TUESDAY, 23 JUNE 2020
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Prayers.
MOTIONS
New Zealand Police—Death of Constable Matthew Hunt
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice relating to the tragic death of Constable Matthew Hunt.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I move, That this House express its sorrow at the death of serving police officer Constable Matthew Hunt of Waitematā Police, who died after sustaining fatal gunshot wounds in Massey on Friday, that it express its sympathies to his fellow officer who was wounded during the same incident; and it acknowledge the commitment and professionalism of his colleagues and the investigation team, who responded quickly to apprehend the alleged offenders.
The plaques on the walls around this Chamber tell a story of sacrifice. They tell a story of those who lost their lives in service of this country—28-year-old Constable Matthew Dennis Hunt was also killed serving New Zealand. As Waitematā District Commander Naila Hassan said at the weekend, "there is no higher price." It is a debt that we can never repay.
On behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand, we acknowledge the grief of Matt's family. We offer our wholehearted sympathies to them, including those family members who have travelled recently to New Zealand, and we grieve for Matt alongside the wider police family. Many of his colleagues from Waitematā district attended a karakia and haka on Sunday at the site where he lost his life. Their strong showing of support speaks to how much Matthew was loved and respected. Along with the outpouring of grief across Tāmaki Makaurau and throughout Aotearoa, police have received messages of support from the global police family as well. After all, to lose a police officer is to lose someone working for all of us, but it's also a family member, someone's loved one, and a friend.
I want to thank those who were first on the scene, who tried to help, including the health professionals who worked to treat the officers and also the bystander who was injured. Matt's death has moved people the length of this country. It touched the members of the Blues rugby team who honoured him with black armbands on Saturday—a team he had supported only recently at Eden Park.
I'm told Matt loved sport and that it was no coincidence his OE took place in London in time for the Rugby World Cup five years ago. His OE was part of a bigger plan to get some life experience, suggested to him by a police officer when he first expressed an interest in joining the police. When he finally applied, the person who did his recruitment interview noted that he was "a mature and skilled professional with a developed sense of resilience, excellent problem solving skills, and the ability to perform under pressure."
He had the ideal qualities of a police officer—not just a police officer; someone who understood and served his community. Matt's previous experience was as a case manager for the Department of Corrections. He helped with the day-to-day operation of our court system as a registry support officer. His former colleagues at Corrections spoke of his star quality, and that as well as being smart, he had a good way with people. They got the impression he was born to work in the justice sector. His role as a case manager meant he worked alongside people to manage their rehabilitation and reintegration back into the community. It's no surprise his BA major was in criminology and conflict resolution. His boss at Corrections promised to keep a desk warm for him if he didn't enjoy his police career.
When he was accepted into recruit wing 312 at the Royal New Zealand Police College in late 2017, he went through his training with Tā Mark Solomon as his wing patron. Tā Mark recalls that when he first met the 60 aspiring new recruits, he was immediately struck by the passion they had for their new career. Matt did, indeed, have a star quality—a star that was taken too soon. To quote "For the Fallen": 
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
Haere atu rā , Matt.





Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, can I acknowledge the Prime Minister for her comments. Thank you. Can I also acknowledge our leader for allowing me to take the call today. Matthew Hunt was not a stranger to me, and he is from my own home town of Ōrewa.
On Friday, 19 June 2020, at 10.30 a.m., Constable Matthew Dennis Hunt and his partner were shot in the line of duty. Matthew didn't survive his injuries. He was a loving, protective son of Diane and trusted big brother of Eleanor—a tight family unit of three. I have been given the honour to share some of Diane's words with you here today, supported by Matt's father, Graeme, and his uncle and his auntie, Robert and Wendy.
The first thing Diane wants to do is thank the New Zealand Police family, who have provided absolutely amazing support with their wraparound care and love of all the family since Friday. These are Diane's words: "My son has a huge team behind him. Everyone who knew Matthew knew him to be a selfless man of huge integrity. He loved serving the community. He loved serving his community and protecting his fellow New Zealanders. My heart is crying out that this was so unnecessary and tragic. He graduated with a degree in criminology from AUT, and before joining the police, Matthew worked as a case manager for Corrections and was proud of his role in helping prisoners to reintegrate with society. He was also a great paperboy. My beautiful boy—28 years young—will never have another birthday. Matthew was raised on the Hibiscus Coast. He was a Coastie. He had all the traits of a classic Coastie: laid-back and calm, community-focused, and always with a beaming smile."
Kate Shevland, his principal from Ōrewa College—or "OC", as we know it—shared some memories of Matt that were put together by Matt's mates and staff members who taught him. I'd like to share some of those with you. Outdoor education: "Matt was an absolute legend. He was part of the first ever level 3 outdoor education programme at Ōrewa College and planned trips such as a snow camp to Mount Ruapehu and a surf camp to Tāwharanui. He was in the first ever Survivor Ōrewa, a hotly contested part of the programme. The outdoor education units he helped to plan are still part of the course 10 years later. He was liked by all his peers, warm natured, and gave everything a go—an amazing student."
His English teacher: "Matt was an undercover academic. He would be up there with his mates playing practical jokes on everyone, teachers included, and would then invariably meet his deadlines, with high-level work, and surprise us all."
Sports: "Matt and his friends were a tight group and competed for many different sports while at OC together, all in the name of fun. Playing squash for two years, they proved they weren't the greatest squash players, but they had fun doing it. Matt also played golf, bowls, and softball. In 2009, he was part of our first team to attend the secondary school softball nationals in Tauranga. In softball speak, boy did he have an arm. We needed him in the outfield, because he could throw a ball so fast and accurately from fielding it in the outskirts of the outfield that it would go straight into the infield, no need for a cut-off. On one play, he threw the ball from the back of centre outfield straight to the catcher at the home plate to get an outstanding out. We remember his beaming smile yet casual, humble manner, while everyone else in the team went nuts at how fast and smooth the throw was. He was an excellent role model for younger players, keen to learn and humble in his achievements. He was always the first to offer help to the coaches, managers, the scorers and our team umpire, and the first to thank us all for coaching and feeding them. As a founding team member, he was part of setting the goal for the following year to take out the Nationals title, which we did. Canadian softball visitors who played for HBC Softball Club said of Matt, "He was one of the boys that made us feel so loved and welcome here during our stay. One of the kindest, most caring guys we've ever met." 
He was looked up to as a kind, caring person who had a good outlook on life and a lot to give. We already miss him.
I want to acknowledge District Commander Naila Hassan, who has shown strength and compassion in the days following Matt's death. I'd also like to acknowledge Matt's police family in Ōrewa: Area Commander Mark Fergus and his entire team. Mark, and Matthew's supervisors, had this to say about him, "Matt is remembered by his supervisors as a highly intelligent and professional officer, one who is diligent and committed to keeping safe the community that he grew up in. He had a promising career ahead of him and intended to take on the challenge of becoming a detective in our criminal investigation branch. He was expected to excel in that role. He was rated very highly by his supervisors and was held in the highest trust and integrity."
On Friday evening, I had the privilege of joining Matt's section, friends, and colleagues who came together to support one another and talk through the tragedy that had unfolded earlier that day. The stories and memories of Matt had a common theme: he was a deeply kind young man, and no one could recount a time when Matt had a bad word for anyone. He was known for his calm and considerate approach to his policing. He had developed the art of de-escalating tense or potentially violent situations. One story was an incident he had attended where he was confronted by an offender armed with a knife. Although he would have been completely justified in using other tactical options, he used a calm, clear, direct communication to completely de-escalate the situation and have the offender put the knife down. He is much loved by his police family, and our community.
Matt, you aren't here to put your strong arms around your Mum, or your sister, but know that your police family and community are putting our strong arms around them for you. When I was a young constable in 1991, a song from The Hollies was used in a police video highlighting the importance of police and community working together to make our community safer. The words from this song are still as relevant today as they were 28 years ago, when Matt was just a baby. The words to the song go like this:
The road is long
With many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows where
But I'm strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
So on we go
His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We'll get there
For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
If I'm laden at all
I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another
It's a long, long road
From which there is no return
The load doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
He's my brother
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.
Thank you, Mr Speaker.





Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): On behalf of the New Zealand First Party, we extend our sympathies to the family and friends of Constable Matthew Hunt, as well as the wider police community. An appalling tragedy, Constable Hunt's death demonstrates the risk that police officers face every day. We're also reminded of the 32 New Zealand police officers who fell before him. That is a sobering glimpse into the dangers that our law officers face whilst maintaining the safety of all New Zealanders.
Being a police officer is not an easy job. Many officers are exposed to violence and disorder on a daily basis, allowing the general public to carry out their lives with levels of security unthinkable in other countries. We are all indebted to officers like Constable Hunt for their service to New Zealand in the most dangerous of circumstances. Constable Hunt paid the ultimate price for the cowardly actions of a criminal, one who we hope to see incarcerated for the longest period of time for which the law allows.
Constable Hunt represented the best that the New Zealand police force has to offer. He was a consummate professional who served his country with distinction and honour. Mr Speaker and colleagues, police lives matter. May he rest in peace.





Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): On behalf of Marama Davidson and the Green Party, I want to begin by expressing my condolences to the family of Constable Matthew Hunt. I'd also like to send our thoughts and our well wishes to his friends, his colleagues, and his fellow officers all over the country, who, I know, are feeling his loss deeply.
For Constable Hunt, Friday would have begun like any other day. Like most of us, he would have got up, had breakfast, maybe checked the news or caught up with messages from friends and family, and then set off for a day at work doing what he had always wanted to do. But unlike those of us here, Constable Hunt knew that from the moment he got to work, he could be called upon at any moment to put his life in harm's way for the safety of somebody else. 
When our police officers answer a call, they never do it alone. Their family and their friends answer the call too, for they share in the risk that their loved ones take every day to keep New Zealand safe for all of us. The call that Constable Hunt answered on Friday would, I'm sure, have sounded a lot like other calls that he and his colleagues had answered many times before. But what happened is a heartbreaking reminder that whatever the call, the life of a police officer, a loved one, a friend, a colleague can be taken away at any moment—a moment in which Constable Hunt's friends and family can go from looking forward to catching up with him at the weekend or maybe grabbing a beer after work to being told that he was gone.
Now, I know that there will many people across New Zealand who will struggle to come to terms with what happened. People will ask themselves, "How could this have happened? What do we need to do to prevent another tragedy?" And that is entirely understandable. Police officers have a right to go home to their families just like everybody else. 
Few of us here will ever match the sacrifice Constable Hunt has made, but we can match his commitment to making New Zealand a better place, which is why I'd like to close with a message for Constable Hunt's mother, Diane, and his sister, Eleanor. The thoughts of New Zealand are with you. We thank you for the service of your son and your brother.
E tama, haere atu rā. Haere ki te pō, kia moe ai. Tēnā koutou katoa.
[Young man, go. Go to the long night, to sleep.]
Motion agreed to.





ORAL QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister
1. TODD MULLER (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement, "we had an expectation that testing was happening in day 3 and day 12 at the moment we went into alert level 1"; if so, on what factual basis was that expectation formed?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): At the beginning of June, my office sought to confirm the testing that was taking place at alert level 1, including high-risk areas. On 5 June, the Ministry of Health emailed a response stating, "Testing of people entering New Zealand will commence in the week of 8 June 2020. These people will be tested at day three and day 12 of their stay in the managed isolation facilities. Approximately 3,000 tests will be undertaken of these people, including those who are already in the facility." On 8 June, the same advice was provided to Cabinet in an update from the Ministry of Health. On 9 June, the Ministry of Health released a press release which stated, "From today, everyone in managed isolation will be tested twice for COVID-19 and will require a negative test before they leave. Those in quarantine were already being tested as they had shown prior symptoms."
Todd Muller: Did her Government have the authority to require someone to have a COVID test in quarantine or managed isolation when the policy was announced on 8 June?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. 
Todd Muller: Why, then, has testing been voluntary between 8 June and the issuing of a new public health order yesterday?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I've made very clear, the instruction of the Director-General of Health was not being correctly deployed at the assisted isolation facilities.
Todd Muller: When did the Prime Minister get informed that, despite her expectations of mandatory testing in quarantine and self-isolation from 8 June, that in fact was not happening?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will be aware—as the rest of New Zealand is aware—that that happened last week, at the time of the case being identified of the compassionate leave being granted without testing being deployed. So whilst I don't want to give a precise figure, it was roughly sometime thereafter in the last seven days, but as the member can see from the reassurances we were being given directly by the Ministry of Health and also the public statements being made by the Ministry of Health, up until that point it was certainly our view that people were being tested twice and being tested before departure.
Todd Muller: Why, then, has testing been voluntary between 8 June and the announcement of the public health order yesterday?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The clear point is that it shouldn't have been. The order was an enabler, and enabled testing to take place. The clear view of—
SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think all of us know that this is important, and I want to be able to hear the response.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: And, as I've clearly stated, there's multiple points at which the Ministry of Health itself was issuing statements claiming that was what was happening in managed isolation facilities. So, clearly, what was meant to be happening wasn't, and that is something that we've been very open about and have worked decisively to correct.
Hon Dr Megan Woods: Is it the Prime Minister's understanding that nobody has left a managed isolation facility since this weekend, despite the health order not coming into play until yesterday?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That's exactly correct. The point that the Minister is making there is that the order clearly always created the environment where that mandatory testing could take place. It wasn't happening; that has nothing to do with the order. It was very clear from the director-general two tests were meant to be taking place, and certainly one before exit.
Todd Muller: Why did a person in managed isolation on 18 June receive a Ministry of Health form saying that they had the right to refuse a COVID test, with a stapled overlay saying that testing was now compulsory?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: And it always was.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Does the Prime Minister believe that devolving the management of quarantine arrangements to individual tertiary education providers, as advocated by the Opposition, would increase or decrease the risk of non-compliance with quarantine measures? 
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Increase. In fact, I have heard countless members, including the Leader of the Opposition, talk about opening up the borders. I absolutely stand by the position of this Government that the border is an area that we must be absolutely cautious around. That has not been the position of the Opposition. 
Todd Muller: Could the Prime Minister please explain how it is possible to announce alert level 1, saying testing now will be occurring in day three and day 12, yet emails from the Ministry of Health on 19 June state "consent is required before a test is taken"? 
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is not what the order states, so that is incorrect. 
Todd Muller: Sorry, I'd just ask the Prime Minister again: is she disputing the Ministry of Health email on 19 June stating—and I quote—"consent is required before a test is taken"? 
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The order at that time: "I require all persons arriving in New Zealand to report and submit themselves as soon as practical after their arrival for testing and for medical examination." 
Todd Muller: To the Prime Minister: are you disputing—are you disputing—
SPEAKER: Order! 
Todd Muller: Sorry—sorry. 
Hon Chris Hipkins: New member. 
Todd Muller: New member—yes. 
SPEAKER: Order! 
Todd Muller: At least three off. 
SPEAKER: Mr Hipkins. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, we'll take five. [Todd Muller points downwards]
Todd Muller: To the Prime Minister—[Interruption] 
SPEAKER: Right—no, no, the member will sit down. The people on my right will just—I'm trying to think of an appropriate set of words—behave themselves. 
Todd Muller: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I repeat the question to the Prime Minister: is she disputing that I have an email from the Ministry of Health from 19 June stating—and I quote—"consent is required before a test is taken"? 
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I point to the language of the order. I point to the three different times at which the director-general and the Ministry of Health have said that everyone would require a negative test before they were able to leave. Though the wider point that I also wish to make: there are two countries in the world—in the world—comparable to New Zealand that are requiring this form of quarantine. We are one of the few in the world that I can find that are also requiring compulsion of testing. I stand by the stringency of our border measures. I see the member has only recently decided that the border matters. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Prime Minister: has the 18 June document with the stapled-over portion that Mr Muller referred to, or, for that matter, the 19 June document, been referred to her or the Minister of Health, or are we expected to believe these allegations without any evidence whatsoever? 
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Oh, there was evidence last week that members on that side of the House were not prioritising the public health of New Zealanders, but, rather, politics. 
Todd Muller: Does she really believe the country can take her seriously when she says that at the core of her view is a strident border, when the Prime Minister announces on 8 June there is mandatory testing, but has to wait until yesterday to formally confirm it for the country? 
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is factually incorrect. 
Todd Muller: Does she or her Minister of Health have any idea of what is going on in the quarantine facilities and managed isolation facilities of this country when you have a clear view that it is mandatory, but for two weeks it has been voluntary?
SPEAKER: No, no—there actually wasn't a properly authenticated question in that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Prime Minister: has she or her colleagues or the Minister of Health prepared the protocols and requirements for safeguarding the health of New Zealand's population, should we open the border with China, as recommended by the National Party? 
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is right to point out that the Opposition repeatedly not only urged us to rush towards level 1; they repeatedly urged us to open up the border. We have consistently resisted that in favour of ensuring that New Zealanders' safety is the number one priority—that we treat the border with absolute caution. We have some of the most stringent restrictions in the world. There is no playbook for this pandemic, but I stand by the restrictions that we have in place to keep New Zealanders safe. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. What was out of order with the question that the Leader of the Opposition asked and the Prime Minister was not required to answer? 
SPEAKER: I won't go through the list, but there were I think at least two assertions in the question which were not supported. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Why, then, is it appropriate for you to accept an answer to a question from the Deputy Prime Minister to the Prime Minister in which there is a totally untrue assertion made? 
SPEAKER: Order! I did not accept an answer at all. It was an answer to the House. 




Question No. 2—Finance
2. TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki) to the Minister of Finance: He aha ngā rīpoata hou kua kitea e ia mō te ōhanga o Aotearoa?
[What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?]
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): ASB economists this week reported that their real-time estimate of unemployment in New Zealand was a little over 6 percent, based on job seeker numbers from the Ministry of Social Development. In recent weeks, economists, including ASB's, have revised down their forecasts of the peak in New Zealand's unemployment rate to around 8 percent, as new data comes out on the New Zealand economy. New Zealand went hard and early with our economic plan to cushion the blow for businesses and households from the global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is welcoming to see that the actions of all New Zealanders, and the benefits of opening up the economy under level 2 and level 1 earlier than expected, are contributing to better than expected economic outcomes for New Zealanders.
Tamati Coffey: What reports has he seen on the international context for the New Zealand economy?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The global recession due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt around the world. The UK reported that economic activity fell 20 percent during the month of April, from March, due to the lockdown. At the end of April, the UK economy was 25 percent smaller than in February. Last week, the Australian unemployment rate rose to 7.1 percent in May, up from 5.1 percent three months ago. Forecasts by the Reserve Bank of Australia are for the unemployment rate there to peak at around 8 percent—the same as now being forecast for New Zealand.
Tamati Coffey: How does the New Zealand economy compare to the UK and Australia in terms of restrictions?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: While New Zealand had one of the most stringent lockdowns around the world, our decision to go hard and early with our health response has meant that our economy has been able to open up faster than others around the world. The UK still has stringent controls in place, with the Oxford University Government response stringency index rating them at 70.37 out of 100 in terms of their restrictions. The stringency index rates Australia at 53.7 out of 100. In comparison, New Zealand sits as one of the most open economies in the world, with a score at 19.44 out of 100—better than Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. New Zealand went into the global COVID-19 pandemic with a strong and stable economy, and now we are one of the most open economies heading out of the lockdown, due to the success and sacrifice of the team of 5 million.




Question No. 3—Finance
3. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) on behalf of Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: What is he doing to monitor the success of major Government spending initiatives, including the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): There are a number of ways the Government monitors major spending initiatives, including through regular reporting by agencies and Treasury as well as the Auditor-General's process. Given the significant amount of funding allocated for the response to COVID-19, I receive regular updates about major initiatives, including the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme. Individual agencies have plans and milestones for projects, which I also monitor, and a team has been established to do this specifically for the COVID response and recovery fund.
Hon Judith Collins: Does he consider it a failure of his that the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme, which he established, has only delivered $86 million in business loans when it was originally budgeted to deliver $6.25 billion?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, that was an envelope of funding provided. The scheme is still open.
Hon Judith Collins: Is he disappointed, then, that the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme has only delivered 1.4 percent of the lending it was supposed to, a lower rate of delivery than even KiwiBuild?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said in my answer to the previous supplementary question, the scheme is still open. In the meantime, we have opened the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme, which has given out well over $1 billion to small businesses, and there are a range of other initiatives available as well. The concerns I've had with the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme have been documented in this House, and where there are specific concerns for specific customers, they're followed up.
Hon Judith Collins: Why did the Government require banks to apply normal lending criteria to loans made under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government underwrote the scheme to the extent of taking 80 percent of the risk, given the economic uncertainty that was at play when the scheme was established. From our perspective, banks will interpret their own rules around lending. Some of them have applied much more liberal rules in terms of lending criteria; others have provided tighter rules. That is up to them. We are underwriting the scheme to 80 percent.
Hon Judith Collins: What does he say to a business owner in Tauranga who was hoping to benefit from the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme but was told by his bank manager that "it was just too hard to get the applications over the line because of the Government's red tape and recommended they go for an overdraft instead."?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can't speak for the specific case, other than to note that—from the same article that the member is reading from—the business owner had to provide paperwork, including cash-flow forecasts, plans for how the business was coping with the crisis, and how it would pay back the loan, which seem to me to be fairly reasonable elements of a loan.
Hon Judith Collins: Why would he think businesses would want to take on additional debt in the middle of a crisis when they have been calling for direct cash support, such as the $100,000 GST refund proposal put forward by National?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Direct cash support has gone to businesses in the form of around $11 billion through the wage subsidy scheme, which many of them have written to us to say how important that has been in maintaining their business. Other schemes and funds are available.




Question No. 4—Housing
4. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Housing: How many people left quarantine or managed isolation between 23 May and 16 June, and how many of those people, if any, left without a COVID-19 test being taken?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): I'm advised by the all-of-Government group that the total number of people who have left a managed isolation or quarantine facility between 23 May and 16 June was 4,694. The Ministry of Health have, to date, been unable to provide the number who have left without a test and are still working through that matter. The Government's expectation was that these people completed 14 days of managed isolation, which is in line with public health advice of the most effective measure to protect New Zealand against COVID-19 spread. Relying on the 14-day period is the best defence, as evidenced by the extensive surveillance testing that has been ongoing, which has yet to find any evidence of community transmission since 1 May. But as the Prime Minister has said in the House today, Ministers were assured by the Ministry of Health that as we move to level 1, as an additional layer of assurance, no one would leave managed isolation or quarantine without returning a negative test. There have been well-documented issues with those expectations, translating into operational change, and that's exactly what myself and Air Commodore Webb have begun fixing. Following the implementation of our plan of strengthening procedures at our facilities, no one is leaving without returning a negative test.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is it possible that every person released after 14 days of managed isolation between those days was released without being COVID tested?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: From the evidence that I have seen in terms of the number of people that left, it is not possible that that was the case.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: How can she be that confident in her answer, if she has no idea what testing occurred during those dates?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Because I have been advised by the Ministry of Health that some people were receiving testing between those dates.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does she think it completely implausible that despite finding 11 cases in seven days after quarantine testing commenced, there were no positive cases in quarantine for the previous 24 days, when there was no testing?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Surveillance testing would suggest that it is entirely plausible that we didn't have cases. What the member needs to realise is the changing demographic inside our managed isolation and quarantine facilities. As the world opens up, we see people arriving, either transiting through Australia or coming directly from other parts of the world in a place where COVID is growing, not slowing. I am not surprised that we are seeing people who are in our managed isolation facilities with COVID. The important thing is that we are catching these within these facilities, and this is a strong line of defence to New Zealanders and the gains they have made.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: In respect of that previous answer, what was demographically different about the 4,694 people released from quarantine in that period from the more than 10,000 who went through managed isolation and quarantine prior to that?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Largely, where those people arrived from. What we have is, through the early days, when we were in level 4, a lot of people returning to New Zealand were returning from Australia, where there were much lower rates of COVID. What the member needs to understand is that now we are seeing people returning from the UK. We are seeing people returning from the USA. We are seeing people return from India. We are seeing people return from Pakistan. These are all parts of the globe where COVID is growing, not slowing, and it is our strong line of defence at the border that we have managed isolation and quarantine facilities that will protect the gains that New Zealand has made.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Has she been advised that the number of positive tests at the border in other comparable countries, like Australia, has also been increasing, and that we're likely to see an ongoing increase in the number of positive tests at the border?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I certainly have. The whole point, when we have positive tests in our quarantine facilities and managed isolation facilities, is that the system is working—that this is part of how it is that we protect New Zealanders against quarantine. I'd like to point out it is the ability to carefully manage and robustly manage these facilities that will protect New Zealanders, not ad hoc announcements about just opening the border without any plan of how you're going to manage those facilities.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: In respect of her previous answer to me, is it her submission to this House that New Zealanders were not arriving back from the UK, Europe, the United States, and the subcontinent prior to 23 May?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Of course New Zealanders were arriving back prior to that, but we did not have mandatory managed isolation; we had people self-isolating. If the member wants to turn his mind back to the days when we were in level 4, we had a growing number of cases testing positive that largely were coming from people returning from overseas. The difference the member now needs to understand is these people are not returning to their homes; they are in managed isolation facilities as a stronger manner of defence. What the member also has to understand is we are now at over 8.5 million cases of COVID around the world. This is growing, not slowing, and I suggest that member stop politicking and think about how it is that we protect New Zealand.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the Opposition thesis is true, would we have had those countless weeks, and even existing now, without any community transmission in this country at all?
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Deputy Prime Minister should know he can't ask a Minister what the Opposition thinks, which is the wording he used in his question.
SPEAKER: I don't think that's what he said at all. I'll ask him to repeat the question for the member's benefit.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I'll do it slowly, and I've got a picture if I have to show it as well.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, we'll check in Hansard. That's what he said.
SPEAKER: Order! Order! What I said was I didn't think that's what he said and I'll ask him to repeat is so we know.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the Opposition thesis is true, then how would we have had all these weeks without community transmission in this country, even right to this hour?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The member is absolutely correct. New Zealanders can have faith that what we have in place has put them in an incredibly privileged position through their weeks of sacrifice. All we are asking of New Zealanders that are now returning to New Zealand to re-join our team of 5 million is that they make two weeks of sacrifice of going into managed isolation. We got to this privileged position by all of us making a sacrifice of five weeks. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order! Jacqui Dean will stand, withdraw, and apologise.
Hon Jacqui Dean: I withdraw and apologise.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Does she believe that the enforcement of the testing regime would be more or less rigorous if it was delegated to individual tertiary education providers, including the universities, who don't think the border should have been closed in the first place?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think one of the things that everybody has to understand is the complexity of the operations that need to be run at the border.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: It's simple—just test.
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I hear members of the Opposition say it's simple. I'd like to point out that to the end of June, we will have spent $81 million with a workforce of over 500. It's not simply booking a hotel. The operations that have to be onsite are incredibly complex and logistically difficult.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does she agree with the Prime Minister that "The 14 days is actually the most cautious approach. Belts and braces are testing, but the 14 days is what matters.", and, if so, why is testing important now, when it wasn't three weeks ago?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: In answer to the first part of the question: always. In answer to the second part of the question, as we have moved into level 1, as we have moved into a more relaxed state, where we have more liberties and more mingling, our Government is determined to make sure we are putting an extra layer of defence to protect the gains that New Zealanders have made.




Question No. 5—Housing
5. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Housing: What action has the Government taken to strengthen managed isolation and quarantine facilities?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): After taking ministerial responsibility for these facilities last week, I worked with Air Commodore Webb on a swift 72-hour plan to ensure procedures at our managed isolation and quarantine facilities are rigorous and robust. In the first 72 hours, there were two major objectives: (1) that we confirmed strict adherence of the rules by the returnees, and (2) that we ensured testing was undertaken and negative results returned to everybody before they leave. Alongside immediate measures to achieve these objectives, Air Commodore Webb commissioned an urgent end-to-end review of the facilities, which is well under way. I make no apologies for the strict measures we are introducing. Our managed isolation and quarantine facilities are an important line of defence against COVID-19. New Zealanders spent five weeks in level 4 lockdown. We expect those returning to our team of 5 million to play their part with two weeks in managed isolation.
Ginny Andersen: What were the specific actions taken to achieve those objectives?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Last Wednesday, Air Commodore Webb and myself visited managed isolation and quarantine facilities in Auckland. This was followed by a personal briefing to all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) operational personnel at managed facilities to reiterate our expectations. Alongside this, we doubled the number of NZDF personnel on the ground and boosted the police presence both on site and with specifically assigned after-hours support. There are now new lockdown procedures in place where cases are identified, including a review of CCTV footage.
Ginny Andersen: What are the challenges associated with running these facilities?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: These operations are extremely complex and require sophisticated operational oversight, which is exactly why we now have the NZDF in control. The fundamental job that needs to be completed is carefully matching supply with demand. On the demand side, while we do have forecasts of the numbers entering New Zealand, we cannot know how many people will show up until they turn up at the airport and check in. What we've seen in recent times is a significant uptick in the number of New Zealanders returning home, requiring additional supply and resources to meet that demand. COVID-19 is growing, not slowing, as the rest of the world opens up and people return home from higher-risk areas. But our plan is working and our managed isolation and quarantine facilities are ensuring that we keep New Zealand safe and COVID contained in these facilities.




