reconcile the Prime Minister's promise that every school should have one coordinator with statements by education officials in the last week that there is no work or time line on this? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: When the first 623 learning support coordinators, which was an investment of $217 million into this area by this Government—when they were first launched, I made it perfectly clear that for the first 623 we would be perfecting the job description, making sure that when we rolled out the rest of the learning support coordinators we would have it right, that we would have the job description right, and that we would have the delivery model right both for urban and rural, and Māori medium and English medium. So there is work going on. It's being done by the 505 learning support coordinators who are going to be on the ground, and then the rest of the learning support coordinators will be rolled out as we perfect the way to do it. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister's answer was just definitive around the 505. It sort of makes a mockery of all of the answers—
SPEAKER: Order! I think that if the member had been listening to the previous answers, she indicated that there were 505 at some conference or briefing or something like that, but she was not aware of whether the others—and she can't be aware until the payroll data is there. I was going to criticise the Minister, actually, for something else, and that is that her answers were going on for far too long. But it does require people to listen. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would ask you, Mr Speaker, to go back and listen very carefully and look at the transcript and look at the exact answer that the Minister made. The point the Minister was making was that it wasn't possible to confirm or deny definitively that number right throughout the question, and then, in the last question, she then chose to rely on that number, and I would ask you to reflect on that transcript. 
Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to the point of order—
SPEAKER: No, no. I don't need any more. Look, as both members know, I have some experience in this area. I, roughly, know what people are talking about. I also have some experience with counting. I heard the Minister say there was at least X and it might be Y, but you won't know it's Y until such time as the payroll data is in, and to suggest that the Minister's misleading when she has oversupplied information which is actually consistent, I think, is unfair. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. 
SPEAKER: It better not be the same story again. 
Hon Nikki Kaye: I seek leave to table the unpublished transcript by the Ministry of Education that has different figures to the Minister. 
SPEAKER: At the? 
Hon Nikki Kaye: At the annual review, which has not been published yet. 
SPEAKER: When was the annual review? 
Hon Nikki Kaye: Last Wednesday. 
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that? There is none. It may be tabled. 
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: On the question of counting, Minister, how many of the 623 coordinators did the Hon Nikki Kaye call for before they were established? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Zero. 
SPEAKER: Order! No, there's not responsibility for that. 




Question No. 9—Education
9. NICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Associate Minister of Education: Can she confirm that children's average wait-times for early intervention services have increased from 74 days in May 2018 to 101 days; if so, does she take responsibility for this result? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Associate Minister of Education): In answer to the first part of the question, the ministry informs me that the member's figures are incorrect. As at 31 May 2018, the average waiting time for support from the early intervention services was 99.62 days. I can confirm, as at 31 January 2020, the average wait-time is 101 days. In answer to the second part of the question: yes, and that is why between 1 July 2018 and 31 January 2019 we have increased our overall specialist service workforce by 96 fulltime-equivalents. It will take time for this workforce to adjust. With this workforce investment and the new ways of working being trialled by the ministry specialists across the country as part of the learning support delivery model, I expect waiting times to continue to decrease over the next 12 months. 
Nicola Willis: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have a bit of a dilemma on our hands because, of course, this primary question was authenticated with the Clerks. Those facts were verified with evidence, and now the Minister's disputing them. 
SPEAKER: That's all right—well, the Minister can say she doesn't agree with the question. That's a practice that's been going on at least since I started listening to Parliament in the 1970s. 
Nicola Willis: Does she stand by her recent statements in Facebook videos that the use of the phrase "wait-time" is misleading; if so, why? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Yes I do, and I would give you this response: when a student is on the wait-list, it doesn't necessarily mean they are not being supported in any other way. Currently, the ministry's case management system only catches comprehensive data on individual supports for children while waiting for more tailored support. Most parents will have been offered some initial advice, guidance, and strategies to support their children. A number will have also attended group workshops for parents and children with similar needs—e.g., a workshop on supporting language development or managing behaviour. Some parents may also have attended our Incredible Years Autism course, an intensive 14-week programme specifically designed for parents and teachers of children aged from two to five on the autism spectrum. Some children will be supported through a teacher-focused intervention in early learning services such as the Oral Language and Literacy Initiative. The ministry also provides resources to support teachers to better meet the needs of children who have been identified as needing additional support, including Much More than Words, which is a communication-focused programme, and other programmes around emotional competence, and so on. I seek leave to table the document that the member just spoke about in her last question, which outlines the process by which the wait-list is calculated and the actions taken while children are waiting. 
SPEAKER: Is that a document which is generally available? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: It's been created by me. It is on my Facebook video, but I don't think—[Interruption] 
SPEAKER: Order! Order! There is a point of order and a response to me. I am going to put it because there is a question of general availability, and while some members might be friends with the member, I don't even think that I am. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is none. 
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Nicola Willis: What phrase would she prefer that families used to describe the months of time they spend waiting for a specialist appointment from this Government's early intervention service? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Thank you. Under priority three of the Learning Support Action Plan, work is under way with the Ministry of Health to develop and test integrated approaches to improve seamless access to support for young children and their whānau through the child development, and a number of local proposals are being developed within our regions. One of the areas that the Ministry of Education is looking at is actually changing the way that the wait times, as such, are identified and recognised—because the member continues to suggest that nothing is happening for these children, and that is not true. 
Nicola Willis: Why was the phrase "wait-time" appropriate when the Prime Minister promised to reduce them in 2018, and somehow not appropriate now that the Minister is failing to deliver the promised reduction? 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: The phrase "wait-time" was actually created by the National Government when it decided to—[Interruption] 
SPEAKER: Order! 
Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I can't help the truth, Mr Speaker. That wait time—
SPEAKER: The member has finished. I mean, it's bad enough having it coming from one side but being chipped as part of an answer is not good either. 




Question No. 10—Greater Christchurch Regeneration
10. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration: What action is the Government taking to speed up the return of Christchurch regeneration activities to local leadership? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): Yesterday, I introduced the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill to speed up progress on return to local decision-making in Christchurch. The bill will support Christchurch to thrive by removing some of the Crown's extraordinary powers that are no longer required. It will also bring forward the planned disestablishment and transition of Regenerate Christchurch. As we approach the ninth anniversary of the 22 February quakes, the time is right to return responsibilities back where they belong: the local people. 
Dr Duncan Webb: What did last year's review of the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act find? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The annual review of the Act undertaken by Liz Sinclair in September last year found that given the considerable progress on key regeneration milestones has been made, the city has reached a tipping point and it's time to amend the legislation to recognise the progress on shifting control back to local leadership in Greater Christchurch. This reflects the incredible work of stakeholders as well as local and central government officials to speed up progress, and I want to thank all of those who have worked so hard to get us to where we are today. 
Dr Duncan Webb: What other steps has the Government taken to accelerate progress in Christchurch? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Over the last two years, we've taken a number of steps to accelerate progress on the regeneration of the city. In February last year, we revoked the Canterbury Earthquake (Christchurch Replacement District Plan) Order 2014, which took effect from 18 March 2019. That order was due to expire in 2021, so bringing the restoration of district planning power back to the city was a significant achievement. Last year, we also made huge progress by concluding a global settlement with the council, marking a major milestone and getting the city back to full local leadership. Of course, we're also continuing to invest heavily in projects in Greater Christchurch, with $300 million set aside in the Christchurch Regeneration Acceleration Facility for major projects. We're proud of the work we're doing and I look forward to announcing further progress in the coming months. 




Question No. 11—Agriculture
11. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Agriculture: When was he first informed of the regional outbreak of bovine TB in Hawke's Bay? 
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry) on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture: I am informed that in early last October, the Minister was informed of a small increase in TB cases in the Hawke's Bay. 
Todd Muller: If the Minister has known since last October, how has this gone from a first detection in April 2019 to the largest outbreak of TB in Hawke's Bay in the last 20 years? 
Hon SHANE JONES: That is an exaggeration. The Minister was further advised on 28 January that this increase was considered a very small cluster of bovine TB infection. It's important that scaremongering not be allowed to plague this House, as this is not considered as an outbreak. There is a small cluster of bovine infections, and Operational Solutions for Primary Industries New Zealand (OSPRI) is extending their TB-free programme to manage and return Hawke's Bay to TB-free status. 
Lawrence Yule: Why is OSPRI waiting until 1 March to expand the livestock movement control area in Hawke's Bay to cover approximately a third of the Hawke's Bay region? 
Hon SHANE JONES: I am advised that Hawke's Bay is a part of the country known already to have TB and OSPRI is working with the best-available information, and any suggestion that panic should set in is unworthy of contributions to this House. 
Lawrence Yule: Why did it take six months for OSPRI to arrange trapping and poisoning operations surrounding a property that had nine affected animals? 
Hon SHANE JONES: As I said, this is the not the case where we should allow scaremongering to inform these issues. Possum control operations have been brought forward and planned. Whether or not there were problems with access to adjoining blocks of land is not something unusual when the Crown, through the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), deals with the occasional outbreak of TB. 
Kieran McAnulty: Is the Minister aware that despite the fact that since the early 2000s, cases of TB have gone down from 1,700 to 26 last year, there have been numerous clusters of infections over the last decade, all of which have been successfully managed? 
Hon SHANE JONES: There's a modest mop-up being addressed in the Hawke's Bay, but to suggest that things are worsening is, unfortunately, a lame attempt at scaremongering, and it will not succeed. 
Todd Muller: How can he honestly stand in this House and say that first detection last April, six months of no poisoning, expanding to nine farms, and now, on 1 March, there's a no-movement zone across 500 properties in Hawke's Bay—the largest in that region for 20 years—is just minor and something we shouldn't be concerned about as a Parliament? 
Hon SHANE JONES: This is not a situation—although the member may resemble it—of the pea weevil. This is a problem that is being dealt with in the context of MPI's services. Local farmers have been regularly updated, and it is quite unbecoming for members to try and generate political capital from scaremongering. 




Question No. 12—Police
12. BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister of Police: Will he consider supporting amendments to the Arms Legislation Bill; if not, why not? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Police: Yes, especially the 25 or more recommendations from the Finance and Expenditure Committee, who considered 3,527 written submissions, heard from 381 submitters in person, and sat for 41 hours on the bill. 
Brett Hudson: Will he support the amendment I have lodged to limit the compliance and burden on shooting clubs and ranges while still providing for public safety; if not, why not? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member is speaking in contradictions. The reason for the changes to the shooting clubs, the gun clubs, is to lift their safety performance and make sure that those who are using those facilities are as safe as possible. 
Brett Hudson: Will he support my amendment to instate prohibited firearm exemptions for sport shooters, so that they can continue to compete in their sport; if not, why not? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No. There is no intention to change the policy on that particular point at the moment. But, if that member has something constructive to add that's going to add to the safety regime around firearm ownership, then this Government is all ears. 
Brett Hudson: Will he support my amendment to provide for a more common-sense prohibited firearm exemption regime for farmers to control pests on their property themselves without having to form a separate company; if not, why not? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: That question presupposes that that member represents common sense, and, if he's the author of a proposal, it's unlikely that it will be adopted by this Government. 
Michael Wood: Does the Minister continue to support rules around access to weapons referred to by the member in respect of pest control and access to sporting weapons, as passed through in phase one of the firearms reforms in this House unanimously a few months ago? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member raises an important point, which is that this House has already considered those issues and exemptions were given for those conducting pest control operations, and those pest control operations are being conducted happily. Likewise, in relation to competitive shooters, exemptions were provided there. But that member asking the primary question and some supplementary questions continues to believe that there is a form of competitive shooting—a three-gun shooting contest—that is going to somehow take off worldwide. No other country wants it, and it's most unlikely to be a form of international competitive shooting. 
Brett Hudson: Will he support the amendment lodged by me instating a prior recommendation from the Office of the Clerk to restrain regulation-making powers; if not, why not? 
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member needs to keep up. The select committee recommended some changes in that respect. They were sensible changes. They reflected the purport of what the Clerk raised. There will be sensible changes that reflect those. 






