Thursday, 1 February 2024 - Volume 773 Sitting date: 1 Feb 2024 THURSDAY, 1 FEBRUARY 2024 The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m. KARAKIA/PRAYERS ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the King and pray for guidance in our deliberations that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen. BUSINESS STATEMENT Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House): Today, the House will adjourn until Tuesday 13 February. In that week, the Government will move urgency to progress multiple stages of the Water Services Acts Repeal Bill. Other Legislation to be considered will include further stages of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill and the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill. Wednesday is scheduled to be a members' day—the first of the new Parliament—and there will be six maiden statements during the week. Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Could the Leader of the House let us know whether he'll be introducing or progressing any legislation of the new Government that does anything other than repeal or disestablish anything? Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House): Yes. PETITIONS, PAPERS, SELECT COMMITTEE REPORTS, AND INTRODUCTION OF BILLS SPEAKER: No petitions have been presented. There have been papers delivered. CLERK: 2022-23 annual reports of the: Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa Education New Zealand. SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. No select committee reports have been delivered for presentation. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill. CLERK: Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill, introduction. ORAL QUESTIONS QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS Question No. 1—Prime Minister 1. Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government's statements and actions? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Minister for Regulation) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes, most definitely, in the time and in the context that they were given. An example of that I'm sure we'll always stand for is this Government's commitment in the Speech from the Throne to establish a Ministry of Regulation and pass the Regulatory Standards Bill. For too long, Governments have neglected the impact of red tape and regulation on the Kiwi can-do attitude and people that want to get on with building a wealthier country. Well, now we've got a Government that's going to do something about it. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does he stand by his answers to oral questions yesterday, "What I think is fantastic is we have an Associate Minister with delegation for reducing smoking. She's incredibly focused on that goal, and she's asked her officials for a range of advice to actually lower smoking in New Zealand."; if so, why? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes, we do, because, actually, it is fantastic to have an Associate Minister committed to reducing smoking rates. It's fantastic to have a Minister who asked for a range of advice. I can't imagine the psychology of someone who doesn't want a Minister who is (a) committed to reducing smoking and (b) interested in listening to advice. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Can he assure this House that no person affiliated with the tobacco industry was involved in developing or writing the documents Casey Costello passed on to her officials? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I've had assurances from all coalition partners in this Government that they have had no funding from the tobacco industry, and I am confident that there has been no undue influence on the policies of this Government by the tobacco industry. Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order. The answer was an interesting one, but the question was not about money or influence; it was about the documents that Casey Costello gave, and the Minister did not answer that question. SPEAKER: OK, we'll have the question again and see how we go. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Can he assure this House that no person affiliated with the tobacco industry was involved in developing or writing the documents Casey Costello passed on to her officials? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I am confident that there has been no undue influence on the policy formation of this Government. Hon Grant Robertson: No, that is not answering the question, David; that's avoiding it. SPEAKER: No, with respect, the preparation of a party document does not become the problem of the Prime Minister. If it's included in a coalition agreement, then it is accepted at that point. Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order. Mr Speaker, yesterday when this exact issue was raised, you took the position that once the Associate Minister handed that material on to officials, it became the responsibility of both the Minister and, indeed, the Prime Minister. That was the ruling you gave yesterday; that is the document that the Hon Carmel Sepuloni's talking about. SPEAKER: That is true—for the handling of it, that is true, but I think it would be quite unreasonable for anyone in a coalition situation to say, "Where did you get that paper from, who provided it, and if i don't like who gave you advice, then we're having nothing to do with it." That's not how it works. Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I'd ask you to think very carefully about what you've just said, because once a Minister—I mean, a Minister only acts in giving things to officials as a Minister; they can't do it in any other guise. Therefore, the material at that point becomes official material, and the matter of who prepared it becomes a matter for the Minister and the Prime Minister. I understand the point you're making about individual party documents, and that's longstanding, but the moment a Minister does something with them, it enters the realm of their responsibilities, in particular to this House. Hon Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order, I think this is a—I understand where the shadow Leader of the House, or acting shadow Leader of the House, is coming from. It's a finely balanced issue. The problem is this: Ministers are clearly responsible for things they give to their officials—no one's disputing that. The issue is: are they responsible for the generation of that material, and I would argue they cannot be, in the same way that if, for example, a Labour Party Minister gave a document to the education ministry—that was the New Zealand Educational Institute or the Post Primary Teachers' Association, or the Council of Trade Unions (CTU), for example—they cannot be questioned about the CTU in Parliament. They can be questioned about the handling of that document and what's in the document, but the generation of that document I think would fall outside the scope of ministerial responsibility. Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to that point of order, I think if one took that to its logical conclusion, that would be a very difficult thing to sustain. I'm pretty sure, in the time that I've been in the House, Ministers have been questioned about materials that they have worked with others on. The bottom line here is this exact document yesterday was the subject of questioning, and I don't believe that the Minister, acting as the Prime Minister, has addressed that question. I think it would set a very unfortunate precedent if the House was not able to ask a Minister, or the Prime Minister, about a document that they handed to officials and how it was generated. Hon James Shaw: Speaking to the point order—thank you, Mr Speaker—the response from the Acting Prime Minister was about undue influence, and that is not the question. There is a question of transparency, however. So it is, obviously, quite common for organisations to work with political parties to develop policy documents and then, when those political parties are in a position of Government, for them to provide those to officials. There's, kind of, technically nothing wrong with that—I mean, that's sort of been going on for donkey's years. It does become a problem if that is not transparent—you know, who those organisations are and what is being provided to officials in an official capacity, in a ministerial capacity. That is what the question is about: was the tobacco industry involved in developing a document that the Minister then gave to officials, at which point it became official material? That's just a matter of transparency; it's not a matter of undue influence; it's not a funding question or anything like that. But it is a matter of transparency about who is writing policy documents that are becoming part of the system of Government in this country. Hon Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order— SPEAKER: Why not—it's Thursday and we've got a long weekend ahead of us. Hon Chris Bishop:—it may be true in relation to other Ministers, but the Prime Minister cannot be responsible for where every piece of paper handled by a Minister came from. That just cannot be the case—from a knowledge point of view and from a Prime Ministerial accountability point of view. Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to that, since we're on this. The statement just made then by the Leader of the House can't possibly be true. In the 15 years that I have been in the House, Prime Ministers are asked about the actions—every action—of a Minister. It is, of course, perfectly possible for the Prime Minister to say that they don't know, because, I agree with Leader of the House, they may well not know all of the details of documents. But that is not the same as simply not answering or avoiding the question. Hon Marama Davidson: Speaking to that very point that Mr Bishop raised, and to quote from that very side when they were in Opposition, "The clue is in the name": Prime Minister. That's where the responsibility has always lain. SPEAKER: Thank you to members who contributed to this. I'm going to reflect on this over the next recess week and I'll come back with a ruling. Do you have another supp? You can have an additional one as well, just to make sure that we're all being nice and fair. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Has the Prime Minister asked Minister Costello whether or not the tobacco industry informed the policy document or wrote the policy document she gave to health officials? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I can't answer in respect to that conversation, at this time. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Is he confident that all of his Ministers have declared all conflicts, or potential conflicts, of interest? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes. And that question was about as effective as a Marama Davidson etymology lesson. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does he agree with David Seymour, "We can't sit around the table everyday with somebody that, in the past, at least, has had secret foundations where all of the donations go, doesn't declare them like any other political party would, and, of course, we don't know why that money was paid, by whom, for what purpose"; if not, why not? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, on behalf of the Prime Minister, I'm a great admirer of the wisdom that David Seymour brings to many matters. The other thing I would note is that, in spite of his prognostication, this coalition Government is far more united and effective than the Opposition's worst nightmare—in fact, we're your nightmare dressed up as a daydream. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does he stand by his comment that "Well, I'm responsible for all Ministers, irrespective of which party they come from", and, if so, when will he dismiss Casey Costello? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, you know, the member has been in Cabinet, so she'll be aware that the Prime Minister is responsible for all Ministers. In respect of Casey Costello, I have full confidence in her, and I'm sure that, in time, that member will too. Question No. 2—Finance 2. CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) to the Minister of Finance: Has she seen any recent reports on income growth in New Zealand? Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I've seen a report showing that the median wage in 2010 was $40,000, and that now it has risen to $65,000. This means that someone earning the median wage back in 2010 was firmly in the 17.5 percent personal income tax bracket, and now they are firmly in the 30 percent tax bracket. Through neglect, the personal income tax scale has failed to keep up with growth in incomes. Catherine Wedd: What tax bracket are minimum wage earners in? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: That depends on how many hours they work, of course, but let me give you an example. A person working 40 hours a week on the minimum wage in 2010 was earning $27,000. After the increase in the minimum wage, a person working 40 hours a week on the minimum wage will now be earning more than $48,000, and therefore—like median income earners—will be in the 30 percent tax bracket. Again, through neglect, the personal income tax scale has failed to keep up with the growth in incomes. Catherine Wedd: When was the last time New Zealanders saw any reduction in the personal income taxes they pay? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, sadly, you have to go all the way back to 1 October 2010, when the National Government reduced personal income taxes after Budget 2010. That is 14 years ago. To be fair, personal income tax reductions were legislated for in 2017. However, the incoming Labour Government cancelled them, and then introduced a new top tax rate of 39 percent. So, apart from the new top rate, personal income tax rates and thresholds have remained exactly as they are since October 2010. Catherine Wedd: Has she seen any reports relating to personal income tax reductions? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Yes, I have seen a report on reductions in personal income tax. This came from Australia, where the Labor Government has just announced the third in a series of personal income tax reductions. I thought this was highly relevant for New Zealand as it shows that such reductions are commonplace and can be adopted by Governments of all political stripes. Camilla Belich: How does the Minister justify the decision to raise the minimum wage today by less than the rate of inflation—effectively, cutting the wages of thousands of low-paid workers in New Zealand? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, I'd point out to the member that there are a number of projections for what inflation will be in the year ahead—and that in the last quarter, at 0.5 percent and an annualised rate of 2 percent. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a general opinion on inflation, but it didn't touch at all on any of the justification for the minimum wage. SPEAKER: But the point is that the question relied on an opinion about the inflation rate. Do you have another supplementary? Question— Hon David Seymour: Supplementary? SPEAKER: Oh, sorry—the Hon David Seymour. Hon David Seymour: Can the Minister of Finance confirm that wage growth comes from investments and entrepreneurship and productivity growth allowing employers to pay their workers more, and that legislating up the wage from Wellington is not the only or the best way for Kiwis to get ahead—in fact, for the 97.1 percent of workers who are not on the minimum wage, that's the only way for them to get ahead? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Yes, I am delighted to be in a coalition Government that is committed to growing this economy so that we can have higher incomes and higher living standards for all New Zealanders. Hon Grant Robertson: What measure of inflation was used in the advice given to the Government when setting the minimum wage? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: We received a number of pieces of advice in relation to the minimum wage, and that advice included different measures for inflation, depending on the time periods that were being looked at. Of course, the Consumers Price Index is viewed as the standard measure of inflation, but the period which you look at to determine the inflation rate is something that there can be a number of perspectives on. Question No. 3—Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 3. Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: Does he stand by his statement that "My focus in government is upon fixing the bad outcomes of colonisation and building on the good ones"? Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) on behalf of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: Yes, and I note my wider quote where I said, "People can argue about history and that's appropriate, everybody will have a different point of view, I certainly have no doubt that there were many bad things that have happened as a result of colonisation and what I'm focused on is ... improving them and restoring them and that's the focus of our government." Hon Marama Davidson: What specifically are the "good" outcomes of colonisation that he is planning to build on? Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Unlike that member, I don't view history in a binary way. History is complicated. Colonisation brought to New Zealand things like Westminster democracy, the rule of law, economic development. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Mansplaining! Hon CHRIS BISHOP: How can it be mansplaining to answer a question from a woman in Parliament? Seriously, like—ridiculous. On the other hand, colonisation brought immense suffering for many people. It brought the loss of land for tangata whenua, it brought disease, and it brought illness. And, of course, we are all engaged in a national effort to remedy and right the wrongs of the past and that's what this Government is committed to. Hon Marama Davidson: How does cutting the budget of the Waitangi Tribunal, which has exclusive authority to determine the meaning and effect of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, contribute to "fixing the bad outcomes of colonisation"? Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, all Government agencies are being asked to make savings. The member will be aware of the coalition Government commitment around looking at the scope, purpose, and the nature of the inquiries of the Waitangi Tribunal. That work has yet to begin, but it will begin in due course. Hon Marama Davidson: Is he concerned that cutting the funding of the Waitangi Tribunal to pay for tax cuts will affect its ability to scrutinise the Government's proposed Treaty Principles Bill? Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, and I reject the characterisation of the member's explanation. Fa'anānā Efeso Collins: Does he think the Treaty principles of partnership and participation, as developed by the courts, remain relevant to "fixing the bad outcomes" for Māori in areas such as justice, health, and education? Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yes. Fa'anānā Efeso Collins: Has he met with representatives from iwi and hapū since becoming Minister, and, if so, have they raised with him any concerns about the Government's approach to Te Tiriti? Hon CHRIS BISHOP: On behalf of the Minister, I'm not able to comment on that because I don't have visibility over the Minister's diary and what happened in those meetings, I'm sorry. Question No. 4—Finance 4. Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by the statement in the National Party and ACT Party coalition agreement, "The concepts of ACT's income tax policy are considered as a pathway to delivering National's promised tax relief, subject to no earner being worse off than they would be under National's plan"? Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I can confirm to the member that that is indeed the wording in the coalition agreement, and the Government is delivering on that commitment. Hon Grant Robertson: Will the Minister rule out cutting the top income tax rate from 39c to 33c in this term of Government? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I've already done so. Hon Grant Robertson: How, then, can the ACT Party system of taxation be being considered by the Minister when a core plank of it she has just ruled out? Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, there are many aspects to the proposals that Mr Seymour and I are discussing along with other Ministers in the Cabinet. I have to say that I am delighted to see the new-found interest from the Opposition member in the necessity to reduce taxation. If only he'd taken one of the six opportunities he had to do so. Question No. 5—Health 5. SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made about improving the safety and security of our health workforce? Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Our health workforce is the backbone of our health system and we will support them. That is why we increased the number of security staff in emergency departments (EDs) by an additional 200 staff across 32 EDs over the Christmas and new year period. Sam Uffindell: What feedback has he received about this important uplift in security? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I have visited a number of hospitals across the country and have heard firsthand from staff and patients how beneficial this programme has been. I am told that there has been a noticeable reduction in the number of people who have been abusive towards staff. This has improved due to the increased presence of security in our EDs and has ensured people feel safer when they access care in their times of need. Sam Uffindell: Why was this such a priority for the Government? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: Just last week, guards that were provided through our ED security boost helped to swiftly remedy a fight in Christchurch Hospital's emergency department between gang members. That is why this programme was such a priority for the Government. The safety of our health workforce and patients is and always will be a top priority. We must say no to violence in our EDs. Sam Uffindell: What are the next steps for security in emergency departments? Hon Dr SHANE RETI: This programme addressed an urgent, immediate need over the busy summer period. We'll be assessing the impact that this has had and will look for ways to improve safety long term. Ideally, we would not and should not require security in our EDs. This Government is committed to law and order and making our streets safer for everyone, including our EDs. Question No. 6—Children 6. TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP (Te Pāti Māori —Tāmaki Makaurau) to the Minister for Children: Does she stand by all of her statements and policies? Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Yes. Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke: What is she doing to ensure the safety of tamariki in State care in response to the report by Oranga Tamariki which has shown that more children than ever are being harmed under her watch? Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I acknowledge that the reports do not reflect well on Oranga Tamariki or the previous Minister for Children. But while there have been some improvements, there are many areas that have been highlighted that are an issue. I am dedicated to making real change in this area, and some of that space is around making sure caregivers have the right support wrapped around them to take care of our most vulnerable and making sure that we are making sure that the best interests of our young people are the first and foremost in decision making when it comes to our young people. Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke: How can she justify cutting 600 staff at Oranga Tamaki when understaffing is a major factor in the increased rates of harm we are seeing under her watch? Hon KAREN CHHOUR: No commitments have been made on what's going to happen in staffing levels. Those decisions are still ongoing and those discussions are still ongoing. Takutai Tarsh Kemp: How can she justify removing section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act when rates of abuse for tamariki Māori in the Crown's care have almost doubled in the last five years? Hon KAREN CHHOUR: Repealing section 7AA is something that I have campaigned on for the last three years. We need to make sure that the best interests are first and foremost in every decision we are making around our children, and those reports are showing that a lot of that harm is when children are being placed back into family care. We need to make sure that we are creating the best wraparound services possible so that these young people have a chance in life to not just survive but thrive. Takutai Tarsh Kemp: Will the Minister accept responsibility for any further increases in rates of abuse of tamariki Māori in State care as a result of her policies, including removing section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act? Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I take this role very seriously, and every report of harm of a child is disappointing. My focus is to make sure that every child, Māori or non-Māori, is safe, loved, and cared for. Question No. 7—Health 7. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Health: Does she stand by all her statements and actions? Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): Yes, in particular what I said in answering the member's question in the House yesterday, when I said, "When I received this delegation, I provided a range of information to officials, including things like Hansard … and previous policy proposals around smoke-free and vaping to help guide conversations. The health paper came back setting out a number of areas … [to provide] advice [on] … and I marked that I wanted advice on [each] of them". That health briefing refers to proposals and notes. I want to be clear they were not my proposals or notes. They were not things I had written. This was general information I had provided officials, and I'm sure they can verify this. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Why did she tell Radio New Zealand, "I haven't looked at a freeze on the excise duty at all" when the notes she gave to officials said, "Freeze the excise rates on smoked tobacco for three years starting 31 December 2023"? Hon CASEY COSTELLO: It is unfortunate the actions have been distorted by a media article. The fact is I was asked a question about whether I had sought specific advice. I had not sought specific advice, which is the question I answered, and I referred to a range of advice I had sought from officials. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: How does she explain her statement to RNZ that "I had not sought that advice at all." when she had requested it through the documents she provided to the Ministry of Health? Hon CASEY COSTELLO: As I said, I stated I had not sought specific advice on the excise tax. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Who wrote or collated the notes that said, "Freeze the excise rates on smoked tobacco" that she gave to health officials? Hon CASEY COSTELLO: The documentation is a range of historical policy positions and notes that were held in New Zealand First policy positions. Some of it relates to things that were passed in the legislation when New Zealand First was in Government. This is a range of points and positions and it's about five pages long. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. That was a very specific question about a very particular document, and it wasn't answered, because it was asked what the authorship of that document was. To say that there's a series of documents from the New Zealand First policy library doesn't come close to an answer. Hon Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order, the Minister answered it in extensive detail. She said it's about a five-page-long document based on historical New Zealand First Party positions from a range of different sources, including the past. The Minister actually gave far more information, frankly, than I think she is required to as a Minister, in the interests of illuminating the public debate on this issue. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: The question cannot have been credibly answered, because how could a historical document contain a policy proposal for December 2023? SPEAKER: Well, with all due respect, that wasn't necessarily the case in the answer that was given. But I will ask the Minister to have another crack at answering it, if that's OK. Hon CASEY COSTELLO: The pages of notes that were provided to the officials were a compilation of information that was extracted; the authors I'm not sure of. They were historical policy positions. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Who wrote the note that said, "Freeze the excise tax on smoked tobacco in 2023" that she gave to officials? Hon CASEY COSTELLO: I couldn't tell you the author of that document. It's in the document archives. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Do things in her office just appear out of thin air? SPEAKER: That's not a reasonable question. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: How can the public trust her to take action on youth vaping when she is secretly sending notes to officials that nicotine isn't harmful? SPEAKER: No, hang on. No, that's not an acceptable question either. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Why not? SPEAKER: Because you cannot make an allegation that notes that were sent to officials—that the member asking the question knows about—were secret. Quite ridiculous. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: How can the public trust her to take action on youth vaping when she is sending notes to officials saying that nicotine isn't harmful? Hon CASEY COSTELLO: As I've stated in the policy positions that we have taken, I'm seeking a broad range of advice, including how we deter youth from vaping and taking up, and also how we give the tools to those who are addicted to nicotine to quit smoking. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Did she deny seeking advice on a tobacco excise tax freeze when asked by Radio New Zealand, despite having actually sought that advice, because she did not want to be questioned on her plans to give tax breaks to the tobacco industry? Hon CASEY COSTELLO: No. Question No. 8—Emergency Management and Recovery 8. MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery: What recent announcements has he made on flood resilience? Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, can I acknowledge the recent one-year anniversary of the Auckland floods on Auckland Anniversary Weekend, as well as the lives lost during that significant weather event—those included two of our firefighters. I am pleased to share with the House that I've recently announced $26.8 million of funding for flood resilience projects across the country, of which $12.3 million has been for flood risk mitigation across 13 projects, and $14.5 million for Future of Severely Affected Land Category 2 support across four projects. This funding has gone to projects in Northland, Waikato, Manawatū-Whanganui, Wairarapa, Bay of Plenty, and the Coromandel. The Government remains focused on delivering high-quality investment for flood resilience to better protect communities. Mike Butterick: What projects has he announced funding for in the Wairarapa? Hon MARK MITCHELL: Good news for the member's electorate. The Government has funded the Flat Point Flood resilience project, early flood warning systems in the eastern Wairarapa, sewer resilience and flood relocation support in Masterton, and water protection in Riversdale. These projects will ensure that his electorate has a greater resilience to flooding in prone areas, ensuring that homes in Flat Point enjoy greater protection from flood events, communities receive better warning of flooding, sewers in Masterton are protected from inflows during heavy rainfall events, and homes in Riversdale are provided greater protection from erosion. Miles Anderson: My colleague the member for Northland is interested to know: what projects has he announced funding for in Northland? Hon MARK MITCHELL: More great news: flood relief in Morningside, Whangārei; the clearing of the Awakino river mouth; installation of a boxed culvert to increase the size of Beach Road culvert in Whangārei, and the upgrade of the Murphy Bower stopbank on the Wairoa River to protect the Ruawai community. The member can be assured that his community has received relief to address an urgent need to make the smaller rural communities he knows well across the electorate more resilient and better prepared for weather events. Sam Uffindell: What announcements has he made around Future of Severely Affected Land Category 2 support for Tauranga? Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, more great news for the member: as the member will be familiar, two landslips took place during the Auckland anniversary flooding, on Egret Ave and Te Mutu Crescent in Tauranga. I'm pleased to have announced $7.3 million to provide a long-term, permanent remediation solution for his community. Tim van de Molen: What announcements has he made for the Waikato? Hon MARK MITCHELL: I've announced funding for several projects in the Waikato. Funding for the Waihou Rivers Network Recovery to remove storm-affected vegetation and the planting of new willow and poplar poles, alongside erosion protection works to stabilise riverbanks; removal of waterway obstructions and the construction of at least 85 in-stream erosion control structures to mitigate future flood risk in vulnerable areas of the Waikato, Waipā, and West Coast catchments; resilience work for the Lake Hakanoa channel to prevent floodwater entering homes in Huntly—vital to maintaining water levels and prevent further environmental degradation; and storm-damaged tree removal in the Coromandel. In addition, I have announced $1.3 million for slip stabilisation in Thornton Bay on the west coast of the Coromandel and $1.1 million for support for homeowners across the Waikato to mitigate risks associated with future landslides. Question No. 9—Police 9. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Police: Is it the Government's policy to train "no fewer than 500 new frontline police within the first two years", as per the National and New Zealand First coalition agreement? Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Yes; the Government will deliver 500 net more police on the beat in two years. Hon Ginny Andersen: Given the Minister's renewed commitment to the National and New Zealand First coalition agreement of 500 new police within two years, when did he first become aware that Police's current recruitment practices would not enable police to achieve any desired growth without other interventions? Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, as I've said many times in this House, I became aware as the incoming Minister that Police faced major challenges around recruiting due to the fact that the Australians are here recruiting our police officers, they were finding it difficult to fill recruit wings, and we've got many police officers that are fast approaching retirement age. Hon Ginny Andersen: When did he first inform the Prime Minister's office that Police's current recruitment practices would not enable Police to achieve any desired growth without other interventions? Hon MARK MITCHELL: I had several conversations when I became aware of the situation around recruiting, with several of my colleagues. Hon Ginny Andersen: What specific interventions is he considering in order to meet his renewed commitment to the 500 new police in two years, and will he rule out lowering current recruitment standards as one of them? Hon MARK MITCHELL: I was recently at the Gisborne police station and there was a young constable there that had been put in charge of mentoring and identifying young people in the community that may be interested in a career in Police. He has been very successful. In the latest recruit wing, I think there were four that had been recruited through that process and were proudly graduating. So I think we're just going to have to look at many different options in terms of how we meet our target of 500 over two years. Hon Ginny Andersen: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a question that asked whether he was going to lower the standards, and he gave me a story about a visit in Gisborne. SPEAKER: Have another go at asking. Hon Ginny Andersen: Will the 500 new police all be constabulary or does it include authorised officers? Hon MARK MITCHELL: No. Unlike the previous Government, who deceived New Zealand by saying they had recruited 1,800 front-line police officers when in fact they hadn't—it was 1,500—we will be recruiting, training, and deploying 500 sworn police officers, and in relation to standards, no we will not be dropping standards. SPEAKER: I just remind the Minister answering the question that the choice of language was not appropriate there. All political positions will be put from a position considered honest by the person putting it. How someone else sees it is a different matter, but it's not for this House. Question No. 10—Transport 10. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) to the Minister of Transport: Does he consider the proposed road user charges for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids fair, compared with road user charges and fuel excise duty for similarly sized vehicles; if so, why? Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Yes. The Government has announced that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will contribute towards the maintenance of our roads, as other vehicles do. The changes proposed for electric vehicles will ensure that they pay the same amount as a road user charge as those other light vehicles which pay a road user charge. There are variances throughout the system, and that is why the coalition agreement with ACT commits this Government to progress a fleet-wide transition to road user charges that will result in a much fairer charging system based on how much people travel the roads and the weight of their vehicle. Hon Julie Anne Genter: How is it fair that the average electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid owner would pay more than double the tax of a similarly sized petrol vehicle for a return trip from Wellington to Auckland? Hon SIMEON BROWN: There are variances throughout the system, as I acknowledged. That is why the coalition Government has agreed to progress a fleet-wide transition to road user charges that will result in a much fairer charging system. This was an issue that was not addressed under the last Government, and this is the first step towards ensuring that all vehicles who use the road pay towards contributing towards maintaining it. Hon Julie Anne Genter: Therefore, I can confirm that the Minister acknowledges that an electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid, as shown here, would pay more than twice as much in road tax under his proposal on a trip from Wellington to Auckland? Hon SIMEON BROWN: There's a range of variables around how much based on the fuel usage. The problem with the current system is that it charges people based on how many litres of fuel they put into their car rather than how much they use the road. We want to move to a system which charges based on how many kilometres and the weight of that vehicle, rather than what type of fuel motors that vehicle. That is the reform that we are progressing. Hon Julie Anne Genter: So his Government is happy to financially disincentivise electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles relative to polluting fossil fuel vehicles in the interim while we wait for his alternative road user charges proposal? Hon SIMEON BROWN: No. This Government has confirmed that the exemption, which would run out on 1 April this year—which was actually, by the way, put in place by the last National Government to help incentivise electric vehicle uptake—will end now that 2 percent of the fleet is electric. What we're saying is all users of our road should pay and contribute towards maintaining it. Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is he concerned about the combined disincentive effect of charging electric vehicles more tax, given the Ministry of Transport's advice that scrapping the Clean Car Discount means transport may fail to meet its third emissions budget? Hon SIMEON BROWN: No. The issue that the member continues to raise is she's just simply looking at how much tax is paid based on the number of litres or the type of fuel used. We want to move it to being a distance and weight change, and that member's graph that she continues to raise doesn't take into account the full running costs of those vehicles. As everyone knows, electric vehicles are far cheaper to use and drive, as many members of this House know, but that graph that she uses misinforms the House. Ricardo Menéndez March: Point of order. The Minister just made a comment regarding my colleague misinforming the House, effectively accusing her of lying. SPEAKER: No, he said—[Interruption] Firstly, if a point of order is being taken, the House is silent and listens to it. What he said is that the graphic misinformed the House—quite a different matter. Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is the Minister aware that the running charges for efficient petrol vehicles would also be lower, therefore their contribution to tax is lower than less efficient vehicles, and, therefore, what is the logical connection between cars having lower running costs and contributing less to the roads on a per-kilometre basis? Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, I really enjoyed the co-leadership bid from the member opposite, and if she would like to table a copy of that document, I'd be very happy to have a read. Hon Julie Anne Genter: Point of order. It would be great if the Minister would attempt to address the question. SPEAKER: It would also be great if questions were asked. With all due respect, if you have a look at your Hansard, several of your questions have started as a statement. So I think the interchange here has been one-on-one. You can feel free to ask your question again. Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is the Minister aware that vehicles that run on petrol that have lower running costs would also contribute less to the roads on a per-kilometre basis, and, therefore, on what basis is he saying that electric vehicles have lower running costs and therefore should pay more to run on the roads, when that's not the case for petrol vehicles? Hon SIMEON BROWN: As I've said to the House a number of times, there are variances throughout the system and that is why we have started work to move all vehicles to the road-user charges system so people pay based on distance travelled and vehicle weight rather than the type of fuel that is used. We think that is a far fairer way to charge, and that is where we are heading. Ricardo Menéndez March: Point of order—yeah, just at the earliest opportunity that I was able to bring it up, but my understanding with Speaker's ruling 205/5(1) is that "Ministers should not commence an answer to a question with a political attack on the person asking the question.", and there were incidents where that was the case. So I'm just asking the Speaker to just reflect on the fact that we've got Ministers starting those answers with political attacks, not addressing the question. SPEAKER: I didn't pick it up that way; if that's the way the member's party has seen it, I'll take a look at that and come back to you. Question No. 11—Education 11. Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by all her statements and actions? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education (Partnership Schools)) on behalf of the Minister of Education: Yes. In fact, how long do you have? A personal favourite is my commitment to reintroducing partnership schools under this Government, a policy that was unceremoniously dumped by the previous Government and yet has the potential to make an enormous difference for disadvantaged students up and down this country. Hon Willow-Jean Prime: What does the Government's commitment to restore balance to the Aotearoa New Zealand's histories curriculum actually mean? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Minister, this Government is a coalition of three parties and the coalition agreement set out that restoring balance is exactly what the Government is committed to doing with the Aotearoa Histories curriculum. The way that that will be done is set to come before Cabinet in the future, and once those policy decisions have been made, I'm sure the member will be the first to know. Hon Jan Tinetti: Does the Minister stand by her statement that the ministerial advisory group reviewing primary school English, maths, and statistics curricula are subject-matter experts who will ensure that our curriculum is knowledge-rich, detailed, grounded in the science of learning, and internationally comparable? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Supplementary. Yes— Hon Grant Robertson: No. No, no. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Oh, that's right— Hon Grant Robertson: I'd like you to ask a supplementary. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: That's right, we won the election. On behalf of the Minister, yes. Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Does she think ministerial group member Professor Elizabeth Rata's statement, "Nearly 40 years ago the 1985 Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Act set in motion a radical constitutional agenda. The aim: to shift the country from democracy to tribalism. In [the same] time, a corporate tribal elite has privatised public resources, acquired political power, and attained governance entitlements." is knowledge-rich, and, if not, why not? Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Supplement—oh, sorry. I've got to stop doing that. On behalf of the Minister, I've appointed Professor Elizabeth Rata because she is a well-recognised and renowned educational expert. Any views that she has expressed in terms of her political views are not relevant to her appointment, which is based on her educational expertise. It would be a strange thing for the Labour Party to reveal that they actually profile people for their political views before appointing them on the basis of their expertise to get the job done and get a better curriculum for New Zealand's kids. Question No. 12—Commerce and Consumer Affairs 12. NANCY LU (National) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What proposals has he made to streamline and simplify the conduct requirements for financial institutions in New Zealand? Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Yesterday, I announced at the Financial Services Council meeting my intention to simplify regulations, cut red tape, and reduce costs to financial institutions. There were three elements. First of all, the proposal to move from three to two regulators. Secondly, to reduce from a maximum of six licences to a single licence. Thirdly, to reform the Conduct of Financial Institutions (CoFI) requirements to make it easier for smaller financial institutions to meet their obligations. We are committed to reducing compliance and regulation, where appropriate, and getting the economy back on track. Nancy Lu: How will clearly defining the roles of the two regulators assist financial institutions? Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Currently, some institutions are accountable to up to three regulators. What I announced yesterday is a move to just two regulators. First of all, being a prudential regulator, who is, of course, the Reserve Bank, but, more importantly, moving to a single conduct regulator, being the FMA—or Financial Markets Authority. By making this change, financial institutions will have clearer lines of responsibility, which means they can focus on running their businesses more effectively. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: What initiatives has he announced in respect of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, and how does that differ one little bit from the announcement of the last Minister on 8 August 2023? Hon ANDREW BAYLY: I announced, yesterday, that we are looking into the credit contracts Act because our intent is to improve the regulation, which the previous Government has made an absolute hash of—hash of. What we're intending to do is to make sure that vulnerable borrowers are still protected, but, just as importantly, making sure that credit is available to those who need it but have been excluded under the current regulations. Nancy Lu: What are the benefits of moving to a single licensed regime of conduct? Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Currently, some institutions have to apply up to or hold five licences with the FMA. With the new Conduct of Financial Institution—or CoFI—bill, that requires an additional licence. What we're proposing to do is to move to a single licence issued by the FMA—or Financial Markets Authority—which means less duplication, reduces the operational burden for institutions without compromising conduct requirements. Nancy Lu: How will this Government make it easier for smaller financial institutions to meet their CoFI obligations? Hon ANDREW BAYLY: As I announced yesterday, I'm requesting that the FMA issue clear guidance on the minimum requirements necessary for smaller institutions to meet their obligations under CoFI regulations and legislation. This will allow the smaller institutions to develop a more tailored approach, ensuring obligations are both proportionate and fit for purpose, while balancing the importance of fair treatment for customers. NEW ZEALAND PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION ACT REPEAL BILL Third Reading Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Minister for Regulation): I present a legislative statement on the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill. SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website. I'd ask members leaving the House to do so speedily and quietly, with no conversations in the aisles. Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I move, That the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill be now read a third time. There has been considerable debate over this bill in proportion to the length of the bill and the size of its effect. To reiterate: the New Zealand Productivity Commission has for 13 years functioned as a Crown entity and a kind of quasi-Government thinktank, which has produced a wide range of advice on public policy matters—everything from strengthening global links through trade and investment, to building more homes, to improving the quality and quantity of regulation. All of those resources produced by the Productivity Commission, including one more report, expected to be reported back to the House on 15 February, will remain as public property, in the public domain, ad infinitum. For the rest of this country's history, they will be available as a valuable asset. Many of them, I hasten to add, would be very beneficial if the Government implemented them. We heard someone say that perhaps, because people are dying, we should stop medical treatment. Well, that's not quite the right analogy for stopping the Productivity Commission—and it was James Shaw who said that. I think a better analogy is that, when we're doing a bad job, it's time to stop asking for more large reports on what to do and start implementing the advice that we've already got. In this particular case, we are going to stop giving around $6 million a year to the Productivity Commission to produce more reports. We are going to take that money and we're going to establish a ministry of regulation, whose job it will be to uphold and enforce the quality of lawmaking in New Zealand and to review the red tape and regulation that stifles so much productive activity up and down this country, so that New Zealanders can get on with building their homes, their families, their businesses, and their lives without undue restriction from badly made laws. That is what we are doing. One of the consequences of that is that a group of very good, intelligent, productive people who have been in the commission—some of