Question No. 6—Economic Development
6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister for Economic Development: Does he stand by his statement of 1 April 2020, "The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic"; if so, when does he expect to announce those projects?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister for Economic Development: On behalf of the Minister for Economic Development, yes. To the second part of the question, announcement time frames for each project are a matter for the appropriate, responsible Minister.
Hon Judith Collins: How does he reconcile his statement that the projects would be "ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal" with the fact that the construction industry started returning to work on April 28 but the projects still have not been announced?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I refer the member to the Budget recently debated, which showed that, under Budget 2020, Crown infrastructure investment is forecast to be $10.9 billion, which is about 175 percent of what it was in 2017 under the last Government.
SPEAKER: I am going to ask the Minister to address the question.
Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, as I said in my answer that I just gave, the member can be very confident that there is significantly increased infrastructure expenditure, as evidenced by the Budget debate that we have had in recent weeks, which showed that $10.9 billion of infrastructure expenditure by the Crown is forecast for the current year, which is 175 percent of what it was in 2017.
SPEAKER: I'm going to ask the Hon Judith Collins to ask the question again.
Hon Judith Collins: Thank you, Mr Speaker. How does he reconcile his statement that the projects would be "ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal" with the fact that the construction industry started returning to work on 28  April and the projects still have not been announced?
Hon DAVID PARKER: In addition to my prior answer, I would also note that the Minister of Education advised the Minister for Economic Development that construction has already started on approximately 200 rebuilds or expansions, with a combined value of $1.5 billion. He also advised me that at the end of May around 1,200 schools had initiated projects worth an estimated $130 million since that investment package was announced.
Hon Judith Collins: Does he think the Government is acting with sufficient urgency to announce these projects—other than that which he's just announced now—given that the fall in construction was the biggest contributor to the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year?
Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, and by way of other examples, since lockdown the following transport projects have started construction: the Clive safety improvements to State Highway 51, upgrades to the Northland line, preparatory works for the Matakana link road, the Huapai to Waimauku safety improvements, the Medallion Drive link road, and I could go on—it's a long list.
Hon Judith Collins: Why did the Minister state that the projects would be "ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal", when, clearly, the projects were not started as soon as the construction industry returned to normal?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I reject the premise of the question as evidenced by the transport projects I listed.
Hon Judith Collins: What reports, if any, has he seen on the number of construction jobs that have been lost due to his delay in announcing which projects will proceed?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I, again, reject the premise of that question. I think the construction industry is sophisticated enough to know that when the Government is spending more than $10 billion in this year there's a pipeline of infrastructure projects on the way.
Hon Judith Collins: Does he agree with Hamilton mayor, Paula Southgate, who said that the construction firms that relied on her council's work programme needed answers on whether the Government was going to come to the rescue and fund infrastructure projects, and that "It would be ideal if we knew in the next couple of weeks and no later"; if so, when will he advise the Mayor of Hamilton, Paula Southgate?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I agree with the mayor that construction projects are an important part of the Government's response to the recession caused by COVID-19, and I've already covered the financials which show that approximately 175 percent of 2017 expenditure is forecast for this year.




Question No. 7—Climate Change
7. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Climate Change: What recent announcements has he made about New Zealand Green Investment Finance decisions on climate change?
Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Last Thursday, I announced New Zealand Green Investment Finance Ltd's first ever investment. New Zealand Green Investment Finance has provided Wellington CentrePort with a $15 million green credit facility. The lending will be used to fund low-carbon projects such as electric vehicles, on-site renewable energy generation, and energy efficiency upgrades.
Marama Davidson: Why does New Zealand Green Investment Finance have to invest on a commercial basis?
Hon JAMES SHAW: Developing sustainable long-term solutions to the climate crisis requires good ideas, planning, and focus. New Zealand Green Investment Finance Ltd was set up to support those businesses with the skills and outlook necessary to create lasting change in New Zealand. Throwing money around with no eye to commercial viability will not funnel support to the firms with the best plans and the best ideas. By ensuring commercial discipline, New Zealand Green Investment Finance Ltd will also be able to get their capital back and reinvest earnings into more low-carbon projects, creating a virtuous cycle of sustainable investment.
Marama Davidson: What will this investment mean for Aotearoa?
Hon JAMES SHAW: Successful investment in electrification, renewables, and efficiency will not only assist the port to achieve its climate goals but will also provide an example for other firms in the port sector and beyond. Electrifying our transport and logistics sector is one of the lowest cost decarbonisation options that we have. Transport and logistics make up one-fifth of our total emissions and continue to rise. Investments like this one are a key part of the solution.




Question No. 8—Transport
8. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Transport: Has the chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency written to him advising of a shortfall of at least $1 billion in the National Land Transport Fund; if so, what impacts, if any, would this shortfall have on transport projects due for funding through the National Land Transport Fund?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: As you'd expect, New Zealanders did not drive as much during alert levels 2, 3, and 4 while they stayed at home. This, naturally, has had an impact on the revenue raised from petrol excise duty and road-user charges. We're still working through the impacts of this on the National Land Transport Fund. Yes, the chair of the agency wrote to me in April and in May outlining scenarios, noting that the estimates provided were, at that point, very uncertain. Those estimates were made before we moved down to alert level 1, and given the earlier than expected move down the alert levels, I'm advised that the total impact is already likely to be less than the chair had initially indicated. I'd like to reassure the member that we are continuing to work through the implications and are aiming to avoid a hypothetical scenario where any projects may be delayed by any shortfall.
Chris Bishop: Is it correct that the letter suggests that projects that aren't road-building projects be cancelled or delayed in order to address the funding shortfall?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I said, the letter set out a range of scenarios, and already the worst-case scenario has not happened, because we moved down the alert levels faster. 
Chris Bishop: Did the chair of the Transport Agency suggest any particular funding categories that should be reprioritised as the result of the funding shortfall, and if so, what were those categories?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I said in my first and second answers, the letters contained a variety of scenarios and a variety of options. The worst-case scenario has not eventuated, because we moved down alert levels faster.
Chris Bishop: Will he rule out any projects being cut from the current National Land Transport Programme?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government has no intention of doing so.




Question No. 9—Education
9. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What action is the Government taking to support New Zealanders to retrain for new employment opportunities post-COVID-19?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): The Government was working to strengthen and promote vocational education options to New Zealanders even before COVID-19 hit. We've been focusing on raising the profile of trades and vocational education, and encouraging more people to take up those careers. Since COVID-19, we're removing the fees on all apprenticeships and a wide range of other trades and vocational education programmes from next Wednesday until the end of 2022. We'll be financially supporting and encouraging employers to keep their apprentices earning and learning, with wage subsidies of up to $16,000 per apprentice.
Marja Lubeck: Has COVID-19 and the lockdown had an impact on the initiatives to raise the profile of vocational education?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Inevitably, yes. A number of events that were designed to connect schools, communities, and employers had to be delayed, although I am advised that most are now in the process of being rescheduled. Officials are working very hard to ensure that we can get the up to 250 events across New Zealand, to promote trades and vocational education, taking place over the next 12 months. The new regional education and employment brokers that are being contracted by the Ministry of Social Development will, of course, be more important than ever as we seek to connect school leavers with the job opportunities that are available to them.
Marja Lubeck: How has the Government improved the pipeline into vocational education for school students?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The recently announced Trades and Apprenticeships Training Package included funding for a thousand additional trades academy places per year from the beginning of 2021. Those additional places build on the 2,000 additional trades academy places a year, and up to 2,000 additional trade gateway places a year that we announced late last year alongside the other initiatives to raise the profile of vocational education and training. These programmes provide an important starting point for school students to start their journey in trades and vocational education and to prepare them to move full time into vocational education and training when they leave school.
Marja Lubeck: What resources is the Government making available to provide advice for job hunters?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As has been well canvassed, there are a number of people now in the job market that haven't been in the job market, and seeking employment, for quite some time. As part of our careers response, the Tertiary Education Commission has developed a job-hunters' workbook, in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development, that's available online and in hard copy, and we're getting exceptionally positive feedback about it. As well as that, the Tertiary Education Commission are providing training for people to help their clients use the workbook and help broker them into employment, which, combined with a wide range of other options such as videos and webinars and Facebook Live sessions and town hall - style events also taking place around the country, will help people to get back into work as quickly as possible.




Question No. 10—Health
10. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Health: What involvement, if any, does he have in setting the criteria and the assessment of the COVID-19 alert levels, and what information will the Ministry of Health use to make an assessment of whether to amend the levels?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Health: I, as a member of Cabinet, am involved in setting the criteria and assessment of the alert levels. Cabinet has agreed eight factors to use in assessing changes between alert levels, including the Director-General of Health's satisfaction on four health matters, which include transmission of the virus, contact tracing and testing, isolation and border measures, and capacity of the health system. The Director-General of Health makes an assessment against these four criteria for the Minister of Health and Government to consider. This assessment is based on the latest epidemiological evidence in New Zealand and internationally, data on the health service response, and other available sources of information. It is also informed by independent scientific public health experts.
Hon Amy Adams: What specific case information would be likely to trigger a finding that household or community transmission could be occurring as per the COVID-19 alert levels?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That is a matter that the Director-General of Health would advise the Government upon. If the member cares to put that specific question down in writing, we will be able to get advice from the director-general.
Hon Amy Adams: Does the Minister accept that New Zealanders are now worried about a move back up the alert levels due to recent quarantine and managed isolation breaches?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can accept that New Zealanders remain anxious about the fact that COVID-19 is a global pandemic that is growing. There is no intention from the Government to move back up the alert levels.
Hon Amy Adams: Has any of the information learnt in recent days about breaches of quarantine protocols changed the assessment of what transmission might now be occurring in terms of our alert level structure?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, and as has been already covered in the House today, the fact that New Zealand does not have community transmission and there is no evidence of community transmission is something that puts us in a very privileged position compared to the rest of the world.
Hon Amy Adams: Is the Minister saying that despite repeated cases of quarantine breaches and people going into the community without testing, there has been no assessment done of the impact on that of possible transmission and our alert level?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No. The member is drawing a long bow from the answers that I've given. What I am saying is that we have a very robust system that involves 14 days of quarantine and isolation, which the best health advice tells us is the right thing to do. On this side of the House, we know the importance of border restrictions to New Zealand's success. The member might want to reflect on the comments of her colleagues, who seem very keen to open the border up.




Question No. 11—Employment
11. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Employment: What are the criteria for entry into his six employment programmes, and how is success measured?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Minister of Employment: Each individual programme has a different set of criteria that would take far too long to go through—
Hon Members: Free Willy!
SPEAKER: Order! Order! It's a very old joke and it'll stop.
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Each individual programme has a different set of criteria that would take far too long to go through, but as examples: the employment programme Mana in Mahi is open to all New Zealanders who are either unemployed or at risk of long-term unemployment; He Poutama Rangatahi requires participants to be between the ages of 15 and 24, not engaged in education, employment or training; our skills hubs have no criteria for entry and will work with anyone who needs help connecting to employment across a wide range of industry. In answer to the second part of the question, these programmes are measured by a range of success measures, from the number of people now engaged directly into training or in employment, to the number of people who have been connected through jobs hubs to specific industries. We also measure success in other ways. Take, for example, the young solo mother who started the He Poutama Rangatahi programme with no confidence or family support. Not only is she now working full-time, more importantly, she's regained her self-confidence and pride and is excited about the future, and that's the sort of success that we should all be proud of.
Dr Shane Reti: When he said last week he would look into a Work and Income telephone call telling us that those over 24 definitely cannot enrol in Mana in Mahi, has he looked into it, given a phone call today to exactly the same Work and Income New Zealand number repeated exactly the same information from last week?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, the Minister has indeed looked into it. He has reinforced with all those concerned what the criteria for those programmes are. If that information is still being delivered, it is incorrect.
Dr Shane Reti: When he said last week that the success of his programmes was aligned with the lowest unemployment rate for Māori over the last decade, what is the unemployment rate for Māori over the last decade?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The lowest rate over a decade—we have 7.8 percent in June 2019. The last time the Māori unemployment rate was lower was in June 2008 when it was 7.2 percent.
Dr Shane Reti: Why is there no documented success for He Poutama Rangatahi, given that an Official Information Act (OIA) request asking for information pointing to the success of the programme was returned with, "I am refusing your request as the information does not exist."?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject the premise of the member's question.
Dr Shane Reti: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table an OIA request with that document I've just referenced. 
SPEAKER: I think it might be an OIA reply; is that right?
Dr Shane Reti: An OIA reply.
SPEAKER: OK. Leave is sought for the tabling of that document. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Kiritapu Allan: What are the criteria for entry into Mana in Mahi and how is success measured?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: To be very clear for those who are confused: anyone who is at risk at becoming long-term unemployed and who'll benefit from Mana in Mahi is potentially eligible for the programme. In fact, 15 percent of participants are over the age of 25, with more than 50 people over the age of 30. In terms of measuring the success of the Mana in Mahi programme, each participant who starts a placement is in full-time employment from day one. The fact that 80 percent of people who started Mana in Mahi, 50 of whom had already spent more than two years on a benefit, have not returned to a benefit highlights the success of the programme.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question.
SPEAKER: The Rt Hon Winston Peters, with a warning—I've seen that smile.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Ha, ha! Well, for the comfort zone of some in this House, will Mana in Mahi still exist on 20 September this year?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If the parties in this Government are re-elected, absolutely yes.
Hon David Bennett: Is it open for seniors though?
SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will leave me out of it.




Question No. 12—Immigration
12. KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) on behalf of RAYMOND HUO (Labour) to the Minister of Immigration: What initiatives to support refugees and their families were announced in Budget 2020?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister of Immigration): It was my privilege to celebrate World Refugee Day with refugee communities from across New Zealand today and to celebrate the work that we have done to support the international refugee resettlement effort. Last year, we agreed to raise the annual refugee quota to 1,500 per year, and in this year's Budget we agreed to fund greater support for refugee family reunification, to continue the refugee community sponsorship pilot, to continue to upgrade the world-class facilities at Māngere, and to increase resources for refugee claim processing. I want to make a special mention of the Green Party's work and advocacy to ensure that we review and adequately fund refugee family resettlement.
Kieran McAnulty: Why is the Government committed to the refugee programme?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well, two reasons. First, the Government is committed to doing our part as a good international citizen and providing a pathway for those displaced by war and other tragedy to make a new start. Second, refugees are great for New Zealand. Former refugees and their families contribute to our communities culturally, economically, and socially. They bring with them their experiences, cultures, skills, and their strong desire to participate in employment, community activities, volunteering, and education.
Kieran McAnulty: What message does the Government have for refugees, former refugees, and their families?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: We are proud to welcome them and all that they bring to this country: their knowledge, their skills, their talent, and their culture. Their contribution makes us a better society.
 





RACING INDUSTRY BILL
Second Reading
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister for Racing): I move, That the Racing Industry Bill be now read a second time. 
Racing has a long and proud history in New Zealand, and this bill closes the circle started by Sir Thaddeus McCarthy with his royal commission report in December 1970—this is the report here. As an industry, racing is seriously important to our communities and regions, and past studies say it contributes $1.6 billion to the economy each year. There are 14,000 full-time racing industry jobs and nearly 58,000 jobs which participate in the industry in some shape—from bets to equipment suppliers. There are 15,000 owners, 800 trainers, and 200 jockeys. Not only is New Zealand bloodstock world class, it's a significant export earner. The world-class quality of this industry has no better example recently than the Cambridge Stud horse Hello Youmzain, winning the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at the Royal Ascot this week. That was a genuine world-class result.
Yet it's been well-documented our racing industry has been underperforming over recent years. Addressing and reversing this decline has been my focus as Minister for Racing, given weight with racing policy being part of the coalition agreement. The Government's first step was to commission the Australian expert John Messara to conduct an industry-wide review. We then formed a ministerial advisory committee, which pulled together our own domestic experts to examine next steps. These measures led to the precursor Racing Reform Bill which passed through this House last year, creating the first meaningful change this industry has seen in a long, long time.
Significantly, the New Zealand Racing Board was replaced with the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) to start a reform programme. Officials also worked on developing further the Messara recommendations. And now we have before us the Racing Industry Bill, the substantive legislative response to the Messara report. This bill revokes the Racing Act of 2003, and it provides a new governance structure for the racing industry. It creates TAB New Zealand as the sole betting provider for racing and sport and empowers the three racing codes to take responsibility for the future growth of their respective industries. The bill also establishes the Racing Integrity Board as an entity independent from the racing codes, which is responsible for all integrity functions for the industry.
When introduced, we said we would listen to sound submissions. In order to address historical property issues that have contributed to the industry's decline, the bill introduces provisions to ensure that surplus racing property is vested back into the industry to enable its future growth, but the provisions related to racetracks have been carefully considered and are well balanced. They ensure there's good progress and process and protection for community interests. The Transport and Infrastructure Committee received written submissions from 922 submitters. That was supplemented by many oral submissions; the vast majority expressed general support for this bill. The committee has unanimously reported the bill back to the House with proposed amendments, and I thank them. The Government has accepted these amendments. We always believed that if we listened to the submitters we could have an improved legislative product. The interest and productive contribution submitted to the members of the select committee are welcomed, and my parliamentary colleagues should be thanked for their consideration of these matters.
This Minister has been vigilant with following the progress of this bill, both listening carefully to industry and also receiving a consistent stream of advice from officials. The Government's objective has always been to achieve racing legislation responding to the intent of the Messara review and to respond to the feedback of the industry, and this Government has delivered that with a bill which reflects the Government's sense of direction. The Government believes the racing codes need the tools to better manage their own destiny rather than be bound by legislative impediments. The Government also welcomes the provisions for Racing New Zealand within the bill to be a collaborative entity of the codes. The Government also supports reduced ministerial involvement in the industry, as many in the industry have called for. The overarching intent of the bill is to be able to create the opportunity for the clubs, codes, and TAB to foster their own future.
It's important to advise the House that since the select committee reported back, further amendments have become necessary as a result of COVID-19. The required changes will be addressed by the Government through a Supplementary Order Paper at the committee of the whole House stage. The Supplementary Order Paper will amend the bill as reported back to allow the current RITA board to remain as the inaugural TAB NZ board until such times as new appointments can be made under the new legislation. This recognises the delays to the passing of the bill caused by COVID-19 would have meant that appointing a new board would occur in the pre-election period. I'll leave the decisions on the substantive appointment to the TAB NZ until after the next election. The Supplementary Order Paper will also temporarily extend the Minister of Racing's transitional powers currently provided for in the Racing Act to allow the Minister to give direction to TAB NZ for the immediate post-COVID recovery period.
As you will be aware, the Government has delivered a significant rescue package for racing in the wake of COVID-19. This investment has created a similar period of industry adjustment in which a closer degree of Government involvement is appropriate given the scale of taxpayers' investment. While the use of these powers may not be required, their retention allows the Minister to assist the TAB NZ board by providing clear directions through what may be a challenging time. This provision is temporary and time-locked to the COVID response. The Supplementary Order Paper also makes minor technical changes to the bill that have come to light since the select committee process. These are all within the intent of the bill and the changes made by the select committee.
In conclusion, let me commend this bill to the House. It amends urgently required reforms, it gives industry the tools it needs to revitalise itself, and it's a catalyst for a better future for the racing industry. In short, it closes the circle after 50 long years since December 1970. Many of these reforms in the Thaddeus McCarthy report are in the Messara report, and they are in this bill. We cannot afford to waste another 50 years to try and fix this industry up. We need to fix it up right now, this week. To accept the status quo and to do nothing would only lead to a notable decline. This bill will turn the industry around and get racing back on track.
I'm pleased to note that the industry is already responding and good work is under way to achieve these goals. And by the way, we got a marvellous letter today from all the codes that shows that collaboration and cooperation has broken out across the whole industry, and a letter was written to me today, dated 23 June, 2020, which I'm happy to make available to the media of this country. Accordingly, and early, I commend this bill to the House.





IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I agree with the Minister for Racing: we need to fix this right now, this week, and I'm pretty sure we'll get some way down the path of fixing it right now, this week. But, before we do, I want to go back a little in history—and, unfortunately, I, like the Minister, was around in 1969 and very well remember the report that pretty much resembled the report that was given to the Minister last year. That's one of the tragedies of the racing industry, and I think we do need to go back a bit in history just to get a view of where we're at today and where this bill is, hopefully, going to take us to in the future.
If you look at the previous Racing Act, it was somewhat restrictive on the Minister's ability, whoever the Minister was, to do much to assist the racing industry, frankly. It had to be done through other means—via tax or whatever. This bill, in my view, goes a long way to giving the industry back the prerogative to run themselves. I think it's most important, as we get to that point, that the industry does this in a collegial manner, and I'll outline a little more about that in due course. But one of the problems the industry's had throughout its history, in fact, is that the three codes have been fragmented. In fact, the individual codes have been fractured within, and it has caused some problems in the industry. I don't think you can blame the Parliament entirely for that, but certainly some of the legislation we've had in the past backing the industry's position wasn't necessarily constructive.
I want to talk for a minute about the select committee process, which I found surprisingly collegial. I've never sat on a select committee that remotely resembled that select committee. It was bipartisan. I want to congratulate Darroch Ball on his chairmanship of it. He didn't interfere much, and he was extremely collegial, as I said a moment ago. I also want to congratulate Jan Logie, who did an awful lot of work in the background and assisted the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, quite significantly, I think, with some views that needed to come to the committee. They came to the committee in the form of submissions, but she also went out of her way to get to understand an industry that's not that simple, and I think that was pretty significant.
The select committee listened to and took note of submissions, and then set about implementing many of the changes requested by the submitters. I might add that I think if a few more Ministers and select committees operated in this manner, we'd produce a whole lot better legislation in this House. On many occasions, I think we could do that much better than we have, and I think—as I said a minute ago—this select committee and the process we went through was hugely constructive and has come out with a bill that, in my short travels around the country in recent weeks, I think is appreciated by the industry. Hopefully, they'll get on with the job of getting over their differences, basically, and making this thing work. I'll just touch on that a little bit further on too.
I also want to compliment the officials, because, as anyone who sits on select committees—and I don't want to be critical of officials for a minute—often finds, officials have a view on how things should work and they like to get their own way, to some extent. But I thought, in the process of this bill, they went out of their way to assist the committee to get to the point we wanted to get to, and that particularly applies with respect to clauses 19 to 26, which relate to the property issues, which were very challenging for, particularly, some of our smaller communities but also for our other communities.
I hope the passing of this bill will put the once great racing industry back on its feet and allow us to give the horse breeders of New Zealand an opportunity to invest with confidence and show just how good they are. They are some of the best in the world. We have some of the best conditions for breeding horses in the world, and it's an opportunity for us to make the best of that, and I think it's important. It's one of those industries, of a few that stick out in New Zealand, where we're clearly as good as anyone in the world and we can excel wherever we go in the world with those horses. And the Minister referred to one of those a minute ago. I think it's very exciting opportunity for the industry, and I just hope that they've got enough, I guess, strength and horsepower left to make that work for them.
The industry came to the submission process with a large number of concerns about the way the bill was initially written. They were keen for it to follow the Messara report in a much closer manner than perhaps, when it was first presented to the Parliament, it did. I don't want to be critical of the Minister at all, but they were quite keen to remove the Minister from some of the influence the Minister could have in the course of the legislation being implemented, and, actually, you can see why, because, as with anything, you can get Ministers appointed to these things that understand them and you can get Ministers appointed to these things that don't understand them and that don't want to. So I think the more an industry can remove itself from the processes of Parliament, the better off they are. 
The first place that we had quite a discussion on was around the appointment of the TAB board and how that was to be processed going forward. I think it's most important that the industry—all sectors of it, including the sporting sector—have a collective view of what they see the TAB board's future being. If they do that, they will have the ability to nominate people, who the Minister will then appoint with confidence. If they don't get their decision-making collective on this, they're not going to give any Minister the confidence to go with the appointment processes as is intended by the bill. So it's intended by the bill that, effectively, that appointment process will enable the collective bodies to get their heads together and appoint and nominate people who are appropriate to take the industry forward. If they don't do that, then that's going to be challenging for any Minister. That was the first issue we dealt with.
The second issue was one of intellectual property. The original bill, effectively, gave the intellectual property of the industry to the TAB. Now, the intellectual property of the industry is not necessarily owned by the codes or anyone else. The intellectual property of the industry is, effectively, owned by every sector of the industry, because the breeders have a portion of the intellectual property, the racing clubs have a portion of it, as do many other people—from the trainers to the jockeys to whatever. They all "own" the sector of that intellectual property. The challenging thing for the industry was, it was, effectively, under the bill, granted to the TAB. Now, if you looked at the larger racing clubs in New Zealand, for example, it could be that they may have wanted—if the TAB doesn't survive—to contract themselves out individually. If they didn't own their own intellectual property, they wouldn't be able to do that. So that was resolved, and, actually, was resolved thanks, to a large extent, to the tenacity of my colleague Andrew Bayly, who understands intellectual property better than I certainly do and better than most people do. He had some very strong views on that. So I think that that was a good outcome, and I think it's an outcome that the TAB now accepts and fully understands.
I'll talk very briefly about Racing New Zealand. When the bill came to the Parliament, there was the ability for Racing New Zealand to form itself, effectively. Now, Racing New Zealand is a combination of the three codes. They had the ability to form themselves, but there was no direction under the bill for them to be formed. One of the concerns, I think, that certainly I had—and I'm sure that other members of the select committee had as well—was that the three codes have never been able to collectively form themselves into anything, historically. Interestingly, they came and submitted on a united front to the select committee, which I thought was unusual. In fact, it was certainly unusual by industry standards. They came and submitted collectively, and that gave us a false sense of security, because, knowing the history of them, I felt, and I think the select committee certainly felt, it was necessary to form Racing New Zealand in legislation, which, effectively, gave them the opportunity to put their body together. They then, collectively, will represent the codes, hopefully—that's the idea of it: collectively represent the codes—in their negotiations with the TAB and with everyone else they deal with, including the Minister. I think that will work too. So that was another provision that we inserted into the bill.
I want to talk briefly about—because I'm running out of time—the sale of surplus racetracks. This was by far the most contentious issue that the committee had to deal with. It was the subject of probably 90 percent of all of the submissions, and particularly from those racing clubs that felt they were the subject of the bill's design. We had a lot of discussion about this, and I think our aim was to give those communities the ability to protect their property—and I say their property, and I mean that—in one form or another. Small communities build up assets of all sorts to make their community work, and, in this case, it's a racecourse that we're talking about. It was necessary to ensure that those communities were protected going forward and that that asset was protected, either for that community or for the industry, whichever the clubs felt was the right way to do it. I'm sure this will be documented as we go further down the track, in a much better manner than I have. But it is a very important part of the bill. It's a piece of the bill that we feel we've got right, and we think it will give a balance to all those racing clubs going forward.
Now, I'm clearly going to run of time, but I just think it's a very good piece of legislation, and I think it will set the industry up for the future. I'm confident that it will, obviously, pass here. We certainly support it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I rise to speak in support of the Racing Industry Bill, but I do have a few things to say about the process by which we got here. In particular, I speak on it because it concerns an asset in my community—Avondale racing club—deeply; it concerns it deeply. You see, in the Messara report, the Avondale Racecourse was identified as one of those possibly surplus venues. It might be surplus to racing, but it is not surplus to the Avondale markets. It's not surplus to the school sports teams that play there on a Saturday morning. When I was down there at the racecourse yesterday morning, talking about it with someone, there's about 12 or 14 sport pitches there which are used in my community. It's not surplus in terms of being a large green space in the midst of an urban area, which is used by all sorts of people for exercise, for fresh air, and just for being in the green. That racecourse matters deeply to my community, and as the bill was introduced, it was, to be honest, under threat. It was one that was clearly going to be designated as surplus and sold off—to no benefit to my community.
But the select committee process worked. The select committee process worked to ensure that this extensive community asset built on land that was gifted not to a racing code but gifted to the Avondale Jockey Club cannot just be disposed of just like that. Instead, in terms of the select committee process, the bill now has within it what I think is a really good basis for the racing industry, the racing codes, the racing clubs, and the communities that surround them to move forward. The bill introduces a process of review in which a racing code and a racing club must try to negotiate. If that fails, a reviewer is appointed who is acceptable to both the racing code and the racing club, and that reviewer must undertake a process looking at what is intended to happen with the surplus venue, to what other purpose it could be used, to what extent there are other not-for-profit purposes tied up with the racing venue, the legal or beneficial interests of iwi, whether it's used as a trading venue, what the value of the land and buildings is, and whether it's used by clubs that don't actually have an ownership interest in the venue. The proposal is put forward by the wider community as to what use there should be for that venue.
If I was to characterise this—taking it away from specific provisions—what this is, in this revised bill, is a very, very clear directive to the racing codes and the racing clubs and the communities which surround them, to get together, to talk, to negotiate, to really understand each other's positions, and to make sure that the outcome of any process is a fair one that respects all the interests.
So that's what I say to my community, to the members of the Avondale Jockey Club, and to the racing codes. Let's talk—let's talk; that's what this bill tells us to do—and reach an outcome that works for everyone, including the racing industry, which really does need to be set on a more secure basis as we go forward. Because there is this strong process of negotiation and talking introduced by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and one which, I know, the sponsors of this bill are happy to work forward with, I support this bill.





ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on the Racing Industry Bill. I think, as we all know, the bill was originally introduced by the Minister for Racing back in December 2019, and followed a very well-considered report prepared by John Messara, who has played an instrumental role in reforming the Australian racing industry. He came to New Zealand and spent some time looking at the New Zealand industry, which, unfortunately, over time has been going backwards. His wide-ranging report focused on a whole range of issues, from governance issues right through to the ownership of tracks; also just how things are done here in New Zealand, particularly the betting arrangements.
It's clear that the industry needs to be able to reorganise, regroup, to be able to move forward. And of course, as most of the former speakers have mentioned, the New Zealand racing industry is a wonderful industry and employs a lot of people, 50,000 people. It's a big money earner, from exports, and it brings a lot of profile to New Zealand and also, as I said, export dollars.
But the reality is that simply for people who want to own and race a horse in New Zealand, it is almost at a point where you—in virtually most cases—you lose money on that venture, unless you are lucky enough to perhaps win a group 1 race, and that will recover your cost. But very few horses are in that situation. So we have an industry that's in trouble. 
So it was interesting, after the bill had been introduced in December, walking around Karaka saleyards in February. I could not believe the reaction that I received from many owners and many breeders who were attending those sales, because what the industry was saying to me, and to many others, was quite simply: if you read the Messara report and then you looked at the bill that had been introduced late last year, it was diametrically different—it was almost as if the people who had prepared the bill had not read the original Messara report—and there was a plea for help. So out of that process, the select committee has gone to work to make substantial changes to this bill, and most of it's been canvassed before. 
I do want to acknowledge some members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, not only my colleague Ian McKelvie, particularly, and Tim van de Molen, but also the members from the Government. We worked proactively and consistently—basically over the last six, seven months—to get the bill into a shape which really reflects the Messara recommendations.
The key parts, I think, can sort of be distilled down. We have three elements in the racing industry: we have the TAB at one end of it, which is around betting; at the other end we have the three codes—thoroughbred racing, trotting, and greyhounds—and in between there is sort of a loose grouping that was provided for in the original bill, but not specifically catered for. And so the efforts of the committee are really focused on all of those three areas. 
The first one was around the TAB, which is about undertaking betting, and the first change that was made was this question of the intellectual property that my colleague Ian McKelvie spoke of. This is the IP, the intellectual property owned by all of the industry, and for some reason that had been put into the control of an operating entity called TAB. In the event that the TAB went bust, or ceased to operate, or whatever, that IP would be permanently locked in that vehicle and whoever actually picked up that vehicle, should it go into receivership. It's 101 in any business structure never to put IP into an operating entity. So that was the first change that was made and it also reflects that the IP is owned by "the" industry and I say in all its component parts.
The second thing was around the governance of the TAB and this is a crucial bit. This is the bit that drives the money into the racing industry. It drives what the racing stakes are and therefore drives the profitability of actually owning a horse and actually underpins the breeding of horses in New Zealand, which is a fantastic industry here. The key thing—and there's been a lot of concerns about the governance of the TAB, and so what we brought into play with the TAB are two things. One is how the board is constructed to operate that TAB going forward. And basically, what the rules are now are there: one, a representative from the three codes—racing, trotting, and greyhound—and they have an absolute right to have an appointee on the TAB, although the people that they nominate must have adequate and sufficient skills to be able to be on that board. And then there are four other appointments, possibly, quite likely, one from sporting organisations and then some independent board members. So basically, it is to make a board that has the necessary skills but also reflects the interests of all the underlying ownership of the TAB, which is really the three codes. 
The other thing we've put in place was an accountability from the TAB back to the codes and I'll talk more about that in a second. But that was a crucial bit because what we didn't want to set up was a commercial organisation with a commercial board without adequate framework in place to make sure that they really were driving and looking after the industry that, essentially, owns them from behind. So what we then did is that in the middle—the original bill had provided for a possibility of an independent organisation being set up to represent the three codes. In John Messara's report it actually specified that this should be set up so there was a collegial approach and professional approach. 
So we changed the bill from it being one that could be catered for in the future to specifically set up that body called Racing New Zealand and gave it a specific purpose, which includes not only setting race meetings and the rules around that, also around judiciary roles in terms of racing—a whole raft of sort of different roles. But one of the most crucial roles was for Racing New Zealand to make sure it held TAB accountable. So there was a process around agreeing a statement of corporate intent or the objectives of the TAB and also a business plan. So we've got interlocking accountabilities between the TAB and this Racing New Zealand representing the three codes. And that's a crucial part to making sure you've got adequate tension between shareholders and operators. 
The last thing was around the codes themselves and they are now enshrined and have their own operation, but also have the right to have appointees on Racing New Zealand. And I think that will provide a sort of a good framework—a corporate, commercial intention—to make sure that the TAB operates in the best interests of the racing industry, but at the same time allowing it to get on with its own operations. 
The last thing is around the sale of racing tracks. I think the big strategic issue for the committee was there are some tracks that should be sold in New Zealand and there are some tracks that shouldn't be sold in New Zealand. And somehow we had to devise a process to reflect that. And so of the most paramount importance for, particularly, smaller provincial clubs was to see the loss of those clubs and the loss of those racing facilities. And one of the crucial things is once you lose racing clubs or racecourses where training takes place, as soon as that training disappears, the industry folds and disappears around it. So we were very mindful of making sure that the small commercial clubs in provincial areas could continue to operate and would continue to operate even if they were downgraded from a full racing club down into a training facility.
But we also wanted to make sure that we protected those with very strong community interests. There are many, many good examples. Marlborough is one of the most interesting ones where A&P shows are held regularly at the racecourse. There's joint ownership or overlapping ownership. There are lots of courses where there's such a strong community interest that to see those courses sold off would be the wrong thing to do and therefore we have a process that's lined up and caters for that. But there's also a process where courses may want to be sold. And I think we've struck the right balance, and I certainly commend the bill and look forward to the committee of the whole House process when we can discuss it in more detail.





GREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I remember taking my grandmother back to Charleston many years ago, and she pointed out where the racecourse had been there. There's no evidence left of it, but she talked about what an important part of the Charleston community it was at the time, and I'm reminded of that now, as now that Charleston problem has become a problem for many other communities in New Zealand. 
As we've heard today, many of those racecourses physically dominate not only the town, and are an intricate part of the town, but also the race meetings themselves. This bill isn't just about saving the racing industry. It's about making sure it can thrive again and be the part of communities that it was in the past, producing the winners we've seen and the international reputation we've seen, and, importantly, making sure that it remains a part of New Zealand culture. I commend this bill to the House. 





Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's with great pleasure that I speak in support of the Racing Industry Bill in the second reading. As a former racing Minister, I only had a few months in that role, and there wasn't really time to enable us to make the changes that were needed within the industry. I was just going to congratulate the New Zealand First Minister at this time, Winston Peters, who has done a fantastic job over many years of being an advocate for the racing industry and has made this bill go through Parliament. So I just want to thank him for actually doing this, because on behalf of the industry, it has been something that's been looked forward to for a long time.
I'm going to give him a little bit of a brickbat, though, at the same time, because it has been the end of a parliamentary term before we actually get to the stage of passing this. On the desk, when he took over the ministerial position, he had the ideas that were needed to actually go ahead. So it has taken a long time. It's taken a long time, but we have got there in the end, and that's good. [Interruption] It's good to see there's that vocal support amongst the Parliament, because racing has felt for a long time that it hasn't had the recognition in the parliamentary process that it felt it deserved, and to see that we've got active members of this House engaging in this debate today shows that it is now something that people are very much encouraged to take an active interest in.
I just want to thank all members of the House that have been on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, that have done a fantastic job in getting it to the stage, and especially to the National members, especially Ian McKelvie and Andrew Bayly and Tim van de Molen, that have been so active in making the changes to this bill to make sure it is practical and achieves the goals that the bill was actually intended to do. Although I wasn't on that committee, I understood that it was a bill that needed a lot of work to be done on it, and it was Andrew Bayly and Ian McKelvie and Tim van de Molen that did that hard lifting to change it, to make sure it is practical and successful. So thank you to our members of the committee that were on the bill.
When we look at racing, and when we look at what's happening here at the moment—you know, I think Andrew's speech was very good where he went through the TAB and the intellectual property part of it and how important that is to distinguish so that there is that ability to maintain that intellectual property should anything happen to the TAB. That's a fundamental part of the change that you're seeing coming through in the bill now, and that's something that I know Andrew spent a lot of time in really pushing from his commercial background. The governance arrangements of the TAB and also Racing New Zealand are to reflect the major players of the industry, being the three codes, but also to reflect that the TAB actually has a big role in sports betting, and also the independent role of others on that board as well—it is important to give it the strength that it needs to carry on. The arrangements between those two boards around the accountability between them to give more support to decision making, and also to give the codes a feeling that they are being listened to and they have a TAB that works with them and for them, I think is something that they have been looking forward to especially.
Then we look at the individual codes and their role of appointing to Racing New Zealand, and that's another part of the changes that we've seen throughout the process that's a core of the bill. Then we get to the sale of surplus tracks, which had been a major issue and still is a major issue, especially when tracks feel that they haven't received the ability, or the licence, you could say, to operate, not having race dates. That puts them in a very difficult predicament in managing their operations and, effectively, challenges them about the ability of their racetrack to continue. That is a difficult process, and there's still a lot to be done in that area. I know that the committee has spent a lot of time in a very detailed process of looking at a number of tests to determine whether there should be the transfer by Order in Council of surplus venues or to allow parties to renegotiate their position. There is trying to be, in those tests, a degree of comfort to those clubs, that if they don't have the race dates that they require, there is a process there so that they can have some negotiation and look at their individual circumstances.
So this bill is long overdue. It is something which the racing industry has been looking forward to for a long, long time. Every time we delay this bill, the racing industry loses money. As Andrew Bayly said, it's an industry that has a proud history, and as the Minister said, it actually has very proud achievements in just the last day or so. You know, it's an industry that has a bright future ahead of it if we're looking at a productive, primary-based New Zealand economy that's going to take on the world and succeed. We are good at breeding horses, we're good at training horses, we're good at racing horses, and we've got the best people that can manage horses, buy horses, and look after horses in this country. The success and passion of those people deserve a Parliament that passes legislation that's in their best interests, and that's the really important bit that I think—they will be looking at this Parliament and saying, "Finally, we're being acknowledged and something is being done to try and stem the flow of losses and the difficulties the industry was facing so that we can actually celebrate the successes and rebuild an industry that is world class and has a tremendous future ahead of it."
So this is a good day for racing in New Zealand, to see Parliament coming together and supporting this bill. I know that the sector will be very pleased to see members of Parliament coming in with that support, not only through this legislation but in their support of the hard work that those people do every day because they are passionate about their horses and they're passionate about the industry they're part of. They're good, keen New Zealanders that really do work hard and try and do the very best for—
Barbara Kuriger: Employ a lot of people.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yeah, there is a lot of employment, but there are a lot of employees there that work really hard, and to see Parliament supporting them, I think that will be something that they're very pleased to see. We recommend this bill to the House and thank everyone involved for getting it to the stage that we can get support from all the parties, effectively, that are the main players and get this bill through. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, thank you. Can I congratulate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for the huge amount of work that they have done on this bill. I wasn't a member of that select committee, but my colleague Jan Logie was. About a quarter of the submitters had quite significant concerns about Subpart 2, I think, of the bill, which is the part concerned with where clubs may be dealing with surplus venues that the code wants and the provisions around how, particularly, those smaller racing clubs, the smaller racetracks—Mr Greg O'Connor mentioned the Charleston racecourse, no longer in existence—how that whole transfer process works.
I notice in the bill that the select committee has completely rewritten clause 26 and some of the subsequent clauses to recognise the concerns of, particularly, smaller communities where their racetrack is used for a number of other events. In Kaikōura, for example, Seafest takes place there. In Kūmara, the Coast to Coast race uses the Kūmara racecourse. So the committee has done a very good job, I think, in responding to submitters' concerns and putting in place a number of criteria that the Minister has to consider before making a recommendation for an Order in Council which would transfer "surplus" assets like a racecourse from the club to the code.
The Messara report recognised that there needs to be some rationalisation in the industry, but there has been concern that these significant hearts of the community in some areas could be, in the interest of efficiency, in the interest of rationalisation, transferred to the code to the detriment of the community. So that is a very comprehensive list now of criteria, and also just the way the select committee has changed the process. The Minister for Racing must appoint a reviewer before recommending an Order in Council—a person with appropriate experience. And the cost of this whole exercise of considering whether a venue should be transferred to the code must be met by the code rather than the club concerned. And yes, it is noted that some clubs don't have their own racecourses—they still organise meetings at other racecourses, but the work that the select committee has done on reshaping this bill, the comprehensive recommendations in the report back, and the many changes are really an example of select committees working really well to take on board the concerns of submitters.
The Green Party is, reluctantly, supporting this stage of the bill—cautiously, I think, is a better word—because of these changes that have been made, and also because of the dialogue we had with the Minister for Racing in the early stages about strengthening the harm minimisation provisions in the bill. One of the TAB New Zealand's functions is to look at the whole development of products or when they're developing new products to look at how gambling harm is going to be minimised and what measures are going to be put in place to do that. So the requirement too to have on the TAB board people who've got an understanding of problem gambling and how you minimise harm is quite critical, and the fact that we have regulations which go through some specific processes to minimise gambling harm. So that's been a significant improvement in the bill from the start, but really do commend the work of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and Jan Logie.
The Green Party's support for this bill will not stop us continuing to campaign to have a ban on greyhound racing—that was outside the scope of this bill, but as we've seen with recent media coverage nearly 300 greyhounds were put down in 2019 because they couldn't be rehomed. The greyhound racing code is one of the codes covered by the bill, but the fact that Aotearoa New Zealand is one of only eight countries in the world which still allows greyhound racing speaks to an inadequate attention to this fundamental animal welfare issue.
The other key issue is that with this tension in the racing industry between the bigger venues with more sophisticated facilities and better tracks, those tracks will often be harder. That puts more risk to the horses going on those because of the harder surfaces. So we really want to encourage the industry to continue to look at how it can improve animal welfare, particularly for the horses, and the Green Party support for this bill is because it does not prevent us continuing to campaign for an end to greyhound racing in New Zealand. So we are supporting it cautiously.





MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I stand today too to support the Racing Industry Bill and, as my colleague David Bennett said in his contribution just recently, a lot of the work and credit that has gone into this bill is due to the efforts of Ian McKelvie, Andrew Bayly, and Tim van de Molen. In fact, I did not sit on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, but I understand from my colleagues and from the updates that I've sat in on over the course of the select committee process that this bill is almost unrecognisable now from what it was when it was first introduced. As Ian McKelvie referenced in his speech, whoever drafted the bill had clearly not even read the Messara report, it was so far removed from the advice that was given and paid for. 
There are, as we've heard, some significant recommendations that are being enacted in this bill. One of those is the establishment of Racing New Zealand, and that was a strong recommendation from the Messara report. In that, we have the three codes—Thoroughbred Racing, Harness Racing New Zealand, and the New Zealand Greyhound Racing Association—now working with a common interest to work with those codes on some common ground. Originally, that was going to be enacted via regulation, but the National Party members decided and recommended in the select committee that this needed to be enshrined in the legislation, and that gives it some enduring life ahead of it. It is not subject to any sort of political manipulation along the way. 
Most of the speakers have referenced the issues that came up out of this bill which relate to the assets of the various clubs, and for myself, on the West Coast we have five tracks. We have one up in Westport; there is one in Reefton, which is a dual-code track; the Greymouth track; Hokitika; and the one closest to my heart and that I've had quite a lot to do with over the years is the Kūmara track. 
Now, we know that these are far more than just racetracks, and, as the Green Party has acknowledged, these are very valued community assets. I know that the ones that are on the West Coast are used for a range of things, from weddings—the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association uses them to park up on. We have Scouts and Guides that use those facilities for their camps. The Coast to Coast, of course, is a very famous one that uses the Kūmara track every year as its camping space and briefing area but also local schools use their local tracks for cross-country, and what we need to remember is that all of these tracks across New Zealand are looked after and cared for and have been bought and paid for and developed over many years—over a hundred years, in some cases—by volunteers, and I think it's very appropriate that Volunteering New Zealand is acknowledging our volunteers this week. 
So I pay tribute to those people who have given selflessly for many, many years. I've got a very dear relative who is in his 90s now, who has recently retired from the Kūmara Racing Club. So a bit shout-out to Pat Fitzgerald, who has been doing that work as a volunteer, he reckons, for about 75 or 80 years. That is the kind of commitment that local people have to these facilities, and they didn't want them to be confiscated, as was enabled in the original piece of legislation. So a huge amount of credit to my colleagues for enabling the disposal of these assets now in a very considered way that actually brings in the contribution of those community organisations. 
I can recall about 13 or 14 years ago, in a former role, meeting with New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing to talk about the future of racetracks and the clubs. At that time, we could see that the bar was slowly lifting, making it more and more difficult for these local clubs and volunteers, who have limited income, to achieve the higher standards. 
A lot of that was triggered from the health and safety regulation, so it was improving things like the running rail and track surfaces, and then it moved into things like the internal assets—so the shower blocks and toilets that the jockeys would use. They were all very understanding that we would want to lift that bar, but it made it more and more difficult for these clubs to remain viable, so we ended up in the situation of having quite a lot of tension within the clubs and pressure on them to continue to hold their race meetings. So we now have a very well-considered methodology for disposal of those assets, and, as I said, it does include a huge consultation with the club. 
But I do have to confess that when I saw the first tranche of this piece of legislation, I was alarmed at the ability for the assets to be confiscated. I did go and talk to one of my local clubs who held a very large piece of freehold land, and I helped them broker a deal where those assets were sold to avoid the confiscation. So they're now held for the community and for the long term. 
We see in this bill that the motivation is around attempting to get the racing codes to be more profitable and to encourage more participation. I know, from sitting in on an Estimates hearing in a select committee last week that had the Minister there, of the Minister's passion for ensuring that the industry does thrive, and I think we all do that, because we are all cognisant of the fact that there is a huge amount of employment that revolves around the racing codes here in New Zealand. 
But we've also got a great track record for our stock that we breed here in this country and for the commercial return that that does bring to the country. So we do start with the breeders, and we have some of the best in the world in New Zealand. Then, we have the owners, and I'm not sure if any of my colleagues have ever been an owner or a part-owner of a racehorse, but—
Ian McKelvie: That's why we're so poor. 
MAUREEN PUGH: Exactly, Mr McKelvie, that's why you're so poor. It's because they are not what most people would invest in to make a great return, but they are something that people invest in because they do enjoy this sport. They enjoy the thrill of taking a horse to the track, and, as a former clerk of scales, which is a job that I did on our local track for about 10 years, I can attest to that. 
The passion that the people in the industry have for the codes is extremely high, and that's what keeps them coming. But the owners do require some return on their investment, and the stakes in this country are relatively low now and have been falling over time. So we do need to improve the return to the owners. But, of course, then we have the punters. Those people that go along to the tracks and those people that bet on the TAB, they're all part of the mix of the racing industry here in New Zealand, but, of course, there are the trainers too, who dedicate massive amounts of hours, and the jockeys and all the drivers—whichever code we are referring to—they also get a huge amount of employment out of that. That's not forgetting the stable hands, who take care of the animals and look after them, and even down to the transport operators that move the horses around to the various tracks and race meetings. 
So there is a huge incentive for us to ensure that we look after the codes, that we make it more profitable, and that there is an improvement in the stakes so that the industry can continue to thrive. As a result of the changes that my colleagues have brought to the select committee, I believe that we have a bill now in front of us that will protect the industry and will give it some confidence, going forward. I have pleasure in commending it to the House. 
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call Willow-Jean Prime—five minutes. 





WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I first just want to acknowledge the passion of the current Minister for Racing. It was very clear in the Estimates hearings last week, his passion. I also have sat through the debate and I have heard a lot of reference to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and how everybody worked collaboratively to produce the best piece of law. I also heard that it's long overdue, and I don't want to prolong it any further. So I commend the bill to the House.





STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it is a great pleasure to speak on this bill. I, too, would like to recognise the contribution of Parliament's own horse whisperer in Ian McKelvie. Ian has involvement in horses of all sorts from gallopers, harness racing, and some polo ponies. So he's knows his horses inside out. 
Hon Grant Robertson: Is he any good with tips?
STUART SMITH: Well, he doesn't share them with me. But should he, you'll be first on the list. Well, look, this is a great bill now and it was a lot of work that went in. I think Ian's in-depth knowledge of the horse industry, as well as Andrew Bayly's commercial acumen as well as his involvement with horses, has knocked this bill into shape; not diminishing other people's contributions, but I know they were the major contributors to the shape that the bill is in today. 
There's been a lot of talk about the details in the bill. I want to focus on the local impact in my area, which is in Marlborough, starting there. There's been 150 years of racing in Marlborough, but the Waterlea course, where racing is currently held today—just recently celebrated 100 years of racing, when the first thoroughbred racing event was held in March of 1920, so it's got a long history. It's one of the courses that could have been badly impacted by the shape that the bill was in as it went to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. The course is now struggling to get licences to race or dates to race, and now, in that situation, they could have had their assets taken and redistributed into the code. Fortunately, they have quite an active racing community. There are a number of horses trained there. The bill now quite clearly sets out that if it's utilised for training, that would be a major advantage. It's also its location. Geographically, virtually at the end of the Cook Strait means that a lot of horses overnight there in their transport, either north or south from island to island, and it's utilised very frequently for that purpose. 
Waterlea Racecourse is kind of unique almost in that it has an all-weather harness track and a grass thoroughbred track and it's utilised by both codes, which jointly own the track. It's also utilised significantly by community events. There's a massive classic car event there, which fills up all of the car-park area, and hundreds of people, if not thousands, turn out to that. They also have motor homes that stay on that property and lots of other events in the racecourse. So it is a community hub and it's proudly owned by the community. 
A little further south, if we go two hours further south to Kaikōura, there is the racetrack there where the Kaikōura Cup is held every Marlborough Anniversary Day. And it's the last hit out before the New Zealand Trotting Cup. So it's a big event in the racing calendar, where those horses that will go on to shine at the trotting cup have that last outing competitively before then, and it quite often shows that the horse that wins will win the Kaikōura Cup. That event is well attended from people all over the country, actually, that turn out to watch that. They spend a great day right by the sea. Sometimes there's the odd southerly that comes through, but generally it's a beautiful day there. Again, this is a community track. It has the A&P show held in that event. The show jumping's in the centre of the track and the sideshows and so on around the rest of it. It is often used for horse events throughout the year. So it's a valuable community asset. 
Had this bill not been knocked into the shape it was, it could have been taken and those seats vested in the codes. That would have been outrageous from a community perspective. Fortunately, National put that into shape and those two members that I particularly mentioned before were largely responsible for that; I really thank them for that. And with that, I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.





Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): There's been a certain amount of historiography going on today, where the Opposition claims credit for the good work of the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the Minister for Racing.
What this sector has been wanting for a long time is certainty, and David Bennett, a former Minister for Racing, said that the racing sector had felt like they hadn't had a voice in this place. And that's right, because for the nine years that that party was in Government, they didn't have a voice, and I would like to pay respect to the Rt Hon Winston Peters for getting a bill into the House and getting it passed within one term because that party over there had nine years to do it and never did it at all.
So let's just have a clear picture of what is happening here. This piece of legislation has been brought here, it has been passed, and the sector will now have certainty. And that is what the history books will read about this piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.





LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It's my pleasure to take a call on this second reading, and, as you know, this side of the House is supporting this bill. The reform of the racing industry has been a long time coming, but I would say that unless the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, despite what the previous member, Kris Faafoi, has just said, hadn't done its work, this side of the House wouldn't be supporting this bill, because there were massive errors in it as it was first reported back.
It's important that I, sort of, put a bit of context on my own perception of this bill, because I have been an avid supporter of the racecourse in Hastings and what was called the Hawke's Bay Jockey Club and subsequently has changed to Hawkes Bay Racing. I have attended many of their events and I have supported them and had many meetings, including in my previous role, and I have watched over years as they have struggled. They have sold land off. They have had difficult years. They now have a grandstand, and many of you who have been there will know it's older—probably has earthquake-strengthening issues that will have to be addressed. Their fundamental modus operandi into the future is going to be very difficult. Despite that, the Spring Carnival, as it's known in Hawke's Bay, is one of the events on the racing calendar of New Zealand.
We're supported by two smaller clubs still in Hawke's Bay. One is in Mr McAnulty's sort of area that he looks after as a list MP in Central Hawke's Bay: that's a small racetrack there. Another one is the Napier electorate, looked after by the Hon Stuart Nash, in Wairoa. Both of those clubs are unlikely to survive in the current arrangement, or even to the future, because, simply put, there are not enough people supporting the industry, there's not enough money in it, and things need to change. I've had conversations with the presidents of those various clubs about that, some of those have been quite unpalatable—but they are the reality. I acknowledge, in the Hawke's Bay case, president Eliot Cooper for the work that he's done in guiding us through the changes that are needed.
In Hawke's Bay and the Hastings racing centre, I look at a beautiful piece of land in the middle of town, all zoned residential, with an older set of grandstands on it, but for the Spring Carnival it becomes a hub of activity where people love to go. But it cannot support itself under the current arrangement.
I also say that this is a big industry. We're not just talking about the tracks and the odd race but the owners, the breeders, the trainers, and the jockeys. Simply put: if we don't make these reforms, it's my view that there will not be an industry in New Zealand in 10 years' time.
I disagree with the previous speaker, Kris Faafoi, who said that previous Governments haven't looked at this or done things about it. The Hon David Bennett got very close to bringing legislation before this House, but the election came along and he didn't get it through. So now we are getting to it.
I have talked to and met—some quite bruising encounters with members of the industry about what needs to happen. But, fundamentally, if we don't do this, this whole industry will collapse in 10 years, and it has a massive future for New Zealand if it's sorted out.
I also want to acknowledge the volunteers that are involved, and some of this is difficult for them. So they are linked to a small club, whether that's in Central Hawke's Bay, in Waitakaruru, or in Wairoa—
Kieran McAnulty: Great clubs.
LAWRENCE YULE: They're great clubs, and they have a community focus and people work for nothing for years to keep them going; they put sheep on them to keep the grass down, they mow the lawns, they run all sorts of things from them. Same in Hastings; it's a bit more professional, they have a small secretariat of staff, but, none the less, a whole lot of volunteers on race day front up. So this is really important to them and their industry.
I do want to congratulate the select committee, despite being somewhat belittled by members on the other side about their role, because we have now arranged a place where most members of this House have a level of comfort, particularly around what will happen to the courses. That was a stumbling block; I think, up until that point, we had big issues. 
I also want to thank John Messara for what he did in bringing his expertise from Australia to New Zealand. My understanding—and I'll stand corrected—is that he didn't get paid to do this; he volunteered to help New Zealand racing through its issues. I think we owe him a great deal of gratitude. I read his report, and, to be clear, I couldn't find too many things wrong with it; what I did find was that when the Government tried to interpret his report and bring it into first reading, it was incredibly different.
I also want to say that, even in my home town of Hastings, 10 years ago we fundamentally looked at a review of Hawke's Bay racing and the Hawke's Bay A&P Showgrounds, to relocate them both at the showgrounds in a $30 million facility. We would redevelop the land where the Hastings Racecourse is currently on for houses, and that was a way at that time of keeping Hawke's Bay racing solvent. Now, we couldn't get agreement and there wasn't enough money, but I point that out today because these challenges that the industry faces are not new; they've gone on for a long time. The thing that I found interesting in that particular series of negotiations was that we had very similar people that were running Hawkes Bay Racing as were running the Hawke's Bay A&P Society—good, hard-working Kiwis that cared about their role, their facilities, but they lacked the money, clearly, to make it all work.
So, in terms of the real nuts and bolts of the bill, the TAB and how it works has been amended to ensure that all racing codes and sport bodies have the ability to make specific nominations, based on merit, to sit on the board. Fundamentally, that means that everybody can be represented or has a chance of being represented. Before that, I even had people come to me from sporting codes, who were very uncertain and concerned that the racing industry would dominate the TAB, they would dominate the flow of money, they would dominate how the money was spent, and to the detriment of other sporting codes—bearing in mind that many types of sports are now subject to some type of gambling on them. So this has been changed, and I think that's for the better.
I agree with Mr Bayly, who knows more about corporate law and how things work than I do, about the fact that intellectual property should remain with the codes rather than being transferred to the TAB. That has been heavily supported by the industry, and the select committee has arrived at that, and that's currently in the bill.
John Messara recommended a new board called Racing New Zealand to undertake a number of roles, including setting race meeting dates and to act as a bridge between the TAB and the codes. At this point, I want to talk about that tension, and I see it in Wairoa particularly—it's probably in Central Hawke's Bay, although I haven't heard as much about it. In Wairoa, they have a wonderful race meeting—certainly once a year; sometimes twice a year—but the problem is that it's a beautiful community outing but it doesn't make any money. The stakes aren't high enough; there aren't enough races. The TAB, fundamentally, has decided that they won't continue to keep being present on course and to televise the racing. Now, what that means is that, eventually, if the TAB keeps that going, then Wairoa will face a difficult future. So Racing New Zealand, as a new entity, has an ability to work between TAB and the codes to manage fairness and equity.
In closing, in the last minute or so, the surplus of racetracks—that has been a very contentious issue. So if you sit in my own electorate, my racetrack is fine. It will be fine and it will benefit from what this bill is trying to do. But if you go to Wairoa and Central Hawke's Bay, then their future is less clear. The ability, as was previously put in in the first reading, to mean that, effectively, Racing New Zealand could hoover these courses up and sell them and do whatever they wanted with them was widely opposed—and so it should have been. But now we have new clauses which allow the racing club, if it doesn't think it can make a go of it, to have an ability to vest the proceeds back to the code, but if there are grounds for significant community interest, then, effectively, you can appoint an independent reviewer that can independently review everything and make a recommendation back to the Minister. That is the great work that the select committee did. I give all members, on both sides, credit for coming up with that solution—because without that, I wouldn't be able to stand here and support this bill as I do. Thank you.





KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): As the only bookmaker ever to have been elected to this House, it is a great day to stand here and support this bill—a bill that will save the industry, or certainly take successive steps towards doing so. It was needed. It is a long time coming. It should have happened in the previous Government, but here we are today. I echo the comments of those who acknowledge the work of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I make one point to counter the claims of the Opposition benches: they cannot have made substantive changes by themselves, because they do not have a majority. What this demonstrates is that the select committee worked collaboratively. I think the National Party would have served themselves and served the racing industry better if they told that story of collaboration, because this is an important industry for the country and it is an industry that is recognised by all parties in this Parliament. Today is a good day. I'm pleased to see this bill continue on to the next stage.
Bill read a second time.





PUBLIC FINANCE (WELLBEING) AMENDMENT BILL
Second Reading
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
I want to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their studious work in going through this bill, and also for producing a very easy to read report from the committee, which I appreciate, and I'm sure all members do, and thank them for returning the bill to the House in good shape.
An awful lot has happened since I first introduced this bill in September last year, but the impacts of COVID-19 serve to reinforce the importance of the changes that this bill is making, as we've seen the devastating impacts of COVID-19 hit communities and economies worldwide. New Zealanders, more than ever, need a reassurance that their overall wellbeing is central to Government thinking and central to Government budgeting as well. And despite the strength of our economic and fiscal position going into COVID-19, we do need to bear in mind the health, environment, and social impacts of a pandemic such as COVID-19 and the long-lasting effects of those. So a wellbeing approach, as put into law by this piece of legislation, will continue to play a very important role.
Just before I move to talk a little more about the detail of the bill, I do want to highlight the fact that, as we put together Budget 2020, we endeavoured to do as we had done in Budget 2019 and do, effectively, what this bill now makes legislatively real, and that is include wellbeing reporting, include a wellbeing approach in the decision around priorities, and, overall, use it as part of our public financial tool kit. The reality, however, was that, when we came to put Budget 2020 to paper and finalise it, we were not able to complete the wellbeing outlook, which would be a core outcome of this legislation, simply because the people involved in doing so were 24/7 on the COVID response. That did not mean that wellbeing matters were not considered as we went through the COVID response and recovery programme, but it does mean that actually putting that into law in this way provides the belt and braces that I think we all, on this side of the House anyway, agree with.
It was 31 years ago that the Public Finance Act found its way through this House. I don't think anyone here in the House today was present during that, but there are members of the House who were here. The Public Finance Act did make some profound changes to our system, and many of them are positive.
Rt Hon David Carter: All of them are positive.
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: And in later years, when the Fiscal Responsibility Act—which Mr Carter was in the House for, I think—was included into the—
Rt Hon David Carter: Straight afterwards—straight afterwards.
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Actually, that's true because you were replacing somebody who had something to do with it, but the Public Finance Act encompassed, eventually, the Fiscal Responsibility Act. I do believe the level of transparency that it brings is something that is important and is safeguarded by the changes made in this bill. Indeed, through the COVID-19 period, we've seen other jurisdictions struggling to generate data. The Public Finance Act actually has created and underpinned the system. It means that we have monthly accounts at a level and a depth that most other countries do not. So, actually, the system has served us well. But, as has been noted several times along the way, it is, however, narrow with regard to what it considers to be important when a budget, for example, comes to be put together. This Government, in particular, recognises that we need a much broader set of success measures. We have to go beyond the traditional gauges to get a full understanding of what is important in our society, what is needed to be funded, and use that to help assess what our priorities are and how we measure our success in going through that Budget process. So we have introduced this bill in large part to be able to ensure that that is now an automatic part of what we do within our public finance approach.
I want to reassure members across the House—and this was raised in the first reading—this in no way detracts from the core responsibilities under the Public Finance Act, and you'll see in the Budgets that were produced in 2019 and 2020 that we continued to do all of the long-term fiscal work that is already within the Public Finance Act. This is about adding to our tool kit. This is about making sure that we recognise the full life experience of New Zealanders when we are putting Budgets together and we are assessing what we do.
So, to remind members very briefly, what the bill seeks to do is that the Government will be required, when creating future Budgets, to set wellbeing objectives and explain how those objectives will guide the development of its Budget, and for Treasury to report periodically on the state of wellbeing in New Zealand. As I say, we would look to do that at every Budget through the wellbeing outlook, but Treasury's independent approach to do that on a regular basis will also assist us to do that.
It is important that each Government has some flexibility on how it articulates what it thinks about wellbeing and adapts their approach over time. We will be required to take into account a broad lens of the selection of wellbeing objectives, taking into consideration social, environmental, economic, and cultural factors. Treasury will be responsible for preparing their wellbeing report, including—and I thank the committee for their suggestions—a set of indicators that will be used using their best professional judgment. The first report on this will be due in 2022 and then every four years from that. It will complement a range of current reporting tools, including the investment statement and the statement on the long-term fiscal position, which are also required, at least every four years.
I believe we're striking the right balance between requiring an enduring focus on wellbeing but at the same time retaining sufficient flexibility for improvements and changes over time. When we put this in the context of wider public finance reform, it is important to note that we have built on what has come before. The use of Treasury's Living Standards Framework and its four capitals—human, financial, natural, and social—is a considerable advance on what had occurred under the previous Government. In addition to that, we now have Statistics New Zealand's Indicators Aotearoa New Zealand project, which has given us indicators across all dimensions of wellbeing for New Zealanders, and when you sit this alongside the Public Service Legislation Bill, which has been introduced and is soon to come before the House, again from Minister Hipkins, you see a full suite of changes to our framework that I think enhance transparency and improve the amount of information that is in front of both the Government and New Zealanders when considering our Budgets.
So achieving genuine and enduring change in the way Budgets and policies are developed takes time. We know that we cannot meaningfully address long-term problems like child poverty, inequality, and climate change through a single Budget. We began our process with the first wellbeing Budget in 2019 that has now taken the first steps to measuring New Zealand's success more broadly. We've delivered a Budget that embedded wellbeing at every step of its creation—from priority setting to analysis of proposals, to the final trade-offs that a Government must ultimately make. 
This year, as I said at the outset, we were not able to fulfil all of those things in Budget 2020, but the wellbeing lens was important to the creation of the Budget, and the Budget itself still has the wellbeing of New Zealanders at heart. This Government is committed to taking a wellbeing approach to future Budgets, and this bill sets out the framework for that. At first glance, the changes introduced to the bill might appear to outsiders to be minor, but over time they will fundamentally improve the way Governments build Budgets and change the way we think about economic and fiscal policy in New Zealand. I commend the bill to the House.





Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I recently got in trouble for using an expression that many people use, and I'm going to use another one now, which is "Fine words butter no parsnips." I've never quite understood what exactly that means, but I think the intent of it is to say fine words are all very well but it's actually the results and what you achieve that matters. That seems to be a theme that is becoming more and more prominent across the country as people see the difference between this Government's intentions and the reality. I remember Bill English, the previous Minister of Finance bar one—Steven Joyce, of course—he characterised this Government, I think, quite effectively at the start as one that has great intentions but very little ability to deliver that. We've seen many instances of that recently, and this bill, with its fine words and its wellbeing, seems to me to be a perfect example of a Government that thinks that it's the PR and the description and the intentions that matter, losing sight of the important reality and accountability that needs to lie behind it. That's why we're not supporting this bill and we see it as a distraction.
If we think about the gap between the intentions and reality, nothing is more stark than the border. When you think about wellbeing, which is what this piece of legislation is about, there are two biggest issues. We had Professor Easterlin, one of the leading intellectual figures on wellbeing economics around the world, come to New Zealand, actually, last week, hosted by Professor Robert MacCulloch up at the University of Auckland. He made the point that the two biggest indicators, or the most important things, for wellbeing, right across the world, every country, are always the same: health and jobs. On the health front, there's nothing more important than keeping people safe, and we've been talking about the border at the moment, and what have we seen? Well, we've seen lots of fine words and lots of talk from the Prime Minister about how focused they are on getting things done. And what have we seen in reality? A complete shambles—a complete shambles. So no doubt, if we pass this law, we'd have a nice wellbeing intention in there that we're going to keep the borders safe, and the reality would be just the same: a shambles. That's what we've seen.
I remember, when I was on the Epidemic Response Committee during the lockdown—it was the greatest shock that I had through the whole process—we had the Commissioner of Police come in, Mike Bush, his last day; not a good last day for him. He came to the committee, and we'd heard all week the Prime Minister saying, "Ah, yes. People are coming in from offshore, but don't worry, New Zealanders—don't worry—because they'll go off to self-isolation but the police will check on them within three days to make sure that they're doing what they said they were going to do. Don't worry, New Zealand; we've got everything covered." We come along to this committee on our Zoom little computers, and we asked Mike Bush: "Well, have you been checking up on people within three days?" His answer was "No. No, we haven't." So that just laid bare the big gap between intentions and announcements and promises by the Prime Minister and the reality. It was the same then as it is now. And anybody that has been watching the news over recent times will have seen that.
It's the lack of accountability that annoys people particularly. When things are going well, it's all about decisive action from the Government, and the Government's front and centre, the Prime Minister's front and centre. And, when it's going badly, well, it's the system's failure and those Ministers are nowhere to be seen. It is becoming a bit of a joke in this country: what does David Clark have to do to be sacked as Minister of Health?
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): If you can refer to that part of the bill, it would be really good.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, I will. The point I'm making is that this bill is, in its essence, about the statement of intentions about Government policy—such as keeping people safe; such as keeping the border tough—and they'd have a little measurement, but it's the actual outcome that is the critical thing and the accountability. 
I could run through so many things that would be included in the great list of wellbeing focuses of this Government that have been a complete flop. I can start with KiwiBuild, where they would have included in their wellbeing list in the Budget 100,000 houses to be built by KiwiBuild, and the abject failure and lack of delivery of that. I think we're up to 323—something like that—fewer than the number of houses that the Prime Minister stopped from being built at Ihumātao by meddling and fiddling in that process. It'll be interesting to see if we ever hear anything about that. So KiwiBuild was a flop.
Infrastructure: we're going to roll out all this infrastructure. We're going to build the light rail down Dominion Road. That was going to help the wellbeing of people—nobody's quite sure exactly how, because it seemed a very odd priority indeed and nobody was quite sure where it was going to. Was it going to Māngere or was it going to the airport? Was it going to be fast rapid transit or a slow tram? Nobody was quite sure, but, nevertheless, that was a focus, and it's not being delivered.
Then, last year, at the first wellbeing Budget, with great trumpets, what did they announce? Mental health—$1.9 billion; we're going to fix the problem. What have we seen, more than a year later? Well, nothing much, really. They've managed to spend about $20 million on extra actual funding for actual mental health delivery, which is a woeful effort nearly three years after a Government came in promising urgent and rapid response to the number one issue of the day, and they've been slow and ineffective. 
So I'm not impressed by some glossy document being produced at the Budget calling itself a wellbeing Budget—having the arrogance to suggest that every Budget that came before wasn't concerned about the wellbeing of New Zealanders. Of course they all were—all of them have been. You don't have to be so arrogant as to assume you're the first Government to come along and care about the wellbeing of New Zealanders, just because you list a whole bunch of things and actually don't deliver them and have lots of intentions that you haven't followed up on.
So poverty; so jobs—well, we're losing jobs, and you can't blame the Government entirely for the job losses, of course, that we've experienced over the past couple of months. They are to be expected from the extraordinary circumstances that we've had to deal with, with the closing of the economy. But the relevant question now before the country is: well, what are we going to do to reduce the damage in terms of job losses, and how are we going to get the country back on track? That's where it becomes important to have a clear economic plan and good results from the investments that are then made. At the moment, the only economic plan that I can find that's guiding the Government is debt-fuelled Government spending on a colossal scale and waiting for a vaccine.
It seems to me that this country deserves better than that and needs better than that, and that's what we will be delivering over the next couple of months. When we think about a wellbeing Budget, we think about a Budget and Government policies and Government direction which is about encouraging the investment in the private sector to drive growth. It's the tens of thousands of businesses, large and small—individuals and families making decisions about, "Yes, the world's changed; I think I can make a go of this area here or this area here."—figuring out how to, first, save their businesses; second, to rebuild their businesses; and, third, hopefully, to grow those business.
Policies that enable people or encourage people to do that by not overtaxing them, not regulating them to death, not changing the rules all the time, and allowing some investment to flow from offshore into those businesses—that's the sort of thing that will improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders, because it will enable them to have a better chance of getting a job, a satisfying job, so that they can look after themselves and their families, so that they can provide opportunities for their kids to get ahead and know, and have the comfort to know, that their kids will be growing up in a country where they feel like they can reach their aspirations here. That's what we all want to see in this country. It's what we strive towards: a place where young New Zealanders can feel not like they're making some kind of lifestyle choice to live in this beautiful country of ours but that they are confident that they can reach their full potential in a dynamic, growing economy that produces the jobs and opportunities that they need.
So that is my view of wellbeing, and it's a pity that we've got a Government that seems to confuse the statement of good intentions and the reality of delivering on those. Thank you, Mr Speaker.





Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Mr Speaker, it's been interesting to me in the last few days—as I've moved about my home in Titirangi, as I've come down here to Parliament, as I've been out and about—the place feels pretty much like usual: cars on the roads, people in the cafes, retail functioning, people at work. In fact, were it not for the closed borders, things would feel pretty much the same in New Zealand.
Why is that? It is because this Government put the health response first. And that, to me, is a metaphor for what's going on with this amendment to the Public Finance Act. It's a wellbeing amendment, and what it does is it says that wellbeing matters, that measuring it matters, that if we put that front and foremost in our minds, we will get the rest of it right too, because, contra the previous speaker, Paul Goldsmith, we are not the servants of the economy; the economy is the servant of us, and it's the servant of our wellbeing. That's what this bill sets out to achieve: that, as well as having all the fiscal measures in the Budget, as well as focusing on economic measures, we will also—not instead of, but also—have a look at wellbeing measures. And that is actually going to be tricky to do.
I want to remind the Opposition and people listening at home that, when GDP was first introduced, our gross domestic product, it was a controversial measure and it was disputed for many decades as to what exactly should be included in GDP—that, at present, some things that we value, that have enormous value to us, never make it into GDP. Famously, Marilyn Waring has pointed out that women's work doesn't get counted in GDP, that GDP has some extraordinary difficulties in it in terms of things like—the production of milk powder counts for GDP, but breastfeeding a baby doesn't. So it's interesting what we do and we don't value. 
What we are trying to do with our wellbeing bill—it will take time to correct those things—is to add measures of wellbeing to what gets measured for the purposes of assessing the economy. I think that's a really important thing to do in terms of our Budget. So what is important to New Zealanders? What are we trying to measure through wellbeing? Well, we'll work that out over time. We have got the starting place of the Living Standards Framework. We've got the starting place of Stats New Zealand indicators. They will get us under way. So that's a really important thing. 
Now, I just sort of want to say here that—there is a quote I want to put out here in terms of thinking about what actually matters to New Zealand. So Richard Easterlin, the recognised founder of wellbeing economics—he was just quoted by the previous speaker—says, "If you look at what has been done"—this is a really interesting quote and it really focuses on wellbeing—"If you look at the concerns that are most important for people's wellbeing, it's three things: their job, family circumstances, and their health. The New Zealand approach involved a composite of attention to health and a job. So [what we did with] the wage subsidy, income support for the people that did leave their jobs … meant that people did not suffer nearly as much as they otherwise would have." Again, it was a focus of our Government's approach that was around wellbeing—and that's terribly important to us as we face the COVID threat.
This is revolutionary work in a small and incremental way. Politics is a conversation. Economics is a conversation. The conversation over what wellbeing is—and how it should be measured, and what we should focus on—will go on for years and years and years, as it should, as it should. But, above all, we'll be guided by the basics. And for those basics, I want to refer to something that a great Labour Prime Minister said—Norman Kirk—and we quote it often because it is dear to our values: New Zealanders don't want much. What they want is someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work, and something to hope for. That is why I endorse this Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill.





Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I must say, having listened to the member who's resumed her seat, Deborah Russell, this is not this peace and love out there in the community. I don't see it recently. People are getting sick to death of being told to go round and be kind to each other when all they want is the Government to be competent. I think that, instead of having a bill called the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill, we could just have instead a "Public Finance (Competence) Amendment Bill". People actually want the Government to do its job, and what we're seeing is an awful lot of talking about how it's going to be peace and light and everyone's going to just be happy and friendly and everything's going well and we're going to start measuring it, when we've got a Government that no longer measures the sorts of things that a lot of people think a Government should—for instance, whether or not they're actually undertaking the COVID-19 tests on people when they come through the border. People, strangely enough, think that that's actually quite important, and I know that the other side might not like hearing that, but that is actually the sort of thing that people want to know about.
They also want to know that something's happening about reducing assaults on children, and yet this Government has actually scrapped the targets about reducing assaults on children. As part of wellbeing, they might want to consider whether or not we could be looking at increasing participation in early childhood education, and yet that target that the National-led Government had has been scrapped by this Government. They might also, as part of wellbeing, think that it's a good idea to increase infant immunisation rates, but again, that target has been scrapped by this current Government. The public might also think that part of a wellbeing amendment bill might actually be focused on things like reducing total crime and reducing reoffending, and of course those have also been scrapped by this Government. This is a bill which is all about promoting an ideal which is that everyone's going to be all feeling well and it's all wonderful.
Actually, you can't legislate for that. It's not possible to legislate for people to be having good wellbeing. What it is possible to do is to actually have a Government showing competency. We talk about something like mental health. Huge amount of effort put into mental health over various years by very, very many very deeply committed people, who have tried their very best in difficult situations. Instead what we've seen is a big announcement in last year's Budget on mental health funding. The trouble is almost none of it's spent. What we saw instead on the ground was that the mental-health workers who had been for some years working with Counties Manukau police, Christchurch police, and also Wellington in the watch-houses—or as they call it the custody suites—removed; removed these people from the front line, where they were doing a tremendous amount of good. Where's that in the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill? Where's that? Where's the practical application of wellbeing? And the answer is that this Government's simply not up to it.
The member who's resumed her seat has talked about issues like jobs as being very important for people's wellbeing—it certainly is. And what we've seen so far are 40,000 people whose jobs have been lost through absolutely no fault of their own. And that is the sort of thing that we're going to be seeing more and more in this country. Once the wage subsidy finishes, once people start to realise that there are no jobs that they would be otherwise expecting, when we see a generation coming through that is looking at their education having been completed and no job to go to, that is what's going to affect people much more than a bill coming through Parliament telling us that we're going to take wellbeing seriously. People want their jobs, and the one thing that we know from any person is that being able to work, to be able to feel that they can contribute in a positive way and to feel that their contribution is valued and properly rewarded, is the single-biggest thing that anybody can do to help someone else's wellbeing. That is also the single-biggest thing that anyone can do for themselves, to help themselves mentally, physically, and financially.
It is really important that New Zealanders have some confidence in this Parliament in being able to help set some of the leaders around how we can keep people in work. What we can do, for instance, is we could, as part of this bill, be thinking about whether or not we could be fast-tracking any infrastructure projects, which we've talked a lot about in Parliament but seen nothing of. We could, as part of this bill, be thinking about how we can help get people back into work where they have lost their jobs. Think of all the people in the tourist industry who have lost their jobs. Where's their wellbeing going to be on any matrix that this Government may wish to implement? It's going to be pretty bad.
I saw just recently on television a story of a man who is a pilot who is now working sorting mail for New Zealand Post. He showed the most incredible mental strength of being able to adjust his expectation of what he is able to do at this stage and showed incredible resilience. Most people in New Zealand will not have that sort of resilience. Most people will not be able to adjust themselves, their expectations, and their own mental health to be able to deal with the situation that's coming down the track at them, and that is the economic crisis that we are moving into. This is actually a time when the core functions of Government need to be very focused on how to reduce compliance costs, to reduce costs generally on businesses, and to keep people in work. As that gentleman showed on television the other night, all work is good work if you're paid for it and your health is actually part of that equation.
Work is incredibly important. I am seeing people who are now deeply angry that their wellbeing has been put at risk by the lack of quarantine at the border. I have seen people who have moved from hoping everything was fine and their wellbeing would be fine to now wondering if they have not been told the full truth about what was happening, and that is what we're seeing. That is the single-biggest concern—the fact that they do not trust what is being told to them on the health front. So how can they possibly trust what is being said on the economic front? This country is going through, and is about to move into, a very, very dangerous economic time—a dangerous economic time for generations to have to deal with, to repay debt, to be able to deal with the fact that a lot of people who are used to working are no longer going to be able to work. They are going to deal with the fact that many students will be coming out of training and not being able to work. What this Government should be focused on is how to get people into work, and one of the best ways is to make sure that those businesses that employ people are focused and able to actually employ people.
Instead, almost everything we've seen from this Government has been about restricting employers' ability to employ people, by putting rules around them, making it harder to take people on who you want to give a chance to. These are the sorts of people who are going to need help, and the best way of doing it is not about imposing more costs and restrictions on employers but actually helping those employers to be able to take risks and to give people an opportunity. Most people in this country are not employed by the Government. We should be very deeply grateful for that. That actually means that most people are engaged in activities that the Government shouldn't have to constantly interfere in, and most people are employed in small and medium size businesses. And it's those people, those small and medium size businesses and the owners of those businesses, the people who have risked their own capital and, in many cases, their entire financial wherewithal to employ other people—they're the people who need help. They're not the people who are going to be impressed by a bill called the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill.
What they're going to be doing is saying, "When is this Government going to give businesses a break? When's this Government going to listen to small businesses? When are they going to look at those who actually employ people, who risk everything to do that, and give those people a hand?" And that hand is not a hand to slap them down; it's a hand to build them up.





MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to offer New Zealand First's continued support for this Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill, which looks to upgrade the Budget-setting framework to take in a broader suite of measures. As we know, GDP is a very blunt tool. In fact, as Dr Russell outlined in her contribution, the bloke that actually developed it warned against using it as a very narrow measure, because it is a measure of economic activity but it is very narrow. 
We saw that in the previous term of the Government, when we had this illusion of what was called at the time a rock-star economy, when we had massive inequalities building up in this country. We saw people living in cars and on the streets and things that I never thought I would ever see in New Zealand. Those things were happening and were gathering pace whilst the very wealthy in this country were doing very well, thank you. Also, there's the issue of negative externalities, and we've seen that in the environmental space, where some of our practices had led to negative environmental outcomes that we are now having to go back and try to reverse engineer and rectify. 
This bill does mean that the Government of the day will have to take in social, environmental, and cultural wellbeing alongside economic benefits. I think it speaks to New Zealand's character and our egalitarian heritage and ethos that I think most of us would aspire for this country to have. That's been our history, and this bill encapsulates that. We don't have to look too far back to the "mother of all Budgets". The "mother of all Budgets" wouldn't have got through this framework—that kind of slash and burn - type mentality that had repercussions for decades to come. This would not allow that. 
You know, I listened to the previous speakers from the National Party talking about—well, I'm not sure what they were talking about, essentially, in terms of where they were coming from, because I've heard their leader, when asked what their plan was, say, "Well, we don't know if we'd borrow more or we don't know if we'd borrow less." And, judging by some of the announcements that have come out since then, it will be borrowing more; essentially, paying employers to take people on. Last time I heard, that was called socialism, and I never thought I would hear that from the National Party, but it seems to be the muddled position that they are in at the moment. They just do not seem to know where they stand. But at least, under this piece of legislation, when it goes through, they will have to take into account this broader suite of measures. 
This is a more modern lens to have for our Budget-setting framework, so New Zealand First will continue to support this bill. Thank you.





Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): If I could just, first of all, comment on the contribution we've just heard from Mark Patterson. He said that he didn't believe that the Ruth Richardson Budget of 1991 would have been accepted by this House under the new rules associated with the wellbeing framework. I might point out to the member that even Grant Robertson, in introducing the second reading of this bill, pointed out that Budget 2020 did not meet the wellbeing framework that the Government's promoted, either, because there simply wasn't time, in view of the COVID crisis, to adhere to the rules that the Government's attempting to establish around a wellbeing framework. So I don't think there's much validity in the argument advanced by Mr Patterson. 
Can I start by saying I don't think there would ever have been a member of Parliament elected to this House that didn't come into this House caring for the wellbeing of all New Zealanders. To suddenly think that Budget after Budget's been presented in this House without a care at all for the wellbeing of New Zealand is, frankly, just nonsense. We had the first Wellbeing Budget presented with a lot of fanfare last year. Then, within 12 months, we had the next Budget, the 2020 Budget, delivered into this House and the framework being promoted by the Government—it didn't have time to meet its own framework. 
I say to the Government that, at a time when this country's facing an economic crisis like we haven't seen for 160 years, to start fiddling around changing the Public Finance Act with a little bit of fluffy nonsense shows just how out of touch this Government is with the suffering that most New Zealanders are facing today. We have massive and growing unemployment, we have business under real stress, and the Government's answer, in the dying days of this Parliament, is to bring forward a bill for its second reading which adjusts the Public Finance Act and incorporates the wellbeing framework. It just staggers me how out of touch Labour, New Zealand First, and the Green Party are with the situation—the economic crisis—that exists in this country today. 
Grant Robertson, in his contribution, noted the importance of the Public Finance Act enacted in 1989, coupled then with some very good work which the Hon Ruth Richardson did do: the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1994. Both those pieces of legislation combined are recognised right throughout the world as delivering a fiscal security to Budget preparation that's been adhered to by successive National-led Governments, by successive Labour-led Governments—basically, since the 1990s. But to come to a situation today whereby simply putting in a bit of fluff around wellbeing is going to suddenly change the nature and the delivery of wellbeing to New Zealanders, frankly, just does not stand the test. The Government should be facing the crisis that this country's in. There is real suffering out there. We all now know of businesses that were supported temporarily with a wage subsidy, and now that the wage subsidy is coming to an end, they are having to face laying off staff because businesses will not survive.
Deborah Russell mentioned that everything was back to normal. She mentioned that retail in this country is good. Go and talk to the retailers, Deborah Russell. Just walk down the main streets of Wellington or Christchurch or Auckland and see for yourself that retailers are struggling. Everything is not fine. What New Zealand wants at this stage is a Government of competence. We started this term with a lot of talk around building tens of thousands of houses and KiwiBuild. That's almost been taken out of the lexicon now because it was an absolute failure. 
I do accept we then moved to the challenge around COVID-19, and for a long time the people of New Zealand were prepared to go along with the border restrictions, with the level 3, level 4, level 2, and now to level 1, in the belief we were getting COVID-19 under control in this country. But they expect—and, in fact, they demand—some competency around quarantining and some competency around our borders. Even today in the House, we cannot find out how many people have left compulsory quarantine—assured of testing before they left—how many people have now been able to leave from there without any tests being done? To me, it's simple. In fact, I think the Prime Minister gave us a figure this afternoon in question time: 4,300 people have now been quarantined and have left. The very simple question the country's asking is: how many of those people were tested?
Now, it just defies belief that the Ministry of Health has not got a record of every COVID test, the person that was tested, the date it was done, the time it was done, and subsequently add to that record whether it was a positive test or a negative test. It just defies belief that that figure can't be available. And, in the meantime, while we're asking for competency from this Government, all they can do is rush forward with a piece of legislation that, incidentally, was introduced in the House last year, in September, reported back this year, in March, has sat on the Order Paper and suddenly, in the last few weeks of sitting of the 51st Parliament, Grant Robertson decides it's important enough to bring it into the House to progress a second reading today. It's that lack of competency shown by the Government that has every New Zealander worried. 
Can I just say, in my final comments on this piece of legislation, that the select committee received numerous submissions. We spent some hours working on this piece of this legislation, and we made one momentous change, one momentous change that Deborah Russell as the chair will be forever proud of. She has recommended, out of the whole bill, we remove the word "appropriate". So new section 26NB, in clause 8, "Wellbeing Report", as introduced said in subsection (2), "Using appropriate indicators, the report must describe—(a) the state of wellbeing in New Zealand; and (b) how … [it's] changed over time; and (c) the sustainability of, and any risk to, the state of wellbeing in New Zealand." Fluff words, and our contribution through hours and hours of select committee work was to suggest the removal of the word "appropriate". Give me a break!
If this is the most important thing this Government can do at a time of absolute economic crisis, God help us, and hurry up and bring on an election—19 September 2020—and let the country wake up to the total incompetency of this Government. May we not see another three years of the incompetence of Labour, New Zealand First, and the Green Party.





