nz-debates/20200506.txt

WEDNESDAY, 6 MAY 2020
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Prayers.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
COVID-19—State of National Emergency
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Civil Defence: I wish to make a ministerial statement under Standing Order 356 informing the House of an extension of the state of national emergency to Wednesday, 13 May 2020. On behalf of the coalition Government and the Government's confidence and supply partner, at 12:21 p.m., 25 March 2020, having considered the advice of the Director of Civil Defence Emergency Management and in consultation with the Prime Minister under section 66 of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act, the Hon Peeni Henare, Minister of Civil Defence, declared a state of national emergency for the whole of New Zealand to help manage the impact of COVID-19. A state of national emergency lasts for seven days unless extended. The Minister has so far extended this state of emergency six times—most recently, yesterday. The state of national emergency will now expire at 12:21 p.m., Wednesday, 13 May, unless further extended or terminated earlier.
Minister Henare did not make these decisions lightly. This is the first time in history that a state of national emergency covering the whole of New Zealand has been declared, as we needed to act to combat the virus and to break the chain of infection across the entire country. It is only the second time in New Zealand's history that a state of national emergency has been declared at all, with the first being specifically for Christchurch City on 23 February 2011 in response to the February Christchurch earthquake. The Minister took the step to further extend the state of national emergency because of the unprecedented nature of this global pandemic and because the response required to combat COVID-19 is of such a magnitude and severity that it is beyond the capacity of local civil defence emergency management groups to respond to it on their own.
I would like to thank each and every New Zealander, volunteer group, community organisation, local government, civil defence emergency management group, Government agency, and business across the country for their outstanding and extraordinary efforts in response to COVID-19.





Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): The powers granted to the Minister under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act require that he or she consider whether an emergency has occurred or will occur, and on 25 March, there was a very real prospect that an emergency could occur. We had, I think, on that day 62 cases confirmed, and in the two weeks following, on the day that the civil defence emergency was extended, there were similar numbers. 
In the last three weeks, we have had five cases on that day, then zero cases on that day, then zero cases yesterday, when it was extended, and I think it's appropriate to ask the Minister: is the extension because an emergency has occurred, is occurring, or will occur? Because New Zealand has paid a very heavy price for the extension of these emergencies, and they've done so willingly because they knew what the risk was. The team of 5 million certainly overwhelmingly supported the Government's call to be locked down, to stay home, to save lives, to stamp COVID out, and that has come at a significant cost economically but also in the non-COVID health impacts of this emergency. We in the Epidemic Response Committee heard harrowing stories this morning of cancer not being treated, of miscarriages not being supported by their loved ones, of birth being traumatic as a consequence, and of the end of life also not being sufficiently supported. But we've stamped it out; in fact, we're still jumping up and down on it, at zero. 
But there's another emergency occurring. It's an economic emergency. It's in those health emergencies—what Dr Chris Jackson this morning said was the non-COVID cancer casualties of this. Billions of dollars are being spent and thousands of people are joining jobseeker support every single day of this emergency, and the public has done its bit. I ask: why, when the public has done its bit, does the Government not do its bit? 
The Government assures us they are ready. They are at gold standard on testing, on tracing, on PPE, and, as the Director-General of Health has stated, this virus could pop back up like weeds on a lawn. That is the case, and will be the case, until a vaccine is found. So I ask: if not now to lift the emergency, then when? When will it be the right time? If at zero—or two today—we're still not ready, are we in a state of emergency because it's occurred, or because it will still occur in the future, and what does that say about the Government's response? 
We've done our bit. It's time to lift the lockdown. It's time to end the state of emergency.





Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): In reply, I think it's been widely acknowledged that the public health response is indeed the best economic response. I would not like to in any way minimise the experience of those who reported to the select committee this morning. Whilst I was not able to personally hear their testimonies, second hand what I have heard is distressing, and I do want to acknowledge the situation of people facing end of life or major life events in a lonely situation. I expect that health officials will learn from reviewing some of those cases.
The Minister of Civil Defence took the step to further extend the state of national emergency because of the unprecedented nature of this global pandemic and because the response required to combat this disease successfully in terms of going hard and going early is of such a magnitude that it is not something that is within the capacity of local civil defence emergency management groups to respond to on their own. We only need to look overseas to see those who have not taken these drastic steps early on in their disease progression to see that many of them are still in lockdown and still bearing the economic consequences, as well as the health consequences. A strong public health response will position us best for a rapid economic recovery.





ORAL QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Finance
1. GREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of Finance: What actions has the Government taken to support businesses and households to respond to COVID-19?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The Government has taken decisive and considered action to support New Zealand through the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, the wage subsidy scheme has paid out more than $10.6 billion to more than 1.7 million workers. Our $3 billion tax refund scheme put into law last week will start paying out in the coming days to support viable businesses with cash flow and to meet costs like rent. The loss carry-back scheme had 161 applications within its very first hours of operating. These measures are being complemented by the Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme, which will begin operations next week; the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme; and a range of other measures. All of these measures are designed to keep as many New Zealanders in work as possible and cushion the blow on households and businesses.
Greg O'Connor: What recent reports has he seen on employment in New Zealand?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Statistics New Zealand today reported the number of employed people rose by 19,000 in the March quarter, while the number of unemployed was up by 5,000. The employment rate rose to 67.5 percent, while the unemployment rate also rose slightly from 4 to 4.2 percent, remaining near its lowest level in a decade. The fact that nearly 20,000 New Zealanders entered work in the first three months of this year shows the economy's underlying strength heading into the COVID-19 pandemic. Wages were also rising at an annual rate of 3.6 percent, with average ordinary-time hourly earnings up $33.14. All of these things reflect the position New Zealand was in before the worst of COVID-19. It was a strong position, and it will enable New Zealand to come through this crisis well.
Greg O'Connor: What reports has he seen on the economic recovery post - COVID-19?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Bank economists are forecasting a more rapid economic recovery post - COVID-19 than the global financial crisis (GFC). They anticipate four years of above 5 percent unemployment, whereas after the GFC there were eight. Westpac has said that countries that have had early success in containing the virus, like New Zealand, China, South Korea, and Australia, are likely to see a quicker rebound. This faster rebound backs our decision that the best economic response was a public health response. As we've said all along, we will get through this together.




Question No. 2—Prime Minister
2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government's statements and actions?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly the Government's work to prevent and respond to COVID-19, including in more recent times the work that Prime Minister Morrison and I, and the Foreign Ministers the Rt Hon Winston Peters and Marise Payne, are undertaking on a trans-Tasman COVID safe travel zone as soon as it is safe to do so. A trans-Tasman COVID safe travel zone would be mutually beneficial—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! I'm frustrated.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —assisting our trade and economic recovery, helping kickstart tourism and transport sectors, enhancing sporting contacts, and reuniting family and friends. This arrangement recognises that Australia and New Zealand are working hard to successfully address the spread of COVID-19. The global pandemic is hitting every nation, and we are moving to cushion the blow for businesses and workers in this country as fast as we can safely do so.
Hon Simon Bridges: Does she stand by her Government's decision to have a more extreme economic lockdown than Australia, given the comment from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who she's referred to, that the health outcomes in Australia are "on a per capita basis, actually better"?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I point out—and I know this because I had this conversation with Prime Minister Morrison—he is often asked questions comparing the favourable results in New Zealand relative to Australia, in the same way that the Leader of the Opposition attempts to do to me. So I point out that the context of those questions is often because in Australia they perceive New Zealand to have done well, something I know the member of the Opposition is not keen to acknowledge.
Hon Simon Bridges: So does she agree when Scott Morrison says that the health outcomes in Australia are "on a per capita basis, actually better"?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would point out today there have been 33 cases across three states in Australia. I wish our counterparts in Australia only the best. It is in both our interests that we successfully win the battle against this virus. But, as we are all experiencing, managing the tail at this point—when we're trying to get ourselves in a position to get back to some normality—is not easy, as Australia is experiencing, and I hope that we don't.
Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that "Just having a low number of cases is not a success, particularly when you have a lot of people out of work"?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I point out that often some of those answers are prefaced on the fact that people are pushing for a low number of cases because that is one of the best ways that we can successfully get ourselves back to the situation of relative normality. And that is our goal in New Zealand. What we need—and I know this is not a position the Leader of the Opposition necessarily agrees with, but we do not need at this time to roll the dice. We do not need to risk all of the gains that we have only just begun to make. We need steady, predictable progress, because that will provide the best groundwork for an economic recovery that we possibly can.
Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that having a low number of cases isn't success if you've got exponentially rising unemployment?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What will make unemployment worse is yo-yoing back and forth in your response, because that loses the predictability that the business community wants and needs. I will not roll the dice and risk losing the gains New Zealanders have only just made. We need to make predictable, balanced progress, and that is what we are focused on as a Government. I also point out that the member is not quick to make all of the comparisons with Australia. Australia's Parliament has been suspended to August—not something we would do here, so not every comparison is a favourable one.
Hon Grant Robertson: In light of the supplementary questions that have come before, can the Prime Minister confirm that as at 24 April, an additional 500,000 people had gone on to unemployment assistance in Australia?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, and another point that I'll make is, of course, we moved very quickly to get support to employers to support their employees. My understanding is that no cash has been paid yet for their equivalent of a wage subsidy—something that we moved very, very quickly on.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister is it her view that if you were to multiply by five our two of today, as against the 33 in Australia, that would be a very sad and unfavourable comparison; and rather than gloating, we should sympathise with the Australian people?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That's exactly right. The point that we're making here is that we want both sides of the Tasman to do well. They are grappling with a small number of outbreaks—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! I ask the Prime Minister to sit down. I am getting sick of the Leader of the Opposition trying to shout down the Prime Minister. I'm trying to listen to her answer and it's getting difficult.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I was saying, they're dealing with a small number of outbreaks, but it points to the vulnerability that we're all in as we try to balance that exit out of the restrictions that both countries have had. As I say, we've been working hard to share advice and information, because we want only the best for our trans-Tasman cousins and success for both of us.
Hon Simon Bridges: How many people does the Government expect to lose their job this year?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There have been a wide number of predictions, the best of which has been unemployment reaching—under just one of the scenarios for Treasury—around 8.5 percent, but, of course, it could be higher than that. All of it depends on the amount of investment that we're successfully able to make to support people into work to ensure we have good job creation and to support those who may have lost their income.
Hon Simon Bridges: Are reports correct that the Ministry of Social Development are currently preparing for an additional 300,000 people to apply for the unemployment benefit this year?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course you would expect our social development agency to prepare for unemployment and people seeking jobseeker. What we have also been doing, though, is not just preparing for that but trying to work to prevent it. The wage subsidy has been specifically designed to try and support people to stay connected to their workforce so that they don't need to enter into an unemployment benefit. In terms of the most recent numbers for social development support, my recollection, for the member, is that in the last week it increased by about 6,000; in the previous week it was about 9,000.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that increases of up to 288,000 people on a benefit would be possible under one of Treasury's more severe economic scenarios that they released on 13 April, and that the Government has dismissed that scenario on the basis that we intend to provide more support than the scenario is based on?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. The member would do well to keep in mind that some of the Treasury economic modelling included, for instance, a scenario where New Zealand would be in a form of lockdown for a year. Obviously, that is not something that we have entertained, and we have worked very hard to go hard, go early, and get us back to a normality—
Hon Simon Bridges: All spin, Grant; you know it.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —with as little risk as possible.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Stop talking the country down.
SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the House should know better than to wind up the Leader of the Opposition.
Hon Simon Bridges: Why isn't the Government focused on saving jobs instead of preparing for them to go on to the dole?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The precise reason that we designed the wage subsidy and brought it into effect before we even had a lockdown in New Zealand was for the very reason that we wanted people to keep their connection to work. That is also why we designed it to be paid out through an employer rather than, for instance, the Ministry of Social Development; it was because we were focused on keeping people in work. It's also why we designed a package that had elements to it like tax refunds. It's also why we created a redeployment fund. It's all been about keeping people in the dignity and security of work.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister, contrary to former times, is she saying that Treasury's not running the country any more, but the people of New Zealand through their elected representatives are?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, we've provided advice. Obviously, in these cases we provided a range of scenarios. But I think what we also have to acknowledge, and Treasury would acknowledge this too: these are very uncertain times. That's why they created a range of scenarios. Of course, we would do well as a Government to make sure we prepare but also do everything in our power to keep people in work. We are, for instance, as one party in this coalition Government, called the Labour Party.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Which scenario is likely to result in the greatest number of job losses: getting it right the first time or rushing an end to the lockdown and having to go back into lockdown because there are further outbreaks?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Getting it right the first time. You'll see that we've been very clear every time that the reason we have taken a balanced approach rather than taken risks is because of that very fact. That's something that's been reinforced by the likes of Treasury in the advice that they have provided. Again, I point out to the member that some of the worst scenarios produced by Treasury are those that have us in long periods of lockdown because of loss of control. That results in unemployment rates as high as 17.5 percent. No one wants that.
Hon Simon Bridges: Is the reality that today, in fact, the Prime Minister's wrong and it's 25, not 33—I think she said—cases in Australia?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My reference was to just three states.
Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that every day we remain in lockdown, more businesses will collapse and more people will lose their jobs?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Even more businesses will collapse and even more businesses will lose their jobs if we roll the dice and take risks against gains that we have only just made. The mere suggestion from that member that we are not mindful of people's lives and livelihoods is just wrong; everything we do factors in the impact of our decision on them. But I will not gamble their jobs by taking risky, knee-jerk decisions that don't protect their long-term futures.




Question No. 3—Finance
3. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: What is the Treasury's most recent estimate of changes to the unemployment rate over the next six months; and, based on that estimate, what is the expected fiscal impact?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Treasury's most recent estimates of changes to the unemployment rate over the next six months were contained in the scenarios published on 14 April. Treasury will provide their official forecast in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update next week. The current unemployment rate is 4.2 percent. In response to the second part of the member's question, the fiscal impact will be determined by the Government's actions and investments to support businesses, create jobs, and support those who are looking for work. The next set of fiscal forecasts will also be published in the Budget next week.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: What advice has he received on the impact, in terms of jobs, of every extra week we remain in level 3?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, that material is contained in Treasury's scenarios and can be extrapolated out from the overall output loss that Treasury simulated in those exercises. Obviously—
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Well, extract it for me—that's what I'm asking.
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Ha! Obviously, the full data and full estimates of Treasury that we would regard as forecasts and that we would regard as official will be contained in next week's Budget.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: How does he weigh the certainty of more job losses each week we extend heavy lockdown restrictions against the possibility of job losses in the future if our health measures fail to control another outbreak and we have to yo-yo back into lockdown?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, if you take a look at Treasury's scenarios, which predicted a different amount of time spent at different levels, it shows you the severity of the impact. I think it's very clear to New Zealanders, who worked extremely hard to get through level 4, just how strict the lockdown measures are. We can now see in level 3 that output is returning and forecast to be around 75 percent. Clearly, if we have to move back into levels 3 and 4 once we get to level 2, that will constrain economic activity significantly.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I don't mean to be tough—he said a lot—but I don't think he at all addressed the issue of how he weighs the certainty of one thing against the possibility of another. 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, I can give a philosophical essay if he wants.
SPEAKER: Bit more if the member wants—I thought he did, but I'll go with the member. I'm being flexible.
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The point that I was making is one example of how to weigh it up is to look at the scenarios and see the different amount of time that the country would be forecast to spend there and what that would mean for output, as I said in my earlier answer. If the point that the member is getting to is whether it is a difficult decision for the Government to be able to put in place the restrictions that we did, of course it is. But we are very clear, and we can go back as far as—if the member, who I know has an interest in history, would like to—the 1918 flu epidemic and look at the studies that have been done by American economists that show that the states in America who went hard and early and did it once and did it right came back economically from that far better than the states who, for instance, went out of lockdown too early and then had to go back.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Isn't it true that waiting for certainty and refusing to roll the dice, as the Prime Minister has said, about the future costs real jobs now?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: From the very first day, when I stood up in this House and announced our $12 billion package on 17 March, we acknowledged, as every Government around the world has to acknowledge, that there will be job losses as a result of a one-in-100-year health and economic shock. What New Zealand has managed to do together is ensure that we are getting the best possible result for our health status and for our economy. I remind the member: 500,000 people have been added to unemployment queues in Australia.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: What makes him confident that loading small businesses with more debt will save jobs?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The reaction I've had from a number of small businesses and from those who advocate on their behalf was that they have been very pleased indeed to see a scheme that gets the balance right, to making sure that viable businesses are in a position to be able to get the money that they need.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he share the Ministry of Social Development's (MSD's) expectation that 300,000 New Zealanders will lose their job this year?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That's not MSD's expectation. What MSD was doing was planning something that I think members opposite would ask Government agencies to do: planning, in that case, by using some data at, I think, under 300,000—I think it was 288,000—which was based on one of the more pessimistic scenarios. The good news is that the Government has already put in place more fiscal stimulus than was connected to that particular scenario.