DEBATE ON PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT
Debate resumed from 19 February.
Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister for Economic Development): I am very proud to be a member of the Jacinda Ardern - led Government of infrastructure. As the Prime Minister said last week, the claim that our Government is the Government of infrastructure is undeniable. It's interesting to wonder, colleagues, why, whenever we say that on this side of the House, that side of the House yowl like scalded cats.
Here is the case. We've established an infrastructure commission, Te Waihanga—thank you, Shane Jones. We are giving the industry the long-term pipeline of work that they've been asking for. The New Zealand Upgrade Programme has delivered a decade-long programme of infrastructure investment. We've introduced the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill to allow long-term, private debt financing of the three waters and the roads, to enable urban development. We've invested $2.5 billion into health, rebuilding mental health wards, child health services at Starship, maternity services, and a new hospital in Dunedin. We've put $1.5 billion into schools, and that means 726 new classrooms from one end of this country to the other—
Angie Warren-Clark: How many? 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: —726 classrooms—and for the first time ever, we have a fully funded plan to keep up school infrastructure with population growth. 
We've created more than 4,250 public housing places. That is State housing, community-provided housing—an extra 4,250. We currently have 3,480 State and community houses under construction. Our Government is building more housing right now than any Government has since the mid-1970s, and I am proud to be part of a team of housing Ministers who are making that happen. 
Now, the icing on the cake was the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, a $12 billion, 10-year programme of infrastructure investments upgrading our roads, our rail, our hospitals, and our schools. Why is it that we can do this? The answer is that Grant Robertson's careful financial management has put the country in a position where we can make investments in productivity-enhancing infrastructure on a scale that has not been seen in many decades—$6.8 billion of transport infrastructure that will speed up travel times and that will allow people to move around our cities with greater ease. It will help get trucks off the road and move more freight by rail. 
Now, contrast this with the record of the previous Government, who put out press releases promising to build a number of roads that they never designated, they never planned properly, and they certainly did not fund. 
Hon Member: Ghost roads. 
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: They were ghost roads. National said that they would do it and they could do it, but they didn't. It's a case of "woulda, coulda, shoulda". 
For example, take Mill Road in Auckland. National promised that they would build four lanes of highway on Mill Road, but they didn't do it, and what's worse is that their planning was faulty. They were planning on just building a road with four lanes of traffic. Everyone knows that those would have filled up with cars, magically, overnight. Cyclists would have been competing in the road corridor with trucks. Public transport would have been caught up in traffic jams with all the cars. 
By contrast, our futureproofing approach to transport infrastructure has seen a new style of highways being put in place. There will be in all of the State highway projects that we announced in the New Zealand Upgrade Programme dedicated, separated walking and cycling pathways alongside those State highways, and, even more important than that, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) will be putting in place what they call managed lanes in the United States, with dedicated lanes for freight, for high-occupancy vehicles, and for public transport. These are smart changes that will futureproof this hundred-year infrastructure for future generations. 
But, unfortunately, the National Party are stuck in the past. [Interruption] Their policy wants to take us back to the 1950s. In fact, the 1950s called the other day, Brett Hudson, and said "We want our transport policy back. Tell the National Party." Our Government is futureproofing New Zealand for the 21st century. 
Under the last Government, they were spending, every year, 40 percent of the transport budget—about $4 billion a year; 40 percent of that—on a handful of hand-picked motorway projects, and the upshot of that was that every other part of the transport system, like road maintenance, was neglected. That's why we've inherited so many potholes on the roads. The councils didn't have enough central government subsidy for local road improvements. Public transport stood still—and, in fact, it went backwards in many areas—under that Government, and, in KiwiRail's words, they were left in a state of "managed decline". The rest of the transport sector was allowed to wither on the vine. 
We had to fight for five years to convince them to build the City Rail Link. If we'd been elected five years earlier, the City Rail Link would probably be open now, and it would be transporting up to 54,000 people every hour, in and out of the central business district of Auckland. Imagine what that would have done to the productivity of our country's biggest city. 
Their policy would have led to a 50 percent blowout in deaths and serious injuries between 2013 and 2017-18—a 50 percent increase in deaths and serious injuries—because they poured all the money into a few gold-plated motorways, instead of investing in a balanced way across the transport system, and now they're saying they want to cancel Auckland light rail. A project that 91 percent of Automobile Association members—91 percent of motorists—in Auckland want to see built, and National are saying that they will cancel it. 
In the 2½ years that we've been in office, we have added in Auckland $10 billion to the 10-year transport plan for Auckland. We inherited a plan from the National Government, from Simon Bridges, who was the Minister of Transport then. There was a $6 billion hole in it—a $6 billion fiscal hole. We filled that hole and we've added another $4 billion—that's a 50 percent, $10 billion increase into solving Auckland's transport problems—and because of the extra investment our Government's made, Auckland reached 3.77 million cycle trips last year. That's a 6.2 percent increase, year on year, in cycling in our biggest city. 
Auckland recently hit 102 million public transport journeys in the last 12 months—102 million. That's the biggest number of public transport journeys Auckland's had since the early 1950s, when they tore up the tram tracks. NZTA expects, because of our Government's investment in public transport in our major cities, to see an 11 percent increase nationwide in public transport journeys. Not only that, we're investing in safety: $1.4 billion to upgrade 3,300 kilometres of local roads and State highways. It's projected to save 160 deaths and serious injuries every year. We are upgrading and making safe some of the most dangerous parts of the roading network right across New Zealand.
We've got rail back on track. In two years, we've made a $4 billion commitment to making our rail network the backbone of a sustainable 21st century transport system. It's how we're going to get trucks off the road and move freight more efficiently and sustainably. It's how we're going to move people more efficiently, with fewer vehicles in our cities, and it's how we are going to fight climate change. But the National Party, they just want to take us back to the bad old days. They've got no new ideas. In fact, their transport policy was recently just to re-announce the ghost roads that they promised in 2017. That's their idea of a modern transport policy. They're just re-announcing ghost roads, and some of them have never even been NZTA projects—they're just plucked out of the air. They have elevated pork barrel politics to an art form. They have no new ideas. This Government is the Government of infrastructure and we are taking New Zealand forward.





BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I'll tell you what, when Phil Twyford stands up—he's the architect of the single biggest public policy failure in New Zealand in decades: KiwiBuild—and accuses anyone of delivering a ghost thing, that is the richest irony imaginable. But he can actually double down, and he did—he did—because he then told us that delivery, under him as transport Minister and under this Government, is announcing something. Apparently, it's something like $10 billion over an amount of years if they're able to hang around and still be Government. "We'll do something. Done." I'll tell you what, what he's really done is he's stolen—which is really bad—the brand slogan from UNISYS, and it perfectly captures his Government: "Imagine it. Done." "Imagine it. Done."—that is this Government in a nutshell. We're going to announce something—"Imagine it. Done. Imagine it. Done."
I took the time to read through the Prime Minister's statement, and I just want to make it clear I'm not angry; I'm just very disappointed—very disappointed that in two years, last year apparently being the year of delivery, we tried to imagine it done, but it wasn't. So last year, in these two years, we've seen the economic growth recede from around 4 percent under National to about 2 percent under this Government. Job growth has reduced by around 70 percent from the highs under National of 10,000 net new jobs a month. The cost of living is up, driven in part by $60 a week average rent increases and, of course, the fuel excise taxes they've put on. People in New Zealand are going backwards under this Government, and it's a terrible, terrible thing. They can't deliver their greatest public policy platform, KiwiBuild—an abject failure, about 300 houses.
But I thought to myself, "Well, how about in safety? Because the Prime Minister definitely mentioned that, and public safety." Well, there was supposedly a promise of 1,800 more police officers, and they were going to do this in their first term. We know that it was 1,800 additional police officers on the front line to when they took office, because both the Minister of Police and the Police Commissioner told parliamentary select committees that that was the measure. Aha! Unfortunately, they discovered in the latter part of last year that they had no chance of getting there, and the Minister of Police quickly made up this idea that there had always been two targets. Well, no one buys that. The Police Commissioner doesn't buy that. The Police Association doesn't buy that. The public of New Zealand don't buy that.
So what have they actually delivered? Well, according to the Police Association, in January they had delivered 974 additional front-line police officers. Well, we at least congratulate them for being a little bit over halfway, but there's no way they're getting to 1,800. Well, that's a number. What's a number that we could contrast 974 additional front-line police officers against? Well, this is something this Government has delivered over the last two-and-a-bit years: almost 1,600 more gang members.
Hon Scott Simpson: How many?
BRETT HUDSON: That's right—almost 1,600 more gang members. Now, that's growth in gang members that is over 60 percent faster than the growth in front-line police officers to deal with them. That is delivery. I'm not sure it's the delivery that New Zealanders are looking for, but it is consistent with all of the other delivery failures that this Government is responsible for.
What do we see these gang members, these more than 6,000—close to 7,000 now—gang members, doing around our communities? Well, we've had Te Mata Peak taken over by the Mongrel Mob so that locals and tourists are unable to use it. They took that over for a patching ceremony. They scared people away from a local cemetery in Hastings. They have since gone on something of a recent—well, I think the public might call it a rampage. Ruatōria, the Napier medical centre, Taradale, Tauranga, Manawatū—what do those places have in common? Gang violence involving firearms, all in the first two months of this year. They are out of control. The Government can't deliver the police to deal with them, and the public are being caught in the crossfire. It is only a matter of time. It is only—
Hon Andrew Little: And the member wants to water down the penalties for people who abuse gun ownership.
BRETT HUDSON: —a matter of time. So there's a point from Mr Little, who doesn't understand the bill he's talking about, because the bill he's talking about does nothing about gang possession of firearms. Here's the fact, Mr Little—
Hon Andrew Little: Why does he oppose penalties for unlawful gun owners? Why is he opposing this? Why is he opposing it?
BRETT HUDSON: —in the evidence from Australia in the select committee inquiry on 2016 and 2017—shouting won't help you, Mr Little—in the evidence on that inquiry, the evidence out of Australia was that almost 90 percent of firearms offences are committed by people who aren't licensed. So putting licensing conditions on gang members or anyone else is going to do nothing to solve this problem. This is a Government of talk and no real action, and that's the best way to describe that bill. Thank you, Mr Little, for raising it. It places all sorts of costs, regulation, and rules on people who follow the law, and it does nothing—nothing—about the people who are threats to public safety.
We were ready to go at the election with firearms prohibition orders which would keep guns out of criminal gang members' hands, institute a new set of offences with real tough penalties. I tell you, it was drawn from the ballot when Chris Bishop was our police spokesperson; that lot over there voted it down. Twice we sought leave to bring it up and prioritise it in this House, and they denied it. Now it has been drawn again in my name, and on the next members' day they should get a chance to have a go again. Unlike their bill, it actually does something about criminal gang use of firearms. Well, here's a spoiler alert, New Zealand—here's a spoiler alert—I've got five quid that there's no way they'll vote for it. Why—why? Because in their world, they prioritise more cost and regulation on people who follow the law. They've been gazing at their navels on firearms prohibition orders for more than two years. More than two years, they've done nothing, and I tell you what: they quite likely will do nothing. Know why? Because I think they think the rights of gang members are more important than keeping the public safe. It is a travesty, but something we can all be used to.
So they're not combating the gang members; they're going crazy with firearms. By the way, those firearms include semi-automatic firearms. The buy-back was a failure. We knew the numbers were well lower than they should've been because they ignored advice and instead went with an option that they were warned would have lower compliance. So they didn't get them all, and, in fact, there could be as many as 180,000 of these things still out there in the wild, so to speak. But we know some of them are in the hands of gang members because they've been using them recently, and it's only a matter of time before a member or members of the public are truly caught up in that.
At the same time, they're not dealing—in fact, part of the reason because they can't deal with the gangs. We've seen victimisations increase markedly—markedly—under this Government. In the data reported by the police for the end of November 2019, victimisations were almost 280,000—almost 280,000—in one year, a rise, an increase, of over 18,000, in fact over 18,400 additional victimisations in that 12-year period, because this lot are soft on crime. They're certainly soft on gangs.
An increase of more than 13,000 victimisations to do with property theft—in Ōhāriu, a place that is truly dear to my heart, we've got problems all of a sudden now, just in the last three months. Car conversions in Newlands—I tell you, if you own a Mazda Demio in Newlands, keep it under lock and key, because they're going like wildfire, and not the way you want them to. A spate of break-ins and attempted burglaries around Khandallah. I see on community noticeboards in Churton Park that they're worried because of people they've seen around. In Tawa, they stole a complete container load of building equipment and then, in broad daylight, tried to cut through the roller door at the local ITM hardware store to try to nick what they had upstairs.
This is what happens under a Government that has this goal to get people out of prison with no plan to reduce crime, and going soft on actually taking care of people that break the law. When they do that, they put people's safety at risk. There's actual physical safety with this gang tension and firearms crime going around, but when someone is burgled or has an attempted burglary, particularly when they are at home, it absolutely undermines the feeling of their personal and family safety in their own home and in their communities. It is fundamentally the responsibility of any Government to ensure that its citizens are and feel safe in their homes and in their communities, and this lot won't do it because—
Hon Andrew Little: Why didn't you do something about the deportees—why didn't you do something about the deportees?
BRETT HUDSON: He in particular is more worried about the rights of criminals than the rights of New Zealanders. They are a disgrace.





Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it is actually with a great deal of pleasure that I rise to speak in reply to the Prime Minister's statement. It has been a very good couple of years, and particularly the last year has been very good for the New Zealand Defence Force. And, might I add, it has been very, very good for the nation as a whole—in particular for our communities and for our nation because of the huge level of support that the Defence Force has been able to lend to communities at various times, when they have been under stress and when they have been suffering the effects of nature.
It has been pleasing that we are finally able to respond in the way in which we have in support of other Government agencies, whether it's been the Department of Conservation and the sterling work they are doing down in the Antipodes and up at the Kermadecs; whether it's been in support of the Antarctic operations; whether it's been in support of the West Coasters, who have suffered pretty badly as a result of flooding; whether it's been in support of those people—local government agencies, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry for the Environment—who were struggling with the clean-up as a result of the flooding that washed out the rubbish dump out on to the West Coast, around Franz Josef.
It's been a very good year for the country, as the Defence Force was able to lean in and support police and, in fact, run a recovery operation at White Island to recover the bodies of the deceased who were caught in that volcanic eruption. It's been a very good year for our Pacific Island partners, whom we have deployed in support of. It's been a very good year for the Solomons, who have conducted an election and have been able to be supported by our Defence Force. It's been a very good year for a Government who's been able to draw on the support of our women and our men in uniform, of our Defence Force, to any number—and I think there are 57 named operations in one year, and that is without mentioning the ongoing work at Taji in the "defeat ISIS" campaign globally, the work in South Sudan, supporting the United Nations in Korea and the Multinational Force & Observers in the Sinai, in support of the United Nations in Golan and the on-site operations, and I could name many, many more.
But the reason that the Defence Force has been able to do these things is because of the unprecedented amount of support that's come from the coalition Government. I'm going to acknowledge the Green Party here who are—and I remember very clearly in the campaign in the Wairarapa when there were people saying things like, "Well, you don't want to vote for New Zealand First because if you do that, you're going to get a three-headed monster and the Defence Force will never get any money." It might have been Alastair Scott but I won't say it was; Alastair Scott's right across the aisle from me having a chuckle right now. People were saying if New Zealand First gets into Government and if they form a coalition with Labour and if that involves the Green Party, that's it—the New Zealand Defence Force won't get a brass razoo.
Well, my oh my oh my. Look at what has happened with the last two Budgets. We have seen, from this coalition Government and support from our confidence and supply partners, the greatest injection into the Defence Force in capital expenditure that people can remember or think of since possibly the 1960s when we deployed—we won't get into that debate: whether it was right or wrong—into Vietnam, the greatest injection of capital funding. We have made decisions that are intergenerational—they are generational decisions, decisions that should have, one would have thought, been made by a conservative Government made up of the National Party and the ACT Party at some point in time over the last nine years or the previous nine years. Decisions weren't—all but one, and I'll give the credit to the Hon Gerry Brownlee because he is the one National Party MP who held the position of Minister of Defence who actually did get some things done. And we will take receipt of HMNZS Aotearoa—which was his work, getting it through Cabinet—this year, and I will make sure that Mr Gerry Brownlee is there to see that ship when she arrives in Devonport. But other than that, it was a big fat nothing.
This is the Government who has delivered the replacement for the P-3s—aircraft that go back to the 1960s. This is the Government that is on track to deliver the replacement. In fact, we've already announced we're going to the C-130 Super Hercs, the replacements for our 1960s era—and they should be retired straight into the Museum of Transport and Technology, these aircraft, they're that old. They're the oldest H-model Hercules flying in the world and some parts are literally being held together with duct tape. But this is the Government that is making the decision to replace these aircraft. Nobody else. These aircraft should have been replaced 15 years ago. This Government has made that decision.
This is the Government that in 11 months flat delivered a hydro dive, hydro capability that wasn't on track to be delivered for another six years. This Government is committed to supporting the women and the men of our defence forces that they may be properly trained, properly staffed, properly equipped, that when they deploy internationally to undertake the missions that the Government gives them, they are able to do them successfully with distinction and come home to their families safely.
This is the Government and this will be—I have only two priorities this year in terms of capability. One is to get the Hercules done and dusted. We'll do that. The second is to get protected mobility for the army—and we know what we need there. I tried desperately as an Opposition MP to stop the procurement of the light armoured vehicles. Now I have the unfortunate task of selling them because they are not fit for the purposes that we require of them in the modern battlefield context. They're not, and it's a sadness that we lost our air combat capability as a result of that rather stupid decision, but it wasn't my decision.
This is the Government that has delivered Network Enabled Army tranche 2. This is the Government that has delivered the NH90 simulator. This is the Government that signed up and delivered new King Airs and returned pilot training from Australia back to Ōhākea. This is the Government that's already committed about $3 billion of defence investment. And this is the Government that has invested in the P-8s, which will result in infrastructure in Ōhākea, delivering a build in infrastructure that will build or provide about a $400 million economic boost to the Manawatū region as families from Whenuapai move down and occupy houses as the infrastructure to accommodate the P-8s is built, and that's under way right now.
This is the Government that takes seriously a commitment to our youth in developing them and getting the very best out of our young people that we can. This is the Government that has reopened two Limited Service Volunteers facilities: one in Whenuapai and one in Trentham. This is the Government that has doubled the intake of Limited Service Volunteers and is producing outstanding results as we help these people reorientate themselves and prepare themselves for the work environment. It is this Government that is engaging with employers and getting them engaged with the Limited Service Volunteers scheme. And I'm being well assisted—and I thank her very much—by the Hon Carmel Sepuloni through the Ministry of Social Development in that space right now.
It is this Government that is committed to a first principles review of the Defence Force real estate footprint. And we are looking out to 2030; we are actually looking out to 2070 as to what this nation needs. 
I think the one thing that we can say right now is that we have made some historical decisions in the Defence Force, and the Defence Force is the better for it. And I haven't even started on our veterans, and I have 24 seconds to go. The only thing I will say is that we are not finished. We have till September and there is more coming down the line. This is a Government of action, not talk.





Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in response to the Prime Minister's statement, and I want to talk to many topics that I will hold her and her Government accountable for in this response. She talked to health. She talked to having confidence in the Government. She talked to having trust. I will challenge all these points across three domains. The first will be health: infectious disease and vaccines; the second will be the reform of vocational education; and the third will be the Tuia 250 data breach. 
New Zealanders cannot have confidence or trust in this Government or the management of infectious diseases or of vaccines. This time last year in Northland, there was a meningitis outbreak. On behalf of Northland parents and children, I am holding Pharmac to account for playing God and not telling anyone there were enough vaccines. I need to indicate to David Clark and the Director-General of Health that I held them to account at the time. I said, "Why did you not tell anyone that there were enough vaccines?" We now know the truth—we now know the truth. I wonder why at the time they didn't say, "We didn't know." I wonder why they backed Pharmac. I wonder why it's taken so long to get to the truth. But at that point in time, I held them accountable. We now know that is not correct. 
It is now an unequivocal fact that Pharmac knew about 30,000 extra meningococcal vaccines—enough vaccines for everyone—and they told no one. We know that from the written parliamentary question this is what it looks like when Pharmac coughs up that, "Yes, we knew about the vaccines and we told no one." Why did Pharmac not convey the useful information around the 30,000 extra meningitis vaccines to the Ministry of Health before the Northland vaccination campaign was signed off on 22 November 2018? Pharmac's reply is, "Pharmac is a Crown agency and makes independent funding decisions." That is their reply. They told no one. They didn't tell the Ministry of Health about the extra vaccines. They didn't tell the Minister about the extra vaccines. 
Pharmac actually met three times before the Northland campaign was signed off with the Ministry of Health people who were organising the meningococcal campaign in Northland. Three times, Pharmac officials sat in the room with the hard-working ministry people who were trying to figure out the best response for Northland, and they said nothing. They had the knowledge within them that there were enough vaccines for everyone. They said nothing. The first meeting, the second meeting, and the third meeting, Pharmac said nothing. 
It's not my view; it's all in writing. Look through the parliamentary questions on three dates: Pharmac people who had knowledge of the extra vaccines sat in the same room with the Ministry of Health and said nothing. They let them try and figure their way through a campaign where they understood there were not enough vaccines, but Pharmac knew there were. Pharmac's reply to this, when they say in the written question, "We're a Crown agency and we make independent funding decisions.", is code for Pharmac is omnipotent. Pharmac is above everyone. Pharmac doesn't have to tell Ministers or director-generals. Pharmac played God, and that is not their role. The Minister herself put in writing that knowledge of those extra 30,000 vaccines was important and it was useful. Pharmac must be held accountable for this. We cannot let them keep important information secret from the ministry, secret from the Minister, from people who are forming a response to a really urgent infectious disease outbreak. An apology to Northland parents and some evidence of change would be a start.
There is another sadness. There was no money for meningococcal vaccines for Northland children, but Winston Peters gave Papua New Guinea millions of dollars for vaccinations and, even worse, a meningitis vaccination campaign to Fiji. While Northland children were missing out on meningitis vaccines, Winston Peters gave millions of dollars to the Pacific. Northland parents will not forget that. Northland parents will not forget that—in their moment of need, with an infectious disease outbreak—Winston Peters gave money to the Pacific. And I do not decry their need, don't think that for a moment.
Hon Scott Simpson: It's about priorities.
Dr SHANE RETI: But it wasn't much—it's a priority—for Northland children to have the vaccines that they needed. When he looked out his window, and he looked into his immediate neighbourhood, why did he not see the five- to 12-year-olds who needed the vaccines? That is a sadness.
I want to talk to the measles outbreak at the end of the year. Thousands of cases of measles, and we ran out of vaccines. Minister Genter was wrong when she says it was a matter of distribution; it was a matter of supply. Every DHB who is replying to an annual review are giving the dates when they ran out of measles vaccine. There was a shortage of measles vaccines. Now, early in the piece, we came up with solutions. We recommended that pharmacists be authorised to vaccinate for measles. They already vaccinate for H flu; they are well capable, they are enthusiastic. A third of all pharmacists are already giving the flu vaccine. So, very early in the outbreak, as a party, we put forward this suggestion. In our hands, I would submit, we could make this change in about five days. It is simple. It is a small administrative change, that's all it is. 
The ministry, no, they delayed—and delayed and delayed. It was months later before they found themselves coming to the House proudly saying, "Yes, we are now authorising pharmacists to give the measles vaccine." What has been the consequence of that delay? How many vaccines have pharmacists given for measles during the recently finished—or soon to be finished—measles outbreak? What was the consequence of that delay? What number would you guess that pharmacists have given of measles vaccine when they were authorised? I'll tell you that number, because I got it about two hours ago: 20. Twenty people had the benefit of pharmacists vaccinating for measles when we had thousands of people lining up for the measles vaccine, when we were needing thousands of vaccines. We needed these people to be vaccinating, authorised vaccinating, months before the ministry finally got around to it, and the sum total of people vaccinated for measles by pharmacists, as of two hours ago, is 20. It's appalling. That's a shocking delay. Way too late, way too little. 
I want to talk now to the Tuia 250 data breach: a data breach where the independent review was conveniently released late and close to the House rising last year, so we could not scrutinise it. And in this part, I want to speak directly to the Prime Minister, who, in her role as the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, has responsibility for the Tuia 250 data breach. It is a matter of fact that as a consequence of that data breach, she has data breached more young people than any other Minister in this Government has. Parliamentary Library have confirmed she has data breached more young people than any other Minister in this Government. She says she cares for young people, but she doesn't care for their data. 
This is not the first data breach Jacinda Ardern has had. In fact, there were two before Tuia 250. One of them was an email attachment that was sent to the wrong place. It was a sensitive email. It actually contained the list of titles of upcoming papers for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, sport and recreation—it might have even been yours, Minister Faafoi—and the broadcasting portfolios. So you make a mistake. You send an email to the wrong place. It's got sensitive data. What would you do? You fix up what you've done at your end, but shouldn't we reach out and say, "Look, I'm really sorry, Minister Faafoi. I actually data breached some of your data. I think I've fixed it at my end. Can you tidy up at your end?" Wouldn't you reach out to sport and recreation, which I believe is Grant Robertson, and say, "Hey, Grant, just letting you know—made a small mistake at our end. We'll fix our end, but can you make sure that your end is tight?"? That's what a responsible person would do. 
Did Jacinda Ardern do that? No, she did not. In written parliamentary question 39995, I asked her: did she communicate with the Ministers for broadcasting and sports and recreation that she had data breached their data? I'm advised the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media was not notified by the ministry. I'm sorry to be telling you this for the first time, so maybe there is some stuff at your end that you do need to tidy up. I would have thought a responsible person would have done that. The Prime Minister was not responsible. Jacinda Ardern breached data from other ministries. 
The independent review of Tuia 250, when it was released, had a key finding: a significant conflict of interest. So there was a member in her ministry who had a personal relationship with the website developer of Tuia 250, the website that eventually failed, and the legal team—this is what the Official Information Act tells us—eventually identified it with him or her and said, "You can't do that. You've got a conflict of interest." What did that person do? Did they stop? No, they did not. They continued to provide information just to the successful tenderer. Wow, what an outrageous conflict of interest. Despite being warned by legal, "You have a conflict; you need to stop.", of the three tenders for this project, he or she continued to provide information just to that successful tenderer. That's a conflict of interest. We can have no trust that this Government or Jacinda Ardern can look after our data.





Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): 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.





RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES AMENDMENT BILL
First Reading
Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): I move, That the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 22 June 2020. 
The Residential Tenancies Act 1986 came into force over 30 years ago to govern a rental market very different to that of what we see today. Since 1986, homeownership rates have declined and 609,700 New Zealand households now live in a rented property, which by last year was an estimated 32 percent of our population. More people, including families and older people, are renting for longer or even for life. The 1986 Residential Tenancies Act has not reflected this reality, and there are still issues with the stability and insecurity of rentals, which can have negative impacts on health, education, and employment. Through this bill, the Government is delivering on its promise to over 1 million New Zealanders who rent that we are making the rental market fairer and more secure. It sits alongside this Government's other improvements to renting, including the banning of letting fees and the healthy homes guarantee. 
Comprehensive public consultation from August to October 2018 helped shape this bill. There have been frank, robust, and at times difficult conversations with those representing property investors and landlords' advocacy groups, but what we are talking about in these reforms is not just much-needed protections and security of tenure for tenants but also clearer processes and certainty for landlords. 
The views and perspectives of over 4,700 submissions from landlords, tenants, interest groups, and public or community housing providers have gone into shaping this legislation being introduced today. I would like to thank all of those who have contributed over that time and engaged in this important process. 
This bill recognises the balance between protecting a landlord's interest in their property and ensuring tenants receive fair rights for the rent that they are paying. This Government believes that every New Zealander, including renters, should have a safe, warm, and dry home to call their own. This Government appreciates the contribution that landlords make in providing these homes. These changes are designed to have the least possible impact on landlords. 
This bill will improve tenants' security by removing no-cause terminations to end a periodic tenancy agreement, but still recognises landlords' rights. For instance, under these reforms, landlords will still be able to terminate tenancies for a range of fair and justified reasons, such as antisocial behaviour, or someone who is at least three weeks behind in their rent. If they want to change the use of the premises or to redevelop it, that will also be a reason. If they want to prepare it for sale, or move themselves or a family member in, all of these reasons give a landlord justification to terminate a tenancy, but it is simply not appropriate in 2020 for a person to be required to leave their home without knowing why. 
The bill mandates that fixed-term tenancy agreements must become periodic tenancy agreements upon expiry, unless both parties agree otherwise, or the justified reasons set out in the bill apply. This will flatten the inflated demand that has been created in some regions by tenancies all ending at the same time. 
The bill makes rental properties safer and more livable by setting out clear processes for tenants to make minor changes to their rental accommodation. These changes could be as simple as brackets to secure furniture and appliances against earthquake risk, baby-proofing the property, hanging pictures, or installing visual fire alarms and doorbells for hearing-impaired tenants. Landlords will be able to set reasonable conditions when agreeing to these minor changes. 
The bill also includes additional proposals to improve the process for the installation of fibre in rental properties. Where a tenancy or property does not already have ultra-fast broadband, and a tenant requests it, landlords will be required to permit and facilitate the installation of ultra-fast broadband unless any of a range of exemptions apply—for instance, where fibre could compromise the structural integrity or weathertightness of the building, the landlord could decline the request. The costs of installation would be the tenants' responsibility, and not the landlord's. This amendment will help tenants obtain installation of fibre in reasonable circumstances, and will further the Government's roll-out of ultra-fast broadband. 
The bill prohibits the solicitation of rental bids by landlords, and this includes the requirement that landlords must specify a rent amount when advertising a rental property. The bill also limits rent increases to once every 12 months, instead of the current provisions of six months in the Residential Tenancies Act as it stands. 
In 2016, the tenancy compliance and investigations unit was established to enforce rental rules. This bill provides the regulator, which is the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in this case, with a suite of new tools to take direct action against parties who are not meeting their obligations. The bill also increases the existing financial penalties in the Residential Tenancies Act, and this package of amendments will improve compliance with the law. 
I'm also aware of situations where tenants have a justifiable cause to go to the Tenancy Tribunal, but are unwilling to do so because they may be blacklisted by future landlords. For the tenancy system to work, people should feel confident that the Tenancy Tribunal can be used without being targeted. The bill clarifies the situations where identifying details and other sensitive information can be anonymised. This includes automatic anonymity for a party that has been wholly or substantially successful in taking a case to the tribunal. 
We are mindful that these changes need to modernise the law and correct problems in a way which is proportionate and places reasonable requirements on landlords and tenants, and which will endure changing market characteristics. But these changes are needed because the reality of renting has changed over the past 30-plus years. We're talking change where, as I said at the start of the speech, the reality now is that around 32 percent of Kiwi households live in rental accommodation, whereas in 1986, it was 25 percent. We're talking about change where now around 43 percent of Kiwi children live in rental accommodation. Back in 1986, it was about 26 percent. 
I know there are opposing views on this proposed legislation, and I welcome those being discussed at the select committee process. But the changing nature of renting in New Zealand means our rental laws need to change as well. They complete the package of improvements of rental markets that were planned for this Government's first term, and which include the introduction of the healthy homes guarantee, to ensure that all rental accommodation is warm and dry. 
I look forward to a time when, thanks to our reforms in this bill, renters in New Zealand can make a rental house truly a place to call their home. To finish up, I would like to thank both the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party for their discussions to the point to get to this first reading—notably Marama Davidson and the Hon Ron Mark. I commend this bill to the House. 





DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It's a pleasure to lead off the Opposition position in this debate on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill at its first reading, and I certainly want to preface that it's a pleasure to do this because this bill directly affects me as a renter. I am one of the only renters in this Parliament, so it gives me a special privilege to be able to give a perspective on how this legislation is going to impact renters as well as landlords. 
Now, this is yet another shot in the guts for landlords. At a time when we all know there are affordable housing challenges in New Zealand, this bill is going to pile on the costs for landlords and reduce the amount of available rental property available. We can already see that the KiwiBuild has been an absolute failure for this Government. We've already seen that the Government, through Kāinga Ora, or Housing New Zealand, has started to buy up private developments; therefore, crowding out first-home buyers. 
This Government is now so bereft of ideas that their solution to this is simple: "Let's pile on the costs for landlords, and keep renters in their homes." Well, the National Party disagrees with this approach, and we disagree on the simple basis of facts. Rents are up in Auckland by $50 since this Government came into office. Housing prices are still going through the roof. The social housing register—
Lawrence Yule: 14,000. 
DAN BIDOIS: —has increased by 14,000, my colleague Lawrence Yule has just made me aware. So these proposed changes are going to do nothing for the housing affordability challenges. 
Let me run through these challenges for the people at home. So part of the proposed changes in the residential tenancies is going to be increased regulations around tenancies. It gives tenants the right to add fittings and change the household. It gives renters the ability to have a pet and, as a renter, I'd certainly like that, but I think that this is a step too far. 
It also beefs up the regulators to, in fact, intervene and fine and punish landlords who are not complying with the legislation. It also increases the penalties for landlords that breach the standards that are outlined in this law. It also restricts rental increases to a fixed amount, and also proposes changes to the Tenancy Tribunal as well. 
So all of those changes—when you add it up, what is this going to mean for your average mom and pop landlord? What it's going to do is it's going to pile on the costs. It's going to make it actually less worthwhile to lease or rent your house out, so it's going to reduce the supply of rental properties on this market. It's, in fact, not a carrot but much more a stick approach to landlords. It's going to raise the costs for renters like myself and the many thousands of Aucklanders who rent throughout this great nation, in not just Auckland but throughout New Zealand. It's going to raise the costs even more on those that rent. 
Don't take my word for it; take the Real Estate Institute's perspective on this, who also says that this is going to pile on the costs, and for many landlords it's going to be too much. So what you're going to see, in fact, is landlords just say "Look, I'm going to give up. I'm not going to rent my house out.", and that is the exact opposite of what we want in this country. 
So National's position is, of course, that we strongly oppose this legislation. It is going to add on extra costs for landlords. It's going to reduce the supply of rental properties throughout New Zealand. These changes do nothing for the long-term challenges of housing affordability in this country. 
You just cannot trust this Government when it comes to delivering on affordable housing. Two years ago, this Government said that they would build 10,000 homes a year. Well, how many homes have they built—200, 300? You cannot trust this Government on housing. 
Second—and I do want to raise this important point, and it's in relation to the process of which this bill is being put through Parliament. Now, the Minister in charge, Kris Faafoi, has just outlined a shortened select committee process, from six months to, I believe, four months and two days. We know that this is in a rush to get this bill into legislation before the next election. Maybe it is because they are, in fact, not confident that they are going to win the next election. Maybe it is because they want to demonstrate that they have done something in relation to housing affordability after sitting on their hands for the last 2½ years and doing nothing. 
Since I have been in this Parliament, I have witnessed attempts to curtail democracy for political gains. It is very important for the public of New Zealand that we have the rigorous process surrounding the way in which our legislation is scrutinised. So I would ask that, in fact, the Minister reconsiders the shortened select committee process—
Dr Duncan Webb: Speak slower! 
DAN BIDOIS: —and take it back to six months. Let's analyse this, Duncan Webb. Let's analyse this in a select committee fashion. Let's get everybody who is affected by this bill, renters and landlords alike, to see what they have to say on this bill. 
So it is a pleasure to lead this debate, opposing these radical changes that are not necessary for New Zealanders that are going to pile on the extra costs for landlords. National will oppose this bill. 





WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to give a contribution in the first reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. It's an absolute pleasure to stand this afternoon to talk about this bill, because the rental market has changed significantly, as we heard in the Minister Kris Faafoi's opening comments. 
I know that the number of people renting in Northland has continued to increase. I was perplexed when a lady stopped me outside of the Kaikohe Warehouse and she said, "Willow, I have had over 50 people apply to live in my one rental property in Kaikohe. How do I say no to all of these people? How do I even choose which needing and deserving family to give this one home to?" So I know that more people in Northland are renters and not homeowners, and that is a real challenge for us. 
As a Government, we believe that everybody should have the access to a safe, warm, dry, and secure home. So this Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill is important for those families whose realities, whose situation, is that they are going to be or have been and potentially could be renters for life. So I'm really pleased by the series of changes that this Government is making to make our rental accommodation safer, warmer, drier, and healthier, because that is lifesaving legislation that we've introduced. 
What this bill is proposing to do is to give people more security in their tenancy where their families are in the position of being renters, so I'm really pleased to see that you can't terminate without good reason. I think this is important, especially when there is so much demand on rental properties now days; there's such a power imbalance between landlords—
Angie Warren-Clark: Bidding war. 
WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —and renters. There's a bidding war. In fact, we're prohibiting the ability to auction off what price of rent it is that people are going to pay. So I think that these are really important safeguards that are being introduced in this legislation. 
I think about the over 43 percent of our children in Aotearoa who are living in these homes. It's really pleasing to see that families are going to be able to make minor changes to make their houses safer and more secure. In fact, one of the references that was made was to even being able to baby-proof a house. There are just some really practical suggestions to enable those who are in the renting situation to make this a home for them and their families in consultation and conversation with their landlords, so I think it's a very humanising aspect and whānau-friendly aspect of the legislation. 
I don't want to take the full amount of time as there are others who are going to be speaking after me, but the thing that I wanted to conclude on—and I found this quite interesting—is keeping up with the advances in technology in the modern world and actually being able to install ultra-fast broadband into a lot of these properties. You know, when I looked at that, I hadn't realised that this has potentially been a problem. When I think about it in Northland, we're still receiving the roll-out of that up there. It's just a really practical thing that we can put in here that is going to give those families and those communities access to the best technology. So I think it's a very forward-thinking piece of legislation, as well. With that, I commend the bill to the House. 





LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): There could be nothing more stark in the difference between the two main political parties than in this bill. I stand to speak to it on the basis that this is everything about regulating, taxing, piling on the costs, redistributing things—it's all about that—and it's got nothing to do with what actually works. We strongly oppose this bill. 
I want to give this House some examples that I've seen in my own electorate already. So as you push the costs up, landlord after landlord is exiting—is exiting—and selling their house. Sure, they're going to first-home buyers, but the net pool of rental accommodation in my electorate is, fundamentally, declining. 
Yes, this Government is very proud of their meagre attempts in the housing market. They told us today in question time that no Government has built more State houses than they are. Great—that's a laudable goal—but when the market on the other side is simply declining and the private sector market provision is declining because of costs, because of compliance, and because of regulation, the net result is that we're going backwards. 
I listened to the last speaker, Willow-Jean Prime, talk about "It's going to be much harder to terminate tenancies." Anybody can go and talk to a landlord. That is such a turn-off for them—that is another example of why they can't be bothered. If they have difficult tenants or they have a change in circumstance, all we're doing is making it harder for them to stay as landlords in the rental market. 
I give you examples in my own patch already. It was denied by the Minister of Housing in the House today, but I believe that her response was fundamentally wrong. In my electorate, Housing New Zealand is buying houses because they can't build them quick enough. They're buying them, often at above-the-odds market rates, and putting tenants in them who, in many cases, are then trashing the houses, destroying the neighbourhood, and, in many cases, have fundamental gang associations that mean that the whole neighbourhood has been transformed. Now, in that case, that is a rental market that is—
Angie Warren-Clark: Scaremongering. 
LAWRENCE YULE: It's not scaremongering. It's absolutely going on and true, and I have evidence of it. The net result is that because of that, even more people don't want to be landlords. They don't want to be landlords, they don't want to be caught up in it, and they don't want any part of it. So, on one hand, the Government has a laudable goal of trying to lift standards, of trying to improve quality, and of making things child-friendly. You can do that with your own houses, but the private sector will do what it wishes, based on where the market return is, where the money is, and where the risk profile is. 
The net result of this bill—which is why this side of the House is so opposed—is that you are going to, fundamentally, move private landlords out of the sector. They got scared enough when the capital gains tax was being considered. They've hung in there, but this is just another kick. I have talked to many real estate agents—many—in this space who say, "All that will do is you'll shift landlords from out of the market." 
In my own patch, we have never had so many people living in temporary accommodation. Over 450 are living in motels, some of them for over a year. In my own patch, the rental crisis has never been worse. The net result of that is that people are living in substandard conditions. What we need is a market that is prepared to provide long-term rental accommodation, and by regulations that are so rigid, so tight, and so difficult, the net result of it is that a large number of these landlords are going to leave. 
I do want to come to the shortened time for this bill to be considered: four months and two days. I understand that's a way of getting around the rules, but this is a big deal. This is a big deal where lots of people will want to have a say. Just because it's election year, I fail to see why we're going to constrain things to this degree, when the net result is, in my view, we'll look back in 10 or 15 years' time and say, "That was a complete market failure. The market has deserted us." 
There's more and more demand for rental accommodation and there are fewer and fewer houses because of this very bill. That's why this side of the House strongly opposes it. 





Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's really interesting listening to the debates, and I guess that as this legislation makes its way through select committee, I fully anticipate that there'll be strong representation from those on both sides of the floor in this debate. 
There will be the property investors. I do have, and New Zealand First always has had, some sympathy for the plight of senior citizens who have taken it upon themselves to buy one home, as the renter is going to be their superannuation fund and is going to be the provider for them in their later years. Some of them are doing that because they've seen the interest rates on their deposits in banks, where they have had that decline markedly over the last 10 years in particular. They see the real estate market as being a more attractive investment proposition to provide for them in their retirement, and are, quite obviously, taking the advantage of a capital gain. 
The previous speaker, Lawrence Yule, is quite correct. From everything that I've heard, there is a little bit of mild panic at the thought and suggestion that a capital gains tax might be implemented amongst those people, and those elderly investors in particular. There is a somewhat different view of those who have rental property portfolios more on a corporate level, because they tend to bring with them a corporate approach to the management of those tenancies. 
What we do know is that the market has changed markedly since the Residential Tenancies Act was first implemented back in 1986, or something around that time. The Residential Tenancies Act created back in 1986 was one thing. We are now at 2020, and the market has shifted. There have been a number of things that have contributed to the changes we've seen and the effects of them. One of them has been, quite clearly, the exiting of the market by Government. 
There used to be a time in this country when the Government was the predominant renter, when the Government provided State housing for New Zealanders at a time when the majority of New Zealanders owned their homes. That has changed quite substantively now, and given the market forces—and I do remember the speeches from people, the neo-liberals, who believed that the market would determine the future and that it would all balance out and it would all come right and that Government needed to get out of owning houses and that the Government should not be in the business of owning and renting properties, and what have we seen? Well, we've seen homelessness increase. 
We've seen people living in cars, and these are not people who are unemployed. We have seen families where mum and dad have both had jobs—and, in fact, one of them has had two jobs—who are living in vans. Everything has changed, and if people can't accept what they see with their own eyes, or what they are dealing with as members of Parliament in their own electorate offices, then I can only suggest they're asleep or they don't do any work in their electorate offices, because those of us who do go to our electorate offices and who do do this work see this problem every day. 
I can say this. In the Wairarapa, and here is a classic example, we used to have hundreds and hundreds of State houses—580-odd, actually. But a Government of the day decided to sell the whole batch to a private trust enterprise who promised—who promised—that they would meet the community housing needs of the Wairarapa, and what have we seen? They promised that they would maintain a housing stock to meet the community needs. They promised. And what did they get? Well, I'll tell you what they got. This is a real hell of a deal coming from a party who prides itself as being the great stewards of the economy, the great managers of the State's assets. They sold these 540-odd houses for $19,000 each—$19,000. 
This was the deal from heaven. In the very least, the capital gain that was achieved overnight was about a 400 percent return. In fact, some would suggest that when those houses were revalued the day after the deal was done, it was something like about an 800 percent return on investment. And that trust, called Trust House in Masterton—[Interruption] Well, I'm not going to go down that path, Dr Webb, but I would say this: there were some very strong connections between people who wanted this trust to get all of the houses, and I'll leave it at that. 
So they bought all of these houses for less than $20,000 each and promised to pick up the social obligation. Now what do we have in the Wairarapa? We have a housing problem. We have a problem where, one, there are no community houses; two, there are not enough houses to meet the growing population; and, three, people are unemployed—that's why they can't get houses—and Trust House has decided that it'd rather invest its money in pubs and bars that can house pokie machines, which, ironically, take money off the same group of people who rely on community housing. But that's for Trust House to explain themselves, and I have been on the record as criticising that entity for not living up to its obligations. 
But therein lies the lesson. If the Government absolves itself of its responsibility to provide housing for the people, and if the Government of the day puts that responsibility in the hands of a private enterprise and the Government has no way of ensuring or guaranteeing that that private enterprise or that trust will actually do the work it promises to do and undertake and accept the responsibilities that it promised on the back of a sweetheart deal, then the Government is either foolish or the Government is—
Marama Davidson: Immoral. 
Hon RON MARK: —stupid—I don't know. Or immoral—I don't know. The net result is that we have a housing problem, and we have a totally different market, where tenants can be taken advantage of. We have a totally different market, where you end up with bidding wars, and it is the prospective tenant who's got the big chequebook who gets the house and other people end up homeless. 
It's interesting, and I'm watching Alastair Scott, who's not going to be standing again this time. He understands very, very clearly what's happened in the Wairarapa, and I recognise him for that because he's been supportive of some of my criticisms and I know that. But look, we're in a different situation now. We have to look at the rules. I think we will be mindful of the comments that are made and submissions that are made as to how this might impact on the total housing pool. We will be mindful of the difficulties people face getting into housing. Those are the very reasons that this legislation has come before us. 
There is a select committee process, and I will be encouraging the New Zealand First representatives and the Government representatives to listen closely. But the inescapable fact is we have a problem, and it's not going to go away by us continuing to do what we've always done since 1986. Things are drastically different, and if I believe there's a problem in Masterton and Carterton and Greytown and Martinborough and Featherston, then I guess I'd have to concede that our problems pale into insignificance with the problems that face people in Auckland and Christchurch and Wellington. 
This bill seeks to give some strength to landlords. It does seek to make some adjustments—so things that we never ever imagined back in 1986 like broadband, or the desire of people to connect up the rooms of their houses to broadband so the kids could come home and do their homework on their laptops and on their tablets. These things were never imagined back in 1986, but these are realities now, and to say that a tenant can't install broadband or can't have wireless connection to their house is a little bit silly, but, of course, there are some definitions and some criteria in this bill that specifically identify what is minor work and what is not. Of course, no one is going to be sanctioning a tenant knocking out a wall and putting in a new door or a new window, but there are some minor things like fixing your shelves to the walls so that they don't fall over in an earthquake—something Wellington's a bit prone to—that we believe are sensible and worth considering. That is why New Zealand First is supporting the first reading of this bill. 





DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in its the first reading, here in the House. It is the bill that, quite simply, piles pressure on landlords. It does not give them strength, as the previous speaker Ron Mark just outrageously claimed; it piles pressure on landlords—as simple as that. 
Like my previous colleague Lawrence Yule, I want to give some examples from a local context: Onehunga. Onehunga is a suburb in the electorate that I represent, the great Maungakiekie. First in Onehunga we had the KiwiBuild two-bedroom home that was too small for even KiwiBuild's rules. So we had Minister Phil Twyford get that wrong and they had to quickly go back and change the size of that apartment. Then in Onehunga, we had just recently a private buyer with a 10 percent deposit down on an apartment, and then Housing New Zealand, or Kāinga Ora, came in and gazumped her and undercut her and turfed her out. 
So we've had that in Onehunga, and now the Government's on to private landlords in that area. How are they doing that? Here's an example. I have had correspondence from someone as a constituent, and here's what Richard said to me: "This proposed bill"—the one that we're debating right now—"undermines my rights as a property owner and prevents me from controlling who rents my property and how long they can rent it for." And here's the golden line: "It's just about the straw that breaks the camel's back as far as myself continuing to rent out my property."—the straw that breaks the camel's back for someone who wants to continue to rent out their property. 
Now, what's the answer to this? There isn't an answer from the other side of the House. How does any of their programme engender trust in getting housing going in my area and in New Zealand? It doesn't. The programme is unbelievably flawed. This Labour-led Government cannot be trusted to deliver for the housing market for tenants or landlords—full stop. 
There are failed programmes everywhere we look: KiwiBuild, rents going up all over New Zealand, and this is nothing short of an attack on property rights for good, well-meaning landlords around the country. What we've got here is a bill that will give ability for tenants to modify their houses without permission of the owner, to have an indefinite length of tenancy, and also have pets without permission. All of these create a cauldron that makes it a lot tougher for landlords to want to stay in the market of renting out their homes. It will definitely encourage some landlords to sell up and create more pressure on the market. 
Now, you wouldn't think that we on this side of the House would need to be this simple, but we're about to be this simple. It's a message for the Government: too much, too quickly on landlords without any incentives. As Dan Bidois said earlier, more stick than carrot without any incentives leaves fewer people wanting to be landlords. That's the simple message: too much, too quickly, fewer landlords—that's what you will face, and you will face that very soon. 
I'm going to finish back at Onehunga again. Emergency housing grants are up 70 percent—70 percent—in Onehunga. We have now another addition to the perfect storm of bad policy, and what we need is much better weather. Bring on 19 September for a good, sunny day and a change of Government. 





MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Greens are proud to see the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, and I'm very pleased to stand up and support the bill in the House today and commend Minister Faafoi for bringing it to our attention. We know that homes primarily are for living in, that everyone needs a home, and that that is the sole responsibility of what good Governments should do for people. It's to provide a sense of stability and calm and security which everybody should be entitled to—stability and calm that every person deserves—and that Aotearoa can most certainly provide, whether we rent or own our own home. 
So we need to ensure that our rental laws are fit for purpose and that they recognise, first and foremost, that a home is a building block of our lives. We should be able to rely on this feeling and this sense of being able to put our roots down as we go about sending our children to our local schools, as we develop relationships and friendships in our local neighbourhood, and as we go about the ordinary living tasks of everyday life: our laughing, our cooking, our sleeping, and loving family. 
So the problems here then have been obvious for far too long with the original renters' laws that were brought in back in 1986. What the reliance on that original legislation from the 1980s has meant is that previous Governments have been allowed to continue to see housing viewed as something left to the market, instead of a core public good. This legislation starts to correct the imbalance of power between tenants and landlords that has been having a harmful impact on communities and families, actually, for far too long—for far too long. 
Some speaking in opposition in this House to this legislation are hypothesizing a harmful impact on landlords and they—
Dr Duncan Webb: Catastrophising. 
MARAMA DAVIDSON: —catastrophising; absolutely, Dr Webb—are not speaking into the decades of harmful impacts that relying on outdated legislation and market levers have caused to ordinary folk around our entire country. We don't expect the market to be able to provide for core public goods such as education and health and drinking water. In fact, even when we have tried to leave a little bit of the market to those services, that hasn't gone very well. So a market is designed by its nature for profit and not for people. We cannot expect it to be concerned with social or environmental outcomes. So this legislation is starting to correct that imbalance. 
Now, some of us in this House—not all of us—may remember cassette tapes, if I may, from the 1970s and 1980s. Not everyone will know what this is today. This is a cassette tape from the 1970s and 1980s. This is from the time when the legislation was first introduced, and it's also the last time that housing prices made any sense in this country. Many people do not know what a cassette tape is. Many people today do not know what sensible house prices are, either. 
Back then, when this legislation first came through, I think around 26 percent of children lived in rental homes. Now, 43 percent—probably inching closer to 50 percent on more recent figures—of our children, with their whānau, live in a rental home. So it's time, long past time, that we responded. I wanted to mention that Leilani Farha, the sort of UN expert on the right to housing, called this not a housing crisis, but a human rights crisis, and that's exactly what this has been for people in our neighbourhoods for far too long. 
We are changing the fact, in this bill, that you can be removed from your home for no reason. So for those who are scaremongering and catastrophising that this will restrict landlords from having suitable tenants, that is not the case. That is not the case at all in this legislation. One is still able to maintain good cause and good reason with fair notice to be able to move tenants on through their tenancy, but what we can no longer put up with is tenants not knowing whether any minute now they can be served with a no-cause reason—no reason—just if someone feels like increasing the rent, for example. 
This is what I got told when I was in Dunedin this week. If they've had a conversation with other investors and they've agreed as investors "Let's hike things up a little here Let's do it together."—this is what I'm being told when I'm talking around the country. We are removing that ability to simply say, "Oh, I feel like putting the rent up. We won't offer a reason for the tenants. We are just going to give notice and move them on." That, under this legislation, is actually unlawful now. That is now unlawful. It's not just not allowed; it is actually unlawful. So these are good things. 
These are significant steps, actually, in starting to correct the power imbalance that has caused harm—never mind hypothetical harm—that has already caused harm. So the reforms in this bill are necessary because things have changed, because more and more people are renting because less people are able to feel that they are living in a home where they have put down secure roots. 
I'm one of the few people who still rent a home, and, believe me, we are trying to change that—it's rough out there. But I come with a status, a high income, and privilege. That means my landlord is quite understanding, and we have a good relationship because we are probably ideal tenants, if we think about it. But not everyone has this privilege. Not everyone is able to feel that they're pretty safe in the home that they're renting. 
This is a fundamental change that we are seeking in this legislation, and we have to do more. So the excuse coming from the Opposition to keep the massive imbalances in place is that landlords are going to exit out of the market. Well, that's because this bill on its own isn't what we are saying is the solution to supply and affordability, so that wipes that excuse for standing up for people who rent, right out of the water. 
These are important changes: extending notice periods for asking tenants with a good reason to move on, making sure that we can put up pictures. My mokopuna is about to start walking soon, so we're making sure that we can make some safety changes and minor changes around the house for those sorts of safety reasons—you know, the things we're thinking about are like going to make our door so it's a little bit harder to just run out on to the front road. These are ordinary things that many, many landlords and tenants have already been able to establish, but we've got it here and are recognising it in some legislation now. 
This is why the Greens are really pleased to consider this legislation as part of the step. We need to go further and faster, and alongside reforming rental law, we have to keep increasing public and affordable housing and make sure that our rental homes are in good condition. I'm very proud of having worked hard on this bill over the past year and a bit, and I am looking forward to seeing it progress through the House, because when we have a sense of feeling settled in our communities, we can better engage, we can better contribute, and we can feel like we have got a hopeful future. Kia ora. 





ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I don't agree very much at all with Marama Davidson, the previous speaker, generally, but, specifically, there is one thing I do agree with her on, and I'd like to preface my next few minutes by saying that both sides of the House agree that we want safe, warm, and dry homes for our tenants. There's plenty of examples and plenty of legislation that this side of the House has done in the previous nine years to ensure that is the case. Some of that legislation is coming into force now. Interestingly, Housing New Zealand is exempt from a lot of that. It's quite ridiculous. So the largest landlord in the country is exempt from complying with the same laws that you or I might have to comply with if we are a landlord. It's ridiculous. Why isn't the largest landlord in the country complying with the same laws, same rules, as every other landlord? 
The second point I would like to make is I wanted to talk about the cost of capital. So previous speakers on this side of the House have talked about why it is difficult for landlords to stay in the market. We talk about the last straw on the camel's back. I've had landlords ring me up to say "This is it. I cannot get these tenants out. I can't even get on to the property. They will not see me. I've given 48 hours. I've got them in front of the Tenancy Tribunal."—and that is clogged. The Tenancy Tribunal in the Wairarapa is clogged full because we've got a situation where the Government is not allowing landlords to express their rights by removing bad tenants. 
Cost of capital—this is the stuff that we need to build houses. This is the stuff that landlords provide to the market to enable houses to be built and tenants to be housed. Now, if the Government wants to put another cost on to the cost of the capital of the landlords, there's only one thing for it—assuming they want to stay in and be bothered with dealing with it—and that is to put the cost up. The revenue has to go up to match the costs on the other side. 
So it's very simple. We've already seen costs go up because of the brightline test extended by that Government. We've seen costs go up because landlords have had properties ring-fenced. That increases the cost of capital. Therefore, the landlord is going to demand—they're going to demand—a higher return for that property because they've got to pay the bank the mortgage and they've got alternatives to put that capital in. 
If they're not going to get the return on capital that they deserve, that they demand, and that the market allows them to do, they will simply move that capital to a different place. They'll just put it in the bank and forget about it. They'll put it in the sharemarket. They'll invest in the NZX or the New York Stock Exchange—whatever it might be. But they will not choose to invest in the property market—they will not choose to invest in the market to enable tenants, to provide homes. 
If they do, though, they need to get their return on that capital. As this Government puts in more regulations, more layers of costs, then the price of that capital goes up. This is just another cost of capital inflicted on landlords which will see rents rise. 
One of the points I would like to make, though, and I find it quite inconsistent, is that the Government's quite happy to allow foreign capital into the Auckland light railway project—the Canadian money that's going to come along and partner with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—but they've already banned foreign investment into property. There's some inconsistency here. 
The other inconsistency is that we're allowed to tender and allow auctioning on first homes for sale—that's fine—to see the highest price enabled for the seller of a property, but the landlord is no longer able to do that. If they choose to do that, they're no longer able to do that. So what's going to happen? The landlord will work a way around it if he wishes to play in the landlord game, and, as we've heard, a lot of people are leaving. 
The issue was that these guys banned the agency fees, so a landlord can't on-charge to a tenant a fee. There's another cost that's been put on the landlord and is, therefore, reflected straight away in the rent. The landlord must get a return on capital, and putting all these layers upon layer upon layer of costs only will always be reflected in the cost to the tenant. 
The fact that rent prices might be high is to do with all those costs associated with this Government. The answer is, obviously, an increase in supply. That is the key to reducing the cost of housing and, therefore, the cost of rentals. 
These guys are barking up the wrong tree, walking down the wrong track. They really need to rethink where they're coming from and consider the capital, where it's coming from, and the return that's required and demanded, because without that, the tenants are only and always going to suffer. 
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The next call's a split call—five minutes. 





ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Taking a quick call tonight on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, I just want to congratulate Kris Faafoi for bringing this bill to the House. I think it's exceptional. Tauranga City is the fifth-least affordable city in the world—the fifth-least affordable city in the world—so this is absolutely important for our city that we have some changes. We've got over 600,000 households in this country who are renting. We've got 43 percent of our children who are in rental properties. Household ownership for Māori is decreasing faster than in any other time in history—28 percent of Māori own their own homes. 
I am absolutely delighted to commend this bill to the House because we will be making a change for those people out there who are renting. Thank you. 





BRETT HUDSON (National): Well, no one's property is safe with a Labour - New Zealand First - Greens Government. Fundamentally, that is what this Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill is—it's an attack on private property rights. We ought to ask ourselves why has this come about—why has this come about? Well, partly, because they're a bunch of socialists on that side. That much is pretty obvious. But the other reason why we have this right now is that the previous legislative change that this Government has made in this term of office has impacted rents by an average $60-a-week increase. Now, they're very upset about that because they, in their clouded, ideological minds, thought they could layer regulation on landlords and it wouldn't affect rents. They thought "Ah, no. It'll be fine. Landlords have got plenty of money. They make profit. They'll just swallow the extra cost.", but no, rents went up, and went up sharply. 
So what have they done? What is the main measure of this bill? The main measure is to stop landlords increasing the rent, because they know their legislative change drives costs up for renters, and so they're going to legislate to prevent landlords from actually recovering and getting a proper return on their capital. 
Not only are they dealing with landlords' return on capital, but they're, basically, saying the house you own as a landlord is no longer yours to decide what to do with it. By removing the right for a landlord to end a tenancy for any reason with 90 days' notice, they, in their clouded, ideological minds, think that the landlord's home is the renter's home. It is a home the renter gets to use for as long as the landlord wants to keep it on the market and they meet the terms of the tenancy agreement and the landlord wants to retain them. It is the landlord's house. 
The results of this are going to be pretty simple. We started seeing it with the previous legislative changes. More and more landlords are simply going to take their tenanted properties off the rental market. Like a lot of things this Government does, it will have a perverse outcome, where it actually reduces the supply of rental properties. 
They're so hopeless at building homes. How many is it—330 KiwiBuild homes? It was supposed to be 100,000 in 10 years. We're two-and-a-bit years into it, and they've done about 330 of them. They're not going to fix the supply issue, because they're absolutely incapable of doing it, and, at the same time, they're going to put measures in place that shrink the current supply of rental properties. 
It's a bad bill. We oppose it. 





GREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I would invite members opposite, and most of them I've spoken to have been to Europe—most of them know people who live there. When they go and speak to people in Switzerland, France, and Germany, most people over there live in their rented properties, and they have incredible rights. People come back and say, "Wow. If only we could be like that." Could I invite those members opposite and those listening to think that this is a stepping stone to get to that very desirable situation. 
Currently, 43 percent of children in New Zealand live in rental homes. I invite those members opposite to think what proportion of children lived in rental properties when they were children or when they were 20 years old. It was a heck of a lot less than that. 
We're in an evolving market, and what we have to do is we can do two things. We can sit and do what we're hearing opposite—we can defend the status quo—and remain in it and nothing changes, or we can prepare for the future that has already arrived, and this is legislation which is allowing us to do that. 
For those that said over there that we're not allowed dogs, that's another absolute lie—false news. We are allowed them. 
So can I invite the members opposite to get with the history—the future that has already arrived. Thank you, Madam Speaker. 





Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill really epitomises what this Government is all about. It's about controlling people's personal property rights. It's all about the Government knowing best. But the Government doesn't know best, because none of these people on the other side have ever actually had to make a dollar in their life, and none of them understand what it is actually about. 
Hon Ron Mark: Ha, ha! 
Hon DAVID BENNETT: Mr Mark is laughing because he knows his leader has sat in this building for 40-odd years and is now some economic guru, but the reality is they don't understand what a market operates like. If Government or any organisation goes into a market and then disrupts the ability of that market to operate, there are perverse effects, and we have seen that in the last two years under this Government. Rents have gone up because of the rules that this Government has put in place. 
Now, they may say "Oh, we've made these houses a house for life. We've taken away a tenant's potential loss of the house.", but they've increased the rent 60 bucks a week—$60 a week. They're not getting that from the Government on the other side; they're paying that money out, and that means that people have to give up their rentals because they can't afford them. Then, they go on to the State housing waiting list, which has gone up by 10,000 under this Government, reflecting 10,000 people that have been thrown out of their houses because these people have increased the rents on them. 
What is that going to do for New Zealanders? If you're a landlord, what does a landlord do in this situation? Well, the landlord's got it so that once a year, they can increase their rents, so it won't be a $20 increase in rent; it'll be a $120 increase in rent. They will put the rents up 120 bucks. If they don't get someone that can pay that, they'll wait till the next person comes along, because they know that someone will come along and pay that at some point, and that will be the problem that will happen in this country. 
Those landlords will still sit on their assets and they will still look for their capital gains, which we were told was going to stop under this Government, because they would do a capital gains tax to stop capital gains. Where did that go, Mr Mark? What happened to your party around that issue, with the great Labour leader and the vision of stopping the housing market in that regard? 
But it is worse, because I've got an example of something that's been happening in Hamilton that I think is just absolutely disgusting. What is happening in Hamilton is that Housing New Zealand is going out there and buying houses that are rentals to meet their targets of how many houses they need to have purchased in addition to the housing stock. Now, these are rental houses that have got tenants in that are law-abiding, paying tenants. 
Brett Hudson: Paying market rentals—yeah. 
Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes, and guess what happens? Housing New Zealand evicts them. Housing New Zealand sends these people out of their house—
Hon Nathan Guy: And they come to your doorstep. 
Hon DAVID BENNETT: —yes—and then they put in tenants from their waiting list. 
Brett Hudson: And are they paying market rent? 
Hon DAVID BENNETT: No, they're not. They're paying $80 a week or $100 a week, instead of $400 a week. So what is actually happening now—
Brett Hudson: Economic geniuses! 
Hon DAVID BENNETT: —is we've had to have the geniuses on the other side go into the market and buy up rentals to cover up the mistakes they're making around the market. 
So this is another perverse entry into the market by the Labour Party, which understands how a market works. They're very quiet. Now, the reason they're quiet is because they know it's the truth—they do not want to go out there and deliver anything. 
I had one group come to me. Fourteen houses were purchased by Housing New Zealand off this one group. All the tenants were told to leave, and they were all requested to leave so that they could put Housing New Zealand tenants in. So that's 14 renters that then had to go—
Hon Nathan Guy: 14 families. 
Hon DAVID BENNETT: Families that have to now go into the rental market just to meet their targets. No recognition of how hard it is for those families. No recognition that those families now have to move. They have to move schools, they have to go into a rental market, and they probably have to pay more for a new house now—no recognition of that. But no, Housing New Zealand can say it's got another 14 houses in Hamilton. That's all they're after—that statistic. 
That's all the Labour Party cared about. They didn't care about the people that they threw out of those houses in Hamilton, they don't care about the people that they've put the rents up 60 bucks a week on, and what is actually even worse than that is that New Zealand is a country that needs entrepreneurship. We need people to take a risk and we need people to go out there and work hard. That is one of the fundamental things that build a country, and in New Zealand, a lot of people do that by owning a second rental house. That is their chance to have something other than just their wage or salary. That's their way of building a future for their family and doing what they want to do in the future. That now has been taken away from them, because they don't have control over that asset. They have to put somebody in there and keep them in there. 
You know, they are talking about the European model, where you can't have an empty house. You have to put somebody in it. That's the choice of the landlord, not the choice of Government. Then, they're saying that there cannot be any rental change for a year. That is the choice of the landlord, not the choice of Government. Then they're saying that the person cannot leave. That is the choice of the landlord and the tenant, not the choice of the Government. 
So we've got hard-working people out there that go and invest in property as their major investment, and then these guys come and tell them what they can do with that investment. Well, that's going to last a long time, isn't it, because those people aren't silly. They have worked too hard to build the money up for that. They're not going to go out there and let a pack of people that have never made a dollar in their life and who have sat in cosy seats in here for 40 years and think they're economic gurus tell them what to do—no way. They're going to smarten up, and there's not going to be any houses. Then, the Government's got to step in and find those houses, and we get a massive big increase in the problem that we're seeing in New Zealand around housing. 
This is an economic policy that is doomed to failure. It is typical of what you get from a left-wing Government. It is something that fails on all accounts, whether it is economic, whether it is personal, or whether it is the attributes of what we want New Zealanders to aspire to be. It is a failure on all accounts, and they will dress it up and they will say that we are looking after a certain group of people. They're actually hurting that group of people more than anyone else. That group of people pays the higher rents. They missed out on the opportunities to get in a house, and—and—when they do get into a good rental, the State can take it off them. The State is doing that now, and we're seeing that, day in, day out, with examples of the State using its market power to take away individuals' ability to get a house. 
They may laugh, but they should come to Hamilton and tell those 14 families that were thrown out by the housing Minister that they care, that they want the best for them, and that they put people into those houses that haven't earned that ability as those other people had because they had paid that rent. They had paid to be there, and they didn't deserve to be thrown out by a Government that just intends to build dependency on the Government as its way to get people to vote for them at the next election. 





KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Well, that side of the House is a little riled up, and I've got a clue that it's got something to do with the numbers that they are seeing, because we know that that side's full of nothing but negativity—nothing but negativity. I think it might have something to do with the ghost economic plan that came out by their leader, who's polling at abysmal rates, and I'm sure they're all freaking out for their parliamentary careers—their ghost economic plan, just like their ghost housing plan. 
Now, that side of the House, they pulled others down. That side of the House, they sold houses off. That side of the House said that there was no housing crisis. But this side of the House is committed to delivering a fairer and more secure rental market for renters, and I am extraordinarily proud to stand on this side of the House under the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern's leadership and with the vision that the Hon Kris Faafoi has for making residential tenancies safer for all New Zealanders. I'm proud to support this bill. 
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Could I just remind members that these little objects in front of us actually amplify your voice. 





A party vote was called for on the question, That the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill be now read a first 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 first time. 
Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee. 





Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Civil Defence) on behalf of the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): I move, That the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 22 June 2020. 





A party vote was called for on the question, That the motion 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. 
Motion agreed to.





ELECTORAL AMENDMENT BILL
Third Reading
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
It is a great pleasure to be contributing to this, the third reading debate on this very important piece of legislation—some small changes to our electoral laws but some very significant ones in terms of the impact on people's lives. The people I'm thinking about in particular are the roughly 19,000 people who turned up to a polling booth in the 2017 election but, unlike many of their compadres and compatriots who had turned up to polling booths in the two weeks before, who could both enrol and cast a vote for the general election, those people couldn't. Those 19,000 people couldn't. Then I think of the thousands of others who turned up but whose electoral roll details were wrong—the wrong address because they'd moved several times, because the National Party left the housing market in such an abysmal state—and their votes weren't counted at all. So this will restore the democratic right to those people.
It is interesting seeing the debate through this House, because I would have thought this would be something that every member of Parliament—this, the crucible of our elected democracy, the place where people celebrate democracy—that every member of the House would like to see democracy maximised and that every citizen get the benefit of their democratic rights, but it turns out that's not the case. There are some people here who think that New Zealand citizens of voting age should actually be denied the right to vote. The argument from members opposite seems to be "Look, if people can't organise their lives,"—when it's in a complete shambles because of the housing market the National Party left us, and the labour market and all those other things—"then the response we should have to that is that they should be punished by not being allowed to vote." That's the National Party.
There is a very strange sort of thread that runs through much of what the National Party stands for, and that is that they love punishing people. They love to punish people. Now, some would describe it as a fetish. I'm not going that far at this point, but I do say it is a common and consistent characteristic of the sorts of arguments that the members opposite put up. They don't like some people having rights that they themselves and various other people in positions of privilege have. They love to punish people, so they think that it is right that the thousands of people who have not had their vote counted in the last election, and for whom we could make some minor corrections and some minor changes—that they should continue to be punished. Well, that will not continue with the passage of this bill.
So we will allow people who have not been able to organise themselves and sort themselves out but who turn up, willing to participate in our great democracy, on election day to a polling booth—that they can both enrol and also cast a vote that will then be counted. Likewise, those who haven't been able to renew their details or update their details but who are otherwise on the roll—they also will have their vote counted.
As part of a general approach of trying to make it easier for citizens of voting age to vote, we're also allowing the Electoral Commission to determine that they can put polling booths in places like supermarkets and malls and what have you. Now, they can do that during the advance voting period—nothing wrong with that—but, on election day, the law as it currently is means that if it is a place that sells alcohol, a licensed premises, even if it's a place where alcohol is not consumed, the polling booth cannot be there. That will change so that polling booths can go into supermarkets. A consequent change is that the votes, at the conclusion of the voting day—at 7 p.m., when the polling booth closes—can then be carted off to somewhere, fully witnessed by the scrutineers from the various parties so that there's no hanky-panky or, you know, that sort of behaviour that the National Party clearly likes to indulge in. They will then be taken somewhere else in order for the votes to be counted.
So these are all quite sensible things. Then, of course, because there is extra administrative work required in the days following an election, where a fair number of people—19,000 in the 2017 election—will both enrol and cast a vote by way of special vote, a little bit of extra time is required to finalise the result. So the return of the writ, which I know exercises the Hon Nick Smith—he's really exercised by this return of the writ period. No one in New Zealand—no one in the history of New Zealand—has lain awake at night during the days after a general election wondering how the return of the writ is going. I can say that as a matter of fact. I've asked scholars from every university, "Can you please find me the research into people who, in the days following an election, lay awake at night, were anxious about or spoke to radio talkback show hosts about the return of the writ and whether it is coming along nicely." No one could find anything—no one could find anything. I asked friends to put up surveys on Facebook. I canvassed people, talked to people in my street, and no one—no one—could identify anybody who had a sense of anxiety about just how the return of the writ was going.
So we are extending the period by which the writ has to be returned. The interim result, which is largely known on election night, with the odd exception—1993, somebody recalled the other day. People know what the result is or where it's going, and so that will continue to happen. The world will continue to spin on its axis during that extra 10 days, and that's been guaranteed—not in the bill, of course, but I've had assurances from good authority that, in fact, that will happen. So that is also provided for in this bill.
In the end, these are good changes. The great thing is they will be put in place for the 2023 general election. I know Dr Nick Smith—he gets into this high dudgeon and has faux constitutional concerns. He hasn't articulated a single credible, real constitutional principle, I think, in the two years since I've been the Minister, but there we go. We will hear more this afternoon, and we'll all sit here entertained, because that's pretty much all you can be about it. But the good thing is the Electoral Commission, having said that they would prefer to implement these changes for 2023, when asked said, "Look, this is actually quite important—19,000 people missed out in 2017. How many more thousands in 2020 before we implement for 2023?" And they were happy to accept it. You know, we could do it, but we need to get the legislation passed.
Of course, it would have been nice to have passed this legislation earlier. In the end, because of the delay in the inquiry being conducted by the Justice Committee, I wrote to them at the end of 2018 and said, "Look, you know, the Electoral Commission have done their report; they've made these recommendations. Look, we're just going to proceed with these things. They're not actually controversial; they're actually good and sustain and support our democracy, so we're going to go through with this." Of course, there was no demur from the committee—no demur from the committee. No member of the committee wrote to me and said, "Oh, how dare you, Minister, writing and saying we're doing these things and we haven't even approved it." No one said that. No one said it—that is, until the debate this week, and then Dr Nick Smith rewrote history and came up with a different account of events to say that he was opposed to it.
That's the sad state of the National Party. They've given up on democratic principle. They've given up on democratic values. They don't care about a whole bunch of people, and that's very sad, but we care about people. We care about people being able to exercise their democratic rights. We care about people being able to exercise the full range of their citizenship, which means participating in our democracy, which means being able to vote. This bill paves the way—just a little bit of extra help to get more people participating and exercising their vote.
There is more to come in terms of electoral change, but what I really look forward to and really hope that we can cooperate on with members opposite is the ground-up rewrite of our electoral law. That is well overdue and well needed, and we should be able to have a discussion about the process with that, what that looks like, the sort of experts we want in place to do it, because that is much needed. But in the meantime, for the 2020 general election, a whole bunch of people now who previously would have had their vote discounted will have it counted, and that will be good for all of us. I commend the bill to the House.





Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The first concern that National has around this bill is it is the fourth time that the Government has advanced an electoral bill without any consultation with the Opposition.
Hon Nathan Guy: Well, that's hopeless.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I agree with my colleague Nathan Guy. It's not just hopeless; it's actually quite serious in a country where we have no constitution. We do not have an Upper House like most democracies, and so it's been well accepted in this Parliament that electoral laws should be developed on a cross-party basis.
Hon Andrew Little: The member knows that's not true. Prisoner voting—prisoner voting.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I challenge Mr Little that the current Electoral Act, passed in the Parliament by 1993, was 400 clauses under a National Government in which there was a complete consensus of the Parliament. So it proves that, with goodwill and a competent Minister, you can get over 400 pieces of law agreed on a cross-party basis. In the last Government, the John Key - English Government, we had nine electoral bills from the Government. Every single one of them had cross-party support, and yet this is the fourth electoral bill from this Government being rammed through by a thin majority without any consultation, and that is a real black mark against Minister of Justice Andrew Little.
But here's the second part: there's been a very sound parliamentary convention around the Justice Committee inquiries. Actually, it started back in the 1940s after Labour cheated on the 1946 election. There's a huge controversy about the boundary changes in the law. So as it developed, after each election there would be an inquiry, work would occur in the Justice Committee on changes to electoral law, and a bill would be introduced.
The changes in this bill completely ran roughshod over that select committee process. The Justice Committee had a big discussion about issues of supermarket voting, about extending issues around overseas voters and making it more convenient. That wasn't good enough for the Minister. He simply said, "I'll do what the hell I like. Our Cabinet will do what it likes. We'll just cut National and ACT out and introduce the bill." before that process was complete.
Now, the Minister complains that the select committee process went for too long, and here I want to set out why it went for too long. The first thing was it was the latest select committee inquiry into an election to ever begin. They sat round for 10 months and did nothing. Now, that can only rest with the Government and the Labour chair of the committee that didn't get on with the business. Then, six months later, the Government and the Minister decided that he wanted to extend the terms of reference, and then we had the fiasco over Labour then not just blocking witnesses like Anne-Marie Brady, with whom I think many people will maybe agree or disagree, but they would not question her academic credentials. It was extraordinary that members opposite did not want to hear her evidence.
Then we had the extraordinary situation—the biggest question over the election in 2017 is the New Zealand First Foundation. We received a letter from the president and the treasurer of New Zealand First, who wanted to be heard by the committee, and Labour members voted against them being heard. That was the very sad, disappointing, and delayed conduct of that select committee inquiry that rests entirely with Labour members.
Now, the most contentious issue in this bill is the issue of same-day enrolment and voting. National has repeatedly asked a question of the Government that they have not been able to answer, and it's this: why would anybody bother enrolling if you no longer have to enrol to be able to vote? The incentive that is being created is: don't bother enrolling. You can turn up any old time and vote and enrol at the same time. That's not just me raising that concern; the Electoral Commission has raised that concern, and their fear with this change in the law is that over time we'll get less and less people enrolling, and that, ultimately, will undermine the integrity of our electoral system.
Then the Minister completely dismisses the issue of the count of the vote, the writ on the final election result, being delayed by 10 days. He gave a rant a moment ago and says nobody sits up at night worrying about the writ. No, they don't, but I'll tell you what they do worry about: they worry about who's going to form the Government—enormous media interest.
I remember watching for 100 days the nonsense that went on the last time New Zealand First controlled the balance of power. There was huge unease across New Zealand that the functioning of Government—I'll tell you why it matters: the Government of New Zealand spends $1.3 billion every week, $1.3 billion every week, and that money belongs to New Zealanders. We think our job as Government and parliamentarians is to be on the job looking after the interests of New Zealanders, making sure we're getting value for money and being on the job. What the bill does is, by delaying the outcome of the election by 10 days, it means for another 10 days elected representatives are twiddling their thumbs, not getting on with the business of running the country, while we wait for an election outcome. We make no apologies for saying it is a detrimental measure that it is going to take an extra 10 days for a Government to be able to be formed and for we politicians to get on with the important business of running the country. There is no question that the 10-day extension to the election outcome is consequential to the Government's change to allow same-day voting.
Now, the Minister has tried to excuse all this behaviour and said, "I wrote to the select committee last December saying that I wanted to introduce this bill." What he doesn't say is that there was no mention in that letter of the issue of same-day enrolment and voting, the most important provision in this bill.
Here's the second part—and this is where the Minister's been sneaky—when he issued the press release announcing this bill, there was no mention of the 10-day delay in the election outcome.
Hon Mark Mitchell: Oh, that's tricky.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It's being tricky, eh? It's not telling the full story, not telling the trade-off, and nor has the Minister acknowledged the advice of the Electoral Commission right at the beginning of the select committee inquiry, where they advised against same-day enrolment and voting for the 2020 election.
Members have just got to say this: why do we think—and I'm one of those that's got huge respect for the Electoral Commission. I take real issue with the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand attacking the Electoral Commission and questioning their impartiality and their integrity. Having the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand doing that speaks volumes about New Zealand First and the Deputy Prime Minister, not about the integrity and good work of the Electoral Commission.
So why is it that the Government is going against the advice of the Electoral Commission? It's very simple: they're trying to screw the scrum so they might get an electoral advantage. That is at the core. Well, why did Labour pass the bill taking away the right of members of Parliament to sit here without being fired by their leader, the waka-hopping legislation? Why did New Zealand First do that? It's because the New Zealand First Party is such a Mickey Mouse outfit that he's terrified his MPs will leave. He wants to have them in a straitjacket. If any one of them dared stand up—it's just another example of bad electoral law being driven by narrow political interests rather than actually acting in the interests of improving our democracy.
Now, I'm more than relaxed about the minor changes that we supported at select committee around the supermarket voting, around making it easy for our Defence Force personnel to be able to vote, making changes that will make sensible provisions in the event that we have a civil defence emergency in the middle of an election. They are all quite reasonable. I openly acknowledge this is not the most obnoxious of the electoral reform bills that has been passed by this Government, but I do say that our democracy is one of the most precious, important things that New Zealand has. It's what makes our country a cut above most in the world. We're very proud that we are the fourth-oldest continuous democracy in the world, and our view is that electoral law needs to be treated with far more respect and far more care than by this Minister and by this Government. I just say to the Minister—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.





GREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Democracies around the world are lamenting the lack of participation, lamenting the poor voter turnouts. This Electoral Amendment Bill will allow 19,000 New Zealanders who weren't able to vote last year because they turned up a day later—had they turned up any stage in the two-week pre-voting period, they would have been able to enrol, and vote on the day. This allows them to do just that. It means that we will have 19,000 more people—or would have had 19,000 more people—participating in the very democratic process that we are all intent on preserving. This is good, logical legislation. Those who passionately oppose it are really opposing improved democracy. I commend this to the House.





Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to follow up on some comments that were made by the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Nick Smith—the Minister of Justice responded to some of the comments that he was making; I'm not sure if the viewers at home could hear or anyone else in the House could hear—and they were around the fact that when it comes to electoral legislation like this, there has been a convention in this Parliament, and that is that parties do work together because we don't have a constitution. And it has been observed, it has always been observed, and this actually is a major departure from that. The Minister called out when the Hon Dr Nick Smith was making that point. He called out and he referred to a piece of legislation that was brought to this House, I think, in the first term of the National Government, and it was a member's bill that was brought here and it took away the right of prisoners to vote. And he's correct. That's right. But it was a bill that affected only a very small part of our population. It affected—
Hon Andrew Little: Oh, so that's OK then?
Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, yeah. Most Kiwis actually feel it is OK. It affected a very small part of our population. And it was a member's bill. So what the Minister just did is that when he was challenged by the Hon Dr Nick Smith about the convention that we've had in this House, in a country without a constitution, that we work across party when it comes to the important issues around our electoral system and the integrity of it, the only example that the Minister could actually put forward—the only example that the Minister could put forward was the example of a member's bill that removed the right of prisoners to vote. That's something that we still in the National Party on this side of the House—we still firmly support that. We still support that. 
We feel that if we have people in our society that offend against the laws that we pass in this House, if they offend against our communities and the offending is so serious and so bad that it means that they get a custodial sentence—it's very hard to get a custodial sentence in New Zealand, to actually go to prison—we feel that there's some rights that you give up, that you forfeit. You'll get those rights back when you return to the community—hopefully, rehabilitated and ready to integrate and to make a proper and genuine contribution back in society. But one of those rights is the right to vote and it was brought to this House as a member's bill.
The House had the opportunity to debate it. It did go through a full select committee process and there was a majority in the House that voted for that bill. If that is the only example the Minister can give—if that's the only example that the Minister can give of a departure from what has been a convention that's been recognised in this Parliament for decades, then it's a very weak and a very poor example to actually put up and shows just how weak the argument the Minister actually has in terms of what has been a massive departure in convention. And that is, fundamentally, one of the main reasons why we couldn't support this bill. It is that, combined with issues like—
Hon Andrew Little: That is bollocks—total bollocks. 
Hon MARK MITCHELL: —same-day enrolment, which again the previous speaker highlighted. Well, the Minister said "total bollocks". But, you know, I'm not too sure if that's a nuanced argument or adding much to the debate—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: It's not very parliamentary.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: No, actually it's not, Minister. The other point that I want to make very quickly before I finish my contribution is the fact that he hasn't really thought through same-day enrolment other than the fact it means that on election day he can jump in the van and he can rush around and grab a whole lot of people that haven't enrolled, that haven't engaged, because I believe—I do believe—yes, our right to vote, our ability to vote is a right. I do believe that. It is a right that we've had because we've had generations of Kiwis that have gone offshore to defend and fight for that.
Hon Andrew Little: So you want to take it off criminals and you want to take it off the innocent, right.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: But it's also a privilege—but it's also a privilege. They fought hard to give us that right, but it's also a privilege. And actually, if you want to take it seriously, if you want to take that vote seriously, make the effort to actually get up and enrol. Make the effort, the physical effort, to actually enrol and go out and vote. And what the Minister's saying is "If you haven't really given it much thought, if you're not really thinking too much about, if you haven't made that effort to enrol, don't worry. We'll rush around on election day"—
Hon Andrew Little: How many of the 19,000 were those people? 
Hon MARK MITCHELL: —"and we'll pick you up and we'll rush you down to the polling booth so that you can enrol and you can vote." 
Hon Andrew Little: So here's the prejudice.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: And the issue that the Electoral Commission put up is: is that going to actually diminish—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just ask the Minister, who has had his 10-minute contribution, to just taihoa.
Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, I would actually like to hear what he was saying. I'm not sure it's adding much to the debate, but thank you, Madam Speaker. 
So the reality is—and the Electoral Commission highlighted it—we should be proud of our democracy in New Zealand. We should be very proud of ourselves as a nation. We lead everyone in terms of transparency and lack of corruption, and we take a great pride in what we do. But I can tell you now that if you start making little incremental changes like this that start to erode the system, people slowly start to lose confidence in our democracy, then we start to move towards, in my mind, a very bad place. And I think that's why some of the decisions that have been made and some of the things that appear very self-serving by this Government and are being pushed through this bill are not good for us as a nation. Thank you very much.





Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I'll just take a short call. It's really interesting and I'm absolutely sure that the public who are driving home from work today, having had a hard day at work on a Thursday at 25 past five are absolutely glued to their crystal sets listening to this debate, or maybe not. Maybe they've flipped to Magic or maybe they've flipped to Coast and are actually doing something sensible like listening to some good music.
If one was to just quickly analyse the speeches that have been given thus far, we know this: the National Party's opposing the bill because they weren't consulted in the writing of it. We know this—that the National Party is in agreeance with the amendments that have been made during the select committee process, which they participated in, and they're happy for them to proceed, although they're going to vote against them, OK? We know that the National Party is opposing this bill because in their eyes, their thinking, they believe that this is potentially Labour rejigging to give themselves some sort of electoral advantage because it will allow people who haven't bothered to enrol to enrol on the last day. And it might allow Labour campaigners to rush around in a van, pick up all these people, and get them to the polling booth where they can enrol and vote. 
I quite well imagine that National themselves will be doing the exact same thing, given it's National that's proffered that idea here on the floor this afternoon. So both National and Labour support the Defence Force having the enhanced ability to actually exercise their democratic right. And I do recall listening to a couple of speeches from the other side of the House where they made it very, very clear that those women and those men who wear our uniform and who ensure that we continue to live in a free and democratic society, a country where they have liberty, are forever guaranteed an ability to vote and that their opportunities are not denigrated through what could be described as incomplete legislation or legislation that doesn't offer a system.
So, in general, I can say listening to the debate that everybody actually agrees with what's happening here. There is a debate and discussion around same-day voting—I get that. From the New Zealand First perspective, look, we would agree that the voting turnout in some parts of the country is terribly poor, and we would agree that some people have every opportunity to get themselves on to the jolly roll. They've just got to get off their jolly backsides and jolly well do it. But there are those people who—for a range of reasons—do not get enrolled on time. Maybe they've just returned from five or six years' OE and they've come back, they haven't engaged, they've forgotten to do it, polling day's upon them, they rush on down only to find that they're not on the electoral roll and they cannot vote. 
We will continue to support measures that enhance the opportunity for people to exercise their democratic right. We will support measures that enhance participation on election day. I mean, crikey, Madam Speaker, we all sit there and scratch our heads about what's going on in local government elections and the absolutely appalling—I'm looking at the former president of Local Government New Zealand, Lawrence Yule, and we've had this discussion so many times. How do we get the citizens of this country to participate in local government elections at the same level that they participate in a general election? Maybe it's got something to do with postal voting. Maybe if we actually had one day where everybody fronted up at local government elections, and the day was considered so significant that they had to front up, people might do that. There's a novel idea, maybe we should vote in local government elections in the same way that we vote in central—no, that would be too sensible, because that would be consistency, that would be easy. I don't understand why we're not doing it.
What is clear is we're not moving to electronic voting, and that's another message which highlights a contradiction between some thinking in local government and central government. We are all standing here today saying the same thing: we want to enhance participation; we want to make it easier. And I think, actually, one of the novel things is making more venues available to be used as polling booths—one of them being sports clubs; it is a jolly good idea. Trusts, you know, the workingmen's club, what a great idea, actually, because on a Saturday—I know this. 
For those of us who have been mums and dads and have been rushing round on a Saturday trying to get our daughter to the netball courts and our sons to the rugby—or nowadays it's actually the daughters and sons to the rugby—and we are so busy on a Saturday morning, fitting in getting to the school to go and vote is an exercise; you've got to work around that. Imagine if all of the families who were going to the Carterton Rugby Football Club to watch the rugby could go there and cast their vote at the same time. I actually think that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. So if these things are going to enhance, or make it easier, then that's a jolly good thing. 
I think the conversation that the Hon Nick Smith raised around 10 extra days of forming a Government being catastrophic and referring back to the time when New Zealand First was negotiating with National and Labour to form a Government in 1996 as being a reason why we shouldn't do this, because it took nine weeks, well, there was still a caretaker Government, Mr Smith. Actually, it was your Government. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: What was Parliament doing?
Hon RON MARK: Your Government, Mr Smith, continued to govern, and I think, Mr Smith, you were still a Minister governing at the time that you were also negotiating and, Mr Smith, you became the Government again. The sky didn't fall in, the waves didn't come crashing over the oceans and destroy the city, there wasn't pestilence. We carried on. Why? Because, in Dr Smith's own words, New Zealand has a proud record of undisturbed democracy and smooth transition of power after elections from one party to another, and we have become internationally renowned for the way in which we manage transfers of power and a change of Government. In fact, Mr Smith's own comments right at the end of his speech undermined some of this interesting argument in the middle of his speech.
I would conclude by saying this: there is much ado about nothing here today. Actually, by voting for the amendments and saying that they support them, the Opposition is signalling actually that it supports this legislation in the same way that New Zealand First does. I commend this bill to the House.





CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just reflecting on a couple of contributions, being concerned—or not concerned—about the transfer of power and negotiations that might take place following an election, of course, the safe thing to do is to party vote National so that it's a very straightforward equation after that. If enough people do that we can spare ourselves all of this. Just in case that should be construed as an election advertisement, I'd like to say that this message is authorised by Chris Penk, and, if I've got that right, the ticker along the bottom of the Parliament TV thing will have my name about here. [Indicates bottom of screen] So I'll say authorised by this—of 365 Main Road, Huapai.
Anyway, the Electoral Amendment Bill has been discussed at some length in the last few days and at even greater length at the Justice Committee, of which I was privileged to be a member, and I use the word "privileged" a bit loosely, but it's Friday afternoon.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thursday.
CHRIS PENK: It will be tomorrow. Well, it's the last day of the Playschool week, Madam Speaker. I'll start again—I'll start again.
Hon David Bennett: He's only a new member and he's on a three-day week!
CHRIS PENK: Ha, ha! That's right. Well, actually, it's funny—I'm being given grief about three-day weeks, but it's funny you should say that, Mr Bennett, because I'm actually going to be speaking about a number of days. I've made a few calculations and it's relevant to the question of how many opportunities a person has to get on to the electoral roll and being denied one day in a three-year cycle from doing so.
So let's hope that my mathematics are better than my ability to read a calendar, and I'll say that in a three-year period—roughly speaking, we have three years between elections, obviously; it can vary a bit, but let's take an average. There are 365 days a year. There are three years. We'll add one for a leap year; we'll round it up. Three out of every four years, that sort of seems reasonable to me. So that's 1,095 days in which one has the opportunity to enrol and only one day in which one does not.
So 99.1 percent of the time one is able to get oneself on to the electoral roll and less than 0.1 percent of the time one is not, and this is the nut that's being cracked by the bill here today. So at least in statistical terms, and I think more generally than that as well, it's looking for a problem that is not particularly needing to be solved but one that the Government is sort of looking to go after in any case.
Actually, if you think about it as well, given that one only needs to enrol once, given that if one has enrolled in a previous three-year cycle, by the time the next election day comes around, if one is already enrolled then one doesn't need to do it again, then that means that given the average age of a New Zealander, according to no less an authority than the first webpage on the Google results list—the average age of a New Zealander is 37 years. They can't enrol before they're 18, so that gives an average period of time of 19 years in which to get enrolled. Three hundred and sixty-five days in each of those years, except we'll add five leap years of one day extra each. So by my calculation—if I can encourage you to wake up, it will be worth it, I can assure you—6,940 days the average voter has had the opportunity to enrol, minus the 12 days in those—
Hon Member: How are you going with this, Greg?
Hon Member: Can you keep up, Greg?
CHRIS PENK: —19 years. Mr O'Connor's got out the back of a fag packet to write all this down. Anyway, the long and short of it, to cut a long story short—as a friend of mine would say, after doing anything but—there are many opportunities that one has to get on the electoral roll. One day every three years that one is not able to do so because one is, in fact, doing something else very important in our democracy, namely voting, seems to me not an unreasonable thing.
Other aspects of the bill have been canvassed pretty thoroughly. I would summarise the bill as good, bad, and ugly. I've given you the bad bit, and that's just my speech—no, that's sort of the unnecessariness of the statistical breakdown, really, the amount of opportunity that one has to get on the electoral roll versus what's now been added.
The good bits have also been covered a little bit, and I'll just touch on those briefly, namely the broadening of an ability to vote in different places that are currently subject to a blanket prohibition—licensed premises and so on—but with sensible restrictions on the way that would take place. The movement of ballot boxes, but again, in a pretty sensible, thorough way that's been canvassed. So that's the good. The bad, I've already covered.
The ugly, I suppose, is really just around that process with the Justice Committee inquiry taking so long—about a year, I think. That was before my time on the select committee, but a very long time, even to get under way, which has left us squeezed for time, as we now are, such that we are legislating this in election year, which is unfortunate. So that brings my debate on the matter to an end and, like the rest of us on this side of the House, unable to support it, notwithstanding the good elements that are within it. 





GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. Last election, 19,000 people took time out of their busy lives, family, work, sports, life, to take the time to go down to their local polling booth to exercise their democratic right. And you know what happened? They were turned away at the ballot booth because they hadn't enrolled.
I think that's a tragedy. In a democracy, in a country where a million people didn't vote at the last election, some members want to make it even harder for those people that do want to exercise their democratic right to have a say on their society, the way their country is run, and this party is actually happy for them not to have their say, not to exercise their democratic right.
For me, it demonstrates the fallacy of their thinking. Now, there are countless reasons why people can't enrol. People have busy lives. They've got families. They could be caring for a sick family member. They could be trying to navigate the bureaucracy and the complex information. Perhaps they're one of the hundreds of thousands of New Zealand households that still don't have internet access in this country. Perhaps English is a second language, and they had difficulties navigating it. There could be countless reasons.
Now, the fallacy of their thinking is that that party over there thinks that all those barriers shouldn't count for anything and that, actually, what's more important is that the administration and the bureaucracy—which that party seems to be prioritising above all else—somehow is more paramount than their God-given democratic right to be able to cast a vote and have a say in their country. I think it's a fallacy. I think it's wrong. I think it's actually deeply distasteful and deeply damaging for democracy, because once upon a time in this country, if you didn't earn enough, you couldn't have your say, and you couldn't vote. Once upon a time in this country, if you were the wrong sex, you couldn't have your say and you couldn't vote.
People put up all sorts of barriers to stop some people being able to vote. That's exactly what we're debating today—whether it's more important to be able to have your say and to vote on election day, or whether you should have navigated all those hurdles and barriers to be able to enrol. Now, I urge people to enrol. It makes the system more efficient and easier, but I do not think that that should be a barrier to be able to exercise your vote. It's deeply distasteful. 
Overseas, people talk about voter suppression—all the barriers that are put in place to stop people being able to exercise their rights. I urge members to look at what's happening right now in the US South, that has happened for countless decades, to stop some types of people being able to vote. It's called voter suppression. It's deeply egregious, and I don't want to see it happening in New Zealand.
Now, what we've seen is National bending over backwards to come up with intellectual excuses, mental gymnastics, to try and articulate why they're voting against it. I think it's a sad day that they're putting so-called process problems above the fundamentals and the principles, which is this House should be trying to enfranchise more people. This House should be making it easier for people to vote. In a country with such a democratic deficit, we should be making it easier for people to have their democratic say.
Now, I think it's deeply hypocritical, because it was the National Party and their members that actually stopped allowing prisoners to vote. Now, again, another example of putting up further barriers to stop people being able to vote. I'm proud to be supporting this legislation, which is making it easier for people to vote.
I want the next time that people take time out of their day, out of their busy lives, and they go down to the polling booth, maybe for the first time in their lives, they're nervous, they're worried what's going to happen. They're worried what's going to happen with their data if they put their name down on paper—all sorts of very legitimate fears and concerns which don't just happen in the intellectual fantasy world of the members across. This is what happens in the real world. I want them, when they go into the booth, to be treated with a smile, to be treated with respect, to be given their ability to be able to vote.
Now, what the National Party has demonstrated is the problems of political point-scoring and political games when it comes to electoral law. What the Green Party wants to do is clean up our electoral law, particularly our donations, and make sure that we have a robust, transparent, and fair regime. That's why we've articulated the policy of actually putting it out to the people. I think politicians have demonstrated that we shouldn't be the ones to actually make decisions that affect us. That's why we think we should go out to the citizens through a citizens' assembly—which have happened overseas, including in Canada—which have been so successful at finding solutions to intractable problems where you have some players with vested interests. So here is an example of the political game scoring, which does put people off politics. But here's a tangible, effective solution that the Parliament should adopt.
The Green Party is very proud to be supporting this legislation. We want to encourage more people to have their democratic say. It's wonderful that there are other changes, such as allowing supermarkets and sports clubs to be able to host polling booths. What we want to see on the next election day, no matter who they vote for—and if you vote for National, congratulations, I celebrate your God-given democratic right to be able to exercise your say—the key thing is that anyone who wants to vote for anyone should be able to, and today we're making it easier. Kia ora koutou.





KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to stand and oppose this Electoral Amendment Bill. The points which have been raised by the previous speakers—I would like to touch upon one of the very crucial points, which is democracy and the right to vote.
I come from a country which is one of the biggest democratic countries in the world; people queue up, up to a kilometre, to exercise their right to vote. Just now we heard from the member of the Green Party Gareth Hughes that we are trying to deny someone the right to vote. They could have registered; as the calculations were presented by my learned friend, there are more than 1,000 days available when that person could have gone and registered himself. We're not saying that it is wrong but we're saying that there is ample opportunity available for everyone to go and register themselves so that they can exercise their right to vote.
We went to see the chief election commissioner in Delhi, and Greg O'Connor, my good friend, was with me. They told us how difficult it is to maintain that system when they go into the phases to let people come and exercise their vote. About 700 million people exercise their vote, and there are polling booths which are far flung, and people carry electronic voting machines on their backs to make sure that every person can have that right to exercise that vote.
Why can't we have people go and register themselves? There were many excuses given by the Green Party member. Yes, I agree that there are challenges, but they have time. It only takes 10 to 15 minutes to register for their voting right and the enrolment roll. So those are lame excuses that the person can only register himself on the very last day of the election.
Whereas we have got a system—we are very lucky to live in New Zealand—where we have got a right to vote two weeks in advance. We can go and vote at any polling booth and register ourselves and exercise our right. But why on the last day?
Hon Members: Why not?
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Why? I'm asking you why. You answer. No, why are you asking me? It is your bill—it is your bill. I have given my logic that they have got 1,000 days to register themselves. Why don't they register on those 1,000 days; why on the last day? So these are the lame excuses being taken on.
Marja Lubeck: Why not? No answer.
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: I have given you the reason. If you don't understand, it's your problem.
The Minister was saying that there has been a tradition over the years that the Government comes to the Opposition to discuss the Electoral Amendment Bill. But this time, in this term of the Parliament, this is the fourth bill where the Opposition was not consulted. Again, it is a denial of democracy and a denial to the Opposition to participate in such—
Hon Andrew Little: Oh, rubbish!
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: —process. It is not rubbish. I think the Minister should have explained why he did not take that opportunity to come and talk to the Opposition, whereas when he was in Opposition he had all the opportunity when the Government of the day came to the Opposition to talk about it.
This bill has got some good things, which I did mention during the contribution of the committee of the whole House. The opportunity for people to have access in supermarkets is a great idea, and we should support it, and the National Party supports that. Another aspect which is part of this bill is that the Electoral Commission has got the right to make some decisions if there is a civil emergency, and it is very important that the Electoral Commission has got that right. As we have seen in the past, there could be a flood, there could be an earthquake, and those things we should keep in mind and give the opportunity to the Electoral Commission to make sure that people have got the right to exercise their vote.
I think there are, as Chris Penk mentioned, good things, bad things, and the ugly. So we are not able to support this bill at this stage. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak, and the fact that 19,000 people, as we've heard already, were denied the right to vote on election day and the National Party are strongly arguing that it should stay that way shows the deep internal contradictions and the actual underlying hypocrisy that we are faced with. There is no way you can stand up and say that this side of the House does not support democratic processes when voting against this bill does exactly that.





Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): This Electoral Amendment Bill is a very interesting bill, and it reminded me about how I started my week down at Canterbury University at their O-Week. All the political parties were there, and that was democracy in action. I was engaging with a lot of these students, as all the political parties were there represented, and what I found really interesting was that the Electoral Commission was there and they were enrolling people. They had a steady flow of people that were coming into their tents and enrolling.
I was heartened to see the Electoral Commission there, because that was the appropriate place for them to be represented, and all of these thousands of students that I witnessed coming through the Hub, it's called at Canterbury University, engaging with political parties, engaging with the Electoral Commission, popping into the Cannabis Society there and talking about the referendum that's coming up—I just thought, well, there's ample opportunity for these 19,000 people that chose to try and enrol and vote on election day in 2017 to actually enrol prior to E-Day. And as Chris Penk rightly put out, and he did the arithmetic on a bit of an average, admittedly, but I thought the stats were quite compelling, voters have 1,095 days on average between elections to get themselves enrolled. Isn't that ample opportunity for New Zealanders who want to partake in our democracy to get their personal lives in order to go and enrol?
Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: What's the problem, though?
Hon NATHAN GUY: Well, the problem is, really, twofold, and Nick Smith did a fantastic job of outlining that this afternoon: that, actually, there was a massive review after the 2017 election and this bill wasn't part of that. We've heard examples where Andrew Little put out a press release and said, "Oh, we're going to do this Electoral Amendment Bill reform." But he didn't mention the fact that, actually, it's going to take another 10 days as a result of this for the Government to be formed, and that's called the writ. So when you consider that—
Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Nothing new there.
Hon NATHAN GUY: Yes, there is a caretaker Government in place, but New Zealanders want to get on and get their lives back to some form of normality and know who the hell the Government is going to be, and yet what we hear on the other side of the House, on the Government side, is that they think that it's no problem—it's no problem to have an extra 10 days, to create all this uncertainty. Because, typically, what happens in an election campaign, houses don't get sold, people get nervous about tax rates, and spending reduces. So what we hear from the other side of the Government is they are prepared to allow that uncertainty to run on for another 10 days.
What is important in this bill that we are supporting: there are some good, practical changes, and I just want to go through some of those now. Allowing supermarket voting, because there was a concern in the past that you couldn't have a polling place in a supermarket because the supermarket also sells alcohol. So that has now been sorted through this process. That's important because we know there's a huge amount of activity that goes on in a supermarket—typically in shopping malls. Having polling places in those busy areas makes good, practical, logical sense—tick. Easier for the Defence Force to vote: yes. It's practical, makes sense, tick. 
Then, of course, there's quite a section in the bill that talks about—it could be a natural event, a disaster, it could be a terrorist attack, there's numerous examples in here in the bill whereby the Electoral Commission can make a decision to postpone the election or, indeed, the particular polling place.





PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. In his contribution, Mark Mitchell said that this bill shouldn't pass because it makes incremental change—some sort of a slippery slope argument, but that's what we're here to do: to make change that is beneficial to New Zealanders. This bill will make it easier for people to enrol and vote. It enhances New Zealand's democracy. It's a good bill and I commend it to the House.





TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I appreciate the opportunity to stand and take a call on the Electoral Amendment Bill third reading and reflect on the contributions that have been made across the House, actually. It's interesting; this is a fundamental change to our electoral processes, particularly, of course, leading up to, and on, election day. What have we heard from the contributions from the Government side? They've got their little talking points, they jump up, and they give 15 seconds' worth of unbridled resentment, and then quickly sit down and resort to Twitter and Facebook. But, actually, there are some fundamental issues that need to be addressed.
I mean, I'd like to take issue with the Hon Ron Mark, who says this is "Much ado about nothing". Actually, when he said that out loud, I thought that would be a good title for his autobiography when it appears in time. It will be a good read because I heard—
Hon Nathan Guy: He's writing it down!
TODD MULLER: He is writing it down, because, actually, when you—
Hon Nathan Guy: It'll be a best seller in Carterton!
TODD MULLER: Ha, ha! Sorry, I'm supposed to concentrate here but I've got someone to my left—
Hon Ron Mark: I'll write a song about it!
TODD MULLER: Yeah, write a song about it. Actually, the member's contribution last week, when you reflected on some of your own political history and connection with the great, late, Rt Hon Mike Moore, suggests that when you do put pen to paper it may well be a book worth traversing for those who are waiting for political autobiographies.
So the issue that I want to touch on today is really just reflecting on the approach that the justice Minister has taken. Now, I have been in Parliament—now, this is my second term. I can recall many times that he stood up as the Opposition justice spokesman on this side of the House, and he was always the first to stand up and talk about the importance of appropriate process, of respecting convention, of ensuring that the way we approach the issues that are—everything that we debate in this House is, of course, some degree of seriousness and moment, but there are certain others that are more constitutional in nature and convention in nature that actually deserve considered reflection. The justice Minister, Andrew Little, would be the first, many times, to stand and hold the previous Government to a very high standard with respect to those principles, but here we have a bill that sits in his name where—as you've heard through the contributions from particularly the National Party side over the course of this whole debate, not just here in the third reading—he has, in my view, deliberately distorted that process and ridden roughshod over a process which we have always followed, where the Justice Committee reflects on the outcomes, on the learnings, and the opportunities to improve—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come to leave the Chair. This bill is set down for committee stage next sitting day. This debate is interrupted and the House stands adjourned—
Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It's not committee stage.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I beg your pardon. This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 3 March 2020. Kia ora tātou.
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.