whom are past people, such as the inaugural chair, Murray Sherwin, others who have been commissioners since, and those who are staff members—will no longer have employment at the Productivity Commission from the end of this month. This is something that has been signalled since the end of November and, as I assured members in the committee stage, one of the first things I said when we asked how we are going to go about this was I said to the Treasury officials—who have been responsible and, I think, have done a very good job of this policy process—we must make sure that we look after the current Productivity Commission staff. I have every confidence that that will happen. Of course, I'm not going to comment on the specifics, because there is a series of private matters there, but that has been one of our first priorities. That means that those people are being looked after, as best as can be hoped with a range of personal circumstances, as we go through this process. What remains is two big opportunities. One is for the Opposition to actually read some of the fabulous work that the Productivity Commission has done, so that they will have some policy ideas to take to New Zealanders and show how they can actually make New Zealand a better place than they did last time. And, if they were to do that, they might start asking higher quality and less back-bity questions at question time and start bringing along some ideas! The second is for the Government that is in place to use the proceeds that would have gone to the Productivity Commission in the next financial year to establish the ministry of regulation and start seriously improving the quality of regulation that New Zealanders up and down this country face, so that they can in a very real way experience and access tino rangatiratanga—the ability to use their own property, to live their own lives as they see fit, without following ridiculous, poorly made regulations, which, I would say, could be characterised as one of the worst manifestations of colonisation. With that, I commend this bill to the House. Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Well, here we go. Don't raise the ire of David Seymour now that he's in Government or he will disestablish you. It's a pity, really, isn't it, that we've got a commission whose objective is to assist the Government in raising the productivity of New Zealand—as the Minister has identified, on its staff it has some really good thinkers and it's developed some really good policy or proposals—and then he kills it. He's criticised the Government over the years for not picking up these reports and implementing them. Well, now it's his turn. Let him do exactly that. So I look forward to seeing those responded to in concrete and real ways. The real tragedy, though, is that having recognised the usefulness of the Productivity Commission, as the Minister himself identified in his speech, this is going to be replaced with a bundle of bureaucrats looking at rules. Go and order the clipboards, David Seymour, your people are going to need them, because that's essentially what we've got here—we've got yet another layer on the legislative and regulatory check. It's not just Regulations Review Committee, Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, the Attorney-General, other select committees, ministry officials, the Attorney-General report, regulatory impact statements, departmental reports and statements. No, we're going to have another one of those. We're going to have the "David Seymour department regulation ministry review statement". And I really can't see that that's going to add anything at all, other than employing a few of the public servants who other departments are laying off—I suppose that's one glimmer of hope. I found it difficult to listen to him pretending to be compassionate as he demolished the Productivity Commission and said, "Oh, and I said, 'Look after the employees.' ", without once saying what he's doing, without once saying that he's giving them compensation for terminating their employment, without once saying that he's making sure that they are transferred. So he's got no care for those people whatsoever. And the bill that is drafted under his care has no provision whatsoever for respecting the employment relationship. It says, quite shortly, quite bluntly that the employment contracts are terminated. Ironically, leases aren't terminated. Ironically, all of the other contracts held by the Productivity Commission are moved to the Treasury, but employment contracts are terminated—end of story—which really goes to show you what this Government is really about. So, look, yet another piece of legislation from this Government which is destroying. This is not a Government that builds up; it's a Government that tears down. And so far, all it's done is tear down Labour policies and now, ironically, it tears down the ACT creation: the Productivity Commission. Look, one day I hope we'll hear in this House something about the ministry for regulation. I look forward to having the opportunity to scrutinise exactly what that's going to look like. I've certainly seen the three different draft bills that failed in this House previously under the ACT Party's watch, and I can only hope the same will happen for the next one. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In his third reading contribution just now, the Hon David Seymour started by complaining, or apparently complaining, about the length of the debate on this bill relative to the length of the bill itself, which I find ironic, because the Government put this bill into urgency and then spent most of Wednesday evening filibustering it in order to make it go slower. So many of the contributions, especially in the committee of the whole House stage, were questions about words in the interpretation clause, which are pretty easily dealt with, and which, in fact, most of the people asking do or ought to know the answer to already. Another of the ironies of all of this is that the Hon David Seymour says that he wants to disestablish the Productivity Commission in order to be able to then use the money to establish a ministry for regulation. He's very concerned about the quality of regulation in this country, and so concerned is he about the quality of regulation that this bill has had no submissions and no select committee hearing, it was put through under urgency, and it has no regulatory impact statement attached to it. In other words, it is one of the worst examples of poor parliamentary process and governance and oversight that you can get in this Parliament, where the Government is using the urgency process, not because something is actually urgent, but because they just don't want to take the time to have a proper regulatory oversight of the process. So that's another of the many ironies that are attached to this bill. He may complain about the length of the debate, but I think he may have actually just let himself in for it, given the shoddy regulatory approach to this bill itself. Part of the length of the debate, of course, has been extended by the fact that Mr Seymour and other members of the Government have spent much of the time talking about something that isn't in the bill, and that is a proposed ministry for regulation. They've extolled the proposed virtues of this proposed ministry of regulation, which doesn't exist. As far as we know, it isn't on the—well, it's not contained in the bill and there's no reference to it in the bill, but they have spent a great deal of time talking about this thing that actually isn't in the bill. All this bill does is disestablish the Productivity Commission, and so then the question becomes "Is it a good idea to disestablish the Productivity Commission?", not "Is it a good idea to do something else with the money?" That is different: that is a budgetary process, rather than a process of deciding whether or not to disestablish the commission. It's obviously entirely legitimate for a Government to decide that they want to stop doing something and then use the money to do something else. That's entirely fair and reasonable, and Governments do that all the time—they do it every year through the Budget process. But in order to justify shutting down the Productivity Commission, there have been some arguments made in an attempt to say that "Well, it's a good idea to shut down the Productivity Commission.", so let's examine some of the arguments that they have made to do that. The primary argument that I heard members on the other side make—because remember that they have continuously extolled the brilliant nature of the work that the Productivity Commission has done, and that does not appear to be in debate at all. They've said very clearly that they think that the work that the Productivity Commission has done is good work, and, under normal circumstances, if you didn't need the money for something else, presumably that would then continue. But one of the things that they have said as a reason for shutting it down is that Governments don't listen to the advice of the commission. Well, if you take that to its logical extreme, you would also disestablish the Treasury, and then so the bottom of The Terrace would sulk because every Government in history has continuously ignored the advice of the Treasury, and yet you don't shut the Treasury down because you ignore its advice. I mean, it's kind of de rigueur for Governments not to listen to advice from other parts of the government. So that is a completely spurious argument for why you would close the commission down. Another argument that was made was that it was felt that appointments to the commission were being politicised. Now, there have always been ministerial appointments to the Productivity Commission, and, of course, people on this side of the House were concerned about some of the appointments that the Ministers on the other side of the House made when they were in Government, and we felt that those were political. But that was the process; that was the system. Now, they didn't feel that those appointments were political, because they agreed with the opinions of the people that they were appointing, and therefore it didn't look political. Then some other appointments were made by the Labour-led Government when they were in Government, and the then Opposition said that they were political because they disagreed with the opinions of the people being appointed. This is a ridiculously reductive argument. It's very easy to make that problem go away: you set up an independent appointments panel. It's at