Question No. 4—Health
4. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Health: How has the Government engaged with the Māori health sector during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): The Government recognised that if we did not develop a specific response for Māori, Māori were likely to carry a higher health burden as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why we provided an initial funding support package of $56 million to support Māori to develop responses that work for Māori communities. The Government has worked extensively across the Māori health sector to design, develop, support, and implement the Māori health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Central to the Government's response has been the development of the COVID-19 Māori Response Action Plan, which was developed in conjunction with the COVID-19 Māori Reference Group, Tumu Whakarae, and the technical advisory group.
Marama Davidson: What evidence has he seen of Māori health organisations delivering valuable services to keep their communities well during the pandemic?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The ministry worked closely with Tumu Whakarae to identify strong providers in the Māori health network who showed that they could effectively support the COVID-19 response. Māori health providers have been working quickly and innovatively throughout the pandemic to keep their communities safe. Papakura Marae, in South Auckland, and Ngā Hau e Whā Marae, in Christchurch, for example, have established community-based assessment centres (CBACs) at their marae to support whānau and improve access to healthcare, and we know that Māori have responded well to the CBACs at marae. The ministry has also contributed funding to support Whānau Ora commissioning agencies to respond quickly to COVID-19. With this funding, commissioning agencies and their national networks of health and social service providers across the motu have ensured the provision of health and hygiene packs, care packages, information, and other forms of necessary and holistic support to whānau. These are a few examples only of how Māori health providers have been working to support their communities.
Marama Davidson: How has Māori health equity been considered at each stage of the COVID response?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Equity for Māori is a critical feature of the ministry's COVID-19 response, and we are ensuring it is considered at every stage of the pandemic. One of the ministry's first steps was to introduce a proactive influenza vaccination programme with a specific focus on kaumātua and kuia. This was launched in mid-March to target vulnerable groups, including Māori. The programme has been successful, with twice the amount of kaumātua and kuia receiving their flu vaccinations compared to previous years. I'd also note that the Cancer Control Agency has recently appointed an equity director. In the context of the pandemic, the agency has developed treatment guidelines for medical oncology, radio oncology, haematology, cancer surgery, and cancer radiology. The Cancer Control Agency is also looking at the non-treatment drivers of cancer inequities to identify what other resources or supports might be required to maximise access to cancer treatment and care.
Marama Davidson: What role does he see in bringing Māori health experts to the decision-making table after the pandemic?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The ministry worked with the Māori Reference Group to develop Whakamaua, the draft Māori Health Action Plan, and that group was established last year. The ministry has worked with them throughout the pandemic and will continue to work with them in future to ensure our work is suitable, relevant for whānau, and fit for purpose. Māori health experts have also been brought on to the Technical Advisory Group and other advisory boards. The Ministry of Health have also worked with the National Iwi Chairs Forum, Māori funeral directors, the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand, New Zealand Mortuary Services Ltd, the Māori Reference Group, Technical Advisory Group, and Tumu Whakarae. I see their role as a means to ensure equity is a core part of our business.
Marama Davidson: What progress has the Government made in implementing the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal's 2019 Hauora report, such as strengthening equity in the health system?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Cabinet has agreed to accept the tribunal findings for stage 1 of the Wai 2575 Health Services and Outcomes Kaupapa Inquiry, as the findings are largely reflective of Crown witnesses' evidence provided to date. The ministry has entered into a heads of agreement with stage 1 claimants to progress some of the recommendations in the Hauora report. The operational recommendations in the Hauora report align with work the ministry has already committed to and already has under way. The ministry will continue to progress the operational recommendations that can be achieved quickly using existing levers and within current baselines.




Question No. 5—Social Development
5. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: Can she confirm reports that the Ministry of Social Development is preparing for a further 300,000 benefit applications?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Minister for Social Development: I'm advised that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is planning for a wide range of scenarios to ensure that those who need help in these extraordinary times can get it. Increases of up to 288,000 would be possible under one of Treasury's more severe economic scenarios released on 13 April. That scenario has already been dismissed by the Government, and that is not what MSD is currently planning for.
Hon Louise Upston: How many of the 300,000 new benefit applications will be for Jobseeker Support?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think I answered that in my first question.
SPEAKER: Yeah, well—yes.
Hon Louise Upston: Does she accept that, if we reach an unemployment rate of 13.5 percent, which is Treasury's best-case scenario, we will have nearly half a million people on Jobseeker alone?
SPEAKER: Order! I'm going to ask the member to ask the question again. I think there was an assertion in that question, which even I know is wrong.
Hon Louise Upston: Does she accept, if we reach an unemployment rate of 13.5 percent, as Treasury has forecast under its best-case scenario, it is nearly twice the figure that the Minister quoted earlier?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject the assertion in the member's question.
Hon Louise Upston: What action is she now taking to prepare MSD to support half a million Kiwis getting back to work?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government has engaged in a very comprehensive programme across Government to ensure that there are opportunities available for people who find themselves out of work, both to provide them with immediate financial support where they need it, to provide retraining opportunities where those are needed, and to ensure that they can get back into work as quickly as possible. There is a whole range of initiatives—I could spend a few hours outlining them all for the member if she'd like.
Hon Louise Upston: What advice has she received, if any, on the health and social impacts of half a million Kiwis requiring the unemployment benefit?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government is doing everything it can possible to avoid that scenario.




Question No. 6—Environment
KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): What action is the Government taking—
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Don't get cocky, Grant. 
SPEAKER: Order! I think that's the fourth time—
Hon Simon Bridges: It wasn't me. 
SPEAKER: Sorry, it wasn't the member? Maybe the member's getting the blame. I apologise to Simon Bridges for looking at him for the interruption that Mr Goldsmith has made, but maybe it's infectious.
Hon Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a genuine point of order. You have suspended the reduction of supplementary questions at this period—
SPEAKER: No. No, I haven't; I've just been softer, all right? I'm—
Hon Simon Bridges: You're a good man. 
SPEAKER: Oh, the member does tempt fate.
6. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Minister for the Environment: What action is the Government taking to support employment following the COVID-19 epidemic?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): An important element of this Government's COVID-19 rebuild plan is a law change to fast-track eligible projects under the Resource Management Act (RMA) to help get New Zealand moving again. The primary purpose of the plan is to bring forward employment opportunities. We went hard and early to beat the virus, and now we're doing the same to get the economy moving too. The success of our health response gives us a head start on the world, and this fast-tracking process will enable our economic recovery to follow. The new processes will get projects started sooner and people into jobs faster, but Part 2 of the RMA will still be applied to protect the environment.
Kiritapu Allan: What sorts of projects will the legislation support to get up and running quickly?
Hon DAVID PARKER: We want to spread new employment opportunities throughout the country in a wide range of projects. Projects which could benefit from quicker consenting include: roading, walking and cycling, rail, housing, sediment removal from silted rivers and estuaries, new wetland construction, flood management works, and projects to prevent land erosion.
Kiritapu Allan: What safeguards will be in the legislation?
Hon DAVID PARKER: The primary purpose of the plan is to assist New Zealanders to obtain employment as we recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19. We're helping by getting projects up and running but also ensuring that Part 2 of the RMA continues to apply and that Treaty obligations, national directions, and district plans are also upheld. As Minister for the Environment, I will filter projects through to an expert panel, and that panel will, in general, approve projects and, in all situations, set conditions to ensure environmental standards are applied. The panel will have a cross-section of expertise required to make decisions quickly. It'll be chaired by a current or former Environment Court judge. There will be the opportunity for some written input, as applications will be shared with a named group of NGOs from a range of sectors, and that will be done as applications are put to the panel.




Question No. 7—Environment
7. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he stand by all his statements on the fast-tracking of shovel-ready projects?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Yes, in the context they were given.
Hon Judith Collins: How many of the reported 1,800 shovel-ready projects are already fully consented and funded?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I don't know the answer to that question, but I don't envisage that 1,800 projects would be going through this process anyway.
Hon Judith Collins: When will he release the criteria for which shovel-ready projects will enter the fast-track resource consenting process?
Hon DAVID PARKER: At a high level, that will be set out in the legislation, which I expect to be introduced into the House in the coming weeks and which I will endeavour to share with the Opposition in advance of its introduction.
Hon Judith Collins: Will the fast-tracked shovel-ready projects need to meet the requirements of the zero carbon Act?
Hon DAVID PARKER: The decision that I have as to which projects go to this panel will include consideration of what could be long-term significant effects on carbon emissions. So if, for example, there was a proposal to build a new coal-fired power station—which I think is unlikely, but if that did happen—then I would take that into account in my decision as to whether I would let that go to a panel. And in that sort of situation, I might choose to send it through a normal Environment Court process or a normal council Environment Court process instead.
Hon Judith Collins: Do shovel-ready projects mean that shovels are now ready to be put into the ground?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I would've expected the member would've known a metaphor when she heard it. There's actually not many people who do roading projects with shovels, but she can keep digging.
Marama Davidson: How will he ensure environmental protection is sustained for any projects that are fast tracked?
Hon DAVID PARKER: In a number of ways. One, there'll be a range of projects brought forward. I'm quite keen on the idea that we take this opportunity to start remediating some of the environmental damage we already have in New Zealand. So, for example, one of the ways we could achieve balance is by consenting in a high-level way projects to excavate sediments from polluted rivers and estuaries and to consent the installation of new wetlands to prevent those sediments reoccurring. Another way that we ensure appropriate environmental outcomes is to have it chaired by an Environment Court judge and to apply Part 2 of the Resource Management Act.
Marama Davidson: Does he agree, then, that it's possible to create good jobs and protect nature at the same time?
Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes. Those two things are not always mutually exclusive. It is true that some projects do have an adverse environmental effect that can't be fully mitigated, but we're endeavouring to get the balance right between traditional projects—like roading, for example—and projects to improve the environment.
Marama Davidson: And how will the Government ensure tangata whenua are involved and the Crown's Te Tiriti o Waitangi objections are upheld in any decision making to fast-track projects?
Hon DAVID PARKER: The legislation won't be abrogating the outcomes of Treaty settlements, and one of the ways in which we will be ensuring those interests are taken into account is ensuring the panel has relevant expertise when those issues are considered by them.




Question No. 8—Transport
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Sorry; I was just so engrossed in the answer that we got before! Each week, under these different circumstances, the Government has provided a list of Ministers to the Opposition in order that we might be able to more appropriately organise our questions to Ministers each week. This week, the transport Minister has not been here; the two associates were due to be here today—that was the information we got—and we have organised our questions accordingly. Now, I know we don't speak about members not being present, but all I can say is that it would not be possible for an associate transport Minister, let alone the transport Minister, to answer the question today as we would have expected, taking the advice from the Government as to who would be here today.
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Mr Speaker, I have supplied the Opposition with a list of Ministers who will be available at question time each day, and I have indicated to the Opposition that, where they ask questions to Ministers who are not present, or to portfolios where the Minister that holds the portfolio is not present, we will ensure that there is a Minister fully briefed and able to answer questions on their behalf.
SPEAKER: I just want to check first of all—was Mr Twyford's name on the list supplied for Ministers to be present today? It wasn't? OK. Thank you.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Speaking to the point of order further, I'm not going to dispute the fact that you have followed that process. All I'm saying is that there is an issue that this question relates to that has come to light this week, and it is reasonable for us to assume that we look at your list and say, "Who are the associates?" We knew that Mr Twyford wasn't going to be here. There were two associates set down to be here today. We can't ask the question and have it answered by one of those associates today. So I think we need to have a slightly better process. Hopefully, we're only going to be carrying on with this for another two days, but, at this stage, we don't know.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Speaking further—
SPEAKER: No, I'm going to deal with it now. The Standing Orders are very clear, and that is that any Minister may answer on any other Minister's behalf, and there is no obligation, if an Associate Minister is present, for that person to be answering for the Minister who is absent.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): That is not my point. My point is that we are sitting here, by agreement, in a House structured in a way that does not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders—we've set those aside. We've set aside the proxies. We have an arrangement where, to give some validity to the question time, we're told what Ministers are going to be here. I'm simply pointing out that we're extremely disappointed that the Government has not been able to get the two associates here, one of whom might have answered for Mr Twyford, who we always knew was not going to be here.
SPEAKER: OK. The member has recorded his disappointment, but I will reiterate my comment, and that is that while it might be his preference that an Associate Minister answer a question for an absent Minister, it is not a requirement of the Standing Orders and it is not a practice of the House on all occasions.
8. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Transport: When is the Transmission Gully project expected to be completed and open to the public, and did the New Zealand Transport Agency receive legal advice that advised the agency not to provide $190.6m of financial relief to CPB HEB JV, which it agreed to do in February 2020?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) assures me that they are committed to seeing the Transmission Gully project completed as quickly as possible. They're currently working with the builder to confirm and agree a new completion date. Without waiving legal privilege in the advice that the New Zealand Transport Agency received prior to its settlement with the joint venture, they have confirmed that they did not receive legal advice that it should not provide $190.6 million of financial relief.
Chris Bishop: Why has the five-week lockdown period ostensibly caused months or even years of delay to the opening of Transmission Gully?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I indicated in my primary answer, the extent of the delay has not yet been determined, and NZTA is currently negotiating a new completion date with the builder, but it is important to note that seasonal factors do come into play here and that different parts of the road can be completed at different times of the year.
Chris Bishop: Was the board of the Transport Agency advised to enter into litigation against the contractor for Transmission Gully rather than settle?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I am not privy to the legal advice that the New Zealand Transport Agency board has received, and they have not waived legal privilege. I was able to get confirmation from them to answer the primary question, but if the member wants to have something more specific about the legal advice the board has received, then he would be best advised to put down a more specific question.
Chris Bishop: Why did the Transport Agency settle with the contractor for Transmission Gully?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The New Zealand Transport Agency wants to get the roading project finished.
Chris Bishop: Will the Transport Agency enforce the penalty clauses in the contract with the Wellington Gateway Partnership for late delivery of Transmission Gully?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It is not the habit of the Minister or the New Zealand Transport Agency to undertake commercial negotiations through question time.
Chris Bishop: Is he confident that the wholesale changes to the Transport Agency board and management in 2018 and 2019 have had no impact on the ability of the Transport Agency to manage the risks associated with the Transmission Gully project?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes.




Question No. 9—Commerce and Consumer Affairs
9. KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: How is the Government protecting consumers who need access to credit?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): The Government has fast-tracked measures to protect people experiencing financial hardship from high-cost loans that can trap them in debt. These measures include the cap on interest and fees to a maximum equivalent to the principal of a loan, known as the "100 percent cap"; the prohibition of compound interest on high-cost loans; and the $30 limit on default fees. These measures were originally due to come into force on 1 June but were moved to 1 May in urgent legislation last week. Some may think that that's only a month, but it is obvious many Kiwi families will be going through difficult conversations and decisions about their finances right now. And, if they're looking to borrow, the Government wanted them to have the full protection of our planned regime in order to ensure safe borrowing.
Kieran McAnulty: Why was it important to fast-track these changes?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: These are, obviously, very difficult and financially stressful times for many families around New Zealand. If people need to take out any new loans from high-cost lenders, the changes we have fast-tracked make sure they're protected from getting trapped in debt spirals. While it was critical to make these changes, I urge anyone facing financial difficulties to explore options before taking on any high-cost loans. They can talk with their lender about alternative payment arrangements, contact Work and Income for financial assistance, or get in touch with their local budgeting service for advice.
Kieran McAnulty: When will the rest of the Government's consumer credit reforms take effect?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: On account of the disruption for lenders and their customers because of COVID-19, we have allowed for the broader system of changes to commence six months after the date that it was originally planned—so the new date is now 1 October 2021. These include significant reforms relating to all lenders, such as new affordability regulations, certification of directors as fit and proper persons, and directors duties.