Hon JAMES SHAW (Associate Minister of Finance): It is always a pleasure to follow the Hon David Carter in debate. I want to just start by thanking him for his acknowledgment of what a well-crafted piece of legislation this was when it first entered the House—that it required so little amendment as it passed through its select committee stage. I also want to thank the Hon Grant Robertson for bringing this legislation to the House and ensuring that we are going to be able to get through it before the House rises for the election. That is because this piece of legislation was actually part of the Green Party's confidence and supply agreement with Labour. It is good to be part of a Government that is delivering on something that the Green Party has stood for for several decades in this House. I also want to acknowledge Dr Kennedy Graham, because in some ways this bill is the inheritor of Dr Graham's member's bill of some years ago, the Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill, which was a first cut at saying, well, look, if you had to start thinking about a broader set of measures for the sustainable development of a country as part of your fiscal and budgetary process, how would that look?
I missed some of the earlier contributions, I'm afraid. But I have to say, having listened to the contributions of the Hon Judith Collins and David Carter, I have some good news for them. One of the things that they were asking for is competent Government and why we don't measure competent Government. And I have some good news: (a) there is a competent Government, but (b) trust in Government is one of the measures that form the wellbeing framework. So we are actually doing the very thing that the Hon Judith Collins spent a good portion of her speech asking for, which is, actually, when you elevate it up, what we refer to as social capital, and the idea that you can trust in the institutions of Government and the broader Public Service are part of what got us through the worst of the COVID-19 crisis. Because we had built in this country, over many decades, a sense that we are all in this together, there's a strong sense of social capital, and that needs to be nurtured if we're going to get through the rest of this crisis.
Ms Collins also asked for a measure about reoffending. The health of the justice system and the rate of reoffending is one of the things that forms the measures in the wellbeing framework. I've got some news for the Hon David Carter in this, as well, who said, "Is now the time, when we're in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, to be looking at the wellbeing of our people?" I would say this is exactly the time that you want a coherent framework, a comprehensive and cogent framework, for looking at how our people and our country are doing. Ms Collins asked about, "What is the practical application? Is this just some kind of piece of fluff?" Actually, the good news, again, for the Hon Judith Collins is that the practical application of this comes down to our budgetary processes. The idea that, actually, bids that come forward to Treasury have to be measured not only on their traditional benefit-cost ratios but on this broader set of measures that says, well, how are they building our social capital, our human capital, our natural capital, our built-in environmental and cultural capital, as well. So all of the things that they were asking for, we are delivering, and it's a shame that they can't support that but there we go.
Now, I would like to just come back to some of the substance of the bill and some of the history which is reflected in it. One of the questions that have been raised in this debate is why it is that we're amending the Public Finance Act in reference to these questions around this broader set of measures as opposed to any other part of our legislative framework. If you think about finance as the measurement and management of built and financial capital, that has been the way that, you know, we've treated the role of Government in this country for a very long time. That is, of course, what the purpose of the existing Public Finance Act is: is to say, well, how does Government measure, manage our built-in financial capital and assets.
Now, my second professional job was at that crazy hippie organisation Pricewaterhouse, back in the late 1990s; so this is over 20 years ago. Pricewaterhouse started looking at non-financial forms of capital that would be important in the measurement and management and running of its large corporate clients around the world. We started looking at things like social capital, and natural capital, and intellectual capital, brand value, and so on. A series of intangibles—or some were tangibles and some were intangibles—that added to the value of a company that far outstripped the aggregate of its, kind of, hard assets and financial capital. This was largely derived on some earlier thinking in the 1990s about the idea of a balanced scorecard that companies were starting to develop: the idea that you would have some kind of dashboard that included the company financials but also started to look at things like how are your people doing, how is your product doing, and so on—this idea that you could develop a comprehensive view of the organisation that included, but was not limited to, its financial wellbeing. And so, really, all we are doing here is taking thinking that is decades old—it stretches right back to the 1990s when the Public Finance Act had its genesis. And 20 years behind some of the most conservative accounting organisations on the planet, we are starting to think about how we incorporate that thinking into the running of a country. It's that simple. That's what we're doing. We are developing a comprehensive set of indicators across our financial, our economic, our social, and our environmental capital and saying, "How are we doing as a country?" And our traditional economic measures have an important role in that, but it is not limited to that.
The reasons for that have been well articulated on this side of the House. When you focus only on a narrow set of economic indicators, you lose the sense of how you're actually doing as a country. That is why we had year after year of GDP growth and people living in cars and garages growing at the same time. We had years and years of GDP growth and an extension of pollution in our rivers that got to the point that you couldn't actually swim in them anymore. Years and years of GDP growth and the worst housing crisis in this country's history, locking out first-home buyers, driving up house prices, causing endemic poverty around New Zealand. If you are going to have any sensible way of running a country at all, you have to look at these things side by side, and that is why the correct location for this work is inside the Public Finance Act, because, like I said, this thinking has been around for decades, the idea that financial capital is not your only form of capital. And for us to be able to have any sort of coherent sense of how our financial capital is doing versus our natural capital versus our social capital or our human capital, those things have to be inside the same framework. That's it. It is actually very straightforward. It's very simple. It's been around in the private sector that the National Party has worshipped at the altar of for decades. We are merely adopting what is now common practice around the world.
David Carter did say that our existing fiscal framework is the envy around the world; it's been acknowledged around the world. So is this. This is derived from an OECD framework; it has been picked up by other countries around the world—Ireland is the most recent country to say that there is no reason that, just because we innovated something 30 years ago, we can't innovate something else now that will be similarly adopted around the world. There is a recognition that, actually, the framework that we've operated under for three decades now has run its course and we do need to innovate. We do need to think more about the next 30 years and how we manage ourselves as a country. So I am delighted that we are paying attention to this bill at this particular time. It is critical that we look at the wellbeing of our people during the COVID-19 crisis, and I commend this bill to the House.





IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I always quite enjoy following the co-leader of the Green Party. He always comes up with something new, and the new thing I have just learnt—and it clearly is part of the wellbeing technology—is that of a professional job. Frankly, I think this bill's a little bit of an amateur job, but none the less we'll get on to that in a minute. The last speaker also gave me little confidence in a competent Government, and it's taken them three years and many weeks of urgency, actually, to finally get this piece of legislation back for a second reading. If that was part of the confidence and supply agreement with the Greens, well, they've got it here at last. 
We in the National Party most certainly support the wellbeing aspiration of New Zealanders, and that was emphasised in the speech that our leader, Todd Muller, made in Te Puna a couple of weeks ago. There's no question that we all come to this House for the same reason; we just have very different ways of going about it at times, and I don't think that this bill is a way that—well, I know that this bill is not a way we would have gone about this, and I'll explain why. We also support the view that Governments should have a broader focus than just GDP as the range of measures of success. One of the great challenges that this Government's going to face in the next year or two, or whoever is the Government in the next year or two, will be—
Hon James Shaw: Thank you for your endorsement. 
IAN McKELVIE: —you might hope you're not, James—the fact that, if the Government's not careful, it's going to be the sole instigator of GDP in this country, and that, for an economy, is a massive challenge. So I think that, in the aftermath of COVID, it's most important that we have a broad source of GDP and that our Government encourages private enterprise to get moving on a lot of the issues that they would be very good at. 
The Public Finance Act is one of the pillars of Government in New Zealand, and I agree with the Minister that it's a very good piece of legislation. It's stood us in very good stead over the years, but it cannot be all things to all people. If it's meant to be all things to all people, it will most certainly undermine its focus and the very important role it plays in New Zealand's economic structure. I'm one of those people who believes decision making involves something of a hierarchical process, and if we undermine the hierarchical process, we will not always get the outcomes we're looking for. 
I listened to a number of the submissions on this bill and I thought that some of them were very good submissions on wellbeing, and I guess the thing that I wondered was how it actually fits into the Public Finance Act and how some of those submissions fitted with what this bill is designed to achieve. One of the submissions I particularly enjoyed, and the first thing is it was a submission from Marilyn Waring, who talked at length on issues of wellbeing in New Zealand. It's been, of course, a lifelong—I suppose you could almost say—love for her and a thing that she's concentrated on, and she had an opportunity in this bill to put her point very strongly. But, under this bill, in the first part of the bill, the Government's required to report annually on its wellbeing objectives in the Budget. One would imagine that, for this to mean anything, we'd be provided with comparisons or with a form of measuring those wellbeing objectives, and I have yet to see any proof that that's going to be given to us in a form that is easy for the public to understand and is usable. 
The second part of the bill relates to Treasury's role in this, and Treasury is to report periodically on the state of wellbeing in New Zealand. I think the bill recommends that "periodically" might mean "four years", or four-yearly, which clearly means that you're going to get in one term of Government a year with no report in it, and maybe the other two with a report in them, and you'd never know how that would work out. But how this relates to the first requirement of the Government to report on its wellbeing objectives, I'm not quite sure. There's no clear direction on how that would happen, and I can imagine the vociferous noise coming out of finance Ministers of all ilks when Treasury reports something they don't like, because you only have to listen to the actions of this Government when Treasury's talked about things they don't like to see that Treasury will come under significant criticism if, in fact, it doesn't agree with the Government's view. So I think the whole objective of this is a bit unusual. 
In the Minister of Finance's first reading speech, he stated—and I've yet to understand it fully—"the exclusive focus of the Public Finance Act on fiscal matters means that we are not, in creating our Budget, looking at the full range of measures that define a country's success from an economic point of view or, indeed, specifically here, that define [what's] in a Budget." I think we get elected to this House to bring our collective views to what appears in a Budget, at the end of the day. To achieve that, we rely on a whole lot of information given to us by all sorts of agencies, but we—most importantly—need to understand the facts, and we often don't understand those facts. Given the statement by the Minister of Finance in his first reading speech, I don't think that that—including in the Public Finance Act—is going to make it any easier or any simpler for the Government to develop a Budget. I just think that it's blurring the edges, basically. I think that we need to have sound, concrete statistics, and shortly after arriving on the Government benches, this Government scrapped the 10 public service targets that the previous Government had put in place. Those public service targets measured things specifically, and they were very useful determinants of what was going on. 
The other thing they've done since then was to scrap the health targets, and I think we can argue all we like about the structure of the health industry in New Zealand, but the health targets were a very useful indicator of what was going on. I'm testament to that because I've now got a new leg, and I tell you what an amazing difference it makes to you. If the health system can provide a difference like that to people's lives, we need to be measuring how quickly it's doing it and how efficiently it's doing it. I think it's most important that we have targets in our system and that we not only have targets but we have measurements that we can clearly understand and that are accessible and easy for the public to understand. That's one of the challenges I think we have with a lot of things that we do in this House: we don't make it easily understandable. 
The other thing is that I referred earlier this afternoon to a select committee process that I thought was pretty extraordinary, and it was hugely collegial. The select committee process on a lot of these bills doesn't consider alternative views, and this one didn't consider many other views at all. It pretty much came back to the House as it was, but that's not unusual for legislation to do that after going through a select committee process. I think it's critical that we have a strong, resilient, and sustainable economy and good decision-making by Governments, and good policy development and legislation regulation made by Governments is absolutely critical to good decision-making and to a good, strong, and sensible economy. 
Lastly, I just want to refer to another issue that James Shaw talked about, and that was that there are many other measures than financial capital. I suppose, being a farmer, I know there are many other measures than financial capital, because the financial capital is the last thing you need to consider in running a business like farming. You need to have it of course, but, actually, there's a whole lot of other capital that you use in the course of farming: environmental capital, livestock wellbeing—all sorts of things. So I think the background I come from gives you a very good understanding of all the types of capital you need to run a business or a society, and, actually, farms, in a funny way, are societies. They're societies of animals and humans all mixed together, and I think it's pretty important that we understand that. 
So I'm not sure where this bill's going to get to or where the result of this bill will get to in the future, but I do think that trying to combine all of those, I suppose, "wellbeing factors" into a thing called the Public Finance Act—I don't think that's the answer. I think there are much better ways of doing that in the future. Thank you, Madam Speaker. 
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The next call is a split call. 





JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): I'd like to begin by acknowledging the optimism of the previous speaker, Ian McKelvie, around this Government being returned after the election. So thank you for that vote of confidence, to the member. Look, this bill is about leadership. It's about the Government putting the wellbeing of people at the centre of all it does. I'm just going to take a very brief call, but I'd just like to highlight that something that's come out of this bill is the Waikato Wellbeing Project, which is a regional initiative based on 10 Waikato wellbeing targets, based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, an exciting project that we've seen come from the leadership the Government is providing. I expect we'll see more of that, more of those examples spring up across the country. I commend this bill to the House.





LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It's a pleasure to take a call on this bill. I wish to reflect on what a couple of my colleagues have said prior to me taking this call, and that is that it's all very well setting targets and it's all very well incorporating wellbeings, but what's more important is what you actually deliver on and how you measure yourself.
So the principal difference, I think, between both sides of the House is that National has had targets when it was in Government. It had 10 Better Public Service targets. They were measureable, and, effectively, they measured a whole lot of things, including reducing welfare dependency, increasing participation in early childhood education, increasing child immunisation rates, reducing assaults on children, increasing NCEA qualification rates, reducing total crime, and reducing reoffending. That was a set of targets, they were measured, they were looked at, and they were reviewed on an annual basis. We also had a whole heap of targets in the health sector, which sought to measure the performance, the number of operations, the number of electives. This Government came in and, basically, chopped all that out, and said, "We're kind and caring, and we're different to the last lot, and we are going to make a fundamental difference."
In reality, on just about every single measure I can think of, probably every measure, I can't see any of that being achieved. Whether you're talking about housing, whether you're talking about mental health, big promises have been made but there are no specific targets to measure any of it. As a result, over time, we have learnt through written and oral questions from Ministers the rate of delivery. The housing one's a classic—the housing one's a classic: big promises at the election but a spectacular failure nearly three years into that first term of Government. Light rail's another one—big promise.
Dan Bidois: How's that going?
LAWRENCE YULE: I don't think it's going anywhere. I don't actually think there is a plan, and it's certainly not going to have been started by the start of this election.
So if you look at all those things, it is very easy to bring in a wellbeing sort of set of measures in the Public Finance Act and all you do is dilute and diffuse the objectives of what the Government's doing because there's no measurement around it; there's no long-term, sustainable targets. We're just going to look at a series of things and it's going to influence our policy. What New Zealanders need is delivery of things that they are promised at the election from any political party. Our party—this party that I'm part of—have sought out to name and list some pretty significant targets, and the Rt Hon Bill English was largely responsible for that, because he saw, over his time in Parliament, decades of people talking about doing things and nobody ever doing it because it wasn't measured. We oppose this bill on the basis that it just adds fluff—as the Rt Hon David Carter has said previous to me—just adds fluff to a whole lot of stuff, and it'll make no difference whatsoever to anybody in terms of delivery. Who's going to look at it, who's going to listen to it, who's going to read it?
In relation to Mr Jamie Strange, who spoke previously to me about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, I've been to New York a number of times and I've sat in those meetings and they're all laudable what they want, but, fundamentally, what New Zealanders want is a job, somebody to love them—as I think Deborah Russell said—some shelter, and a sense of safety; that's really what they want. They're not interested in what the United Nations is saying—they're not interested in the United Nations. When you boil it down, all this is is diluting targets that the Reserve Bank and a whole lot of other people have to measure because the fluff gets so murky that they don't know who the master is.
We oppose this bill. We had some set-out, clear, difficult targets to achieve, but we had them on the basis that they made a difference to New Zealanders' lives, and as such we oppose the bill.





JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm pleased to take a call on this piece of legislation. What we have with this piece of legislation is a bill that embeds the wellbeing approach by requiring the Government and Treasury to report on the objectives and the state of wellbeing of New Zealanders. Why is that such a terrible thing for members opposite to comprehend and understand? It's disappointing, to say the least, to see members opposite joking and ridiculing the wellbeing of New Zealanders, the arrogance and negativity to call it fluffy nonsense. Since when has caring about the wellbeing of New Zealanders been fluffy nonsense? Disappointing—negative National, as always. I commend this bill to the House.





ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Madam Speaker—oh, hello.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I called you already. 
ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you—I didn't hear you.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm just not as loud in the voice as others.
ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you. It was obviously the Government members trying to talk over the top and interrupt what was going on. I couldn't hear you, Madam Speaker.
Well, I believe I'm the last speaker on this Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill.
Dr Deborah Russell: Second to last.
ANDREW BAYLY: Oh, second to last. Sorry, Ms Russell. The issue about this bill—and the previous speaker, Jo Luxton, just said, well, you know, we don't understand it and it's wrong—it's wrong that the Opposition is so negative. I find that really quite an outlandish statement to make. One of the things that people say about National is that we are ruthlessly disciplined and have ruthless objectives. If anything, they say we over-measure. I haven't yet ever met someone who's said, you know, "National's soft and flabby. You don't like measuring and all that sort of stuff." Here we are. We've got a bill here that's starting to introduce a somewhat ill-defined concept into public finance. 
Just to demonstrate, I think the person in National that best demonstrates that ruthless discipline in terms of making sure we deliver fantastic results and performance was Steven Joyce. In fact, many of my colleagues here just talk about him just pulling out the list of the targets that we had—and we had all these public sector targets—and he would sit there and go through the 261 of those targets and ask Ministers where they got to on number 203. If they hadn't made enough progress, he would be doing it. We had lots of public service targets. Just an example: reducing welfare dependency, increasing participation in early childhood education, reducing assaults in children, increasing NCEA qualification rates, reducing total crime, reducing reoffending, and then we had all the health targets and all these other ones that we had.
Rt Hon David Carter: Where are those targets now?
ANDREW BAYLY: That's right, the Rt Hon David Carter. Where are those targets now? That's the issue. We ask day in and day out of the Minister of Health what's happened to those health targets. I've heard my colleagues talk about where we've got to on mental health. Literally only $27 million has been spent on it, even though the Government announced they were going to spend, I think, $1.8 billion. 
Rt Hon David Carter: 1.9.
ANDREW BAYLY: $1.9 billion—I stand corrected. That is the big difference. We were ruthlessly focused on it. 
But what we've got with this bill is a bill that gives the warm glow of incompetence. It is one that we feel like we're going to feel better, we're going to make New Zealanders more connected, by somehow adopting this concept of wellbeing. We have sat in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and had presentation after presentation on the wellbeing process. We've talked often about the measures that they want to adopt. It's very nice that the Minister of Finance is here. It would have been very important for him to actually be there, actually. One of the things that just repeatedly comes through those presentations—repeatedly comes through those presentations—is that this is an evolving concept and New Zealand is somehow out the front. When we asked about specific measures, they're in the process of being developed. We are going from one Government, when we were in power, that was ruthlessly—one would almost say overly—focused on targets to one that is now about wellbeing; these soft measures that are unquantified, unspecified, and, certainly, not measured. That is the interesting thing in this bill. 
This bill really, for the amount of time we spent on it, resulted, as many have commented, in one change, which is, in clause 8, new section 26NB "Wellbeing report". Rather than saying "(2) Using appropriate indicators,", we've deleted the word "appropriate" and said, "(2) Using indicators, the report must describe—(a) the state of wellbeing in New Zealand;"—that's an interesting concept. I'm not sure how that's going to be defined yet. It sounds nice. It's got that warm glow, Minister of Finance. It sounds nice. I don't know what that means. There's "(b) how the state of wellbeing in New Zealand has changed over time;". Well, if we had a starting point—if we knew what the measure was—we could measure it over time, but, actually, we're missing that first instrumental part. And there's "(c) the sustainability of, and any risk to, the state of wellbeing"—again, beautiful language—beautiful language. I do feel warm and glowing from that. But that is the issue—that is the issue about this. It doesn't actually deliver the specific things that we really want to know. 
Actually, we've now got a Minister who has overseen quite radical changes in the public sector. The first one was to the Reserve Bank, where the Minister of Finance introduced the second target for the Reserve Bank, around making sure we have full employment. Then we had the Budget reforms that we now talk about wellbeing. And now we've got this: the Public Finance (Wellbeing) Amendment Bill. Now, if we happen to be in power on 20 September, I literally do not understand how we will go about trying to put this in place. I challenge all the members on the other side to be clear about it, because no one in the Finance and Expenditure Committee has any oversight or understanding of what this specifically means. That's the issue with this—that is the issue with this. None of those advisers could help us on that aspect. That is why we're against it. 
Of course we not only want to see New Zealand improve from an economic perspective, which is really good, but we want to see it improve from a social perspective, law and order perspective, and community perspective—all that sort of stuff. To put this into a legal framework, you need to have done a lot more work than what's gone on. It's nice to be able to talk about it. It's obviously going to come through in future Budgets if the Government gets back in. But, unless it delivers better outcomes for all New Zealanders—unless it delivers better outcomes—it is all fluff, to use the Rt Hon David Carter's comment. I think that's a shame. We should have done more work. We should have done the hard yards before we set about trying to implement a bill like this.





MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's a delight to take a short call to finish off this debate. The previous speaker who just resumed his seat, Andrew Bayly, seemed to be pining for the past when he talks about "when we were in power" and he refers to his ruthless Government that was in power and did whatever they needed to do. There was another member, Andrew Bayly. Andrew Bayly was harking back to the past, talking about Bill English and John Key. Well, actually, this is no longer the party of Bill English and John Key; they're a totally different party. In fact, this is a party who has discovered a new word. We've heard it all through their speeches, a new word. It is "competence"—competence from the safe-cracking party. What a laugh! I bet you New Zealanders wish that they had discovered that word when they were in Government, because they weren't exactly a Government of competence.
Judith Collins mentioned that people want a Government to do the job. Now, this was the National Government's record of competence: people living in cars, under bridges, and in tents; kids doing homework in the back of the car; and not being able to jump into the stream for fear of getting sick. That is their record of competence. We are fixing all those long-term challenges, and, at the same time, we are measuring it against wellbeing measures—stuff that actually matters to people. As my colleague Deborah pointed out, the question is: what actually matters to people? Well, it isn't anything that the National Government did when they were in power. So I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





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





IMPREST SUPPLY (FIRST FOR 2020/21) BILL
Introduction
Bill introduced.
First Reading
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Imprest Supply (First for 2020/21) Bill be now read a first time.
Bill read a first time.





APPROPRIATION (2019/20 SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES) BILL
IMPREST SUPPLY (FIRST FOR 2020/21) BILL
Second Readings
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2020/21) Bill be now read a second time.
I thought it might be helpful at the outset to let members know exactly what these two bills are. The Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill makes new appropriations and changes to appropriations in the 2019/20 Estimates to reflect the decisions taken by the Government since the 2019/20 Estimates were finalised in April 2019, prior to Budget 2019. The Imprest Supply (First for 2020/21) Bill provides an interim bulk spending authority for the first three months of the 2020-21 financial year until the Appropriation (2020-21 Estimates) Bill is passed by the end of September.
The total imprest sought through the Imprest Supply (First for 2020/21) Bill is greater than that provided by the Imprest Supply (First for 2019/20) Act. This is a reflection of both the Government's fiscal response to COVID-19 and the considerably heightened economic uncertainty resulting from the global pandemic. The Imprest Supply (First for 2020/21) Bill seeks to provide sufficient authority for the Government to incur a maximum of $40 billion in expenses and $10.5 billion in capital expenditure and $1.7 billion in capital injections until the Appropriation (2020-21 Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2020/21) Bill are passed. These figures account for the financial implications of the decisions made as part of Budget 2020 through the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund and other COVID-19 - related spending. Although the Government does not expect to incur expenditure of this magnitude before the passing of the Appropriation (2020-21 Estimates) Bill, it is standard practise for imprest bills to provide sufficient supply to cover fiscal risk as well as the uncertain timing and spread of expenditure.
I give notice that at the end of the second reading, there will be a committee of the whole House stage of the Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill to consider a Supplementary Order Paper to incorporate into this bill the changes to appropriations and new appropriations for 2019/20 contained in the addition to the 2019/20 Supplementary Estimates that I presented to the House last Tuesday. This is something that has happened before in this House in the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes, when decisions have needed to have been taken after the time that they normally would be.





ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. As the Minister quite rightly pointed out, these two bills actually are very interrelated. First, the need to reflect new or changed expenditure from the finalised 2019-20 Estimates, which were presented prior to the Budget earlier this year, and then, of course, needing to cover the additional spending for the first three months of this financial year, which is 2020-21. 
As the Minister says, the amount that's been set aside at $40 billion for additional spending, at $5 billion for capital spend, and also another $1.7 billion for capital injections is by any standards the most incredible level of financial expenditure, I think, probably in New Zealand's history. Even on a comparative basis, I would imagine that these amounts are just so staggeringly large that every other time that we've had these types of initiatives, even during the global financial crisis, the amount of money that's been allocated to deal with the COVID-19 process is absolutely outstandingly large. 
I think that is a real question for all of New Zealanders to ponder, because I don't think for a moment anyone thinks that we shouldn't be spending large amounts of money to support vulnerable New Zealanders, and particularly vulnerable businesses in New Zealand, particularly at a time when we've had the process of trying to at least eliminate the COVID infections in New Zealand. It was right and proper that support measures were put in place. The primary one has been the wage subsidy, which has amounted to roughly about $11 billion so far. An interesting point, it's 50 percent of the average wage in New Zealand, whereas most countries around the world did 80 percent. That is a large portion of the additional spending.
I think one of the areas we haven't seen any support in—I think this is a very disappointing area and one that we might have contemplated if we had been in Government—is the lack of support for businesses, especially in the area of rental support. Using Reserve Bank valuations of commercial industrial buildings, if the Government had subsidised 50 percent of all rents that were paid to independent landlords for industrial and commercial properties in New Zealand, that would have cost $300 million a month or $1 billion for three months. I think, unfortunately, that is one of the big things that has happened. 
Even though we allocated $40 billion here, the mix of spend that the Government has chosen to apply, in my personal view, has been that it's not well balanced. It underspent in terms of support for employees—wage subsidies during the actual lockdown period should have been 80 percent—but didn't deal with the issue of rental support for businesses. The result of that is that now many businesses, three months down the track, who've only just been able to do approximately 10 days of work last month and will have now invoiced for those 10 days of work and will now, hopefully, later this month receive the first lot of payment in three months—during that period, not only have they had to deal with half their labour costs, and labour normally reflects about 40 percent of any business's total costs, they've had to top up half of that for the last three months. 
The second thing is they've had to deal with and pay for rent, which accounts for roughly about 20 percent of everyone's profit and loss. On top of that, and everyone seems to have forgotten that, all businesses face another 40 percent of general overheads, whether they're power, lighting, whatever it might be, general overhead that they've had to incur. As a result, we've now got businesses perilously close where many of them do not have cash reserves at all and are waiting and hanging on for the wage support. I think that is the travesty of where we've ended up. Even though we've spent a lot of money, we've ended up with a travesty that many of our smaller businesses in New Zealand—we have 320,000 of them, mums and dads in many cases, less than five employees—those businesses are so financially constrained now, their owners—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm very sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come for the House to have a dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30. Andrew Bayly has four minutes, 54 seconds remaining should he wish to take it.
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
ANDREW BAYLY: Just to remind people what we're actually talking about right now, this is the Estimates and the imprest supply bills. So as the Minister said just before the break, what the Government wants to do is to put in place enough funding for the first three months of the 2020-21 financial year. So what this bill does is set aside $40 billion for working capital purposes—if I can use the business term—$5 billion for capital expenditure, and $1.7 billion for injection into Government-owned entities. 
What I was saying before the break was that we do need to invest heavily, and I was talking about the level of support given in terms of wage subsidy at 50 percent rather than 80 percent and the lack of any financial support around rental arrangements for small businesses. Having costed that, that's worth about $300 million per month if the Government had chosen to do that. What that would have done is protect, husband the cash that those small businesses have, which right now are in a critical, perilous state because they haven't been able to invoice, basically, anything for three months and they've had to carry not only the top-up of the wages but also the rent that they've had to pay, plus the remaining overheads that all businesses incur.
So we accept the principle that the Government needs to spend. But this $40 billion is on a herculean scale. It is something that we've never seen before in New Zealand's history. We didn't even do that level of spending during the global financial crisis, and the total bill for the Christchurch earthquake was $20 billion for the Government and $40 billion for the wider industry. So that just puts this $40 billion for the first three months into a context of the scale of this.
What we've seen is that we're going to see debt rise from roughly $60 billion over the next few months to close to $110 billion, and the financial cost of that, the interest cost of that, is going to be $3.5 billion a year. Again, to put that sum of $3.5 billion into context, that is the same cost as the New Zealand Government writing out a cheque to fund the New Zealand police force in New Zealand every year. The cost to the police force is the equivalent of the additional funding we're going to have to find to service this increase in debt. 
What is worse, this document, this Budget document and the Estimates that are all part of it going forward—over the next four years this Government is proposing to run deficits totalling in excess of $100 billion, which will result in this Government and this country and every New Zealander facing a $200 billion deficit or debt figure. That'll be an annual interest cost of roughly $7.5 billion. It is staggering. The largest surplus that the Government's ever recorded is about $7 billion. That is just servicing the debt; it is nothing about repaying the debt. That is the most dangerous thing about this.
Part of this $40 billion that's in here, we know that the Government has been clear that they have set aside $20 billion. It is yet to be specified what it's going to be applied to, but it's going to be spent over the next couple of months prior to the election. That is the issue that we have. We do agree that good investment by this Government should be made to support vulnerable New Zealanders, to support vulnerable businesses who employ vulnerable New Zealanders, and we should be looking after our communities, but this is a Government that has little discipline. 
It's interesting, when you go through this document, some of the Estimates that are included and some of the costs—like if I just look here: the Prime Minister's and Cabinet fund over the next four years is going to increase by $7 million.
Hon Shane Jones: What page—what page?
ANDREW BAYLY: Page 80. If I look at "Saving the Crown's audio-visual collection", another $10 million to be spent, plus $32 million of capital expenditure. If I look at some of the other aspects, there's $6 million set aside immediately after the election for Ministers to be able to reassume their offices. That there is a staggering amount of money just for offices.





Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I want to pick up on something which the speaker immediately before me, Andrew Bayly, has said. He said that we have never before seen spending on this scale. He's correct. We have never before seen Governments having to spend on this scale. I say "Governments" because it's Governments around the world. Of course, Governments around the world, including our Government, are spending on this scale because we are facing a situation which we have never seen before. We are facing the extraordinary situation of a global pandemic, and not just a pandemic like the previous great one that we experienced, the 1918 influenza commonly known as the Spanish flu. This is an illness different in nature from that, but it is still just an illness. The difference is our interconnected world. The difference is the speed with which this virus has spread around the world, affecting virtually every nation. It is an extraordinary situation and it has called for an extraordinary response by our Government and by Governments everywhere. So our Government has, with courage, taken the steps to do the best we can for New Zealand in this time.
Just bear with me for a moment while I tell you a little story, because it's going to bear directly on the Supplementary Estimates that we are speaking to. I was out doorknocking on Saturday afternoon, as one does when an election's coming up—and very enjoyable it was, too; it's always fun. I knocked on the door of one house, and there was a couple there, and they said, "Oh, we're a bit busy; no, we'll talk.", and they said, "The thing is we're going through CVs at the moment because we're looking to hire someone." I said, "Oh, that's great news. You're hiring someone." And they said, yeah, yeah, they are, they're working through the CVs. They're a truck rental company and they were looking to take on another staff member. I thought, "Well, that's marvellous. You've obviously come through quite well." They said, "When you see Jacinda, could you say thank you—thank you because the wage subsidy saved our business." Those were their words. I haven't got their names right here because I was going off a call sheet, but I can dig them out if needed. But that was their response: "Thank you for the wage subsidy, it saved our business."
Now, the previous speaker said that there had been a lack of support for business. What an extraordinary thing to say. If I go to page 8 of the extra Supplementary Estimates, which we've had this year because of the COVID crisis, I see that there is an allocation there of—let me just find it exactly—$15.2 billion—$15.2 billion—it's called the business support subsidy, and it is the wage subsidy—the wage subsidy that has saved businesses. That is direct support for businesses to help them keep their valued employees on. So when you say that there is no support for businesses, that is the support for businesses.
The previous speaker spoke of the worry about the cash expenses that businesses have to carry at the moment—the cash that they have to come up with in order to survive. He talked about the issues around rent and the like, and then he said, "Well, where is support for this?" Well, if we go to page 7 of the Supplementary Estimates document that we have here—the additional Supplementary Estimates—we see that there is funding right there for the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme. Sitting in there is $5.2 billion allocated in order to support small business. "Where is the Government and the business support?", the Opposition have asked. It is right here in this document—right there, because this Government on this side understands the need to support business and it has acted to do it.
Now, sure, along the way there will be some mistakes, perhaps some people who could have got the wage subsidy when they shouldn't have; perhaps some people who have taken out the loan when they shouldn't have. But, by and large, it has gone to the people who need it, when they need it, fast and early, so that businesses survive. That's what's sitting in this addition to the Supplementary Estimates.
Then, in terms of actually spending seriously to make sure that things work, sitting here on page 5 of this addition to the Supplementary Estimates is an allocation of a further $495 million for the COVID-19 health response. That's the money that's setting up the campaigns around uniting against COVID-19. It's purchasing extra equipment. It's getting the contract tracing going. It's getting going on supporting quarantine. Money that is supporting the COVID response and, through that, supporting all of us.
We are highly desirable now. People want to come here. We are seeing more and more people coming back to New Zealand because we are safe—because we are safe. Again, those borders are, by and large, holding up. Sure, there have been some hiccups along the way, and that's understandable. No one has tried to put in a quarantine like this elsewhere in the world—it's us and Australia. We are working it up as we go along. Why? Because it has been such a sudden event, such a quick response has been needed. Yes, there will be things that go wrong along the way, but by and large we are getting that right. Do you know how we can tell that? There is still no community transmission in New Zealand. We have got it right—we have got it right. That's why New Zealanders are coming home, because they are coming home to safety. That's the story that we can tell in the Supplementary Estimates.
I wish to pick up on one further point from the Supplementary Estimates. The previous speaker was concerned about the amount of debt that New Zealand is getting into. But sitting here in the report from the Finance and Expenditure Committee, on the Supplementary Estimates—and I take you to page 3 of that report—is some discussion of the debt that's going on. It says, "With fiscal spending levels reaching historic highs, New Zealand's debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to climb to 50 percent." New Zealand's debt-to-GDP ratio is 19 percent, but it's going up. It does say that it represents a large increase in Government debt. But then it goes on to say—and this is a report that the previous speaker signed off on, as well, because it came from the committee that he sits on, as well—"However, we note that the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio is comparable to the increase that occurred between 2008 and 2013, after the global financial crisis. We have also previously heard from the Treasury that the Government's debt position will remain sustainable, even if the debt-to-GDP ratio were to reach 50 percent."—in a report that the previous speaker signed off on, as well, sitting there; you can read it for yourselves.
So we've heard a lot of carping and criticism from the Opposition bench, but when you look at the numbers, we are getting it about right. We're doing well. This Government has worked hard and fast to get it right, to support business, to support individuals who have lost their jobs, to support our economy, and to make our border safe. It's working. 





Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I'll be speaking on this Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. It's just a small bill; a short bill that packs a fair punch, with billions and billions—tens of billions of expenditure. So if you look at this bill, it's innocuous in many respects. Then you run down the line on page 30—just quietly on page 30—$12 billion on one line item: business support subsidy, $12 billion, not too bad, and then various other bits and pieces here that have been listed.
The thing that, of course, New Zealanders are obviously asking as they see a lot of this expenditure going out—some of it, of course, is absolutely appropriate and right, particularly when we run through the health expenditure. You would expect that we would be putting more into health and disability support services in the Lakes DHB and the Hutt Valley DHB and the Nelson Marlborough DHB—everybody expects that. We've been dealing with a global health crisis.
But then there are other bits of money that they've seen rolling out the door: whether it's all the money spent to kill the possums or various rail proposals from our friends over in New Zealand First. They've sort of racked their brains and they think, "Didn't they just spend a whole lot of money opening up that line to Wairoa? Isn't it true that most of the trees that they're hoping to get on the line to Wairoa, actually, are closer to Napier Port than Wairoa?" So they have to sort of get in a truck and go back to Wairoa, and then get off the truck and get on the train, and then take the train to the port. As a result there have been a grand total of six trains so far in the six months. Then they see millions and billions of more money being spent on various lines up in Northland, and there isn't much prospect of any more trains going on those.
So they ask the legitimate question: how are we going to pay for all this? The worry that many New Zealanders have is that this is a Government, with $20 billion in Grant Robertson's kitty, that will spend whatever it takes to try and keep their polling up till 19 September, then on 20 September the smiles will drop from their faces and New Zealanders will be presented with the bill, and the bill is higher taxes next year if they were lucky enough to win the election. So New Zealanders have got a stark choice: do they want those higher taxes or not? And they'll be asking themselves that over the next little while.
So while many of the things that are listed in the Supplementary Estimates make sense, the overall scope of spending is concerning. What is more concerning, of course, is the continual and constant gap between the announcements and the delivery. All New Zealanders this week have been reflecting on that—they've been reflecting on the Prime Minister's front-and-centre descriptions of how the Government has delivered on and done this and done that on border security, and then they've seen the reality. Then they haven't seen the Prime Minister; what they've seen is a reference to a systems failure, and various officials running around defending it, and Minsters not being seen anywhere. David Clark—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: It's very interesting but it's not about the Estimates.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, it is about—Madam Speaker, with your indulgence, there is a very strong connection between these Estimates, which represent the money being spent and what we're getting for it, and the confidence that New Zealanders have, or the lack thereof, in it.
Then we're talking about how there's supposed to be a focus on COVID, but, if you looked at page 31, for example, you would see many millions being spent on establishing a single, national vocational education institution. Well, that's short for taking over the entire polytech and centralising it, turning the whole industry upside down, shaking it from its feet, and then expecting that you can go and spend $1.6 billion to get a whole lot of apprentices into the working environment, and those two things don't fit very well together.
So my simple message is one of yes, in a time of crisis, yes we need to borrow, and yes Government can spend in order to help us through a crisis—nobody debates that. The question is how much and how effective is that spending? And that is a much more debatable motion. What we've seen in this Government has been a mixture of some effective spending but a whole lot that hasn't been effective. When we see the Budget proposals, including these Supplementary Estimates, what we've seen is a fair amount of money devoted to dealing with COVID, but also a lot of money in areas that are not directly related to COVID but they are areas that the Government wants to do for their political reasons.
Now, that's fine, but, at a time when we're taking on an enormous amount of debt, and the projections from the Treasury are that we'll be having a deficit of $28 billion this financial year and about the same next financial year, and then over the next four years we'll be adding an extra $140 billion of debt—in that context, recognising that New Zealand is a small, isolated economy, prone to national disasters, and with also high private sector debt, there does come a point where it is risky for the country.
So our simple message is that, yes, we take on debt, but we're careful about it, we don't go crazy, and we don't take more than we need. And in a time of crisis, you've got to be a little bit considerate about whether some things that might be nice to have in the boom times are still required in the difficult times. We haven't seen any of those hard decisions made in these Supplementary Estimates, in my opinion. On that basis, we are yet to be convinced of the merits of this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): This will be a focused, pithy, and concise speech. But I just want to contrast what our side of the House is doing through this modest—in size—piece of legislation with what the shadow spokesman for finance is saying. So the shadow spokesman for finance is saying that we were wrong to buttress the economy; we were wrong to look after the hundreds of thousands of Kiwis who, as a consequence of COVID, were dislocated from the workforce; we were wrong to underwrite our national airline. So I presume what he is saying is that this level of injection, this $40 billion, is actually not what the economy needs. That is not what Kiwis believe. The reason that this figure is so large, you need look no further than the 11—roughly speaking—billion dollars in protecting jobs.
Now, this side of the House knows, as we go forward, jobs will organically come from the economy as it regains strength, and the strength that it regains will be reflective of the navigational skills shown by Grant Robertson and his fellow Ministers. The other thing we need to bear in mind—and I'm not going to speak for very long, because Kiwis actually want to see the money flowing. Kiwis actually want to see an injection and interventions in the economy. But I'm going to round up my speech by talking about what is alluded to in this legislation, which is infrastructure spending.
Infrastructure spending is going to be incredibly important. It is covered off in some of these capital allocations because, as we've seen the drying up of virtually $17 billion of foreign exchange earnings through tourism, our Government is going to endeavour to plug that gap by futureproofing our provincial and our metropolitan economies with pots of infrastructure expenditure. That is what Kiwis expect us to do. They don't expect us to be miserly, they don't expect us to lose our boldness or our courage, and for those reasons our party thoroughly endorses both the strategy and the allocations that Grant Robertson, our Minister of Finance, has already announced and which this House, as it wends its way through the legislative process, will enjoy the support of New Zealand First. Thank you very much.





Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Looking through the Estimates it's really clear that the term COVID-19 comes through loud and clear. That's because this country is facing an economic catastrophe. So we see large amounts of money going into trying to deal with the COVID-19 situation; the risks around, obviously, health; the risks around the border—the lack of quarantining that we've seen; and we also see a large amount of money going into trying to deal with the economic costs.
The Estimates themselves seem to have massive amounts of money here for the business support subsidy, leave support scheme, essential workers—
Hon Shane Jones: What page is that?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Page 31—to the Minister who clearly hasn't found it before himself. But thankfully, I have read it. And what we're seeing here is a tremendous amount of money going into it. Of course it has to go into it, because we have—in our little country of a mere 5 million people—a situation where a lot of people right now are losing their jobs, and they're losing their jobs through absolutely no fault of their own. Small businesses are closing their doors. Many of us around our electorates will have seen huge numbers of businesses having closed their doors. Just go around the electorates, it's really clear. In some streets, half the businesses have already shut, and others are looking in the future to have to shut. 
There has been a wage subsidy scheme, and that is a good thing, but it is wrong to say that that has gone to help businesses. That has actually gone to help staff, the workers, to be able to still have an income coming in. We, on this side of the House, support the fact that staff have been able to have their wages contributed to, that something has been able to get paid—about 80 percent of those wages—we think that's a good thing. But we also know that the businesses that we are going to want as a country to be there to keep people employed, that they have essentially had next to nothing. They have not had help with their rent. In fact, landlords have been told that they have to help out their tenants with their rent. The landlords have not had the help. We have businesses where, if they have franchises, they often have franchise costs that they have to be able to pay. Some of them have had to shut. We've seen some of our well-known franchises have to shut.
We've seen the hospitality industry utterly devastated—and I will not use the term decimated, because that means that they would've lost a tenth of them—they've been devastated. We've seen the tourist industry devastated. What we would like to see, on this side of the House, is an economic plan to help businesses come back from the dead. That's what we need to do, and the best way of doing that is to implement it before they're fully dead, and actually do it while there's still some life in those businesses.
I fear there's not enough in these Estimates to genuinely and sincerely help businesses to stay afloat. What we're seeing around the country is councils—local councils are saying they want to get involved, really spend big on infrastructure to help their economies. But, of course, they're also putting up rates as well; rates for businesses who cannot afford it; rates for landlords who cannot afford it; rates for householders who cannot afford it. We're seeing the Government not fast track the projects that they said they were going to fast track, in fact, not even announce all the projects that they wanted to fast track. We've been told since April that everything was ready to go—"We just need to be able to get the construction industry back again, able to work"—and it was all going to happen really quickly, lots of infrastructure being built around the country. What we've seen is not nearly as much infrastructure as we would have expected. What there is being built is often through the councils, rather than through the Government and the Government funding.
We've also seen tremendous loss in the education sector, particularly around international students, and in the tertiary sector generally. This is not something that's going to be easily overcome. Yes, once borders are able to be opened, and, yes, once we can have any confidence in our quarantine system—which I say has been dealt some pretty mortal blows. Yes, we might be able to get things going there again but by that stage we will be back competing with Australia and other providers of educational services to international students and we may well find that we have lost opportunities that the educational institutions have spent years trying to get in place—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just remind the member to deal with the bill in front of her.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —and years trying to build that.
So when we look at the Auckland City Rail Link, for instance, in here, we see there's—what?—it's $193 million coming back into it. That's because—why is that? Is that because it's coming back in because things aren't being spent? What's happened to all of the cost that you might expect in here for some of the other rail work that we were told was happening?
Let's have a look at the tertiary tuition and training on page 33 of this bill. Let's have a look at that. We've gone from $16.8 billion coming in to—my word, a tremendous amount going out: well, actually, almost nine times that going out.
We have massive losses coming as a country. Just after the Budget was being read, Grant Robertson stood up in the House and told us that we would have to have some tweaking because of the COVID-19—tweaking of the Budget and tweaking of the Government's finances. This is not tweaking; this is quite serious. I am concerned that some of the costs in here and this money being spent are not necessarily all going to be going into building our economy, building our preparedness for round two of COVID-19 or possibly even round three of COVID-19. I'm not sure that it's going to be appropriately spent. 
We know that this Government has shown a lack of willingness to judge itself by its results but a tremendous wish to be able to judge itself by how much taxpayer money it spends. Taxpayers would expect that when we look at some of these costs in here, whether it's the Primary Growth Partnership, the New Zealand agricultural greenhouse gas research, that that will be money well spent. We certainly hope so. 
We look at the earthquake-prone heritage buildings. It's a reduction of the authority provided by clause 7 of the appropriation. I'm not sure why that's reduced. Certainly, all around New Zealand and provincial New Zealand there are buildings that are vacant and they're vacant because they are considered to be earthquake-prone. The problem with that is that they've been standing for well over 100 years. They're not being slept in. They could actually be opened, I would have thought, during the daytime for people to run business from or even the odd time that they could be used for some event. What worries me tremendously in provincial New Zealand is that we have these heritage buildings being left to rot because nobody can afford to put them into the earthquake safeness that we now require for buildings, for heritage buildings. And here we have money that seems to be being lost to that account. So I'm not quite sure why that is and I'm sure that the Government would like to explain that to the people of Whanganui, of Napier, of Hastings, of all around New Zealand, where right now they need money into their economies and this Government seems more intent on taking it off them rather than giving it to them and building their economy. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





Hon JAMES SHAW (Associate Minister of Finance): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to rise on the debate on the Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the associated imprest supply bill, and I have to say there is a saying about when you're damned with faint praise. It was interesting to me that the worst criticism that the Hon Judith Collins could find on the associated Supplementary Estimates was to do with heritage buildings—the single greatest economic crisis that this country's faced since the Great Depression, and the worst criticism that the Hon Judith Collins could find to direct at the Government related to our spending on heritage buildings. What that tells me is we've probably got it about right. 
The thing that she was criticising us for was not spending enough money. I know that COVID-19 has sort of upended the world, but it does say something about where this debate has gotten to. In the spirit of this being a proper debate, I just want to pick up on some of the points that previous speakers—including Andrew Bayly, who kicked off for the blue team on this, followed by the Hon Paul Goldsmith—made. They talked about a number of things, which were that we weren't spending enough money and we were spending too much money and we were spending it too slowly but also we were spending it too quickly. So I couldn't quite get a read on exactly what it is that the National Party thinks, because it clearly thinks quite a lot of different things about this particular situation that we're in. 
Andrew Bayly talked about how the amounts that are being appropriated are staggeringly large, and he is absolutely correct. He was voicing some concern that, obviously, all this is going to have to get paid back some day, and he's absolutely correct—it is. At the same time—and this point was actually reiterated by the Hon Paul Goldsmith in question time the other day, where his lead line of questioning the Minister of Finance at that time gave the presumption that National could spend money faster than the Labour Party; the whole point of that line of questioning was that National can be more profligate and push money out the door even faster than the Labour Party—that's a real challenge. It's a real challenge, and I'll tell you why. It's because this Government has put over $11 billion in the wage subsidy in less than three months. We got money out the door to where it was needed in a staggeringly short period of time to businesses that needed it. 
This is one of the other areas where the National Party were being completely inconsistent about this. They were saying, "Oh, you're borrowing too much money and you're spending too much money and it's all going to have to get paid back.", and, at the same time, saying, "We would have spent all of that money on the wage supply and then we would have doubled down by paying everybody's rent for them at the same time." Well, where was that going to come from? Plus, they were intending to have a GST refund. 
So they're going to give away GST, they're going to pay for everybody's rent, and they're going to pay for everybody's salaries, and they're going to do that faster than they think that this Government has been able to get money to where it's needed—that they can do that faster—and, at the same time—
Hon David Parker: Borrow less. 
Hon JAMES SHAW: —they say that they're going to borrow less money and pay it back faster. It is an extraordinary series of claims. 
Now, I remember. Having been on the Opposition benches, I know what it's like when you're in Opposition. You know, there is this temptation to say what you need to say in order to kind of please the folks out there. But for a party that has been a party of Government for as long as it has been, you would think that the moment those members were in Opposition, they would be able to maintain some coherent thinking about something as basic as the maths of finance. 
So I have been listening to this debate and—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: And I've been listening to the member and I'd like him to address the bill. 
Hon JAMES SHAW: Well, I mean, it is a debate on the bill, but I do—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is a debate on a bill that's on the Table. 
Hon JAMES SHAW: —take your point, Madam Speaker. So the amounts that are contained in this bill, as Andrew Bayly said, are very large. But there is a reason for that, and that is because at a time like this it is imperative that the Government injects enormous amounts of capital into the economy as fast as possible to keep it afloat. 
The last time that we had a significant economic downturn, which was during the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquake, the Government actually borrowed comparable sums of money within the context of the time in order to get us through that period of time, but then put a lid on spending, and it's been demonstrated afterwards that the lid that we had on spending under the National Government of the time actually prolonged the economic downturn. So it is actually entirely appropriate that the amounts that are being appropriated at the moment and being pushed into the economy at the moment are actually exactly what the Opposition is calling for: the right level of stimulus to keep the economy afloat and to keep as many people in their jobs as possible; where someone isn't able to stay in their job, to give them retraining and get them back into work in a new job as fast as possible; if they are stuck in a situation where they're unemployed for a period of time, to make sure that they have enough money coming in to put a roof over their head; and so on. 
Honestly, you know, I've been listening to the debate on this bill and I cannot for the life of me work out where the criticism actually is, because there is really only one course of action available to us at this particular time, and we do have the lessons of history to guide us. So I find absolutely nothing to fault in this bill and I commend it to the House. 





IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I've already attended one financially distressing meeting tonight and I'm attending another one now, and it's somewhat ironic, I think.
This is the second time or maybe the third time that I've followed James Shaw, and I always quite enjoy him. He comes up with something else and in this speech it was the maths of finance, which I find intriguing, and his maths of finance particularly intriguing. He went on to say, though—and I think that this is absolutely relevant to the Supplementary Estimates bill—that the National Party are calling for more expenditure, and he called it profligate expenditure. I've got to say, we're not calling for more expenditure. I've not heard us in any stage call for more expenditure. We're calling for better direction of expenditure. That's absolutely the key to where this whole discussion needs to go. I think the appropriateness of the expenditure that is contained in the Supplementary Estimates is absolutely the key to the issue we should be talking about.
I just want to go on to an issue that the Hon Shane Jones raised as well. He said Kiwis want to see the money flowing; they want to see Governments bolstering the economy with cash. That's fine, but the cash has got to be directed in the right direction. I just want to touch on one issue, particularly, and I know that's it been touched on tonight already, and that's some of the expenditure around railway. The interesting thing, when you put money into a railway line like the Wairoa to Napier railway line and then you encourage people to plant trees that will never be harvested, it's very difficult to see what the use of the railway line is actually going to be, because a lot of those trees that have been planted in that area may well never be harvested. So in fact, they'll never need the railway line to go to the port. So things like that are other sorts of things that I think the National Party in Opposition are particularly critical of.
I also have an interesting electorate, and some of the challenges that we face when we look at biosecurity, at border security, and what they might mean for further expenditure that this Government will need to get to—when you see things like—and I pick on two particular areas, the ski fields, which had we been able to secure our borders, had we been able to maintain our reputation around those borders, those ski fields may well have been able to host overseas visitors during the ski season that's about to follow. My point is, of course, that if they don't, in fact, have that opportunity, they are going to be much worse off and, consequently, the Government's highly likely to have to produce a supplementary Supplementary Order Paper to this bill and put more money into the business than they otherwise might have. 
I want to pick on one other issue as well that I think is particularly relevant, and it's very relevant today because we've just put the racing bill through its second reading. I think the issue there is that, of course, we've got the national yearling sales coming up for both harness and thoroughbreds in January. And if, in fact, these border lapses don't enable foreign buyers to come to New Zealand to look at those horses, those yearling sales will collapse. That's another massive blow to an industry that's already struggling significantly. So my point is that if we don't keep our borders secure, if we don't get keep our biosecurity up to speed, which is another very important issue and obviously an issue that's included in this Supplementary Order Paper tonight, then we're going to suffer further challenges and the Government is going to suffer further challenges in where it allocates its money.
The other issue I wanted to talk about with respect to this was, in fact, the debt levels. When you look through these Supplementary Estimates—and I'm not used to looking at the second round of noughts, if you know what I mean. So you've got a $12 billion figure in there, which you think's $12 million till you read it again. And you think it's $120 million. And you read it again and think, "Oh, it's $12 billion." That's one of the things that we're just not used to in this country—the magnitude of the money that's included in these Estimates. 
The problem will be for those future generations that've got to repay them. It's all very well to say, "Well, you're going to have to repay the debt." Well, my generation won't have to repay this debt. It's my generation that's been saved by some of the activities that have caused this debt, but my generation won't be repaying it. I think that's one of the saddest things about where we've got to with this Budget and with these Estimates—that a lot of the money contained in here will be repaid by future generations, not by the generations that we've spent the money to protect. I realise that's a difficult conundrum for a Government to deal with, but, none the less, it's very real and I think it's absolutely critical to this discussion because somewhere along the line, we are going to have to generate the activity that will repay that debt.
I want to turn for a minute to the—
Hon Shane Jones: Infrastructure—infrastructure. 
IAN McKELVIE: Well, I've just turned to the primary sector for a minute, Minister Jones, because, for a change, in New Zealand—not a change, because it happened in 2008-09 as well, but, for a change, in New Zealand the primary sector is going to drive the recovery of New Zealand again, and I think it's our vibrant rural economy that's coming to the rescue. If we, in fact, do away by inadvertent or poor investment in the regional economies that drive our primary sector, then we're going to run the risk of in the future not having such a strong primary sector. If we don't have a strong primary sector, we will never pay these debts off in the future. Whether we like it or not—and I've heard Governments in the past talking about a sunset industry. Well, the sunset industry is now our sunrise, and it, in fact, is driving where we want to get to with respect to repaying some of the debts that are included in this massive amount of expenditure. Sure, I accept that in some ways that expenditure was required. 
I want to very briefly talk about the winter energy payment, which was doubled this year, and certainly in some parts of New Zealand—
Brett Hudson: Did you get it?
IAN McKELVIE: I missed out, Hud, I missed out. In some parts of—
Hon Member: You gave it back, didn't you.
IAN McKELVIE: —New Zealand—ha, ha! I made a bad blue, actually. 
Hon Member: Too hot where he lives—doesn't need it.
IAN McKELVIE: Don't need that in the Rangitīkei, but in some parts of New Zealand, it's extremely necessary.
One of the challenges that we face, of course, with all these sorts of things is who does and should get it and who should and shouldn't get it. One of the strong arguments about the winter energy payment was that people should have had to apply for it, not to default from it. I think that's still a very relevant argument to some of these things that we do to assist people. Obviously, the wage subsidy was one of those places where you could apply for or default from, but you had to apply to get it. I think it's logical that when Governments are handing out money of the magnitude that we're handing it out right now, you should actually have to apply to get money and not just automatically get it and then have to default from it.
One of the positives about the activities of this Government has been the speed with which they've acted. Now, history will tell us whether that was a sensible decision or not, and some of the figures in this, our Supplementary Estimates bill tonight, will in due course maybe come back to haunt us, because of the way we've managed that. But that's an issue that the Government will have to face at the time. 
I think this discussion is all about who's got the best priority, and I think James Shaw missed the beat completely when he accused the National Party of splashing cash all over the place. We haven't said we'll splash cash anywhere other than in the places that it's logical to splash it, and I think that our policy would be much more relevant and much more stable than the current Government's policy is, which, really, some of the subsidy and some of the expenditure in this bill has not been well thought through.
Hon Shane Jones: Provincial Growth Fund—Provincial Growth Fund.
IAN McKELVIE: So that's probably—
Hon Shane Jones: Politics of envy.
IAN McKELVIE: —enough for me, otherwise, I shall have to answer the member on the other side of the House, which I don't want to have to do, because I could have spent a lot of time accusing him of ruining the country with trees, and you can't eat them, of course. That's the other thing. He hasn't realised you can't eat trees.
Hon Member: Except for fruit trees.
IAN McKELVIE: Oh, the old—ha, ha—
Hon Member: You can't eat trees.
IAN McKELVIE: You cannot eat trees, and that's a challenge we're going to face in the future. That's one of the challenges that we face as we recover from these issues that I've mentioned, in this bill. We have got to generate income to pay the bill. Whether it's expenditure on infrastructure, whether it's expenditure on whatever, we have to generate income to pay the bill. So that would be me for the night. I've done enough, thank you.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Willow-Jean Prime.





WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The previous speaker just said that tonight's debate has been characterised by who has the best ideas and priorities, and I believe we do. So with that, I commend the bill to the House.





LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): That was a fine contribution, short but sweet.
Hon Member: That won't win a seat in Northland.
LAWRENCE YULE: No, no, you need a bit better in Northland for that.
I want to carry on on what my learned colleague and friend Mr Ian McKelvie has told me, because, while he's had a lot of seriously bad financial news this evening as I understand it, this bill really is seriously bad in terms of financial news for New Zealand. It's not, as the Government would say, that we're all negative. It's just that we are borrowing so much money—$140 billion—we're running deficits for the next four years, and because we are spending money as quickly as we can, it generally lacks the scrutiny and probity that one would normally have around such large-scale expenditure.
I'll give you an example, Madam Speaker, I'll give the House an example. I read an article earlier in the week that said the Government has spent $22 million on housing homeless people during level 4 lockdown—that is 1,200 homeless people according to the article. That works out at $600, or nearly $650, a night in motels for homeless people. There may be a very good reason for that—
Hon Shane Jones: Bad maths.
LAWRENCE YULE: —but I know—no, the maths is fine, Mr Jones. The maths is fine; I've checked it several times. My point is, when you look at the number that's been spent and the number of nights and the number of people, it is over $600 a night. Now, my point in illustrating that is to not have a go at homeless people, but to say this is exactly what happens when you spend money of scale and as quickly as you do. We'll get to the bottom of why it cost that much per person, but when you are spending $140 billion at pace, then the quality of that spend often gets compromised.
I'll remind members of this House that it's not the Government's money; it's our money. Every time this House or this Government borrows money, they're borrowing it against us—against my household, against my children, and against my grandchildren. When you do that at pace, and you are somewhat reckless in areas, then, ultimately, you are wasteful.
Because the Hon Shane Jones is in the House, and he commented on infrastructure. Money is being borrowed for infrastructure, but, yet, as I can see it, Mr Jones, very little has been announced or is shovel-ready or is about to happen. While we jest about the Napier to Wairoa line—which I was on the train when it was opened with you. Six million dollars, six trains—I only thought it was two trains, but apparently it's six trains. If you do things of scale, at pace, and without the proper business analysis—
Hon Shane Jones: COVID-related slow-down.
LAWRENCE YULE: COVID-related slow-down. Mr Jones, you know that they haven't even got a marshalling yard in Wairoa to put the logs on. That is nothing to do with COVID, that is because the Government, as it's typical of doing, announces something and said, "This is wonderful.", but cannot deliver.
If you come down to this bill, this bill is very important because what it talks about is, particularly, the COVID-related changes that are being brought about in this Supplementary Estimates. I come back to the bill, because, one, it's important that I do so as part of this, but also because we are spending a fortune. This side of the House is not against spending money, as laid out in the Supplementary Order Paper: business support, COVID subsidy. I've been around business in my electorate. They're grateful for the wage subsidy, they're grateful for the extension, some employees are grateful for the $490 a week if they lose their jobs. That's not the question.
The question for me is in the bigger spend, which relates to infrastructure and urgent projects, and the scrutiny of that. I used the example of the homeless people as a mere example of the type of spend. If we're not careful, this Government will be wasteful with that money, and it has to be paid back. Myself, my children, and my grandchildren will pay for it, and we believe it's inefficient. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): That's quite all right. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Very simply, that member who has just resumed his seat, Lawrence Yule, I refute that this Government is wasteful. I refute that this Government is reckless. We are in unprecedented times—post - COVID-19 recovery. We're rebuilding, and I therefore commend this bill to the House.





Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): As we discuss this Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, what really surprises me is the contributions that we've had, particularly from Government members who almost seem to trivialise this legislation and the amount of money. There was a contribution from Dr Deborah Russell, which I thought was worthwhile, where she said, "We've never seen spending like that". I accept that and I go back to the Budget presented by the Hon Grant Robertson back in May. He talked about the fact that they were suddenly appropriating $50 billion, of which at least $20 billion would have no detail at all, and here we are now tidying up that Budget and the Supplementary Estimates with a bill that's particularly light on detail.
As I look for some of the information, I've found the best and the most appropriate place to go is the Budget document, to which not one speaker has referred tonight. I can go through and list page after page of huge expenditure—
Hon Shane Jones: Relevance—relevance.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: The Hon Shane Jones says to talk relevance. I ask him then, when we get into the committee stage, to take the chair and explain to us COVID-19 assistance for primary industries—$10.245 billion. Mr Jones has no idea what it's for.
Hon Shane Jones: Extension services—extension services.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: It's got nothing to do with extension services, because, if he bothered to look at the paperwork, it's actually $10 million that has been spent supporting the pork industry. The detail is here in the information of the Supplementary Estimates, and that's what disappoints me with the discussion tonight. We normally have a Budget process where a Budget's presented and, at the end of that Budget process, there's inevitably a supplementary bill that tidies up the variations that occur, and that's appropriate for all Governments. But what we've got here, and what we're discussing tonight, is supplementaries to the supplementaries. The Government has had to cope with an extraordinary situation with COVID, and I fully accept that, but the amounts of money we're talking about here are mind-boggling, and you've just had the interjection from the Hon Shane Jones, where he has no idea whatsoever why we're appropriating $10.245 billion to the Ministry for Primary Industries. Nothing to do with extension services; it's to do with supporting the pork industry.
That's only one of the appropriations I can find. Go to Corrections—prisoner-based custodial services, an extra $31.046 million appropriated for custodial services. Let a Government Minister stand and tell us what that money's been appropriated for. Go through to appropriations for education, and again there's millions of dollars being appropriated here; some of it no doubt for the modems that were delivered to private schools right around the country after we'd moved to lockdown level 1 that were not needed by the schools at all, and many of the schools appropriately sent it back to the Government. That's the sort of mismanagement I'm talking about with this particular legislation.
Go through to Vote Health—millions of dollars being appropriated to all of the district health boards to cope with COVID-19; reasonably explicable, I would think. But go through and explain to me—and I'm going to take this up with the Minister in the chair—the variations, where Canterbury District Health Board gets $3.793 million additional money and Auckland, for example, doesn't seem to get anything. There is just a lack of exposure to the sort of expenditure we're discussing tonight.
Māori development—$20 million for Whānau Ora to purchase achievement outcomes from non-Government commissioning agencies. What does that mean, Michael Wood? He's been prepared to interject right throughout my speech, but when I ask him a question, he can't answer, because he's never bothered to pick up this piece of information before the House today and discuss it. Vote Prime Minister and Cabinet—$11.619 million for the management of emergencies. Well, we've got an emergency—it's called the border. It's failing us every day, whereby people are coming finally into managed quarantine, not voluntary quarantine, coming into managed quarantine, meant to be tested day 3, day 12. We've got no idea how many have been tested. We know a lot are out there without tests at all.
Hon Shane Jones: What about Mr Bishop monstering the bureaucracy?
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: What about Mr—we've had the best interjection earlier when he claimed that the reason the Wairoa rail line's had only six trains is because it's got COVID. Trains have got COVID! That'll make news to the World Health Organization! The Hon Shane Jones, it's a serious problem if that's happening.
I could go on pulling this particular document to bits, and I certainly intend to do so when we move to the committee stage of this legislation. But, in listening to the debates tonight, the Opposition members have seriously asked questions and questioned the relevance and the wisdom of the expenditure. We accept there has to be significant increase in expenditure. We accept that not all the details will be known—
Hon Shane Jones: How much?
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Well, Shane Jones interjects again; he's got no idea how much. It's $50 billion, of which $20 billion, when the Budget was read, was announced as no detail yet—"We'll let you know as we get close to 19 September." And that's what a lot of this money is for. It's about attempting to spend and show a Government of competency, and what we've seen over the last week is they've got a hell of a job ahead of them if they're now going to show any competency at all, whereby we declared internationally, and received praise internationally, that we were free of COVID-19, only a couple of days later to have a few cases, and now I think it's up to nine or 11 at the day—
Brett Hudson: We're the laughing stock now.
Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: We're the laughing stock; Brett Hudson's absolutely right. We're the laughing stock of the world, and this particular legislation, and the way it's been treated by this House tonight, is another reason why that Government continues to be a laughing stock, not only internationally but certainly by the voters here in New Zealand, and they'll bring that to the Government's attention come 19 September.





BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'd first like to thank members opposite enormously, not for the bill—the bill is in need of much attention—but for their absolute kindness—[Interruption]—because they've given me an opportunity to speak. And thank you, Mr whip, I'll stop there and I'll get to the bill instead.
I'd like to start—it's been a point made by a number of members on this side. The part of the problem, as we go through this and the supplementaries of the Supplementary Estimates, is that so much of the spending is either poorly defined or, as we have seen, poorly delivered. The most obvious one to deal with is non-departmental other expenses "Business Support Subsidy Covid-19": $15.2 billion—what New Zealanders would have said pre-COVID was an eye-wateringly large number, but, when the Government is talking about borrowing an extra $140 billion, that puts that into some level of stark relief at least. But it draws our attention to what was it to be spent on, what was it spent on, and is there any left for it to be spent in perhaps some areas that have been overlooked. 
The most obvious one, of course, which we supported and don't resile from is the wage subsidy, but let's not mischaracterise what the wage subsidy actually is. It is not, strictly speaking, a business support. It is, first and foremost, an indirect means to channel wage payments to workers affected by the lockdown that the Government imposed. So while they like to herald it as supporting businesses, that's not what that share of the $15 billion does. It merely gives them an indirect way to pay some wages for staff members who have been impacted, because they either couldn't work or have reduced hours, and were suffering under those lockdown conditions. Now, we supported that; we still do. It was absolutely important, and remains important, that businesses that were suffering significant revenue loss under the COVID conditions were assisted to keep their employees, because the alternative was equally stark, and that was, simply, that those employees would have had to have been let go. The State and taxpayer would still have had to pick up a chunk of money, because, of course, they would have gone straight on to the jobseeker benefit. 
So the idea that we could move relatively quickly from the health crisis into an economic crisis, but to seek a pathway to recovery that this side has got far better credentials to deal with than that side, meant that it was a very good idea indeed to help to ensure that those employees would be able to be retained, such that a business would be able to switch from pure survival to at least the beginning of a recovery quite quickly. So we supported the Government when they announced that. It has turned into a large amount of money—most of, but not all of, that $15 billion. 
But something that is very relevant and is certainly not covered in the detail—there is no detail—here in this bill is what appears to be an ideological blind spot for the Government in deciding what to do with the $15 billion. That is, while they like to talk about the wage subsidy as a business support—and I've already said it's not actually that—they have been unable to find themselves capable of actually providing direct financial support to those businesses. They've got the money, but they find themselves unable to provide that direct financial support. 
In the very first instances, businesses were calling for assistance in meeting those bills. I'm talking about expenditure of the money that we're agreeing, post fact, that the Government could spend. A criticism has been that they actually didn't know what to spend it on, and what they have spent it on hasn't been as well targeted as it could have been. One of the areas they could have and should have been targeting were those other costs that businesses sustain outside of their wage bill. Early parts of the calls were for assistance with their leases—the fact that they were still having to pay a portion of rent, and, in too many cases, 100 percent of the rent. 
I even heard one, actually—we had one specific example—where a constituent in Ōhāriu came to me. He owns a building in Hawke's Bay. It sits on land that is, effectively, owned by the Government and administered by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). LINZ were silent on whether they would give him any rent relief on that land. The Government was calling for landlords to do the right thing and to treat businesses fairly, and he couldn't get an answer out of LINZ that they were prepared—the Government was actually prepared—to step up and play a similar line with him. That was a real world example.
So there was a lot of call for businesses to get support in a very direct financial way for those expenses that they still faced outside of the wage bill. In effect, it fell on deaf ears, because, although the Government had the $15 billion—and more in other areas of this bill—they simply couldn't bring themselves to give direct cash support to businesses. That speaks a lot for the ideology of the other side, which, quite frankly, just thinks that anyone making a profit is taking a profit at the expense of someone else—either their workers, through wages, or from their customers. We on the other side, this side, know very differently. 
But that blind spot has actually threatened a lot of the jobs that the Government has spent over $10 billion seeking, they say, to save—it's actually threatened so many of them. The wage subsidy is going to expire, and, without that direct assistance that they had the money to give to businesses, far too many jobs will still disappear because they weren't prepared to use some of this money to ensure the business survived and not just that the wages—or at least a subsidised amount of the wage bill—was paid for. That is a huge opportunity lost, and tens of thousands of workers are going to discover that in coming weeks. I'm not sure they'll be too grateful once they get to that point.
What did they do? Well, we saw the Government promising to underwrite loans and being prepared to do that through the allocation of finance or money. But what happened? Well, they were going to take 80 percent of the risk and banks would take 20 percent of the risk, and the banks responded and said it's not good enough; it still doesn't meet the criteria for us to make loans under these uncertain economic conditions. So what happens? About $80 million—about $80 million—is all they got—$80 million. Actually, banks lent a lot more, we found out. The Bankers' Association gave us a bit of a presentation last week. The banks actually lent billions during the period, but only $80 million through that business finance guarantee scheme. It was a flawed scheme, cobbled together because we have a Government that just was unwilling to take much of the money that it had allocated itself—and which Parliament appropriated, which Parliament agreed to, but which it was just absolutely resistant to using to provide some direct financial assistance to businesses. 
What did they do? Oh, we'll give you some consulting services, because the thing that every businesses needed in this COVID state was for some bureaucrat or consultant in Wellington to come and tell them how to run their business better—just what they needed; just what they needed. In the middle of this great uncertainty—and it's still uncertain times—in the middle of that hellish uncertainty, heading into level 4, the last thing they needed was some clipboard warrior who charges $2,500 a day coming in to tell them how they could do better. But that's what the Government thinks businesses in New Zealand needed and that's what would help small businesses, so they were prepared to spend a little bit of this money on that. 
But, actually, they weren't prepared to put their money where their mouth is and actually provide the direct assistance that businesses needed, and still need in many cases, and which would have given a greater level of certainty—admittedly in uncertain times; but a greater level of confidence—that the jobs that were being protected through the wage subsidy would still exist because the business would still exist when that wage subsidy expires. Instead, we have a situation where in the tens of billions—or over $10 billion—has been paid on a wage subsidy, much needed at the time, but which, at the end of, may well see tens of thousands of jobs, which could have been saved through direct assistance to the businesses, go away because too many businesses that could have survived with assistance will instead go under. This has been poorly targeted spending—some of it good, but much of it bad.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call—oh, I call Stuart Smith.





STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I know it's a tough call when you've got two Smiths up, but you did choose the right one on this occasion—so thank you, Madam Speaker.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: You went for the older.
STUART SMITH: Ha, ha! That's right, went for the older. It's a pleasure to get the call on the Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. We're talking about enormous numbers here. They do say that it gets very difficult for people to understand what millions mean once it gets above a lottery jackpot. I think that's absolutely right, so I did a little bit of maths. This is $40 billion worth. So if we were to pay $40 billion off at $1 a second, does anyone have any idea how long that would take, without reaching for their calculator? Well, I'll help you.
Andrew Bayly: Mr Wood does. Over there, he's got an idea.
STUART SMITH: Has he? Right.
Michael Wood: I just said that it will feel shorter than this speech.
STUART SMITH: Oh, that's very complimentary. Let's hope so. I hope it seems very long to you. It is my great desire to ensure that I actually give that member some great pleasure in my speech. So it is 1,268 years for $40 billion at $1 a second. It's an enormous amount of money. If we talk about $140 billion, which debt is going to increase by, that's 4,439 years at $1 a second. That is a massive amount of money and it shows the actual challenge that we are putting our children and our grandchildren through by borrowing this amount of money. Now, yes, we had to do something, and we all agree that that's the case; it's the how and the what that is important.
We've been here before, Mr Speaker—nice smooth change there, by the way, very well done. The nearest thing that we have to compare to what we are about to go into—and we are only just going into it—is the 1930s. During that time, we spent money on infrastructure. We finally did in the Rangitata Diversion Race—employed a lot of people, taking water from the Rangitata River across the Canterbury Plains, using it through irrigation on the way, and then the remainder going down into the Rākaia and through the Highbank Power Station, generating electricity—a great infrastructure spend. Now, what we're seeing here with what's being planned in a lot of the infrastructure going forward isn't as transformational as that expenditure. I think that my colleagues have put this very well before—and, certainly Andrew Bayly did—that when we're investing in infrastructure at a time like this, it has to be transformational. It has to enable businesses to hire people to give good jobs that are enduring and increases not only our GDP but also increases our exports that we can sell to the rest of the world to pay our way in the world. And we'll need to do that and get very good at it very quickly because $140 billion of increased debt, $40 billion in this bill, as I said, is a lot of money to pay off. It's an unimaginable amount of money until you start putting it in something like $1 a second.
Now, the wage subsidy, yes, it was a, sort of, quick and dirty, but very effective, way of getting money out the door, as James Shaw mentioned in his speech earlier. He kind of didn't really understand the points that had been put forward by my colleagues on this bill, because, yes, no one disputes that that has done a good job of keeping some people in work, but it was quite surprising, really, that the Prime Minister was so shocked that The Warehouse announced that they were going to lay off 1,080 people. The way it sounded, she was personally insulted by it, that that company would make a decision to actually lay people off, because they had a wage subsidy. Well, actually, I don't think there would be anyone more altruistic than Sir Stephen Tindall. I think he runs his company with his employees in mind, as I'm sure the rest of the board members do. But, actually, when you are a director of a company, you have your first loyalty to the company—that is what's enshrined in company law. They would not have laid those people off had they not needed to do so. Yes, the wage subsidy has got us through to now, but, actually, it's putting off the day. What we need to do is to get businesses back functioning as quickly as possible. That was what was so concerning, was to get our businesses back in operation.
Now, we know that during the lockdown, the Government got themselves in a bit of a state of a tizz because they realised that they were having very great difficulty in getting fruit and vegetables to people in Auckland because 40 percent of fruit and vegetables in Auckland are sold through greengrocers, so they were talking about redesigning the distribution of fruit and vegetables into Auckland. Do you know what the simple answer was? Open the greengrocers—open the greengrocers where people can buy it, keep more people in work, and get people the fruit and vegetables that they so desperately need. It was simple decisions like that that actually finished some businesses. Butchers and greengrocers are really put under pressure because of those decisions we make.
These decisions are crucial, that's why we take this so seriously. The things we are doing today, when we have a normal three-year cycle in our elections and we have a change of Government, as we will in a couple of months, they're normally easily unwound, any changes that are made, and, generally, either side of the House makes minimal changes, and whatever has been done, there's not that much damage done. But now we're talking billions. We are talking about, sadly, our grandchildren with debt and impacting on their lifestyles. Now, yes, we've had a terrible experience with a pandemic, and it's not over yet—we know that—and life has changed for everyone, but we have to make—
Hon Damien O'Connor: You borrowed $80 billion.
STUART SMITH: —the right decision—Mr Speaker, I believe that they're drawing you into the debate; I don't believe you borrowed any money, but, however, it sounds like the member for West Coast-Tasman, who's about to retire, I understand, as he loses his seat—
Matt Doocey: Trying to get his name recognition up.
STUART SMITH: —is trying to—yeah—trying to get his name recognition up; well, we'll see how that goes for him next month.
Forty billion dollars—it's unbelievable. They've turned a $50 billion problem into a $100 billion problem, and that is going to cost us dearly. We worry, on this side of the House, about our grandchildren and how they're going to pay that off.
This plan isn't a plan. The Napier to Wairoa line which has been talked about, that's 19th century technology and it isn't even able to be utilised yet. What, six times—six trains in six months? A waste of money.
Rt Hon David Carter: Yeah, they got COVID.
STUART SMITH: Some of these—COVID apparently; yeah, someone's got COVID, that's for sure. This expenditure is not targeted in the way that it should be. We've got a bill that we'll be debating probably next week and they've got 11 projects; well, there should be 111 projects on there. But all the shovel-ready projects that come up, mostly, I've seen, would be business as usual; instead of the ratepayers paying for them, they're being put on to the taxpayer. We need transformational projects such as the Rangitata Diversion Race was back in the 1930s.
Andrew Bayly: You've got to have imagination.
STUART SMITH: We do have to have imagination. We've got the brains in this country, but we have to be able to utilise on that. In this stage, with what we're seeing in front of us, it's just not there. I worry about that. Yes, we've got a lot of companies in trouble at the moment. They need a future. We need certainty for the businesses and we need certainty for the employees, and we're not getting that at the moment.
This wage subsidy has been—the current one that's coming up now, with a 50 percent drop in revenue, I mean, that's great but it won't keep everyone going. Some businesses are going to fail, and, along with that, there are going to be more people on the dole queue. That's unfortunate. We don't want to see that happening. But the $490 a week tax-free payment for those losing their jobs, we're already seeing examples of people on that subsidy that will not take jobs up. You've got to be very careful that you don't end up—well, not you, Mr Speaker, but we don't end up with a situation where we are disincentivising work. Because there are jobs out there, but there's not as many as there were before. They may not get the job that they particularly want, but there are jobs there, and we just can't get people to fill them. Some of them are quite happy to sit at home for $490 a week, and that's really unfortunate. I've got employers tearing their hair out trying to get those jobs filled, and it's not happening. So we oppose this bill.





Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I want to talk in this appropriation bill about the shambles in the Government's response to the enormous challenge for New Zealand from COVID-19. I want to talk about jobs, and particularly jobs for my home community of Nelson, and I also want to raise real concerns about the levels of debt that this Government is proposing for New Zealand with poor quality spending.
Now, first to the shambles: what is the gaping hole in this bill and the Government's response? It has been so plain to see in the last week over the mess at the border. You don't have to be Albert Einstein to work out that the biggest risk to New Zealand, after all of the pain that we went through, supported by National, for the lockdown, was to ensure that our border was secure. Every New Zealander is just aghast at the incompetence of allowing thousands of people from countries where COVID-19 is rampant across our borders without testing for COVID. It's not a complicated thing. It's a very basic thing—
Hon Shane Jones: Relevance—relevance.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I say to Shane Jones: why has he and his incompetent ministerial colleagues not got the basics right of testing people when they come across the border?
Here's the part that's even more extraordinary: seven days ago, after we learnt of the famous British couple who came in to New Zealand and tested positive for COVID-19, every New Zealander was asking the question: how many people have come into New Zealand without being tested?
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): As interesting as that is, Dr Smith, you need—
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: A simple question—and it is relevant—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No. Order!
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is absolutely relevant to these Estimates.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Thank you. As interesting as that is, you have to link your statements to the contents of the bill, and so far I have not heard that. So—
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: These appropriations—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, I'm still on my feet—sit down. OK, so I'm telling you: get to the bill and reference it to your statements, because I have not heard that yet.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Right at the beginning—
Hon Shane Jones: Page—give us the page.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —I referenced to the appropriations bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! Hon Shane Jones, if you relocate yourself—you know the rules—you do not interject.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This bill extensively refers to the additional appropriations that are required for COVID-19, that include the response of our border agencies. Mr Speaker, I checked with the Clerk of the House, who told me it was a very broad debate, for me to be able to refer to such matters. The question I ask any Government speaker: why, after a week of knowing that our border was like a colander that was leaking COVID-19 through, why do we not know even today how many people have come across our border without being tested?
The issue with these appropriations is if we were truly interested in the economic wellbeing of New Zealand, the very first item in this bill would be testing for every person that came across our border to ensure that COVID-19 does not get a second wave. It's not there. Ministers have been so incompetent that we've had the Minister of Health sidelined and now we've got the Minister of KiwiBuild—now, that's been a ripper success—now in charge of the borders, and a few days into the job, it is turning out as successful.
But it's not just the shambles at the border; the shambles has been as much in the economic response. In April, we had the Government announce its big IRD plan for providing business support, but something I have not seen in 30 years—not seen in 30 years—is the Minister of Revenue bring a bill into this House, rush it through all three stages, and for it to be the wrong bill. I have not seen that ever in my time, that level of incompetence, where new records are being set by Ministers opposite.
But it's more serious than that—more serious. I have a business in my community: Armadillo's is a restaurant in Richmond. It received a grant under that very scheme. "Here's your $240,000 to help support those eight jobs." Do you know what happened? The next day, IRD wrote and said, "We want the money back. We want the money back immediately." Now, they—
Michael Wood: IRD doesn't administer that scheme.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, IRD—and I'll be happy if the member across the House, who I am sure is as incompetent as his ministerial colleagues, would like me to table the letter from IRD demanding the return of that money. I'd be more than happy to do so, and I seek his help in trying to save those jobs in Richmond, on which I have corresponded with the Minister and for which the Government handed out the money one moment, pulled it back the next—how that's friendly for small business, I do not know.
Then we had in the same parameter the Government saying the scheme's going to provide $6 billion of support—$6 billion. Two months later, less than $60 million has been paid out. Now, I accept we've got a delivery rate on KiwiBuild of 0.4 percent; on the IRD business support scheme, we have a delivery of 1.4 percent, was what the Minister told us this afternoon. Well, let it make plain: members on this side of the House rate 1.4 percent, or one out of 100, as an abysmal fail in their response.
I want to come to the issue that should be the focus of this appropriation bill, and that is the issue of jobs. I think I'm the only member of Parliament—when this country had 10 percent unemployment, and I have to tell you, meeting hundreds, thousands, of good, hard-working, committed people desperate for a job would be one of the most challenging and depressing times I as a member of Parliament have had. I say to this Parliament: we need to pull out every possible action we can to ensure that the numbers predicted by Treasury of our unemployment surging to 10 percent, or 260,000 New Zealanders, does not occur. I just simply ask people to look at the track record, because every year through the 1990s—and this appropriation bill should learn the lessons of the 1990s of working with the private sector to create and grow jobs, because we inherited 10 percent unemployment from Labour in 1990, and when we left Government in 1999, we had more than halved it. Surprise, surprise, when we came back into Government in 2008, unemployment again had soared—it had got to over 8 percent. Again, a National Government did the hard yards of getting people back into work every single year.
Hon Tracey Martin: No, no, no, just taking them off the list—just taking them off the list. Not necessarily a job—just cut them off the list. Cut them off, cut them off, cut them off.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: From 2010, 2011, 2012, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, the number of people on the dole declined, and I'm proud of that National record. Here's the interesting part for the Minister that's interjecting: in the first two years of your Government, even before COVID came, the numbers on the dole increased—13,000 in 2019; 10,000 in 2018. The record is plain. Dole numbers go up under Labour administrations and down under ours, and that is why members on this side of the House say that jobs are at the core of the issues in this appropriation bill and at the core of the issues that will face the country on 19 September. Those New Zealanders who are concerned about jobs will be looking to National in the same way as in previous economic downturns. The hard yards have been left to National to create the jobs and keep Kiwis in work.
The last point I want to make, which is so much covered in this bill, is the lack of shovel-ready projects. You know, in my electorate of Nelson last week, they announced one of their big infrastructure projects: they are going to put some kerb and channel on Beach Road. It's a $320,000 project—be smaller than the Table Office in the House. That's the infrastructure vision that we have from this Government? It is truly pathetic. What we need is the sort of infrastructure projects that this Government—just look at Auckland light rail to see where this Government is incapable of delivering the infrastructure that New Zealand needs.
The last thing I note in this appropriation is the extra money for parliamentary services which so well illustrates the waste: the $570,000 for the slide on the front lawn of Parliament that—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The member's time has expired.





MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call in this debate, and it will be a smaller call, because I realise there are some of my colleagues that are waiting to take a call before this debate finishes in about 15 minutes' time. 
I want to start by saying I'm a bit disappointed the financial oracle Dr Duncan Webb was not taking a call in this debate, because—unfortunately, I think, for this Government—Dr Duncan Webb decided that he would make a submission to the Christchurch City Council for their rate increases, where he slammed them for not increasing rates high enough. He actually said it would cost jobs and incomes for hard-working families. What's causing the lack of jobs and incomes in Christchurch is the delay for this Government on the Metro Sports Facility, the delay for the convention centre, the delay for the multi-use sports facility, the delay for the Northern Corridor. Why that's important for this debate is because, for all the money that they've so-called appropriated in Christchurch for their start-up investor fund—whatever that was called—not one dollar has been spent.
So Dr Duncan Webb—what was really priceless was that in his submission, he tried to say, "I'm not a Government member, I'm here as a Christchurch-centric MP.", were his words. Well, didn't he learn? Well, he will, once one Hon Grant Robertson sits down beside him over the next few days in the Chamber and reminds him that when he speaks, he is always speaking on behalf of the Government. What a shambles.
You can have a person turn up and say that increasing rates on hard-working families will cost jobs and incomes, because what a Labour Government fails to see—it's not about just spending money, because let's remind ourselves, in the last year of the former Labour Government, the Salvation Army report said, out of all their increased expenditure under the Helen Clark Government, they did not increase social progress by 1 percent. All their increased expenditure and they did not increase social progress by 1 percent. What's the point of a Labour Government if you're not increasing social progress? They spent all their money and they got nothing in return. And here we are again: Groundhog Day; appropriations. If it wasn't for a sector, this would be comical, but in fact, it's desperate. What we're talking about here is appropriations for health and mental health.
Dr Nick Smith talked about metrics. Well, the front-line new mental health service: $455 are allocated; they've spent $30 million of that. Not only that but in 18 months' time, do you know what their target is? They would have rolled it out to less than three percent of GP practices—less than three percent of GP practices. So here they are: like the Salvation Army said, they talk a big game, they throw a lot of money around, but they didn't increase social progress by 1 percent. Under written questions, Dr David Clark told me, for their service they announced last year: $8 million that was going to provide support for people with mental distress pitching up to emergency departments. How much of that $8 million has been spent to date? Zero. In their first year, they haven't even got one dollar out of the gate. 
So here we are. Yeah, you can write all the big figures you want to in appropriations, but an area, a much-needed area like mental health where the current Government talked up a big game in Opposition—we had the Mental Health Commissioner come out in his report this week, and do you know what he said? From 2008 to 2018, mostly years under the former National Government, access increased by 55 percent.
Hon Tracey Martin: Rubbish—absolute rubbish.
MATT DOOCEY: Well, it's in the report. You go and read the Mental Health Commissioner report that was released this week: access was increased by 55 percent for $300 million. This Government has said they're going to spend $1.9 billion on mental health and asked the health Minister how much he's increased access by. Their own mental health inquiry said they needed to increase access from 7 percent of the population to 20 percent.
Hamish Walker: How much did they spend?
MATT DOOCEY: Well, they don't know. They can't tell us. In answer to their question they say they don't know. They've thrown, well, allegedly, $1.9 billion and they've got no target, they've got no metric. No wonder the Salvation Army said, in the last time they were in Government: for all the increased expenditure, they didn't increase social progress by 1 percent.
Here we are again: big appropriations, talking big figures, no targeted spending, no targets—because, of course, they scrapped all the targets in the health sector—no targets to be measured by. Then, when you drill down individually, as a spokesperson, for some of the projects that vulnerable New Zealanders need the most today, in the first year, they haven't spent any of the allocation.
What is wrong with this Government? What is the point of a Labour Government if they're not driving social progress? Here we are again. Sounded pretty good at the time, didn't it? "One point nine billion for mental health." And now they're getting caught out; they're not delivering. You know what? It was the DHB representatives and the annual reviews that were like the canaries in the cages, because they were telling the Health Committee they didn't know if that money had flowed out yet. They couldn't point to where that money had gone. So you can talk up a big game, you can write documents, you can talk about billions of dollars. But in the end, you will be judged on delivery, and we all know—and the public is learning—that this Government does not deliver.





CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the chance to speak on this, the appropriation bill. A few people on my side of the House have said that the Government has been spending like drunken sailors on shore leave. I am here to defend them—I mean, of course, the reputation of drunken sailors on shore leave. Speaking of drunken sailors, I'd just like to point out to the House that I have no vested interest in this—I am no longer one of those things. 
To spend money like a drunken sailors on shore leave would imply a lot less than $100 billion. That would be one hell of a run ashore, as they say. The price of a rum and Coke in Sydney in the early 2000s was pretty steep, but it wasn't that steep, and the cocktails in Singapore were eye-watering in cost as well as just eye-watering, but $100 billion, such as we're seeing now being appropriated—the top-up that this bill represents—is pretty considerable indeed. But the problem, of course, isn't about the fact of spending; it's the quality of the spending. It's not the spending like drunken sailors that is the issue in relation to investments being made. Indeed, if the dollars that were being spent by the Government on behalf of all taxpayers, current and future, were being spent in the wisest possible way, then we would have no objection. But it's the bad decision-making that's inherent in here. It's the detail that's in this bill, but it's also the things that are not represented here in terms of a plan to get ourselves out of the hole that the country now finds itself in that the Opposition is honour-bound to bring to the attention of the country in this debate. 
I want to talk about shovel-ready projects. That's not a particular phrase that appears in the bill, of course, but more of a colloquial way of describing infrastructure that's at least supposedly ready to be rolled out. But that's really the point—that's the problem. So much that should be ready to go simply is not. So the appropriateness of the phrase "shovel-ready projects", I'm afraid, is that we've ended up in a big hole of debt and we're trying to dig our way out of it, which anyone will be able to tell you is not the way to get out of a hole—we're going the wrong way. 
The "ready" bit of "shovel-ready" is also a problem. We've heard now about lots of different things that the Government's planned and lots of things that they've announced, but not so much that they've delivered. If I look at my own area that I represent in north-west Auckland, there's been talk of a light rail project there for at least three years now, but only talk, and we've gone backwards in the sense that not only is that project not going ahead now but the hard-working local MP, who's been advocating for better public transport for the area, has been told every time within the last three years that he goes to the authorities to seek a bit of investment in public transport infrastructure—which, to be fair, is a long-running, longstanding problem—"Don't worry, because light rail is on the way, and any other project will not stack up in comparison with that. Hang on, help is on its way any decade now." So the question, as I say, is not about spending per se; it's the quality of spending. 
Then my final theme, on a related note, would be about the question of the dollars and cents in this bill—I say "cents", but, of course, it's all rounded, not only to the nearest $1,000, and fair enough too. But there are some pretty big numbers—$10 billion here and $10 billion there soon adds up when you're talking about real money, as the saying goes. 
So it's about the quality. It's about getting ourselves into a virtuous cycle whereby we'll be able to be placed more strongly in the years ahead and not in a weaker position for our children, our grandchildren, and future generations, because that, I fear, is the overall impact of the bill, whereby we're going to end up in a hole of debt without an obvious way of getting out, certainly on the evidence of the bill that we see before us today. 





MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'm very pleased to take a call in this debate. It's an important bill, and it's an important bill from both a parliamentary and constitutional point of view, because one of the precepts of the way that we work in a parliamentary democracy is that money that's appropriated from citizens through taxes has to be authorised through this Parliament, which represents the people from which we appropriate the money. And the reason that this bill is important—and I want to really emphasise this point, because it hasn't been reflected at all in any of the reflections from members opposite—is that this bill serves the purpose of appropriating money that will be used in the 2019-20 fiscal year that was not appropriated in the Budget that was set for the 2019-20 fiscal year. So the debate over this bill actually has quite an important constitutional and parliamentary function.
It is not actually usually a time for polemics and histrionics in this House. I've been in this House for about four of these Budget cycles on both sides of the House, and generally speaking, the Opposition engages in this debate in a reasonably sensible way, actually examines the Supplementary Estimates, looks at what has been appropriated that was not appropriated at the time of the original Estimates in the prior calendar year, and examines those. It's also the case that usually the Opposition, prior to that, has done their work in the select committee, because what happens in this process is that the Finance and Expenditure Committee has Treasury in front of them, they examine the Supplementary Estimates, and they get to ask Treasury to give good information about why the Supplementary Estimates are different. We haven't heard a dicky-bird about that from the Opposition. They haven't actually done their fundamental job in the examination of the Supplementary Estimates.
In the time that I have, I want to touch on some of the things that are included in these Supplementary Estimates that I think are actually incredibly important. The reason I'm a little bit disappointed in the performance of the Opposition, as well, is that there's probably been no more important set of Supplementary Estimates presented to this House in generations, because we know that these Supplementary Estimates—which came in two parts, first on 14 May, the second on 16 June—were delivered in extraordinary times, that these Supplementary Estimates appropriate a significant sum in order to deal with the unprecedented crisis of COVID-19 and its impact on the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders and on our economy.
I'm actually really proud of some of the additional appropriations that are made through the Supplementary Estimates. I'm actually really pleased that the Hon Dr Nick Smith raised before the experience of New Zealand in the early 1990s recession when, yes, as he said, we had 10 percent unemployment. If the House wants to know one of the reasons why we had 10, in fact 11 percent unemployment in that time, it's because the party that sits on the other side of the House delivered Budgets at a time of economic crisis and recession. Instead of investing in New Zealanders and communities, they chose to retrench. They chose to cut people's benefits. They chose to cut investment in communities and infrastructure. That exacerbated the situation, put more New Zealanders out of work and created more social misery. So I'm incredibly proud that through these Supplementary Estimates, our Government hasn't retrenched. It hasn't withdrawn investment.
In fact, it has put in greater investment into New Zealanders and their communities. We've done it through things like doubling the winter energy payment so that our senior citizens this winter, our beneficiaries this winter, don't have to sit in the cold through winter, don't have to put up with the risk of getting sick because of that. They've actually got some extra money in their back pockets to ensure that they can get through this challenging period. We've done it through the additional $25 per week for people on main benefits because we believe that if New Zealand's going to get through this economic and social crisis of COVID-19, we need to bring everyone with it, including those people who find it the toughest. So I'm really proud of that additional investment. We did it, of course, through the wage subsidy, a decision that was taken quickly, a policy that was developed for which there was no playbook at all. I want to acknowledge the Minister of Finance here, Grant Robertson, the Minister of Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, who were absolutely essential to the development of that programme. We hear every single day about the difference it has made, about the jobs it has saved, about the businesses that it has given time to help get through the impact of COVID-19. It's about the tax loss carry-back scheme, which has helped to pump cash flow into businesses to help them get through, the interest-free small business loan scheme administered by IRD, which has given over $1 billion to help small businesses get through. These are the investments that our Government has made.
We haven't retrenched. We haven't de-invested, we haven't given up on people as we've been told to at times in this debate by members opposite. I'm proud of this Supplementary Estimates bill because it speaks to the values of this Government—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The time for this debate has ended.





A party vote was called for on the question, That the Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2020/21) Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 63
New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.
Noes 57
New Zealand National 55; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.
Bills read a second time.





APPROPRIATION (2019/20 SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES) BILL
In Committee
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Colleagues, the House is in committee on the Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. In the committee stage of an Appropriation (Supplementary Estimates) Bill, only the Minister's amendments and any amendments to them are considered. There is, therefore, no debate on any provisions where there are no amendments proposed, which means in this case there will be no debate on clauses 1 to 3. 
I also remind members that the House has agreed to trial the removal of the four-call limit in the committee stage. I encourage you to keep your contributions focused—remember that five minutes is not a target—and relevant to good interaction with the Minister in the chair. We have the ability then to take short calls and have a series of questions and answers between members and the Minister. You can be confident that you will get a number of short calls. 
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.





Clause 4 Overview
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you very much, Madam Chair—my apologies for being too quick to get going there. I thought it might be helpful—
Hon Tracey Martin: Very quick that Minister; he's very quick.
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed, thank you very much. I thought it might be helpful at the outset of the consideration of the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that I explain clearly what it does. In almost all years, once Cabinet has decided in early- to mid-April the amounts to be included in the Estimates for the year about to start and the Supplementary Estimates for the year about to end, there is a Budget moratorium from then until Budget day where no further decisions with financial implications are made. This ensures that the Budget documents presented to the House on Budget day reflect all of the decisions that Ministers have made. This year, with a need for a timely and ongoing response to COVID-19, it was not possible to have a Budget moratorium. This has happened once before in the time that I've been in this House, and that was immediately following the Canterbury earthquakes when a similar situation befell the Government where there was a need to make decisions in what would normally have been the Budget moratorium period; the same occurred this year because of COVID-19.
The addition to the 2019/20 Supplementary Estimates that I presented to the House last Tuesday contains all changes to appropriations and new appropriations for 2019/20 decided since the 2019/20 Supplementary Estimates closed in early April. I thank the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their expeditious examination of the addition to the 2019/20 Supplementary Estimates.
The Supplementary Order Paper incorporates the Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, the changes to appropriations, and new appropriations for 2019/20 contained in the addition to the 2019/20 Supplementary Estimates. It is a revision-tracked SOP showing the changes being from the bill as introduced. For each appropriation or capital injection in the schedules to the bill, the amount of the change in the Supplementary Estimates—what is the second column in the addition to the Supplementary Estimates—is replaced with the amount of the cumulative change in the Supplementary Estimates and the addition to the 2019/20 Supplementary Estimates. Essentially, what that does is bring together all of the spending in the 2019/20 year, rather than, as I might have heard in some earlier parts of this bill, an extensive discussion about what is about to come in the 2020/21 year.
What is covered here and what is new here is the spending that we needed to undertake in this financial year that is about to end on 30 June, rather than the expenditure that's coming forward. I look forward to the debate and questions.





Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): My thanks to the Minister for explaining the reasonably complicated sort of arrangements. So am I right in assuming that you only want us to debate the changes to the bill in terms of the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)?
Hon Grant Robertson: That's the SOP we're debating.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: So the Supplementary Estimates, for example, included that there were to be $344 million not spent in the KiwiBuild housing—
CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Can I just say we're on clause 4, which is the overview of the bill.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Oh, I thought we were taking it all as one part. We're not taking it all as one part? 
Michael Wood: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I seek leave that the provisions of this bill be taken as one part.
CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. 





Clauses 4 to 8 and Schedules 1 to 3
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. So anyway—
Hon Tracey Martin: What's happened to your hair?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, I don't know. I don't know what's happened to my hair. So the original situation in the Supplementary Estimates was, as I'm trying to clarify, that we were going to spend $344 million less on KiwiBuild than we anticipated, and I can only assume that's because that policy has been a monumental flop and a good example of the difference between intentions, announcements, and delivery. But we're not debating that. Is that what you're saying? 
Hon Grant Robertson: It's an SOP.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Right, OK. So one thing that we would be debating, then, would be the change from this single page 31, where we have just one line. We've got this long list of spending—and the people of New Zealand will be fascinated to know the speed with which money is spent in this place. So there was a line that was $12 billion—a nice round figure—for the wage subsidy, business support subsidy COVID-19, which the National Party was broadly supportive of, and that's been increased to $15.2 billion. So the question that I have for the Minister as we just kick things off is: how much does he think is actually going to be spent of that $15.2 billion? What's his latest intelligence on that at the moment?





Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I thank the member Paul Goldsmith for the question. So the member is right in saying that it is the nature of—it's in the name. It's in the nature of estimates that they are estimates of spending. The $12 billion was the amount put aside for the first phase of the wage subsidy scheme. Around $11 billion of that was spent—slightly over $11 billion. The additional sum of money is the estimated required money for the wage subsidy extension.
Now, it will not all be spent in the period, in my view. I think at the moment we're just under a billion dollars for that. I would need to come back and let the member know. We're somewhere between $700 million and about $900 million that has been already allocated in the wage subsidy extension. When Treasury did their estimates on the wage subsidy extension, they thought that it would support around 900,000 employees. So far, it's supporting around 230,000 employees. Arguably, this is a good sign. It's that businesses are not in the situation of having that 40 percent reduction in turnover in the previous month, and so therefore they aren't requiring it. But we need to see a little bit more time before we can be absolutely sure of that. So what this reflects is the cost of the original scheme and the estimated cost of the extension, which was $3.2 billion, as the member will recall. It may be that we don't spend that in the end. That is the nature of estimates.





Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I've got three brief questions to the Minister of Finance, and the first one is quite specific to clause 4, and it is clause 4 "Overview", and the fact that this must meet the requirements of the Public Finance Act 1989. Earlier this afternoon, we had a lengthy debate around the amendment to the Public Finance Act, which, as I said in the House, I thought was fairly fluffy sort of stuff, bringing in the wellbeing framework. I just want to make sure that the Minister, in his competence, has taken into account that now the Public Finance Act has been amended since he put the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) before the House—or is in the process of being amended, because we covered off the second reading earlier.
The second point I want the Minister to comment on—and I certainly don't do this just to embarrass him—is we've got the bill before the House and then we've got Supplementary Order Paper 513. Again, specifically to clause 4, when I look at it, the only addition has been to clause 4(c), section 8 and Schedule 3, and it's the additions of the words "and Offices of Parliament". I just wonder whether the Minister could tell us why that is included in an SOP and wasn't included in the original bill. I assume it's an afterthought. I've gone through the papers and I can't actually find any detail of it at all, so I'd be grateful if the Minister could tell us why the amended SOP is before the House, specifically to the inclusion of the words "Officers of Parliament". 
My third question relates to the additional appropriations in the supplementary Supplementary Estimates to the Ministry for Primary Industries. Of course, I do this because of my previous association with the ministry. It's the $10.245 million additional Supplementary Estimates in the Supplementary Order Paper. When I spoke of this earlier in a contribution, the Hon Shane Jones interjected and said it's all for extension services. I said to Mr Jones that I don't think it is, and I invited him to turn to page 12 of the additions to the Supplementary Estimates information. There's a whole lot of pork industry processers who have received money—Freshpork, for example, $1.760 million; Wilson Hellaby, $1.054 million. I'm just interested in what happened here. What was the reason why we're suddenly having to find $10 million of taxpayer money to support what looks like some sort of support to the pork industry and why it was specifically required for the pork industry and not for any of the other red meat producers in New Zealand. I assume it has something to do with lockdown and the ability of pork producers to get their produce processed adequately. But if the Minister could elaborate on that, I'd be grateful.
Subsequent to that, I have a number of other questions for the Minister.





Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I thank the member very much for his questions. On the first point, I think he answered his own question in his contribution, which is that the changes to the Public Finance Act are only at second reading at this stage rather than any further on in our work, but the member can rest assured that we applied the wellbeing lens to all of the proposals that were in front of us, in particular looking at how the populations that are already the most disadvantaged have been affected by COVID-19, and ensuring that we had spending that went in that direction. So it was certainly part of our thinking.
And I do note, although the member perhaps uses pejorative language to describe this framework, I invite him to read the speech of his new leader last Sunday, who actually endorsed the framework—
Rt Hon David Carter: Sunday before.
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yeah, Sunday before, and endorsed it. I don't want to create another division inside the National caucus, but I just invite him to read that.
On the matter of the Officers of Parliament, that was included not because of an oversight at all, in fact, but that the Officers of Parliament Committee received specific requests from some of the officers for increased expenditure as a result of restrictions from COVID-19. So it was actually a very specific instruction for the Officers of Parliament Committee, which I don't think the member currently serves on, but I know has served on in the past.
The matter of pork is one that all Ministers who were members of the COVID-19 Ministerial Committee will be able to talk at great length about. The issue that arose here was an animal welfare issue, essentially, around the fact that, because we weren't able to export pork products or we weren't able to see them processed in the way that we wanted to, there was the risk of a wholesale slaughter of a lot of pigs in a way that we would not, in this House, deem appropriate, and so decisions were taken to support, as much as possible, that pork to be processed and got to supermarkets, got to food banks, and so on, but the cost on those suppliers needed to be met from somewhere, and that largely was an animal welfare issue to ensure that they were processed and humanely dealt with.





Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Oh thank you, Mr Chair. My interest in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 513, not surprisingly, is in respect of Vote Health, and the amendments that have been made to it since the bill was introduced on Budget day—which takes the supplementary appropriations to district health boards to over $389 million. And they've, effectively, all gone up since the bill was increased on Budget day. I'm presuming the Minister can just clarify this, that the supplementary appropriations were the meat and drink, really, of the announcements that the Government made, I think, on around 17 March, as part of the extra funding that was announced at that time to support the health response.
What was interesting about that announcement, which probably had something in the region of about $450 million overall, was that not all of that funding—
Hon Grant Robertson: 495.
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Thank you, 445, was it? Thank you.
Hon Grant Robertson: 495.
Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: 95, was it? Gosh, I must've missed some.
Not all of that, actually by my reading of the announcement, would have been funding that would have gone directly—sorry, channelled through DHBs in order to get to the end user. So it seems to me that these increases, totalling nearly $400 million, seem much, much higher than the DHBs would have needed in order to be able to give effect to the announcements that were made on 17 March.
My second question is around whether or not we're going to actually get there. Because one of the extraordinary aspects of that was, for example, there was a quite big dollop of money for the increasing and the purchase of influenza vaccines, which were needed right then. What I couldn't understand was why we waited a whole month to actually place the orders for that, particularly when there was so much interest in actually getting the flu vaccines. That is an anecdote, not a question.
The question, really, is, given that we're now only seven days from the end of the 2019-20 financial year and this is an updated SOP, one would presume that the numbers are accurate. Except it seems to me that we're going to struggle to spend this money, if the example of the flu vaccines is anything to go by. So why is all of the money being channelled through the DHBs when some of it was going to public health units and other healthcare services that weren't being managed by the DHBs, and is this all necessary?





Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The flu vaccine's not covered by this. So that's clear—that was an already appropriated sum of money that was being spent.
In terms of the member's question, I can be very specific of the increase of $495.85 million—$350 million of that was to purchase additional stocks of personal protective equipment. That was, as the member will recall, distributed via DHBs, so it was the subject of some controversy at the time, but let's be fair that that is the structure that we have in the health system. It also includes $58 million on a matter that the member is most interested in, which is the cost of providing managed isolation or quarantine facilities: $51.85 million, which was a mixture of purchasing of additional ventilator and respiratory equipment and meeting some of the costs for providing additional ICU facilities as well. Obviously, the good news is we were not required to expend all of that, although we had to manage the cost of that, including with private hospitals which, again, the member will be aware of.
There was $37 million to undertake the purchase of equipment for laboratory testing, $14 million to implement the COVID contact tracing action plan, and a small $1 million fiscally neutral transfer to allow aspects of the Pacific community response package to be dealt with. There was an offset involving the primary healthcare strategy and some money moving across there, but that is the detail of that expenditure. As the member notes, there were some criticisms of the DHB's ability to get PPE to where it was needed, but that was the mechanism that was used.





Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister for that explanation, and I mention this not by way of an attempt to catch him out, but the attachment that went with the press release on 17 March specifically said that "the remaining funds are earmarked for future announcements, as required, such as ensuring New Zealand has sufficient medicines, flu vaccines, face masks, and PPE"—so flu vaccines were included in that. 
I just would like one last clarification on this, because the Minister mentioned managed isolation, which, as he rightly points out, has been in the news quite a bit. Because the overwhelming majority of the managed isolation services are being provided in the Auckland and Counties Manukau district health boards regions, it seems to me that certainly the principal costs of accommodation are not covered by this appropriation, and it wouldn't be actually that fair—it doesn't appear to be part of the calculations that the agency nursing and healthcare assistance staff or the testing costs are actually falling on those two DHBs alone. So it would be helpful to understand quite which costs for managed isolation are falling on the DHBs and, if so, which ones. 





Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I will get some further advice on that very specific point from the member Michael Woodhouse. 
While he is focusing on the DHB costs, I would note that, if he looks a little further on, there are increased costs around areas of the national services, if you look on the next page. So I am going to make the assumption at this point that, actually, if he and I sat down and did the maths, we would probably discover that the majority of that was being delivered through national services costs rather than through DHBs.





Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. I'm just interested to hear from the Minister in the chair, Grant Robertson: we had, as we were talking about before, this increase in the business support subsidy to $15.2 billion estimated spending—probably one of the largest single items of expenditure in the history of the country—and then we have, also with social development, investigation of overpayments and fraudulent payments has increased by $1.3 million. I'm just interested in that. There haven't been any changes in the supplementary, so it sort of appears that the Government has been happy to spend the $15.2 billion but has not really made any extra allowance for any attempt to ensure that any investigation of overpayments and fraudulent payments were looked into.
There was an element of controversy around this: there was reported—and maybe it was incorrectly reported—that the Minister's office wasn't interested in that side of things, and the Minister has said that you were interested. I suppose people on the streets are recognising of the importance of the wage subsidy to help cushion the blow, as has been said, to get businesses through, but they do want to have—and there was a sort of rough and willing readiness, acceptance that the first tranche of these payments was on a high-trust basis, but there, I suppose, is slightly less sense of accommodation to the sense that for the second lot, having had two or three months to figure out the plans, there would be a bit more thought put into ensuring that that money gets to the right people and the right people only. So I just wanted to just test with the Minister: had any thought been given to putting more resources into policing it than what appears to have been provided there—or maybe I've missed something.





Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Mr Chair, I'll just take one more call and get some further information, and then we'll understand, I'm sure. In fact, all members will understand that the Budget's a very large document. What I can tell the member is an interim response to his question, that the audit function is covered by both the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and Inland Revenue. There are 104 auditors who are employed to look into the wage subsidy scheme. We're just going to get a little bit of information from the member on the split of that. Also, because MSD is a very effective and efficient agency, they will have been doing a significant amount of this work from baseline expenditure as well. So I will get a little bit more detail for the member on that, but I can confirm that there are 104 auditors, if my memory serves me right, from some paper that I saw earlier today. I think there's been around 6,000 audits undertaken for the wage subsidy scheme—so that's a significant sample—and around over $150 million repaid.





ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wanted to look at the housing and urban development component. Obviously we're very concerned, as all New Zealanders are, about the homeless and those who are dispossessed and struggling to find housing. So it's with some alarm, I suppose, to see a reduction in this—and I'm trying to understand and would be grateful if the Minister could help me, because obviously we haven't had the analysis around this. But the transitional housing component has dropped from just on $60 million down to $41 million, so that's a $10 drop.
Then there's been also a reduction in the public housing by a much smaller amount, but none the less a reduction. So given the environment we're working in, and I understand a lot of homeless people have been put into accommodation—particularly hotels and motels—and are enjoying a much better lifestyle as a result of living in hotels, I just somehow wonder why there would be a reduction in that component, or whether, in fact, the transitional housing relates to some of the new initiatives. I presume that's an operating cost, not a capital cost, and therefore how does that relate, because I know the Government has a very ambitious target around transitional housing? I presume it's not the KiwiBuild, which is only 380 houses, but this must be the social housing component. So if you could elaborate on that reduction of roughly $10 million in this appropriation it would be very helpful. Thank you very much.





Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The member—who is a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—I know went through these matters in some detail with Treasury officials last week, and I am in possession of the same paper here that went in front of him, and if he looked at page 12 of that, he would understand. And I did try to explain this a little bit in my first comment about what the numbers in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) actually refer to.
So, if I can help the member here—and it might help other members as well—in that paper, the transitional housing original estimates were in the Budget 2019-20, and were $138 million. There was then the change in the original Supplementary Estimates which would have added $59 million, but in eventuality it was $41 million, not $59 million, bringing a total of $180 million. So, rather than being a reduction, it is a more accurate assessment of the additional amount of money that's required in the Supplementary Estimates on top of the normal Estimates. So, yes, only $41 million of $59 million was spent, but the total amount of money—the $180 million—I suspect is probably a record spend in that area, I imagine. But that's what I was trying to explain before; you've got to add up all of both the original Estimates, the original Supplementary Estimates, and now the SOP caused by the fact that we have these extraordinary circumstances. And I'm sure the member will now recall that from his studious approach, that I know he takes, in the committee to the matters that were brought in front of the committee last week.





Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. Another question that is a little bit puzzling, and I'd just like to have a bit more clarification on, is around the revenue for the initial fair value write-down relating to the small-business cash-flow scheme. So there are two, sort of, figures here. One is the $5.2 million set up for the scheme—
Hon Grant Robertson: What page you reading from?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Page 30—page 30. So, first, you've got $5.2 billion allocated for the small-business cash-flow scheme, and then you've also got $3.4 billion for the fair value write-down, which is presumably a reflection of the interest-free elements for it if it's paid, but bringing a total of over $8 billion.
I'd be keen to just get a bit of a sense of—obviously, that, again, is an estimate and depends on how much is being picked up, and my understanding was it's about a billion or so that's been lent so far, but that may have changed in recent times. I'd be keen to just get a sense of, again—I know there aren't officials here with the Minister; I'm not quite sure why not—what progress has been made in that way in order to help with small-business cashflow.





Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): For the member's benefit, there are two different categories of expenses. So if the member looks on page 29, just above that, you've got the non-departmental expenses, and then, when you go over, it turns into the non-departmental capital expenditure. As I'm sure the member knows, when we talk about loans, just as we do with the student loans scheme, things appear as assets on a book because they are repayable loans. That is the estimate—the $5.2 billion. I think we're all aware that it's very difficult to estimate the number of businesses who will choose to draw down on a loan, and so the member is correct in his first statement about the write-off relating to the interest-free component, but the whole book value of the loan has to appear until such time as we can get a more accurate assessment of it, and, obviously, this was done at the time at which the scheme was created.
In terms of his specific question, again, the member's probably been keeping up with where we've got to. It was about $1.3 billion the other day. We are continuing to see demand. It's around nearly 90,000 businesses that have drawn down on that loan, so it's certainly achieving the goals we wanted. Making those estimates of exactly how much people will borrow was, obviously, very challenging. That is the nature of the Estimates process.
House resumed.
The Chairperson reported progress on the Appropriation (2019/20 Supplementary Estimates) Bill.
Report adopted.
The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.