Question No. 10—Justice
10. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Justice: Does he stand by his statement yesterday regarding his legislation to extend prisoner voting rights for prisoners during a national emergency, that the select committee timetable "is not a matter over which I have any control"?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I refer the member to my full statement, which was "The bill to which the member refers is in the hands of the Justice Committee. It is not a matter over which I have any control; it is a bill that is in the control of the select committee."
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Did he move a motion in this Parliament to reduce the select committee timetable on the prisoner voting bill from the normal six months to less than three months, most of which has been in lockdown?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Yes.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Did he write to the Justice Committee on 31 March saying the prisoner voting bill needed to be progressed as quickly as possible under the national emergency, but also stating that his justice officials, and I quote, "will not"—
Greg O'Connor: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I'm a member of the Justice Committee, and the letter to which the member is referring is in the business of the committee. As a diligent member of that committee, I am unaware of any motion or any instruction from the chairman that it's been released. Just seeking your guidance as to whether reference to that letter is able to be done in this House.
SPEAKER: Well, I'm looking at the date of the letter, which is 31—I have it in front of me—March, and on the basis that it's been received by the committee, that's been minuted, unless it was part of a confidential part of the business, I don't think there's a problem at this stage with it being referred to. If it is something which was at a very recent meeting and there hadn't been a subsequent meeting and minutes hadn't been issued, then that might be the case. Dr Smith, as the third most experienced parliamentarian, might want to indicate to the House—oh, he's not here, so it doesn't really matter—that he's not breaching any committee confidentiality with it.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: The clerk has noted the matter has been referred to publicly and was not subject—the clerk of the committee.
SPEAKER: Thank you. That's all right.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can I restate my question now that the flow's been lost?
SPEAKER: Yeah, sure.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Did he write to the Justice Committee on 31 March saying the prisoner voting bill needed to be progressed as quickly as possible under the national emergency, but also stating that his justice officials—and I quote—"will not be able to assist on the sexual violence legislation, requiring extension of the report-back date on that bill to 14 June."?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will the Minister, with the Government's commitment to be the most open and transparent ever, and under this extraordinary national emergency, publicly release his letter dated 31 March saying the prisoner voting bill was a priority—
SPEAKER: Order! Order! What I'm going to do is I'm going to ask the member to start again to ask a question. There were at least two clauses in the beginning of that question which were superfluous. Start again.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will the Minister publicly release his letter dated 31 March saying the prisoner voting bill was the Government priority—
SPEAKER: Order! The—[Interruption] Order! Order!
Hon Dr Nick Smith: —but the sexual violence legislation was not?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have not written a letter with those words in it.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will the Minister release his letter to the Justice Committee dated 31 March about the Government's legislative priorities?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: As I understand it, that letter is a letter to the committee, and it is a matter for that committee to determine what it wishes to do with the letter.
Greg O'Connor: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Dr Smith referred to such a letter having been publicly discussed. The only person who ever brought that to the public was Dr Smith.
Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, well, there you go then.
Greg O'Connor: So, Mr Speaker—
SPEAKER: Order! Dr—both of you sit down. Dr Smith will withdraw and apologise for interjecting during a point of order.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I didn't interject at all, sir.
SPEAKER: Sorry, who did it? Who said, "Well, there you go."? Who made that comment?
Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, that was me. I withdraw and apologise.
SPEAKER: Right, I'm clearly having some directional things here. It's probably even for the one that I didn't blame you for before.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can I briefly speak to the point of order, Mr Speaker?
SPEAKER: No. Greg O'Connor is part way through a point of order.
Greg O'Connor: Yes, I refer to, again—I remind the Speaker—this has not been released by the committee, and I know the Speaker has ruled on that. What I do point the Speaker to is that Dr Smith has mentioned that it already has been discussed publicly. The only person who brought that to the public was Dr Smith, and—
SPEAKER: I think I've heard enough. I sought and received an assurance as to the public nature of this from Dr Smith. I have relied on that, and I'm not going to have a member now doubt the word of a member which has been given to the House.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why is the Government, at a time when millions of law-abiding New Zealanders are not being allowed to leave their homes or go to work or open their businesses, making a priority of legislation to give prisoners the vote?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The progress of that bill is a matter entirely in the hands of the select committee.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave of the House for the report-back timetable for the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to be extended by the period of the national lockdown to 7 July 2020.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that occurring? There is.




Question No. 11—Local Government
11. Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister of Local Government: Does she stand by all her Government's policies and statements?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Yes, in the context and the spirit in which the statement was made.
Hon Jacqui Dean: Does she agree that each council should be able to set their annual rates over their own assets after consultation with their communities?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I've advised councils that they should think very carefully and consider all the information about revenue as a result of the COVID-19 situation—revenue projected forecast for the 2020-21 period—before making decisions around rates.
Hon Jacqui Dean: Does she agree with her ministerial colleague Phil Twyford, who said about joint-infrastructure projects, "If councils cut their rates, I will not be able to advocate for us to make up the difference and bail you out."?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I do agree with the fact that Minister Twyford has clearly been setting out the case for opportunity around infrastructure partnerships with local councils, but they would need to think very carefully about the forecast revenue for the 2020-21 period before they consider cutting rates or having zero rates. But, just to highlight the issue, the forecast revenue in 2018-2028, through long-term projections, for the 2021 year was approximately $15.5 billion. However, as a result of COVID-19, the forecast reduction is currently projected to be between 2.3 percent to 11 percent, which equates to $355 million or $1.5 billion loss in revenue to local government. If they want successful partnerships, we suggest, as a Government, that they consider all the information before cutting rates or holding them—freezing them—at zero.
Hon Jacqui Dean: Does she agree with Hamilton mayor Paula Southgate, who said, "If we want the Government to stand beside us and bring their money to our table to benefit our community, we must invest alongside them because that's only fair and reasonable."?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I certainly heard that statement and agree with her sentiment, because there is a strong ambition in the Waikato for a partnership to continue. She also said that the challenge for councils was a balancing act and they needed to consider carefully what they were doing in relation to rates decisions.
Hon Jacqui Dean: Is it a priority for the Minister to take the views of local government into account when developing policy?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: It certainly is a priority, and I want to thank the local government sector for working with us during this COVID period in setting up a response unit made up of Local Government New Zealand and the Society of Local Government Managers in order to respond in an agile way to the everyday issues that councils were facing as they were working their way through this particular period. I also want to thank the civil defence emergency management response and the essential workers who have made sure that things have continued to happen while councils are dealing with the forecast challenges that are coming up during the recovery period.




Question No. 12—Health
12. GREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of Health: What public health measures have contributed to the decline in new cases of COVID-19?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Collectively, New Zealanders have done an outstanding job to bring COVID-19 under control. In the last week there have been just 14 new confirmed and probable cases identified. There are a range of factors that have driven our success, but key among them is the response of all New Zealanders to the restrictions placed on them as part of the alert level system. The lockdown, use of physical distancing, and people staying within their bubbles have resulted in New Zealand managing to stop community transmission of COVID-19 for now. Our challenge is to maintain that as we see more parts of the economy open up and more people moving about in the community. Ongoing high levels of testing and effective contact tracing will continue to be key elements of our strategy.
Greg O'Connor: How is testing for COVID-19 progressing?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: New Zealand has capacity to process more than 8,600 tests per day and has completed more than 160,000 tests. As at 2 May, for every 1,000 people in New Zealand we have conducted 30 tests, the same rate as Germany and more than Singapore, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. Testing rates for Māori and Pacific peoples remain high. The latest data I have shows that Māori make up 16.1 percent of tests and Pacific people 8.2 percent. District health boards are also identifying higher-risk populations, such as healthcare workers and border staff, for targeted testing.
Greg O'Connor: How important is it for the public to continue to observe the rules of COVID-19 level 3?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: As encouraging as our progress is, we can't afford to take anything for granted. We need everyone to continue to play their part. Stick to your bubble; observe physical distancing and good hygiene practices; stay home if you are sick; and, if you have any symptoms of COVID-19, seek medical advice and get tested. I want to thank the public once again for their collective efforts and their commitment to stamping out this virus and, by doing so, saving lives.
 





GENERAL DEBATE
JAN LOGIE (Green): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. 
Today, I want to do the biggest shout-out ever to all of the essential workers in this country. This is on behalf of the Green Party but, I also suspect, definitely on behalf of most New Zealanders, to acknowledge all of those workers who have done such an incredible job of keeping things running, making sure we could all put food on the table, and just looking after us. 
I particularly want to acknowledge some of those workers: so doctors and nurses and shelf stackers and all of the different staff working in our rest homes; the cleaners who have made spaces safe for us; security guards, who have kept us safe as we've gone about our essential business; the bus and train drivers; the truck drivers who have kept produce moving across the country to end up on our tables; the crisis workers; the food bank staff; the public servants; those working in Work and Income who have just had a huge number of calls; those working in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment answering the questions about who the essential workers are; all of those background policy workers and legislation drafters who have ensured that this Government could do its job in keeping the country running and establishing a pathway forward for us all to come out of this; the supermarket staff, who have been there every day and who, sadly, sometimes—
SPEAKER: I'm sorry, I'm just going to interrupt the member and warn her that I was a minute late in starting the clock. So it will finish when it says one.
JAN LOGIE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'll restate that: the supermarket staff, who have been there every day, who, sadly, sometimes have seen us at our worst, and have kept turning up for work. 
The Green Party is grateful to every single one of those workers and wants to acknowledge them in this House. All of these people, and more, have made themselves leave the safety of their own bubbles for the purpose of keeping things running and looking after us. They've put themselves and their families at increased risk to do this. We've always been reliant on them, but I don't think we've ever seen it more clearly than we do now, and I really think that it's our turn now, in this House, to ensure that we are looking after them. 
Too many of those essential workers are still working for the minimum wage or just above. They are going home at the end of the week, after putting their lives and their families at risk for us, and have been stressed and worried about being able to put food on the table for their families because their incomes are not sufficient to give them security to do that. I don't think that reflects the will of the country. There's been an acknowledgment of the importance of these workers, and I think that an appropriate response to that acknowledgment is to ensure that these staff are properly paid and given good conditions in their workplaces.
So the Greens have come up with a proposal of three things that we can do as a Government—as a Parliament, I hope—to help look after these amazing people in our communities and to help create a fairer society for all of us. The first is to get the fair pay agreement legislation back into the House and in place so that industries can set that standard of what is the foundation of fair conditions for all the staff across an entire sector such as supermarkets or security guards or cleaners, so that as a country we do like Australia, where we've got that all sorted and it's not part of the pressure on business to work out what they can afford and what they can't. It takes that out of the equation, and this is part of how we can support our businesses moving forward out of this stage of our COVID recovery into a better future. It's actually setting up a framework to help them focus on growing productivity and selling their business, rather than competing on driving down wages, which doesn't serve them and it doesn't serve the people of this country.
The other thing is for Government—where we have the control of the money going towards paying somebody's wages, whether they're being contracted to provide security services for Work and Income or whether they are working for a Crown entity or in a community organisation who's primarily funded by Government—to commit to ensuring that they're paying enough for all of those staff to have a living wage. If we want the living wage and we're the ones who have got the money, then I think it's on this Government for us to be able to do that and make sure that all those staff are properly recognised for the incredible work that they are doing in their communities. There's a brighter future ahead of us, if only we grab it.





Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): A thousand people a day are going on the dole—every single day—since lockdown began. We've heard this morning that the Ministry of Social Development is preparing for 300,000 applications of more people going on the dole who—we don't know yet for sure—may well be made unemployed. We've flattened the curve, but let's be clear: real people all around this country are suffering in very human ways as a result of the lockdown. Each day it goes on, they suffer more. The reality is for those thousand a day—30-something thousand over lockdown; 300,000 possibly to come—there's family members, there's friends who are all affected by the economic devastation that it brings. 
I've got a job. The Prime Minister has a job. Members of Parliament and bureaucrats have jobs. But there are tens of thousands who now don't, and probably hundreds of thousands more who will not, and just having a low number of COVID-19 cases isn't success when we have a lot of people—tens of thousands—out of work and more that are coming. This is going on too long and we need to get New Zealand working again, and that's before we consider the harrowing, distressful, and, for me, personally upsetting stories. 
We heard at our COVID-19 committee today of the non - COVID-19 health effects of being in lockdown and being in longer, from children who didn't attend their parent's funeral to partners who couldn't be at the birth of a child—where maybe they've struggled for a very long time to have that child—through to cancer patients whose treatment is much more of a lottery as a result of what has happened. The Prime Minister today has talked about rolling the dice, and not wanting to roll the dice. I understand that, but, actually, for those health patients, they have to roll the dice with the health system as a result of the lockdown. 
Employers right now, because it's crunch time, are rolling the dice because they don't have certainty. Yeah, they've got a wage subsidy, and they gratefully receive it for their employees, but as rent accumulates and as other expenses accumulate, they can't pay those costs, and they're the real people in this country who are rolling the dice at the moment. That's why, yesterday, we announced our national recovery agenda to end the lockdown, to provide cash in a more generous but more targeted way for these businesses right now, and a business investment accelerator to lift investment and growth as we come to recovery.
I know there's a Budget next week and I've got no doubt that the Minister of Finance will put in it significant business support, and that's good. But I fear it will be too late, because, actually, with those thousand people every day, there are a thousand business people who, as I say, are at crunch time right now, and they need decisions from this Government.
You know, when I think forward to the Budget, here's my worry. Here's what I think the issue is. We have no doubt as a team of 5 million that we've got a very real problem and it requires very real money—$40 billion, perhaps—but my fear is that this Government will turn it into a $100 billion problem. That will be more debt that will inevitably result in more tax, and that will inevitably result as a mortgage on our children's and our grandchildren's future.
I say to Grant Robertson, make your decisions now to support businesses. Don't waste our money and ruin a legacy— 
SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. 





Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): We are indeed in unprecedented times, but when our children and grandchildren look back in 10, 20, 30 years to this moment and this time and the way in which this Government has acted, they will know that the health of our people is inextricably linked to the health of our economy. The actions that this Government has taken has ensured that, yes, while we were indeed suffering some very challenging circumstances, we are making the types of decisions that will take our people and our economy through, and we will be stronger for it, because that team of 5 million people who have acted on the information that we have received in relation to COVID-19, forcing us to take some very significant steps, a four-week lockdown, and then looking towards how those levels can be reduced and how a new normal can be created—I am absolutely sure that our children and our grandchildren will reflect well on what we're trying to achieve. 
But we are not there yet, and many New Zealanders, as they are coping with the realities of what they have been working through over the last few weeks—we are asking people to continue to stay the course, stick to our bubbles, and let's finish the job that we started, because the results are starting to come through. Day by day, when the Prime Minister is reporting back on the confirmed cases and probable cases, we have seen what many other countries have not. Our strategy is working, but we must stay the course. 
Just today in the House, the Prime Minister said that everything that we have done has tried to maintain the balance on people and the economy. We have tried to ensure that we're keeping people in jobs. Why else, then, would 1.7 million workers be taking up the wage subsidy scheme? Why else, then, would we be putting out a redeployment package of $100 million to ensure that the workforce we currently have can be repurposed? We are supporting businesses and small businesses. We're ensuring that those supports are there.
But let me come back to the day-to-day challenge that New Zealanders face in these very trying times, and I too want to acknowledge the essential workers. Let me say, for local government, those essential workers are those who are contributing to the civil defence emergency management (CDEM) response. The profile of that means that a lot of the people are working in local government to make sure that we've got clean drinking water, that our wastewater system is working, and that our rubbish collection systems are working, and that we have a network through the CDEM units to ensure a welfare response that complements the health response. There are so many people to thank, but I want to recognise them.
I also want to recognise that the Government knew that it was important to ensure a Māori-specific response because of the potential impact on vulnerable communities, and that response has meant that Māori health providers, Māori welfare services, and iwi have also been integrated into the type of response to ensure at a community level—hard to reach communities—that we have networks of support that are working together in ways that they have never ever done before. That's what's required when we try and balance the needs of people and communities while also being mindful that the economy must be where we continue to place our thoughts and actions to ensure we come out the other end more resilient and stronger for it. 
That's why the conversations around recovery are about central and local government partnerships alongside iwi and the private sector, to ensure that from a small provincial community to a large urban metro city, we're all in this together. Just like the health response, the economic recovery response will be the same, too. 
I want to come back to some challenging circumstances too, because level 4 meant that tikanga practices had to change for Māori, in relation specifically to tangihanga. But do you know what? When they got the information around the overriding health advice about how tikanga may need to accommodate the reality of what we were dealing with to stop the potential of any spread in any community, kaiwhakarite and iwi got alongside the initiative to ensure that whānau in their absolute time of grief and need, where they would want to come together and grieve—we were trying to work through a process that worked well from a cultural context. I want to acknowledge iwi, kaiwhakarite, and communities of funeral directors who have supported cultural practices in this instance. 
We must stay the course. We need to be vigilant. There will be a new normal as we decrease the levels when that happens. But the important thing is an economic recovery requires everybody working together, and that's what this Government is committed to. 





Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We're all living in an age of great uncertainty. We look around the world and we see different countries responding in different ways. We don't know whether this virus will come back harder. There's a lot of uncertainty out there, and the Prime Minister today talked about rolling the dice and not wanting to roll the dice by coming out of lockdown too soon. 
But the point that Simon Bridges made—and we will continue to make—is that lots of people are having to roll the dice every day. Employers are having to decide whether they want to keep going, whether they're going to battle on or whether they're going to give up, whether they're going to keep hiring people or whether they're going to let them go—not to mention the many people who have got real heath issues such as cancer, and they're rolling the dice every day when they don't know whether they can get in front of a doctor and get their thing sorted. 
So that's just the reality of a difficult situation, but what we need is the Government to lead us out of this, into the future, with success, and there is a real sense out there, continuing, that the Government has worked hard on the health side, but has failed to really appreciate the extent of the trouble that, particularly, small business is facing. We've heard the infamous comments from Deborah Russell that maybe they shouldn't be in business in the first place, but even just this week we heard from the Prime Minister that private sector people should be generous like the Government when it comes to a whole lot of things. It was failing to recognise that the Government just takes the money through the tax system, and they don't have to go out and persuade customers to buy their products in order to pay the bills and keep afloat. That is the sort of absolute disconnect that we see across the other side of the House of the realities of surviving in business in an incredibly difficult world of zero revenues for seven weeks and how difficult that is.
So there's no question that this country has got itself into a big hole when it comes to the economy, and no Government in the world could have avoided real economic challenges because of this global pandemic. But the two real questions that are relevant going forward are: are we making the hole bigger than we need to, and, secondly, who can get us out of it best? There's no question in my mind that we are making it bigger than we need to and we've got to be very careful about that, and we've got to be very careful about how the Budget works next week and how quickly we get out of lockdown. And, secondly, there's no doubt in my mind that the National Party under Simon Bridges' leadership is best placed to lead us out of this economic hole. 
National's done it in the past, when we added $50 billion to the debt during the global financial crisis and when we dealt with the Canterbury earthquakes, and we got back on track. Within a few years, we restored the economy, got back into surplus, were growing, and did a good job, and we can do it again if we get the opportunity. 
Yesterday, Simon Bridges outlined our plan. There's five points to it that will get us back on track. The first is getting out of lockdown as soon as we can. The second is reducing the amount of damage to small business in New Zealand and saving jobs by getting cash in their hands. Small businesses—right now, they don't need more debt. It doesn't matter how cheap it is, they don't need more debt. They're frightened of that. What they need is some cash in their hands, and we came up with a plan to do that.
We also recognise that not all businesses are on their knees, but there are some that have got through this. They've got money, and we need them to drive the growth to get us back on track. That's why we came up with the business investment accelerator, which is making it easier for businesses to invest in plant, machinery, and new things to get more productive and get cracking.
Third, we've got to make sure that we're productive in this 2-metre world. I saw some statistics coming out from the Reserve Bank today suggesting that under level 3, Government was back to 90 percent of activity. If anybody believes that—I mean, they're out of their mind. Productivity is not at 90 percent in the Public Service at the moment because half of them are at home and they can't even access their laptops, and it certainly wouldn't be 90 percent at Auckland Council. They're not doing any resource consents at the moment, hardly. 
So the 2-metre world and how we arrange that—whether it's clunky and rule-based and everything in triplicate and a manual system and over the top—will mean we'll be highly unproductive for a very long period of time, with huge economic consequences. If we do it well, we'd do a much better job.
Then we've got to unlock the power of the private sector, and we've talked about the difference of philosophy between one where Shane Jones and Phil Twyford—if ever there was anybody who was shovel-ready, it was Phil Twyford, and Shane Jones is probably second. Having them decide what the new venture and what the new world will look like and where we should focus is a recipe for disaster. It's the people we trust—the National Party trusts small-business people and families to make decisions about where they will invest and how they will grow and how they'll get back on their feet again, and that's the best way to drive growth in this country. Thank you very much. 





Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'd like to begin as a number of members have in the general debate and thank the huge number of people in our communities but, obviously, also the team of 5 million, as people have been referring to, for the huge commitment to stamping out COVID-19 during the level 4 portion of the last six or seven weeks—everyone. A big effort and it has got us to the stage now where going hard and going early has put us in a position to make some decisions about going into different levels. If you take some of the questions that have come from the Opposition and you look across the Tasman, we will be in spaces and have enterprise and commerce moving much more than across the Tasman, and it is every New Zealander and their commitment to level 4 that has got us there.
I did want to also, as a local MP, thank a number of efforts of people and groups in and around the community. One I want to start with is very well-known to my colleague to my right, Jan Logie, and myself, as members of Parliament in the Mana electorate, and that is Caroline Herewini and her group at the women's refuge in Porirua. Despite being in lockdown, Caroline and her team, in challenging conditions, have continued to provide a safe space for those women who have had to get away from abusive situations, offering them and providing them the basics of life. It's those kinds of community people who, despite the level 4 lockdown and despite having challenges, potentially, in their own home have continued to offer a service to those who most need it.
Another person I want to mention is a bloody good man who used to be a security guard here at Parliament: John Hannan, who is the welfare officer at the Porirua RSA. Now, John had surgery on his hand recently, but, despite that, he has continued to make phone calls for the RSA of a welfare nature, not just in our own city but right across the region. 
So in amongst what I'm sure are 5 million amazing stories, locally, it has been lovely to hear some of the commitment of people in communities like John and like Caroline, who have kept communities ticking over. We owe a commitment to those people to stay the course to make sure that all the gains that we have got from level 4 and level 3 are maintained and allow us to, hopefully, transition to levels which will get us back to some form of normality when we are ready. 
There's been plenty of debate about when the right time to do that is, balancing up all the public health and other issues that we need to around the public as well. But we need to make sure we do it in a considered and measured way to make sure that for that commitment of people like Caroline, like John, and like everyone in every community in New Zealand, it is done in a safe way, because if there's one thing we don't want to do, it is to go up levels because we have moved too early. 
Assistance has been given by the Government since the COVID outbreak in terms of wage subsidies, offers of small-business loans, etc., to make sure that we can take the edges off the disruption to businesses and, obviously, to make sure that people can meet their basic needs. But the best thing that we can do to protect our economy is to make sure that we stamp out the virus, and that is why, again, I am absolutely proud of the effort of the team of 5 million to do that.
Again, locally, it's been quite difficult as a member of Parliament to gauge just how your community is doing when you're stuck at home. You're either relying on keeping in touch via Zoom messages, Facebook, or, obviously, old-school technology—the phone. So there are good things that I've seen online, like schools who have used online portals to make sure that kids get read books. So Kaye Brunton, the principal of Ngāti Toa School—who you will know too, as well, Jan—has been going to the internet or Facebook every day to make sure the kids get read a book. I believe there is one called Mr Stink—which I have read myself—by David Walliams, which was quite popular on Ngāti Toa School's Facebook page for obvious reasons. 
Again, that's making sure that there's connection for children in a difficult time where they don't understand. But we do owe a debt to make sure that we do this right for those kinds of people.





Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to acknowledge all the people in business who have kept paying the wages, who have kept paying their rent, who have kept their employees employed, and who are not sacking their staff or making them redundant when it is no fault of the business and no fault of the employee that they are in this situation. I think about the fact that we now have over a thousand new applicants a day for the jobseeker benefit, and we recall that not all people who are made redundant or unemployed can receive that benefit or even apply if they have a partner who is earning and they're over the limits for it. It is tough out there.
I don't believe for a moment that this country went hard and fast. It is a typical communications phrase that is being seeded into just about every speech, every conversation, from a Government MP. We did not—
Kieran McAnulty: Prove it.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: And I can prove it, prove it easily—prove it easily. On 13 March this year, we were still going ahead with the commemoration of the 15 March massacre from last year—13 March, it was still on. Pasifika was still on; international media were no doubt expected. What we ended up with was a day before, suddenly, "It's all over, Rover, and we're going to go hard and fast." We went so hard and fast as a country, did we, that we let in all these cases of COVID-19? 
We are a marvellous little country, because we have borders, which are not just borders, but we're surrounded by sea. So this is not a home-grown issue; it was allowed into the country. We closed the borders as a country weeks after Samoa closed its borders and stopped all COVID-19. They tested people coming into the country, into Samoa. They did not let them in if they showed any symptoms of COVID-19. How come little Samoa, with 200,000 people, could react far better around border security than New Zealand, with 5 million people—how come? 
We didn't go hard and fast. We went slow, and then we went hard as soon as it became apparent that the borders had been well and truly breached and that the Government had allowed this to happen.
I'm going to say that this is a crisis because it's now a crisis of confidence. It's not a crisis of health in this country any more; it's a crisis of confidence—a crisis of confidence in the business community and in people who are employed—
Kiritapu Allan: In the Opposition's leadership. Put Simon out of his misery. 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —not in the Public Service. When we have screeching from the other side like some sort of banshee, I have to say that shows that I have hit them in a point where they are very, very upset. 
I think it's really important to think about what the Government's proposing around Resource Management Act reform. The Government has, with its usual arrogance, decided it now wants to fast-track consent a whole lot of projects that it says are, apparently, shovel-ready. That is a term that seems to mean nothing much other than "would like to have done". Whatever happened to Transmission Gully? That wasn't just shovel-ready; that was actually being shovelled, and look what happened to that. All of a sudden, it's delayed. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! Order! Come on, that's enough fun. 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: This is a Government that sat by and let measles get into countries like Samoa, where they lost over 80 children. This Government let that happen. This Government did not have the vaccines in place that it promised. This Government can't be trusted to be able to put any of the infrastructure projects that it believes it's going to rush through with consents, because it can't even tell us what they are. It doesn't say what the criteria are, it hasn't produced a draft bill for the Opposition, and it isn't going to have a proper select committee process. The Government needs to understand that this country expects better when we're listening than how we're going to spend billions and billions of dollars to indebt those who come after us, just because they want to be able to say they've done something. 
There was no hard and fast. What there was was slow and required, and we need to get out of the situation we are in now, where businesses are today having to fire staff who have worked hard and loyally for them because there's no money.





Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to be able to rise this afternoon to be able to add to the general debate. I've got to say that I start with a brickbat and a bouquet, and the bouquet has to go to Jan Logie. I thank her for her speech, where she acknowledged the essential workers, and for being brave enough to suggest—well, no, not suggest; to state, actually—that with some of us in this country, whilst the team of 5 million has done a brilliant job, there are just, unfortunately, those elements who have treated our supermarket staff abysmally. I think they should be ashamed of themselves—truly ashamed. So, thank you, Jan, for the speech. 
That's the bouquet. The brickbat has to go to the Leader of the Opposition, because no matter how many times I listen to what's been said recently, and I know they've got a job to do, but it reminds me of Rudyard Kipling, doesn't it? If I might plagiarise his poem a tad, I've got to quote him, "if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too"—and I'll sort of abbreviate by saying—"you might well become a leader too one day, my son." 
I think it doesn't really matter, when I listen to—I just have to ignore some of the criticisms that have been thrown at the Prime Minister and at the Government, and take note of the silence from within the Opposition's ranks, which suggests that, on whole, the vast majority of that caucus knows that we're doing the right thing, and that the country is going to come out of this. Yes, we're going to pay a price, and we know that, but the Government and my ministerial colleagues are doing everything they jolly well can to alleviate the pain for small businesses, who comprise the bulk of our employers in this country. 
Having been a small-business person myself, I do understand what it's like to be pondering how you're going to pay the wages the next week when you're having a bad run, and this is a bad run that New Zealand has never ever run into before and never ever anticipated. I just want to say that we are mindful of what's going on, and we do realise that the people who are going to help pull us out of this hole will be those people who are brave enough to put their houses on the line, to employ someone else, and to keep going, no matter how tough the situation is getting. Those are our real heroes out there when it comes to economic recovery. We mean to ensure that they get the support they need, and I congratulate the Minister of Finance for the work he's done. 
But the people I'm going to congratulate now, in the final two minutes I've got, are the women and men of the New Zealand Defence Force. I've got to say that these people have been working behind the scenes, undertaking a vast array of tasks, and one of the things that's become very evident to a lot of Government departments where we've been leaning in and providing support across all Government agencies is the expertise and the skill that Defence Force personnel have in logistics and long-term planning, forward projecting, and putting together plans and proposals and implementing and carrying them out. I guess one of the learning lessons out of this is that other Government departments are starting to see the value, who might never have engaged with the Defence Force at the level that they have had to in the last six weeks. They are starting to understand the value, and we have now got better linkages between them, so they now know what sorts of capabilities the Defence Force can deliver. 
The support has gone out to the national crisis management team, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Whether it's doing the planning work necessary to repatriate New Zealanders who have been caught offshore, unable to get home; whether it's been doing the planning work to try and get other citizens, other nationals, out of New Zealand and on their way home; or whether it's been assisting the Ministry of Health, the 400 personnel, in total, that have been deployed to all of the Government centres managing the response to COVID—these people have done a sterling job. 
On top of that, they have continued to maintain those capabilities that we have to maintain such as the counter-terrorist capability, such as the explosive ordinance disposal teams who do that work—those very, very brave people—and such as search and rescue people, and even yesterday, the air force's No 5 Squadron once again had a successful operation and recovered a canoeist out at sea whose canoe had sunk. The humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations—and I'm going to talk more about that hopefully tomorrow, when we start talking about the work the Defence Force did in response to tropical cyclone Harold, and is continuing to do. 
So it's a big shout-out to the Defence Force. Thank you very much for your service, and to the mums and dads who had to wait longer for their loved ones to get back from Iraq—
SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member's time has expired. 





Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker, thank you very much. Ron Mark, the last speaker in this debate, talked about small businesses in New Zealand and the people who own them and run them. He said that they were the real heroes here, that they'd put their own livelihoods on the line and, indeed, that they'd put their houses, in many cases, as security, and that they would work hard and that they would get through this. I agree that they have worked very hard—they always do—but I think it's far too soon for the Government to say that they will work through this economic crisis and that the security of their houses will hold them in good place. 
The reason for that is that for the vast majority of small businesses in New Zealand over the last seven weeks, they either haven't been allowed to open and trade, or if they have been able to trade from home or, over the last few weeks, trade in the place of their work, the amount of turnover they have is so low that in almost every situation I can think of, their costs are higher than their income. That means that every single day we remain in level 3 and the public and these business owners have no certainty as to what level 2 will look like, their position becomes more precarious.
So I would say to Government members, before they are too quick to congratulate themselves for the way New Zealanders have sacrificed over the last seven weeks, they need to think about the significant economic and financial crisis that almost every single New Zealander now faces and finds himself in and every small business is grappling with, because, actually, the biggest challenge we now face as the concern around health diminishes is how we help New Zealanders—everyday New Zealanders who live in our communities—put their lives together.
There is still uncertainty. Small businesses are waiting. They do not need more debt. They do not need the Government to rearrange the debt that they have and make it cheaper. They need cash grants today in their businesses so that they can have a degree of certainty and they can pay their debts and they can rebuild as they move towards trade that may well become normal, but it's not going to be normal on Thursday of next week, when level 2 is delivered. For most of these businesses it will not be normal for the rest of this year or for the years to come. It's going to take a long, long time. 
Small businesses and landlords are still waiting for Grant Robertson to deliver on his promise of almost eight weeks ago of support to help them with their rent. Most of them still haven't been able to pay their rent, and their landlords are working with them. Their landlords have found accommodations, but those landlords too are small-business people, often. They're often people in our communities who have invested in one property and rented it out, and they too have had no income over the last six or seven weeks. They have costs that are being incurred, their insurance is still there, their hire purchases are still there, and the councils are still charging their rates as fast as they can, and yet they wait for Mr Robertson to deliver on that promise he said where there would be support, all those weeks ago.
I find it very disappointing that the Prime Minister says that we trust New Zealanders to do the right thing and stay at home during lockdown and that we trust New Zealanders to self-isolate for such a long period of time, but she won't show the respect to New Zealanders to have announced what level 2 will look like on Monday, when Cabinet made that decision. I know there are some that would say, "Well, you know, New Zealanders may take advantage of that.", but you can't on the one hand ask them to sacrifice and trust them but, at the same time, make them wait a period of time before you tell them what level 2 would look like. 
People need to know whether they'll be able to go back to work in the way they want to. They need to know how they will be able to open their businesses next week. They need to know whether they will be sending their children back to school and under what conditions they will be sending their children back to school. They need to be able to plan, they need the certainty, and we should be showing them the respect, after they have worked so hard—so hard—and sacrificed so much over the last seven weeks, to be able to tell them that. I know we'll hear it tomorrow, but I don't understand why it is we didn't show New Zealanders the respect to demonstrate to them earlier exactly what would happen.
The reason I say this is, yesterday, the Minister of Tourism said that he had been doing web seminars and that he had been talking to the tourism industry and that although he wasn't doing anything this week around jobs, there was more help coming, and I pleaded with him to deliver so that people could keep their employees on. Well, last night, on the news, we saw in Queenstown 800 jobs lost in the tourism sector. They were lost in Rotorua and they were lost in Taupō and in almost every part of this country. So I say to that tourism Minister, don't listen to them when they say "He's gone missing.", but show up, work hard, and deliver for that sector, because there are 200,000 jobs that'll be lost unless he does his job—
SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. 





KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): We have gone hard and gone early to unite against COVID-19. When the Prime Minister addressed the nation and implored New Zealanders to stay at home and save lives, we all looked to the impacts COVID was wreaking around the world, and we did exactly that. We stayed at home and we did save lives. New Zealand's response to COVID has been applauded internationally, and almost every single day, I receive commendations thanking the Prime Minister for her leadership and courage. 
We are one of the only countries in the developed world that is on track to eliminate COVID-19, and we all owe gratitude to each other, and, in particular, to those in our communities who are our essential workers: our supermarket workers, our food producers and transporters, our police, our civil defence workers, our cleaners, our healthcare workers, our ambulance operators, the gas station workers, our Whānau Ora providers, our volunteers who are out shopping for our elderly, and the NGOs who are looking after our most vulnerable. To those people that have had to front up every single day in the media stand-ups, the gallery journalists asking questions on behalf of New Zealanders, and to our most senior and trusted public servants, and, most notably, the ever-present leadership from Dr Ashley Bloomfield, on behalf of all New Zealanders, we owe you a note of gratitude, and we thank you.
But while we have seen some of our nation's best characteristics of caring for each other, it is with some concern that today I feel like we are starting to see the seeping actions of egregious acts in a cause for the Opposition to become relevant. This morning, the Epidemic Response Committee, charged with inquiring into the Government's response to COVID-19 issues, by a majority vote of Opposition members, issued a series of summons—
SPEAKER: Order! Order! I just want to make sure that this has been publicly announced.
KIRITAPU ALLAN: Yes, it has been publicly announced, sir, and public press releases have gone out. 
SPEAKER: OK, thank you. 
KIRITAPU ALLAN: By a majority vote of Opposition members, it issued a series of summons to senior public servants, including those who most of the country have upheld for their leadership: the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield; the Commissioner of Police, Andrew Coster; and the country's most senior independent legal adviser, the Solicitor-General, Una Jagose. The summons would require that we force the hand of these senior public servants to waive their right to legal privilege, and, if they fail to do so, potentially force them into a position where they may be in contempt of Parliament. 
The Epidemic Response Committee has been credited internationally as a significant constitutional check and balance on the executive's lawful albeit wide-reaching powers whilst we are under a state of emergency. Both sides of this House agree that in order to maintain public trust and confidence in our political institutions, questions should be and must be put to those entrusted with the power to make decisions on our collective behalf. But, as Professor Andrew Geddis, one of New Zealand's leading constitutional academics, observed today, the issuance of a summons to public servants sets out an extremely worrying precedent to waive that legal privilege. He has said that it isn't for a parliamentary committee to determine whether or not legal privilege should be waived but that this is an issue for the courts. This is a disgraceful use of a coercive power. It undermines the independence of the Public Service and it also risks undermining the fundamental precipice of the separation of powers.
However, on a more positive note, as we look towards kick-starting the economy and we turn to recovery from the disruption COVID-19 has done and continues to do to us as a nation, I want to highlight the Government's response to rural and regional New Zealand during this pandemic. This is evident in the central government's response to invest $28 million to redeploy forestry workers in Te Tai Rāwhiti prior to the lockdown, when it was a region that had already been impacted by the global impacts of COVID-19. 
I want to applaud both regional and iwi leadership in the response to COVID, whether that be through iwi working alongside local authorities and the police to ensure whānau and community are fed and kept safe through voluntary running of community checkpoints, and all of those in our regions that have spent hours preparing their Crown investment proposals—we thank you. We aren't out of the woods yet. We have a big task—
SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. 





CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Now, I have a lot of respect for Kiritapu Allan, the speaker who just resumed her seat, but she is quite wrong with her claim that Parliament is wrong—or the Epidemic Response Committee is wrong—to summons the Director-General of Health, the Solicitor-General, and the Commissioner of Police to investigate the powers that the Government has used through the response to COVID. I want to quote at the start of my contribution the words of the President of the Court of Appeal, Stephen Kós, at paragraph 28 of the judgment of A v Ardern, "there are unresolved questions about the lawfulness of the notices issued under section 70 of the Health Act.", and His Honour notes the letter from the Regulations Review Committee about that and the contribution by our respected legal academics Andrew Geddis and Claudia Geiringer. 
So the first point I want to make is that the Crown can waive legal privilege, and, in fact, it does so as a matter of course all the time. I refer the House to the practice adopted with success by successive Attorneys-General since 2000, when it comes to legal opinions issued by the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Law Office as to the consistency of pieces of legislation before the Parliament and their consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. 
That legal advice is made public on a near monthly basis. The Crown waived legal privilege in relation to a matter I was involved in two years ago, which was the legal issues to do with the appointment of the Deputy Police Commissioner, Wally Haumaha. The Prime Minister received legal advice from the Crown Law Office as to whether or not Mr Haumaha could be dismissed and on what grounds he could be dismissed. We asked for that legal advice to be provided. We said it was a matter of public interest for it to be provided, and indeed the Crown waived legal privilege and made that freely available. 
So there is precedent for that to happen, and I just make this point to the House: there are significant rule of law concerns around the powers that the Government has exercised during the COVID response, and there can be no more basic duty of the House of Representatives—the elected Parliament—to interrogate the powers that the Government has arrogated to itself through legislation and to work out and invigilate whether or not those powers have been exercised pursuant to the law of the land. There is no more important role for Parliament, and that is what the Opposition, through the Epidemic Response Committee, has done. It's a shame it became a divided vote. As I say, I have a lot of respect for Kiritapu Allan. It's a shame that this fundamental issue of the rule of law has become politicised, and we look forward to getting to the bottom of it.
That is the start of my speech. I want to make a second point about saying thank you, really, to our truckies. I have the privilege of being the National Party Opposition transport spokesperson, and I just want to say—as many other members have—a big thankyou to our truckies out there and our freight movers, because during the particularly tough times of level 4 lockdown, it was the truckies that were, on a daily basis, driving through the night and supplying our supermarkets and our dairies and our essential services, and, actually, I believe they haven't got quite enough credit. They've been doing a fantastic job, driving through the night and all during the day, and doing a fantastic job on behalf of us. So thank you to our truckies out there for all the things you're doing.
It's been an interesting new time. We've got a new lexicon: Zooming; getting into bubbles. I learnt a new phrase the other day, which is what it means to stan someone. I had no idea what it even meant, but that's become particularly notable in relation to the Director-General of Health—all the people who stan Ashley Bloomfield. 
We've got new ways of doing business. I rang an 85-year-old the other day to check in on her, and I was told that I had to get off the phone to her as she was in the middle of a Zoom meeting at four o'clock in the afternoon, which I thought was pretty cool. 
New ways of doing business, but also the same old things as before. From the Greens we heard this week that it's time to spend $10 billion on high-speed rail up and down the country. From New Zealand First we heard that it's time to go back to the days of self-sufficiency, in a speech from a Foreign Minister, and that COVID has exacerbated the pitfalls of globalisation, at the same time as the Minister of Trade was talking—and the inconsistencies and contradictions in this Government certainly remain apparent still to this day. Thank you.





KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is my absolute delight to stand here today in the general debate, to take the opportunity to thank those who have helped us through the lockdown—the necessary lockdown that has put us, now, in a position where we are the envy of many, many countries. Those that worked through alert level 4, our essential workers: those that worked at the supermarket and on the front line of our medical services.
I speak here today as a resident of Wairarapa, the region that has had no active COVID cases for the longest period of anywhere else in the country. We as a region are proud of that because of the work that the front-line health workers have put in but also the effort that every one resident in Wairarapa has put into ensuring that they stuck to what needed to be done. It is that effort, the effort of everybody, that has put us, as a nation, in the position that we are in now. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge them and acknowledge their efforts, not only for doing what needed to be done but for ignoring the nonsense that we are hearing from the other side of the House.
What a shame, when we had a prime opportunity to come together politically and work constructively, that the Opposition—the National Party—have chosen to take the positions that they have in the last week or so. We heard the previous speaker, Chris Bishop, justify the position that the National Party have taken on the Epidemic Response Committee to—for the first time ever in our democracy—look to breach a fundamental cornerstone of our legal system. 
I, for one, agree with this statement from a current member of the House: "In terms of making legally privileged documents public, … know the Crown never does that.", and I want to congratulate the Hon Simon Bridges for standing on policy and principle when he was a Minister, but when he is Leader of the Opposition, it's a completely different story. But we are used to the National Party changing tack and swapping positions all over the show. 
We heard today from the Hon Judith Collins that, in her view, this Government has not acted swiftly, has not gone hard, and has not gone early. I interjected, and I asked her to prove it. Could she? Could she, my foot—no proof whatsoever. I have proof: no press releases and no statements whatsoever from the National Party on shutting the borders until 18 March—the day we shut the borders. How can they stand there today and accuse the Government of not acting swiftly, when they themselves did not call for anything of the ilk until the day on which it happened? 
Lockdown in place, 27 days after the first case; self-isolation of all returning travellers, 16 days after the first case—Australia was 51; Canada was 59. We were 21 days after our first case when we closed the border to foreigners; Australia was 56; Canada was 51; the USA was 60; France, 54; Germany, 51; Italy, 52. It is an absolute joke and a demonstration of sheer arrogance that the Hon Judith Collins can just stand there and say things that she herself doesn't back up with facts. There are the facts, and it speaks for itself.
This Government acted fast. We went hard and we went early, and that is now why we're in a position, as Professor Sir David Skegg said to the Epidemic Response Committee, that New Zealand is the only Western country in the world with an opportunity to eliminate COVID-19. That is the testimony of the expert, the hand-picked expert of the National Party, who provided independent advice to the Epidemic Response Committee, until, that is, that they decided they actually didn't like what Professor Sir David Skegg said because he was so complimentary of the Government—"Goodbye, Skegg." Professor Skegg has not come back to the Epidemic Response Committee since making statements praising the Government's effort and standing us above those anywhere else in the world in our response to this virus.
I, for one, am proud to be a part of a Government that has put New Zealanders first, that has recognised the impact that the lockdown has had on them as individuals, them as businesses, and them as organisations, and that has responded in kind. I congratulate the people of New Zealand for ignoring the nit-picking, the pettiness, and the absolutely irresponsible approach from the National Party, and for getting behind this team effort.





TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I first acknowledge my community in the Bay of Plenty—particularly in the suburbs of Tauranga—who have responded quite extraordinarily through the lockdown. Through their collective efforts, we have had only 47 people who were tested positive over the last seven weeks and only one person ending up in hospital. 
In my view, many of those people in Papamoa and Ōhauiti and Te Puna and Ōmokoroa have sacrificed their business, their jobs, their livelihoods, for the greater good, and it is utterly incumbent on this place to ensure now that we stand beside them and facilitate as quickly as possible their capacity to get back up off the canvas and to have another go. That is why I think that announcement yesterday from Simon Bridges was particularly apt, because it was focused on what businesses really need now, which is cash flow and support as opposed to—as we have traversed on this side of the House—more debt, which I think, and we think, will simply constrain that capacity for those businesses to respond. 
But my city should feel confident because we are a region that has huge natural advantages, tremendous energy, and entrepreneurship. I'm sure that if we bring the best of us to the challenges that our city finds in front of it, we will succeed. 
I want to acknowledge an industry that has brought the best of it to the situation they found themselves in, and that is the kiwifruit industry. They were only one week into their harvest—the largest ever—when level 4 occurred. That industry stopped for two days and completely re-engineered their systems from harvesting the fruit, from picking the fruit, and from packing the fruit, and ensuring that it got on to the ships of the world, and they have responded quite extraordinarily: 28,000 people—28,000 permanent and seasonal workers—have been able to be employed and have been able to be kept safe. 
There has not been one issue in terms of a COVID incidence within that sector—28,000—and we are now well through that extraordinary harvest, and the reason I raise it is that I think it is hugely illustrative of the opportunity that sits in front of us as a country. The Government, as we have traversed over the last week, has spent a huge amount of time, no doubt, nickel-and-diming exactly what the rules are—no doubt, pages and pages of rules—that should sit as part of the level 2 movement. But here we have a sector that at the height of the crisis was able itself to design a system that kept their people safe and that protected their livelihoods and ensured that the economy of the Bay of Plenty and the wider New Zealand economy can thrive. 
That sense of urgency and innovation and the ability to apply the best of our thinking is what must sit at the core of the move to level 2. It will not be successful if at the core of the change sits a highly bureaucratic, prescriptive list from Wellington. We need to trust our people. We need to give, for them, at the core of their decisions a set of principles to apply to their businesses: how do we keep our people safe, how do we step up our businesses in today's world, and how can we thrive and ensure that the jobs of this country and the families of this country are protected? 
I'd like to conclude with an acknowledgment of our 23,000 farming families. Now, this Government has largely been silent on the work that they have done over the last seven weeks to keep this country going. In fact, if anything, there's been a sense from this Government that because they are part of, often, isolated rural communities, they are used to being in isolation and so, therefore, are the sector most least affected. It just proves, yet again, how completely disconnected they are with rural New Zealand. For those who live in isolation—
Greg O'Connor: Ever milked a cow?
TODD MULLER: —yes, I have—if they don't have the capacity to have people come on to their farm, it makes it harder for them, and what this Government fails to understand is that this is a sector that is already under pressure with M. bovis, that is already under pressure in terms of a fierce drought in most of this country, that has on top of those extraordinary pressures a cold chain which can't move through their stock at the pace that would be expected, and that has a regulatory impost which will break them if this Government doesn't listen and actually approach farmers with a sense of reciprocity. Thank you.
The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.





ANNUAL REVIEW DEBATE
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 29 April on the Appropriation (2018/19 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. 
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The House in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2018/19 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. All annual reviews are available for debate, but only specific Ministers will be available each day to respond, and the Government has indicated that the Hon Chris Hipkins, the Minister of Education, Minister of State Services, and Minister Responsible for Ministerial Services, will be available today. 
For those of you that haven't been taking part in this debate, I am in the Chair, but I'm remaining here so that we keep safe distances, and the Minister remains and speaks from his seat. Remember that we have also set aside the Standing Orders restricting the four- or five-minute speeches so that we can have good interaction with the Minister during the debate. 
The time remaining in this debate is one hour and 40 minutes. Kieran McAnulty moved that progress be reported, and the call is now available to him if he so wishes. 





Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Firstly, I want to take a moment to acknowledge everybody out there in New Zealand who has been doing it tough, but in particular, alongside the Minister, can I acknowledge our civic leaders, our educators, our teachers, and our principals, who have not only been supporting their families but then have been trying to deliver remote learning, and now some of them are also trying to deliver physical learning. 
I realise this is an annual review debate. I'm going to make a few comments at the outset, and then I do want to take a number of questions to the Minister. 
The first thing that I would acknowledge is around the backdrop of this annual review and some of the items in this annual review that in our view have related to very ideological reform, and they're very relevant at this period, when we are moving into a position where we don't have unlimited cash. More than ever, we will be seeing how we can power up our education system to ensure that people are participating or upskilling. 
So my questions for the Minister are around the items in the annual review that relate to vocational reform and Tomorrow's Schools. There are tens of millions, or, actually, hundreds of millions, that have been planned around this vocational reform. My question for the Minister is: does he think that's the right use of expenditure? Given the situation that we're in, we may need to upskill hundreds of thousands of Kiwis, and should we be undertaking such disruptive reform in the vocational sector? 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yes, I'm very happy to answer that question on the review of vocational education. Yes, indeed, I do think now is the right time for us to be reforming vocational education. The Government's working on the basis that we're likely to see quite a significant increase in participation in post-school education. That's something we saw after the global financial crisis (GFC), and something we saw during, I think, the last big economic shock that happened before that, which I think was the Asian financial crisis before that. So we know that when we see higher unemployment, we see higher rates of tertiary education participation, but we know from both of those previous experiences that I mentioned that that doesn't necessarily lead to better employment outcomes following the economic recovery that then follows, unless we're getting those people into the right places. 
Certainly, after the GFC, I think the last Government undertook some reforms of tertiary education, partly on the basis that they weren't convinced that the increase in participation was being driven in the right direction, and that concern still remains. So one of the reasons for establishing workforce development councils, for example, is to ensure that we can channel people into programmes that are likely to improve their employability at the other end of it. 





Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Just to make a few comments in response to the Minister's comments, and my colleague Shane Reti will, no doubt, have more to say on this, but the question that is asked of us and, I'm sure, of the Minister is, given that we are then going to be spending a whole lot of time on disruption of the personnel in tertiary institutions, the amount of money, and the fact that a lot of this reform hasn't occurred, it could be very much a hindrance on our ability to be focusing on the main task at hand, which is to upskill people, to ensure that they are studying, that they are in training, when we are focused on the reorganisation of assets and the creation of these workforce development councils. 
So my second question as a follow-up on that is: does he acknowledge and admit that there are a number of people in the tertiary sector that are arguing for either a pause on this for a period of time, or to scrap the reforms so that we can put all pedal to the metal and do everything possible to ensure that people are being upskilled, rather than stripping assets away from the community and focusing on that reorganisation? Instead, we're going to have huge institutional knowledge lost and not enough people focused on that training, but rather, they'll be focused on that institutional reform. 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I think that's a very fair question to ask. Certainly, there hasn't been a particularly loud chorus of people calling for the reforms to be delayed that I have seen any evidence of. What I have seen is that there are some who I think are wanting to move dangerously fast, and I think we have to be very careful about that as well. But there's certainly an acknowledgment that we're likely to see quite significant growth quite quickly, and we need to be able to adapt to and to prepare for that. 
But if I use an example of one of the reasons, one of the problems with the current system that the COVID response has highlighted is our current systems treat on-the-job training and off-the-job training completely separately, and, actually, we need them to be treated as part of the same system. So those apprentices, for example, who have been at home for the last six weeks or so have been saying, "Why can't we be working to do distance learning that could be supported by one of the polytechs, for example, whilst we're at home, picking up learning that we can then take back to our on-job apprenticeship when we're in a position to be able to get back on to the work site?", and that's a very reasonable request. That's actually one of the reasons why industry now are pushing for faster reform and a greater uptake of things like micro-credentials, so that we can get people job-ready faster. 





Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Madam Chair—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Just keep going, I think—just keep going. 
Hon NIKKI KAYE: Moving on to another area, obviously in the annual review, there's been a lot of discussion in the review about how Government supports children with additional learning needs, children with complex needs. We, obviously, in our report highlighted the fact that despite the Prime Minister's commitment to improve early intervention services, we have a wait of about a hundred days. We have raised issues around these learning support coordinators and the commitment that Government gave and a number of them haven't been recruited, and, now, again, we have this backdrop of COVID. We've got many parents and children who have not been able to have the support that they need through this period. Talking to principals, we've got additional issues from the mental health perspective, from additional learning support. 
So I guess my question for the Minister is: given the, in our view, lack of resource and given the period in history that he was given around learning support, does he acknowledge that it's been inadequate, that the system has not been performing as well as it could have, and that, moving into COVID when we've got another tsunami of, potentially, mental health and additional learning support issues, he could have done better and he could have provided more support in this area? 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I absolutely acknowledge that learning support is one of the areas in the schooling and early childhood education systems that I have the most concern about. It is one of the areas where I think there is a lot more progress still to be made. We funded the learning support coordinators in last year's Budget so that we can do a better job of coordinating the resources that we've got, getting support to the young people who need it faster than they have been getting it, because those wait times are unacceptable. But the big spike in wait times happened, basically, at the end of the last Government and at the beginning of this Government, and we've been working to bring that back under control, but there's a lot of ground that we've still got to recover there. So, no, I'm not satisfied that wait times are acceptable—they're not. No, I'm not satisfied that all children who need support are able to get it. 
I do want to acknowledge, as I'm sure the member will as well, the families of those kids who have got additional learning needs, because during the lockdown period, I think they were some of the families that did it the hardest. It's really, really hard to be 24/7 with some of those kids who have the highest needs, and schools—whilst they could provide some sort of videoconferencing and so on to provide a bit of support, they weren't able to provide that respite, that relief, to those families, and I think many of those families did find that period and have found this this period incredibly difficult. So I do want to acknowledge the fact that they will be very appreciative of when we get back to a point where they can get more in-person support. 





Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Just, again, to acknowledge those families but also all of the amazing learning support staff across New Zealand that have been helping those families. I guess my next question relates to that issue but also staffing generally in the Budget. 
We know that we've had, previously, issues of staff shortages, but schools cry out, obviously, for additional staffing support. We now have COVID occurring. We've got a situation where we've got immunocompromised teachers; we've got older teachers. What principals are saying to me is there is going to be a group of children that need catch-up as a result of being behind, either year 11 to 13 but other students. So what is the Minister's view in terms of whether not only was the staffing allocation in the previous Budget acceptable, given the need that we've got in areas like additional learning support, but now, moving into this period, where we're going to have some people who are not going to be able to go to work and they're going to have to potentially work from home—what the Government can do to help those schools or early learning centres that will be impacted by that. 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I think that's a very fair question. I think what we're likely to see is that there'll still be a group of students who are likely to continue remote learning, even once schools and early learning services get back to a more normal operating model, and so one of the things that I would like to see schools doing is collaborating around that higher-risk segment of the workforce and using them to support that remote learning and that distance learning. I'm aware that the spread of the workforce across schools is uneven—so there are some schools that have higher concentrations of older teachers, for example, and some schools that have got higher concentrations of younger teachers—and we're going to need those schools to really cooperate with each other if they're going to make maximum use of all of the workforce that's available. So those teachers who are unable to come back into the classroom because of health needs or because they are at higher risk, they can be supporting distance learning, and I hope that schools will be cooperating to make sure that that happens. 
In terms of the overall number of teachers, supply has been a challenge, and it's been a real challenge in a very buoyant labour market because fewer people have gone into teacher training. We can have lots of backwards and forwards, as we've done in the past, about what may have caused that, but one of the things we also know is that when unemployment goes up, the number of people who train to be teachers goes up at the same time. It's a reasonably secure form of employment, and the employment prospects are reasonably good. 
But what we've seen in the past, again—and I look back and I don't put any particular Government to blame for this, because it's happened over economic cycles of about 30 years—is that we've kind of had a boom or bust programme for teacher supply. So we've either had too many teachers, and they've complained they haven't been able to get jobs, or we've had too few. So one of the things we'll have to be very careful about is that we don't over-correct—so we don't train too many teachers and we get to that point where we end up with people saying "I've just spent four years training for a job and there's no jobs for me.", but actually make sure that we're training enough teachers. So I think the better modelling and data that the ministry has been able to achieve will certainly help us to make sure that we're getting that teacher supply situation right. 





Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): In response to the Minister's comments around teacher supply, I think this issue was raised, again, as part of our financial review, around the way that we are training teachers and the improvements that need to occur in terms of teacher training. 
The other area that, obviously, my colleague Nicola Willis will address is around early learning, and that was covered in the financial review. We cover in our report in the financial review the issues of participation for certain groups in New Zealand—Māori and Pasifika children—and I guess my question for the Minister is this. We know that there are some longstanding issues there. Under the last National Government, we saw huge improvements in participation, particularly for young Māori and Pasifika children. We have heard from the early childhood sector that they haven't, in their view, had the funding that they need. There are many early childhood centres who have had viability issues, and now we've got COVID on top of this, and what we're hearing from people like Peter Reynolds—can I acknowledge the job that he's doing—is that there are going to be significant financial viability issues because some parents will be, naturally, hesitant to have their children return to early learning. 
So if the Minister could comment on the financial review and early childhood funding in the context, as well, of some of those children who are more disadvantaged—what's happened to them in terms of COVID? Many people are very concerned about some of the hardship and what we can do in the future to be able to address those real viability issues in the early childhood sector matters. 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Those are, again, all very fair questions. We know that we've got a challenge around Māori and Pasifika early childhood education (ECE) participation, and one of things that I'd been doing some work on before COVID was looking at what our participation measures are and making sure that they're quality measures, because I think—as the member will be familiar—the measures that we've used previously are a pretty blunt survey of early childhood education participation by kids prior to them starting school. So we've ticked a box and said, "Have you participated in ECE before you started school?" We got up to about 97 percent on that. You could say, "Well, that's amazing. That's really good.", but when you get underneath that and you say, "OK, but at the ages of three and the age of four, for how long? On average, at the age of three and, on average, at the age of four, how many hours a week did those children attend?", that really highlights the difference in ethnicity. 
So Māori and Pacific students—yes, they got the box ticked that they'd attended ECE. So they're part of that 97 percent we could pat ourselves on the back about and say that's good, but they had attended for a lot fewer hours than other children, and so that meant that as they arrive at school they haven't had that advantage of ECE. That's a longstanding problem, I think. It's one that subsequent Governments have been working on over a period of time, but I think we've still got quite a way to go there. 
With regard to early childhood centre viability, we know that, particularly, small community-based ECE services have been really struggling for a period of time. If I could just be frank about this, there is a group in the sector that believe that community-based services are naturally better and provide naturally a higher quality than privately owned ECE services—particularly the larger, corporate ECE services. I wanted to test that and so I got the Ministry of Education to analyse over a period of three years early childhood service closures and, where small community-based services had closed because of increased competition, what was the nature of that competition, and it was completely counter to the claims that some in the sector have made. 
So what it tended to show was that if a small community-based service had closed, the service that had replaced it tended to have a higher proportion of qualified teachers than the centre that had closed, and it tended to be opening longer hours—i.e., it tended to be supporting parents' labour market participation for greater hours but also that it tended to cater for a broader range of age groups. So the notion that some of these small community-based services are struggling because of the for-profit services coming in and sweeping up their students and offering a lower quality service isn't actually borne out by the evidence. I looked at that very closely, and you might think that's interesting—a Labour Minister arguing that—but I wanted to test whether the view being put forward was correct, and the conclusion I reached from that was that the view being put forward was not correct. 
Some of those small community-based services have been struggling, and that's, again, longstanding. One of the issues for them, which I have been working through, is that whilst they continue to receive their Government education subsidies, they haven't been receiving things like the Ministry of Social Development child care subsidy, and the centres that are most affected by that are the ones in the poorest communities. Those are also the ones that we most need to keep, because we know if we lose those services, actually, those are the most at-risk kids because there might not be another service that will pop up to take its place and those kids would miss out. So I've been doing some work on that, and I'm very close to being able to say more about additional support that those services will get to make sure that they can remain viable in the context of COVID. 
But I guess the final point that I want to make to the early childhood sector is I understand their nervousness about COVID, but in their public comments they have to think very carefully about preserving the confidence of their parent communities once we're out the other side of this. Some of the comments that have been made in most recent days, including things like saying that parents are playing Russian roulette with their kids' health by sending their kids to ECE—those memories will linger long after we have come out the other side of the COVID situation. So I'd just say to all of the sector leaders: think about the fact that we're going to want kids in ECE and back participating when this is over. 





Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Well, look, I have just a few comments in response to the Minister's comments. I think that what we have seen from our early learning leaders and our principals and our educators has been enormous civic duty. Many of them see the weight of responsibility of, not creating public disorder, but asking legitimate questions about safety. 
So, I think, to be fair to the sector, what people like Peter Reynolds have asked for is really specific guidance, more detailed guidance, and, actually, some commentary about the debate on issues like transmission, which are being debated across the world. So the more guidance and public health rationale that can be given to this sector, the better. But also, what early learning are saying and also what the teaching profession are saying is that things like access to flu jabs, access to adequate and appropriate personal protective equipment, access to sanitiser—all of these things make a difference but they also enable people to plan and provide safe environments. I think that's the point that's been made by a number of sector leaders, and I'm sure Nicola Willis will pick up on that point. 
I've just got two short calls to make. I wanted to ask, back in the financial review, about these issues of viability of our schools. What we know is that in the last Government's Budget, we had the issue of a donations package. We know that National have previously supported scrapping the decile system because of the huge inequity that exists around schools and their capacity to fund-raise. We've got issues of international students. So I think really understanding that there was this huge plea by a number of schools that were in the higher deciles, who argued that it was a flawed system—the Minister agreed that it was a flawed system, yet proceeded with this inequitable donations scheme. So they now face a really significant issue around fund-raising; they don't have international students. 
So what schools said, and what Andrew King turned up to the select committee the other day and said was—you know, 100,000 down. So this issue of what the Government provided in the last year in terms of funding for schools was already inequitable and already had people in a bad way. Now, we have this COVID situation and we have schools that will have deficits all over the show—and if you could comment on that. 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Indeed. Just working from the beginning of that, for things like flu jabs, we have prioritised the education workforce. They've been able to get those for free. If they can't get them for free, they can claim a reimbursement for their flu jabs. We've been working very hard to get hygiene products—hand sanitiser and so on—out to schools and early learning services. 
I do just want to clarify the decision to move to level 3 and say that schools and early learning services will be open for those who need them was done on the basis that there was no evidence of widespread community transmission and a very, very low chance of COVID coming through the gate or through the door in the first place. When we make that decision to move down to level 2, where we'll see schools and early learning services much more open for a much greater number, again, a big part of that—regardless of the debate around whether young people can carry it and transmit it, a big part of the Government's thinking around that is that the risk of there being undetected COVID cases that could come through the gate of school or early learning in the first place is very, very low. Therefore, the risk of it spreading in a school setting is very, very low. But one of the critical things, of course, in that is making sure we've got very rapid response so that if anything did happen, we can close that school down very quickly and we can do the contact tracing required. 
In terms of the school financial viability issues, the member is absolutely right. I think we both agree that decile funding is a flawed instrument and we need to move to get to a more equitable system. There are better ways of doing that, and the member herself was involved as a Minister in helping to develop them. She will also then be aware that the issue is around how you do the transition, because if you went from one system to the other very quickly, there'd be some big winners and some big losers, and I don't think anyone wants to see that. I think we'd want to make sure that we're smoothing the path for schools so that we don't see the big losers. I don't mind seeing big winners, but I don't want to see big losers as we shift from one system to the other. 
With regard to international students, yes, I acknowledge that that is disproportionately affecting high-decile schools, and so we are going to have to do more in that area to support those schools. I don't think that the taxpayer should be in the business of subsidising international student education, but a lower international student enrolment is going to create some transition costs for those schools, where I think it's legitimate for them to say, "Hey, can you help us adjust to this new reality that we're in?" 
But I do want to offer some hope in that regard as well when it comes to international education, and that is earlier in the year, we worked with the university sector in particular to look at whether there was a way that international students could come to New Zealand, have a period of quarantine, and then re-engage in their education. We were unable to set that up, given the very short time frame that we were working to, but we've got some time now where I think we can start planning for what it could look like if international students could come back to New Zealand, bearing in mind that given our COVID-free status, or relatively COVID-free status, we're a very, very attractive place to come to. If we could get something where they could come here, they could do two weeks of quarantine, where we were all confident that everyone was going to be kept safe and where, potentially, they could even start some of their learning whilst in quarantine, using distance learning and other things like that, and then re-engage with the New Zealand community. That actually could be a very, very positive thing, and we could see international student numbers grow as a result of that. 
I don't want to make any commitments about that, because there's a lot of water to flow under the bridge about how you'd make that work, but what I'm saying is there's certainly a willingness on the Government side to have that debate with the sector, to see whether we can design something that keeps everyone safe that meets the needs of quarantine but allows international students to keep coming to New Zealand. 
The final point I'll make on that, though, is that there are two sides to that equation. Us allowing them in is only one half of that equation. Them being allowed out, wherever they're coming from, is also the other part of the equation, which we've got no control over. 





Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): So this is my final call, and I want to just raise more a range of issues that I will try and link to the financial review, but the first one is really at the heart of it, around schools' operational budgets. We obviously had the amount that was fixed in the last Budget, but I just got an email from a school who was telling me that it's going to cost them $9,000 a week for hand sanitiser. So my plea to the Minister and one of my questions—I've got about four or five of them—for the Minister is that when it comes to personal protective equipment (PPE), hand sanitiser, and access to flu jabs, absolutely that is prioritised in school budgets, and that we provide additional assistance in that area. 
The second issue that has been raised very publicly, but, again, it relates to the financial review and Māori education, is the issues that have been raised by kōhanga reo, for instance, around access to equitable resources. We've had a number of schools as well and we've got children in rural areas that don't have access to broadband. I know that the Government has tried to put in additional resources in terms of devices, but, as my colleague Melissa Lee has raised, there are real issues of cost for some families around access to learning, so I hope that we acknowledge that in the Budget next week. 
The third issue that I want to again reiterate—and Shane Reti will say more about that—is the comments that he's made in terms of international students. It is very, very significant. I know what he's saying in terms of high-decile schools, but it is both the tertiary sector and a number of schools across New Zealand that are hit by this. So anything that we can do in this space to ensure that we are providing a safe environment and can also have that international student sector up and running will be very welcome, and he's obviously already made comments in that area. 
Two other issues that I want to raise with the Minister: again, this issue and the comments that he made previously about ensuring that we give confidence to educators and parents. I think, on this side of the House, we have been actually very careful in the public statements that we've made. We have tried to differentiate between legitimate questions of risk that the educators and parents are asking of us, and then the things that are necessary to give the sector confidence for parents and teachers to want to turn up. I think, whether it is the additional staffing amounts—which I'll get on to in a second in terms of, particularly, those students sitting NCEA—whether it is those issues of access to PPE or hand sanitiser, or whether it is clearer guidance, all of this is crucial over the coming days to be able to give parents who are scared and teachers who are scared the confidence to go back to school. Some of that is cash. It's on the backdrop of some inequities in certain areas, and I certainly think that you will hear that chorus from the education sector, because we are certainly hearing that. 
My final comment, really, is to again acknowledge all of the teachers, the learning support staff, the cleaners, the principals, and leaders in Māori education and Pasifika education but also our public servants. I have a role, as do my colleagues, to question the Ministry of Education at times, but I do understand that those senior public servants but also those other people in the ministry that have been working—they haven't had a break. They've been working around the clock. Finally, I do acknowledge you, Minister, because while we may contest in this House many aspects of the response because that is our job, and we do that in a responsible way, we also acknowledge that Ministers are working on these issues night and day. 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank the member, and I do want to genuinely thank her for her constructive engagement in this process. We've spoken a number of times on the phone, particularly before the lockdown began at level 4. I do want to thank her for raising the right questions, and I think that's been really important. 
Very quickly around extra support for schools with COVID-related expenses: we've obviously been playing a little bit of catch up in some of these areas in things like IT, for example, where some schools went out and purchased additional devices as quickly as they could before the lockdown began so that they could dish them out to their students, and then we came in a wee bit later with an extra scheme. We've been clear that we'll reimburse the schools for those extra costs so that they're not disadvantaged relative to the schools that didn't do that and waited for us to be able to supply that support. We are able to provide additional support with things like extra cleaning where that's required, and with hand sanitiser and those sorts of things. 
In terms of kōhanga reo, the member mentioned the Budget—watch this space. There has been a big funding inequality there for a long time. I think kōhanga reo grew much faster than anybody envisaged it growing. No Government has ever really kind of caught up with the sector, and that needs to happen. 
Then, finally, around giving the confidence to parents, I do want to echo the member's comments there, and I think that she's right. It's important that we raise questions and that we get answers to those questions but that we also give parents confidence. 
The final point is around personal protective equipment (PPE). The one thing I would say is that PPE is good if it's used properly, but, actually, PPE is a risk if it's not used properly, and one of the biggest debates that you'll hear happening up and down the country at the moment is around face masks and that, actually, the vast majority of people who are wearing them are wearing them wrong. It means they are increasing the risk, because if they're wearing them wrong, they give themselves a false sense of confidence, but also, if they're touching their face more because they're wearing a mask, they're actually increasing the risk to themselves rather than decreasing it. So if you know how to wear a face mask, it's a good thing to do, but if you don't, you're actually increasing the risk. 





Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to speak to this debate and to pull out some of the key points from the annual review, of which I'll make three points and three questions for the Minister. First of all, I do want to go to international students. I want to talk to the part from the annual review that came from that in some of his answers today, of which he's already given some substance around the questions we're raising. But, obviously, we're very interested to know when international students—particularly in the tertiary sector—can return to New Zealand, and I actually would like him to make a commitment as to when that might be. 
We have to imagine that if we go back to around about February, with the discussions the ministry and the Ministry of Health were having with Universities New Zealand, they had substantively reached an agreement. It was a collaborative agreement. Each university had said, "Yes, we can quarantine effectively." and everyone was happy with it, so I would submit that certainly before we went into full lockdown, we were actually ready to go. But even more so, I would submit today that the universities are ready to go. As Grant Guilford commented to the Epidemic Response Committee yesterday, yes, they could safely quarantine, and I think it's really important we understand that context. There has not been one Chinese international student who's tested positive for coronavirus in New Zealand. There has not been one international student who's tested positive for coronavirus in New Zealand. 
Let's look at our market competitors. Canada have kept their international student borders open. International students have choice. We would like them to come here. We've got substantial competitive advantages. It's our lifestyle, it's our course costs, it's our post-study work visa—it's all of these things. But they can make choices. They can go to Canada, they can go to Melbourne, they can go to other places, and this part of our export market is so critical. It often hides behind the big names, the tourism and the red meat and dairy, but, behind that, it's No. 4—$5 billion through our economy—so, it's very, very important. 
I would submit that universities are ready to go and ready to quarantine, and so what I'm asking the Minister is: will they be first off the rank, or when will international students be able to re-enter New Zealand for that really important part of our economy? While I speak and use universities as the example, our polytechnics are also indicating this is their key impact measure for coronavirus, as are private training establishments, and you've heard my colleague the Hon Nikki Kaye talk about the international student impact on schools. 
So my question to the Minister is will international students—initially, maybe, to universities—be first off the rank when the borders are open; does he agree that universities, as he understands it at the moment in their quarantine proposals, are suitable, as we best understand it; and will he prioritise them and commit to when international students can come back to New Zealand? 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Madam Chair, I thank the member for his comments, and I think if I could begin by acknowledging that, yes indeed, there have been no international students testing positive for COVID-19, I think that he will join with me, and I hope all members of the House will join with me, in rejecting some of the xenophobia that we have seen around Chinese people in New Zealand in particular. It's completely unacceptable. I know that some Chinese international students have been on the receiving end of that, and I send a message to them saying that that is not New Zealand, that is not our view as a country, and that we're very sorry that a small minority of New Zealanders have chosen to express those views. 
In terms of the quarantine arrangements, the quarantine discussion with the universities before we reached level 4 was based on, if you like, an enhanced self-isolation model, and the Opposition themselves were among those calling for something that went a lot firmer with regard to closing the border than self-isolation—wanting a sort of a hard quarantine, if you like, at the border. So we will have to go back to the sector and discuss what a hard quarantine, as opposed to an enhanced self-isolation model, might look like. But, as I've said, we do have some time to do that. We'll work constructively to do that as quickly as we can, though, so that we can get international students back into New Zealand. 
There are some new models for the sector, if they wish to pursue them, that could see real spin-off economic benefits to wider parts of the New Zealand economy, including looking at whether some of the resorts that we've got currently mothballed around the country could be used as a quarantine environment for what we'd call high-value, wealthy international students who might come to New Zealand looking for a premium experience—particularly in the English language sector, for example. So there are some opportunities there for the international education sector to be partnering with parts of the tourism sector that may take a bit longer to get up and running again because quarantine will be a barrier for them. It may well be that they can partner together in order to be able to offer a really high-value product to potential international students to New Zealand, one that's really attractive and one that showcases the very best of New Zealand. So the Government is very happy, very keen, and very eager to be an active partner in that process. 
So in terms of the member's question about a specific time frame, I can't really put a specific time frame on that, because that's going to depend on us getting a package that both will be financially viable for those delivering it but also provides the public health reassurance that I think all New Zealanders are going to be looking for. But certainly, once that can be developed, the Government is willing to work with the sector to make it happen. 
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Do you want to continue, Dr Reti? 





Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to move to where the Minister talks about new models of delivery, and I'd like to extend that and talk about the offshore online delivery and the hurdles that a number of organisations are expressing to us. 
So this is a really good example. I think the ministry did very well to say, "Look, we can't bring you into New Zealand, but there is some part of what we can do that you can do online offshore", and so the temporary offshore online delivery application process was put in place. It's a temporary approval through to 30 June, and the issues we have with that—it's a good programme, but the case being made to us is that the application approval process is very cumbersome. It takes a lot of time. Every new programme needs to be approved with the potential, on 1 July, for completely needing to be redone as a new, full approval with those long compliance times as well. 
It would seem to suit the bill. It would seem to be suitable; it would seem to help keep our international students in mode with a view to eventually coming onshore. My question to the Minister: is he aware of the hurdles, and can he take some action around that? 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yes, as the member will be aware, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has put in place a programme that allows for offshore delivery. It was put in place at speed, and I think NZQA have been balancing two competing interests here. One is to set the threshold sufficiently high to preserve the credibility of our qualifications system, and I think we'll all agree that that's really important. We don't want to see providers offering a substandard remote learning experience to people offshore that might then tarnish the reputation of New Zealand qualifications and the New Zealand education system overall. But then, by the same token, it is to make the process not too onerous, and there's a real tension between those two things. With more time, I think it will almost certainly be the case that lessons can be learnt out of the experience to date and that that process can continue to be refined. 





Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Madam Chair. The last point I want to talk to is fees-free, and clearly we've had issues with fees-free right from the very beginning. We just fail to believe that it is the correct tool to increase participation, which was the promise. We see less learners before than after, and we understand that that fits with the economic cycles, but the bare facts stand as they are. We have studies out of Canterbury, as I recall, where the vast number of students—94 percent—said fees-free wasn't critical for them actually attending university, and here we are now, where we're maybe going to increase our national public debt to maybe 50 percent of GDP, and the administrative cost to fees-free last year was $7.523 million, just administering fees-free. That's a lot of money for a programme that we're contending isn't doing the job and isn't the right lever for the outcome that was proposed. 
Now, the Minister has in previous statements said, "Oh, it's been wonderful for apprentices." I want to contest that. Apprentice numbers have gone up, although under the Reform of Vocational Education, the projections from a number of officials were that they'll go down by about 2,310, as I recall, in what was framed as the short run and the medium term. But through annual review, I think it was very interesting that when this was posed to the chief executive, that relationship between fees-free and apprenticeships, his reply was—and I quote—"I don't think that we can yet ascribe a correlation to fees-free." I think that's a really important point, because I know the Minister's been keen to talk about the increase in apprenticeship numbers and make that nexus back to fees-free, but his own ministry in annual review was saying there is none. In the broader discussion, it was "We need to wait longer.", to be fair. So it's none now; maybe in the future—who knows? But, right here and now, that is not a statement that can be made. 
So I want to put it to the Minister that he reflect and review the current coronavirus situation that we are in, where public debt will be increasing substantively. We would contend that fees-free wasn't a suitable tool before coronavirus came along, and, even more so now, with competing demands and competing resources, we think this is even less suitable as a tool for the objectives he was wanting to reach. Will he consider standing it down? 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I thank the member for his comments. With regard to fees-free, I think there are a few things in there. One is to look at the administrative costs. It is quite a large number of students who benefit from that, and the administrative cost of fees-free is a fraction of the administrative cost of the student loan scheme, for example. So all forms of student support do have some cost in administering them. 
With regard to that link between fees-free and apprenticeships, I'd encourage him to listen to the comments of some of the industry training organisation chief executives, who have actually said that it's been a good recruitment tool for them and they have got more people into apprenticeships as a result of fees-free. I want to be clear: the Government's not made any decisions at this point around future expansion of that policy. We'll have announcements to make on that in due course, but we've not made decisions on that yet. 
With regard to apprenticeships, I do just want to make one comment, which is I'm very attuned to the fact that when the economic going gets a bit tough, apprentices can find themselves susceptible to that. We'll be working very hard to make sure that firms that have apprentices—particularly those who've got apprentices who are early in their training—are kept on board, because we don't want to see the number of apprentices going down, as we've seen in previous economic cycles, because the economic going gets a little bit tough. So I'm looking very, very closely and talking very closely to the sector about how we can support those apprentices to stay in their apprenticeships. 
Hon Member: E Te Māngai—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'm aware of the timing. The Minister is happy to continue? 
Hon Chris Hipkins: Yeah. 





NICOLA WILLIS (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is the first time I've risen to speak in this House since the country has been in lockdown, and I do want to take this moment to acknowledge not only the educators, that Nikki Kaye acknowledged, but also the parents, who have found themselves acting as educators these past few weeks. I know, for one, it's not an easy job, particularly juggling work and doing that job of educating. I found myself the other day saying, "Oh well, it would be OK if these four kids were the same age and at the same level.", and then stopped myself as I realised that every teacher in this country has at least 20 children in their classroom of varying ability and various stages, who bring different things to the classroom, and I take my hat off to them. I also want to acknowledge the students around the country, who have had their lives significantly disrupted, and who are learning things at home, but in a very different way. 
Coming to this annual review, of course this annual review took place in a context and environment that has now changed significantly. When we put together our report, COVID-19 was being seen as a global health challenge, and we did ask questions about the preparedness of schools, but, in the early childhood sector in particular, I have a sense that the issues that were once absolutely top of the pile will now be joined by other significant issues. We have been focused in recent times in New Zealand on the issue of teacher shortages in early childhood education, the pressing issues of teacher pay, and the issues of viability of some centres. But today, we face much more immediate challenges, and I have two series of questions for the Minister, if he'll just be patient with me. 
The first is around the advice that is available to early childhood services preparing for alert level 2, whenever that may occur. I know that many of them are very appreciative of the detailed advice the Ministry of Education has provided in the engagement, but there is still this outstanding question of why can't early childhood services access, directly, Ministry of Health officials and their advice upon which the guidelines the Ministry of Education are making are based. I think that providing that transparency, providing that access, would do a lot to lift early childhood confidence, both for teachers and owners, but also for parents, who could be reassured that decisions around how early childhood centres will operate under level 2 are based on the very best and most current health advice. So that's my first question to the Minister. 
My second question is around this issue of viability. I asked an oral question about this in Parliament last week, and the Minister, quite rightly, pointed out that the Government has made a decision to continue at full rates the subsidy for early childhood centres, regardless of the attendance they have from students, for the next couple of months. But my question goes deeper than that, and I would invite the Minister to comment on it today, if he can, because of the significant financial implications it has, because we know that in an environment where fewer parents have jobs, even in a best-case scenario, and where many parents have reduced hours or reduced incomes, we can expect that there could be a reduction in early childhood attendance. 
So my question has two parts: firstly, what thinking is the Government doing about how that could affect our participation goals—particularly for lower socio-economic groups and those most disadvantaged and least likely to attend early childhood education—but, secondly, has there been thinking or is there thinking developing about what that might mean for the viability of early childhood services in those communities who may find themselves vulnerable with parents losing their jobs, not sending their kids, and the centre no longer able to pay the bills, having to let teachers go, and, potentially, having to close its doors? 
So those are two issues I find myself focused on at the moment as I discuss COVID-19 and its implications with early childhood educators. I fully acknowledge there are many more issues in the sector, but if the Minister could address those two issues, I would appreciate it. 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I'm happy to address those, and can I indicate to the committee that when the House resumes, I'll seek leave to extend the annual review debate by another 20 minutes so that we're not cutting into the time for the Ministers who are appearing tomorrow. I'm sure the Opposition will support that particular course of action, because I actually think this has been one of the best annual review debate dialogues that I have seen, and I want to thank the Opposition for that. 
With regard to advice on alert level 2, tomorrow we'll be issuing more detailed guidance on alert level 2. One of the pressures, I think, has been that everybody's wanted access to the public health officials who have been helping to prepare that guidance across all of the different sectors, and they're spreading themselves pretty thin. When we moved from level 4 to level 3, we organised some live streams so that the sector could hear directly from the health officials, and I hope we'll be able to do something like that again without stretching them too thin. Some sectors will still be working through that guidance after tomorrow, whereas I hope with education we'll be able to give them stuff that's a bit more definite tomorrow when we put material out there, given that the shift for them—we kind of worked through a lot of that in the shift from alert level 4 to alert level 3. 
With regard to early childhood education (ECE) participation and the goals around that, I think that's a really good question, and there are going to be some challenges there. As I said, we're going to have to work to rebuild parent trust and confidence in sending their kids into ECE services. We may see a shift in the balance of that. We've seen a shift at level 3—for example, more demand for home-based services. Parents feel a bit more comfortable with those, and so we might see a shift in participation patterns. 
In some of the lower socio-economic areas and areas where parents are experiencing economic pain, we may see that they change their kids' participation patterns. So, for example, in three- and four-year-olds, where they've been supplementing the 20 hours' free with additional hours that they pay for, they may scale back to just the 20 hours, and so some of those services, effectively, cross-subsidise to top up the 20 hours from that extra that they charge for the extra hours. So we're going to have to work really carefully at the financial modelling around how we support services to adapt to different participation patterns, but I think that it's very likely that we are going to see quite a shift there. 
We know that 20 hours is really a desirable number from an educational perspective, and so the extra hours on top of that have less educational value, but certainly have a significant value to parents' participation in the labour market. So I'm really keen to make sure that we're keeping kids engaged at least for 20 hours but I also recognise that those changing participation patterns will have an effect on services, and we'll work through that with them. 
Like I said, I think the immediate pressure that the most vulnerable services are facing is the result of not getting revenue through the Ministry of Social Development childcare subsidy. I've been working through all of that, and I will have more to say on that very soon, because I think that's a legitimate concern that centres have raised. 





CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I want to join with a number of my colleagues across the House in acknowledging that the world has changed, actually quite dramatically, since these annual reviews were completed, but in some ways it actually hasn't changed all too much. As I've already said before in this House, the Secretary of Education, in speaking about the need to provide particularly school children with technologies to access education online, said—and I quote—"This pandemic did not create inequity; in fact, it has exposed it." 
In my brief contribution on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa today, I want to focus on the issue of tertiary education, and I want to just put a few numbers out there to begin with. If anybody wants to shout it out or to contribute, guess what these numbers are: 1.33 million—1.33 million New Zealanders have taken out student loans since they were introduced in 1992. Then $220,630: $220,630 is the current average balance on a student loan. And $16 billion is a figure that should resonate, at least with a few tertiary education spokespeople in the room, given that it was this year that the New Zealand Union of Students' Associations celebrated, or perhaps lamented, the $16 billion worth of student debt which that currently sits at. 
Going through this annual review, there have been a number of kind of comments which I think have been ultimately constructive, but have highlighted what the Hon Nikki Kaye spoke of as ideological differences. She actually, at that point in time, was speaking about the fact that this Government was led by ideology. Again, I would point out the fact that every single political party in Parliament is led by ideology—that is, in fact, the values which shape the kinds of investments that we choose to make and the society that we hope to shape off the back of it. 
Oftentimes when we are hearing from, particularly, members of the Opposition around the likes of fees-free and their critique of it, that is pertaining to what they see as the lack of numbers of students who have taken it up. They see the focus of fees-free as increasing participation. I'm not sure—and I can't defend the Minister on this point—as to whether that was ever anything that he sought to sell that policy on. But it definitely has always, for us—and I presume for the Minister, as well—been a matter of removing those barriers and reducing that inequity that the Secretary of Education, Iona Holsted, spoke to. 
I want to speak, just in summary, to some of the points that have been made in dialogue around how we pay for education moving forward—particularly noting, as Dr Shane Reti did, that we are looking down the barrel of taking on more debt as a nation, and we have to be quite thoughtful about what we choose to spend that money on, and I've had an interesting dialogue with a member of the public on my Facebook page, of all places, about why it should be the place of so-called working people to pay for those who are going through a university education. Here, if I may quote just from the response that I gave this individual, they said, "It is the education that ultimately improves society for all of us, not just the one student. Education builds public infrastructure, technological innovation, stronger and more resilient communities. The argument regularly goes that those who pursue higher education should treat it as a financial bet to earn more in the future, but that's simply not the case for teachers, nurses, or many of the other roles that we have taken for granted historically, who do not do it for the money nor the status, nor the glory, but because those people want to contribute. So why should those who actively improve society for all of us carry the anchor of debt? 
"And for those who do make more money from an education, why shouldn't they in turn pay fair taxation, so that all kids from all walks of life and all other working-class folks from a diversity of different backgrounds are able to access those same opportunities that they did? New Zealanders on the minimum wage are far closer to the students than they are to the people who are telling us to fight each other 
"If you're on the minimum wage and struggling to get by, your enemy is not students. In fact, your beef should be with those who are seeking to tell you that you do not deserve that same education." 
Quite the opposite of Dr Shane Reti, we'll be pushing for a freer education. 
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Yeah, I'd just remind the member that this was actually set up particularly as a question and answer. It wasn't time to make speeches, and, actually, it was focused on the annual review and the COVID response, and I don't think the member fulfilled any of that. 





SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Well, thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a brief call in this debate. I do just want to add my comments and acknowledge all of the teachers, educators, and principals across our country, but in particular in my electorate of Pakuranga, who are working so diligently at this very difficult time to keep our schools and our early childhood education centres going and are continuing to provide the excellent education that they do every single day. 
I'd like to just touch my comments and questions in regards to the tertiary support package which the Minister of Education has recently announced, and also touch on some of the issues which students are facing in this post-COVID world. The world has changed dramatically in the last six, seven weeks since we were last here in this Chamber. 
So, firstly, I would like to touch on the tertiary support package, which I think has received underwhelming feedback from most sectors of society, and particularly from students—a package which essentially seeks to allow students to take on an extra $1,000 in student debt to be able to support themselves through these difficult times. I do just want to touch on the comments that the Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University, Grant Guilford, gave to the Epidemic Response Committee yesterday, where he said that he had requested the Government to look at a student hardship fund to support students at this time. He said to the Epidemic Response Committee that he has yet to receive an answer. I'd like to ask the Minister what consideration he has given to that request and when an answer may be given to universities and to students to support them through this difficult time. 
The second point I would like to add in relation to that is the issue which is facing many students across the country who are having to pay for university halls of residence whilst they are not able to access them at level 3. That has received very strong responses from members of Parliament across this House. I would like to put on record my appreciation to Victoria University for changing their stance, but other universities are still yet to do this. Again, it comes back to: will there be further assistance and a student hardship fund made available so that this doesn't have to continue and so that students don't have to have the stress and pressure that this is providing at this very difficult time? Thank you. 





Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'm happy to make a few wrap-up remarks. I'll just quickly touch on the issues around tertiary students that have been raised at the end of this debate, and acknowledge both members who have done that. Obviously, there's some big-ticket items that have been raised in here, and I can't make any commitments around that, but I do acknowledge that there are some tertiary students who are experiencing financial hardship at the moment, and we're working on further measures that will support them. 
I also want to acknowledge that for many of those who work part-time in order to supplement their income during their study, those jobs have often disappeared, but for others, they've increased—there's quite a lot of work for tertiary students in supermarkets at the moment. But, actually, many of the other jobs have evaporated during the lockdown period, and that has put a number of tertiary students into hardship. I acknowledge that, and I hope to have more to say on that soon. 
With regard to halls of residence, again, I'll reiterate the comments that I've made: I find it utterly unacceptable that some of the operators of halls of residence have claimed the wage subsidy and have continued to charge students. That is simply unacceptable, and they should not be doing that. 
Finally, I think this has been a very constructive conversation about education-related matters, so can I thank all members for their participation in it, and end by echoing the comment that many other members have raised, which is to thank the education sector as a whole for rising to the challenge. If you'd have said to me two months ago that, standing here now, we would have the vast majority of our education system and the vast majority of our learners learning at home using remote learning, I would have thought that that would be impossible to achieve in that period of time, and yet they have risen to the challenge and they have done that. I take my hat off to them and I thank them for the level of dedication, passion, and commitment that we have seen in that response. 





KIERAN McANULTY (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the committee report progress. 
Motion agreed to. 
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I will report progress on the bill, and can I echo the Minister's comments that I think this has been the best session that we've had. We've had another one good session. 
House resumed. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted. 





BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the time limit for the annual review debate to be extended to five hours and 20 minutes, recognising that we went 20 minutes over our allocated time today. 
SPEAKER: Well, not many other Ministers could do that. Is there any objection to doing extra time to make up for it? There appears to be none. That is so agreed. 





CHILD SUPPORT AMENDMENT BILL
First Reading
Debate resumed from 19 March.
SPEAKER: When we were last debating this, the Hon James Shaw had the call and he had eight minutes remaining, if he or a member of his party really wanted to continue. The question is that the—
Erica Stanford: Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: Oh, Erica Stanford—sorry. The member needs to be loud from the corner.
ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): I'm up the back, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'm pleased to make a contribution tonight on the first reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill. At present, there are 185,000 children who are supported through the child support scheme, which has a relatively high level of compliance for payments. But it is important that we continue to make improvements to the legislation, as we have done over the last couple of decades, to make it more equitable, more flexible, more streamlined, and not overly punitive.
The previous National Government released a discussion document in 2017, which laid out a number of problems with the child support scheme that required legislative change. That discussion document, however, wasn't about changing fundamental policy settings of the Child Support Act. Instead, it was about improving the administration of the scheme, and it suggested improvements that were possible because of a new technology platform that the IRD were moving to, and indeed have now moved to.
A child support system that is seen as fair will be a system that has a much higher degree of compliance. This is, of course, important because the beneficiaries of this compliance are children. The more penalties that we load on, the less flexible and less accommodating the system is, the more the system is viewed as unfair and inequitable, and the more ability that parents have to hide income, to jimmy income around, and to offset losses to lower their child support payments, the more frustration is felt and, ultimately, the lower the level of compliance. This bill makes some very sensible administrative changes, in line with that discussion document from the last Government, that will increase compliance.
One of those important changes in this bill is around the definition of income. As an electorate MP, I have to say that I have seen a large number of child support cases in my time both as a staffer in the electorate office and also as an MP. One of the frustrations that people have when they come to me is that their partner has been not declaring all of their income, or, indeed, hiding some of that income, especially those who are self-employed—either paying themselves a minimal salary or offsetting losses and not declaring other income to reduce their child support liability. Currently, it is possible for one parent's income to be lowered due to tax losses in a previous year, which, in turn, reduces their child support liability.
The Minister of Revenue made it really clear in his first contribution in this bill that that approach is not fair, and this bill proposes that the system will no longer allow offsetting of losses to be able to offset income and lower child support payments. What this does in reality is stop those parents, effectively, gaming the system, jimmying things around to avoid paying their fair share, which is very important.
In this bill, the definition of income has been altered to include dividends and interest payments. Those weren't able to be previously accounted for, because the amounts weren't available until the end of the financial year, but now, with this new technology platform that the IRD have, they have better access to data, and more up-to-date data, allowing them to take into account income that is derived from interest and dividends. 
Part of this bill introduces the compulsory taking of the child support payments from parents who are newly enrolled in a child support scheme, to be taken directly out of their salary, which will increase compliance and get parents on the right track right from the very start, which is a positive thing.
Finally, one of the important changes to the bill is around the time bar. Currently, when we are reassessing a parent's income to calculate their rate of child support payment, we look right back to the inception of the Child Support Act, which is back to 1992, and, clearly, it's this huge waste of time and resources. It actually would be far better if we just took it back four years, which is exactly what's being proposed in this bill.
I did want to also talk about penalties. One of the things in the discussion document that the National Government released was that what they found was, if you're overly punitive and inflexible when it comes to penalties, it acts more as a deterrent to comply than an incentive to comply for many people. So, with that in mind, there are some changes to the application of late payment penalties. 
The first of those is, currently, if you miss a payment—if you're paying some child support and you miss a payment—there is a 2 percent penalty, and then, seven days later, there's a further 8 percent. The recommendation in this bill is to push that second 8 percent penalty out to 28 days. What that allows IRD to do is to engage with parents to try and work out a solution to get them back on track and improve compliance, and I think that is a good solution.
The second part of the changes around penalties is around a 60-day grace period, allowing a newly enrolled parent in the scheme 60 days grace, without any penalties, to start their payments. This is, I believe, a relatively good suggestion, in that this is a really difficult time in many families' lives, when they have gone through what is a very emotional time. It's difficult financially. It's very stressful. Giving them that 60-day grace period to come to terms with what they're dealing with and get payments under way is a good move, in my opinion.
This bill is the result of the good work of the previous National Government and is long overdue. There will be some things that we do need to iron out at select committee, but, for now, I commend this bill to the House.
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.





SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Mr Speaker. 
SPEAKER: A point of order, the Hon Chris Hipkins—a welcome point of order. 
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I seek leave for the House to adjourn until 2 p.m. tomorrow. 
SPEAKER: Is there any objection? There is none.
The House adjourned at 5.21 p.m.