arm's length from the Minister and appointments are done on the basis of merit, the people who are appointed to the appointments panel are human resources experts and recruitment experts and not Ministers, and so on, and so it's pretty easy to solve that problem if you were interested in solving that problem. So the arguments for disestablishing the commission are weak. The arguments for retaining it are actually quite strong. As has been said, the work that they have done is of very high quality. There have been cases where Governments have actually adopted the advice of the commission. There are very few other parts of the Government where this kind of independent economic policy analysis gets done outside of ministries, and we kind of know what happens to ministry advice. Mr Seymour challenged this side of the House to maybe read some of the reports and to perhaps adopt some of the advice and recommendations in some of those reports as policy. Well, I would like to assure him that, actually, not only have we read those reports; we have adopted some of those policy positions, and I'd like to refer to one in particular. In their very good report in 2018, which was commissioned by the Hon Steven Joyce, a National Minister at the time, the Productivity Commission produced the Road to Net Zero report, a very substantive, long piece of work. One of the many, many recommendations in there was that the Government adopt a feebate scheme to incentivise the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs). A feebate scheme is where a fee is applied to the more polluting vehicles, and that revenue is then recycled into subsidies for the less polluting vehicles. That was adopted by the Green Party in Government between 2017 and 2020. It was referred to as the Clean Car Discount, which was implemented in the last term, and it led to a more than 1,200 percent increase in the uptake of electric vehicles. It did exactly what the Productivity Commission—which at the time was run by people who had been appointed by the then National Government—had said in a report that had been commissioned by the then National Government, and those recommendations, in an entirely non-partisan way, were adopted by our Government. Interestingly enough, the current Government is currently disestablishing the feebate scheme—which was recommended by the Productivity Commission when it was run by people who were theoretically non-political and who were appointed by the then Government—that was in a report that was commissioned by that then Government. So if Mr Seymour and the members of this Government want to make the argument that we should get rid of the Productivity Commission or that the people on this side of the House don't pay attention to the reports and don't put those things into place, then they actually just need to do a little bit of reading and take a little look at history—New Zealand histories, if you like—and see what actually happened. There may actually be better ideas out there, by the way, in terms of how you increase EV uptake, but one of the primary reasons why the Government adopted that policy proposal was because it had been proposed by an independent Productivity Commission report. The assumption was therefore that it would be seen as non-partisan and political and that, therefore, it would endure, because that was the nature of that institution. However, that institution is about to be disestablished, and that side of the House will continue in opposition to their own coalition agreement statements that they will be guided by facts and evidence by disestablishing one of the leading organisations in this country that provides us with facts and evidence. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill. I think, while we can disagree, the Hon James Shaw and myself, it's amazing how our perspectives change when we only move a few metres across the House. All of a sudden, the member is understanding the frustrations with the urgency process and the use of it which we spent a lot of time railing against only a few months ago. However, as I said, perspective matters. The regulations ministry, which the Hon James Shaw referred to, as did the Hon David Seymour, will actually make a huge difference. Where the Productivity Commission wrote reports—and some of them were worthy; there's no doubt about that—it really contributed little to our economy. We need to prune out the regulations that are not only extraneous but, further than that, are making so much more— Hon James Shaw: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I was just wondering if we could invite the member to refer to the bill that is up for debate rather than to debate something that isn't in the bill. SPEAKER: Well, that's true, but he's only just getting started. I will listen to that, but I'll call the member to keep it relevant to the bill. We've got a big day on here today. STUART SMITH: Thank you, Mr Speaker, I won't take up too much more time, because I covered some very good points on this bill. But all I can say is the time has come for the Productivity Commission to be disestablished, and the regulations ministry will take over and do a much better job. Thank you. JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill, third reading. So we've heard through the first and second readings and through the discussions that this has come to a point where we need to repeal. It's this coalition Government that can see, on this side of the House, saving some money to put this money into a better place. Hon Willie Jackson: Saving some money, is it? Oh, OK. JAMIE ARBUCKLE: It will. The Minister has outlined where that will go. So we know red tape is a problem, and we will be able to put this money to a better place and to a better spend. New Zealand First will support this. We commend this bill to the House. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. It's really fascinating, sitting here and listening to members of the Government get up and repeatedly speak about something which is not in this piece of legislation—that is this ministry of regulation or deregulation or red tape, or whatever it is. It's a ministry of new bureaucracy, if you will. The reason, though, that I think that that's a really important issue to, kind of, call to mind as we are working through this today is that, as the Hon James Shaw highlighted in his contributions, we here are working under urgency with this legislation through a process in which there has been no public consultation nor submissions. Yet members of the Government continue to proffer, in their contributions to this debate, about this hypothetical entity, of which we have no substantial detail, terms of reference, or otherwise. I actually do think that's it's really worthwhile to actually point to the fact that this is very much in line with the pattern of behaviour that we've seen from this Government. Time and again, they have pulled out the shredder and said that they don't like the direction that the country is headed in and decided to rip up that direction, that plan, that blueprint. And they've done so saying, "Just wait and see. We don't know where we're going. We're not necessarily going to be clear on that, but we'll revert to the status quo or business as usual until we figure that out. We have no time frame, no understanding of what the terms of reference are, nor the substance of what's to come." I also think it's really valuable, in my contribution, just to highlight the history of the Productivity Commission, as others have—albeit not members of the Government, in their very short contributions thus far. That's, of course, to point out, as others have, and as the Hon James Shaw has in his earlier speeches and readings on this bill, that the Productivity Commission was originally an innovation of the ACT Party. Here, I have to point out that we have in the Chamber one Dr Don Brash. I do wonder what one Dr Don Brash, a former member, and leader, of the ACT Party may think about the disestablishment of the Productivity Commission—originally a baby of the ACT Party. The problem is we'll never know because there was a circumvention of typical and conventional parliamentary process to have a select committee process and public submissions on this legislation before us today. Yet, once again, we're asked to just wait and see; to fly blind into this future that the Government has not given us any indication of what that looks like, but simply some bald-faced platitudes. That, I think, really goes to the heart of the statements, as put on the record by the Hon James Shaw yesterday and the day before, that this is Government by slogan. So I think it's also really important to point out that in the respective agreements that have cobbled this Government together—the Government of the "Three Scrooges"—what we have is a commitment to data and evidence in the founding documents of this Government. With regard to "data and evidence"—and this is a point made by the Hon James Shaw in his contribution just before—I have found that one of the most frustrating experiences that I have been part of in the last six years that I have been in Parliament, indeed, with a Labour-led Government, obviously, for the majority of that time, is that we have seen successive Ministers, Prime Ministers, Cabinets, Governments, and Parliaments commission advice, only to ignore it when it's inconvenient. Then, there's a lot of examples that I could give; there's many, as the Hon James Shaw put forward, with regard to the Productivity Commission. But here I just point out the likes of, for example, the 1988 Housing Commission report, which stated back in 1988: "New Zealand does not have the huge, insoluble problems of homelessness and substandard housing which confront many other nations." That 1988 Housing Commission report happened to be the final report of the Housing Commission because it was disestablished, after being established about 50 years prior by Michael Joseph Savage as part of the instruments of Government to establish a premise of housing for all, obviously—as New Zealand is a signatory to human rights internationally—to underpin housing as a human right. And we had this Housing Commission exist to produce reports every five years to Governments of different stripes, to give them that data and evidence from an objective perspective to inform them how to produce a policy that was actually going to meaningfully result in housing being recognised as a human right. What's really interesting about the disestablishment of that Housing Commission, by virtue of its inconvenient advice, is that also in that final report from the Housing Commission, we had, and I quote here—or, rather, prior to quoting, just advice against the establishment of the accommodation supplement which we now see paid out to the tune of $2 billion a year. Mr Speaker, if I may take Te Pāti Māori's call, with their permission. Tākuta Ferris: Absolutely. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Ka pai. SPEAKER: Well, hang on. With all due respect to the member on the other side there, when the Speaker's asked a question, it doesn't get answered from the floor. Nice work, though, and thank you, but carry on. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I quote here that the accommodation supplement would "add little to total housing supply while allowing private landlords and property speculators to make even higher charges for a non-expanding supply of housing … [raising] the purchase price of land and rented property." Yet another example of advice that was ignored by the Government at the time. But not only did they ignore that advice, they disestablished the very commission that produced that inconvenient advice. We see, to this day, that the Government pays out approximately $2 billion per year in that accommodation supplement for a non-expanding supply of thousand. In fact, 1.5 million renters in this country tend to pay more of their money for lower quality, more overcrowded, and more mouldy properties. There's another classic example of this, actually, which the former National Government in 2014 commissioned, in the form of the Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship, which was chaired by Sir Graham Lowe and recommended, ultimately, a phase out of all alcohol advertising in sport. And guess what? We then saw then Minister the Hon Amy Adams saying that they didn't want to progress with that advice from this panel that they themselves had appointed. We then had, under the former Labour-led Government, a number of reports that were commissioned, and the advice was subsequently ignored when it became politically untenable as perceived by the mainstream. For example, we had He Ara Oranga, the mental health and addiction inquiry, and we had Turuki! Turuki!, the safe and effective justice review. The former recommended that we move towards a decriminalised approach for substances in this country in order to promote harm-based interventions—a health-based approach—in order to improve livelihoods and lives. Turuki! Turuki! actually went even further and recommended legal regulation of a few substances. This was seen as inconvenient, unpopular, and not something that Labour wanted to go out on a limb and advocate for, therefore it was shelved. We also have a situation even more recently, at the end of last year, where the incoming Government once again did their favourite tactic of firing up the shredder with the Taxation Principles Reporting Act, and what they did, despite all of the evidence demonstrating— Helen White: Point of order, Madam Speaker. We've had quite a long time without any reference to the Productivity Commission whatsoever. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Thanks for your help. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So to the point of what I was saying with regards to the IRD tax principles bill and the general theme that we've seen under this Government of firing up the shredder and ignoring inconvenient advice and deciding not to follow advice where it may already be public, we saw the Minister of Revenue, at the end of last year, under urgency, deciding that the Government was going to repeal the IRD tax principles reporting legislation. Again, with all of the speculation, at that point in time, being that the Minister should have already had a draft report of that on his desk. So, yes, Madam Speaker, all of that kind of leads us to this point whereby we have seen successive Governments decide to ignore data, evidence, and advice where it is seen as inconvenient. And I think that the Hon James Shaw made a really salient point when he said that, ultimately, this is a matter of the Government seeking simply to whip out the shredder, and we have to play this game of wait and see on what replaces it. So the Greens oppose this legislation, because we are very much open to, and invite, more data and evidence and informed policy. The Productivity Commission has produced a number of reports to this effect. Unfortunately, we have absolutely no idea where we're going with this so-called ministry of regulation, deregulation, red tape, or otherwise. Thank you, Madam Speaker. CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I support this bill, the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill, and I think we're kind of missing the point across the House a little bit, because this is about disestablishing the Productivity Commission, but it's about driving productivity in this country and focusing on taxpayer dollars and spending them wisely and resourcefully—that's what this is all about. If we're going to focus on productivity, we've got to drive those sectors that produce, and that's agriculture, that's supporting our exporters, that's supporting our businesses, and that's supporting the places that are going to drive productivity in this country, and that is reducing red tape, reducing regulation, and reducing compliance. That is why I commend this bill to the House. Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think it's probably appropriate that Dr Don Brash is here to support this kaupapa, because, of course, this is yet another example of our far-right, race-baiting Government's commitment to New Zealand. There's no doubt about that—under urgency, cancelling the Productivity Commission so that David Seymour can fund his new ministry of regulation razor gang vanity project. This isn't public policy; it's social-good vandalism—I think we're all agreed on that. And it's hypocritical and extreme to be rushed through under urgency, with minimal oversight. It's a shame all the ACT Party aren't here; I would have liked to have addressed them. Even their leader has applauded the work of the Productivity Commission. I mean, yesterday, just for example, he said that the Productivity Commission has done some tremendous work—tremendous work—over the past decade or so and that the work will remain available as an asset or a taonga for New Zealanders, to be a guide for policy formation. In the next breath, he cuts their throat. He amputates them at the neck. With friends like David Seymour, who needs enemies? He just loves this commission, but we know what he's done with them. If we're being honest, he'd admit that in killing off the Productivity Commission, the reality is that he wants to—him and his ACT friends—take from the rich and give them tax cuts instead. I think that's what's driving this legislation; I think we all know that. That's left him scrambling to, basically, cut anything he can. He's robbing Peter to pay Paul and then using Paul to sack Peter. No doubt about it. It's political desperation at its worst; it's not a visionary nation as Mr Seymour talks about. It's a shame they're not all here; I would have loved to have seen them all here today. If the cost being saved by ACT's new vanity project was so easy to gain, then why can't this new "ministry of blaming red tape" fund itself from all the cost savings they were supposedly meant to find? It's a ministry of red tape to examine if there is too much red tape—that's the reality with this. The ACT Party would cut public education, public health, and public housing if they could fund a vanity programme like this, because it gives them enormous power, as we all know, to damage the regulations that our capitalism is dependent upon. I was listening to my colleague Duncan Webb, who's done a great job on this. Yesterday, he attacked this bill as a needless virtue-signal that won't achieve the promise claimed. He's right, it won't. But what I fear is that ACT will use this new red tape ministry as a razor gang that will seek to amputate as much as it can for their pure ideological glee. Hon Member: Whose money is it? Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Well, that's the question. And who's backing the ACT Party? I think that's the big question. Who is this all for? Why gut the Productivity Commission, a respected voice in our political landscape, for this new ministry of regulation razor gang vanity project? Who's interests—and I'm glad the question's been raised—are ACT actually serving here by silencing the Productivity Commission? Well, if you've been reading, we've all heard about it: the Atlas Network, an international far-right thinktank whose extreme policy platform seeks to attack public servants, push for radical privatisation, dismantle regulation protecting workers and their environment, and champions landlords over renters. That sounds remarkably familiar and similar to a certain party in this House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can the member refer to the Productivity Commission bill at some point? Hon WILLIE JACKSON: All right. I thought I was. Thank you for that, Madam Speaker; I thought I was. But I'm making an analogy, Madam Speaker, in terms of who is behind the ACT Party and this policy. I see a smile coming out because what we're hearing is that the exact policy platform that is being articulated by the Atlas Network is being articulated by not just the ACT Party but by the Taxpayers' Union and the New Zealand Initiative. The question is: who is pulling David Seymour's strings? That's got to be the question for New Zealanders. Axing the Productivity Commission for a vanity project razor gang that implements far-right, free-market Atlas Network wish lists, and Don Brash's wish lists—good man, Don Brash, might I add, apart from his strange political affiliations—raises questions for New Zealanders in terms of where we are with support from overseas far-right thinktanks. I put that in front of you today, and I want to praise our team for— Dan Bidois: Which far-right thinktanks, Willie? Hon WILLIE JACKSON: We all know the far-right thinktanks. I say, as I'm about to finish here, that New Zealanders should be worried. There's a big week coming up next week, in terms of Waitangi, and it gets even worse from ACT as we look at what they've got in front of New Zealanders next week. We're all looking to see how David Seymour is going to be welcomed at Waitangi. Kia ora, Madam Speaker. NANCY LU (National): We are already very clear that the New Zealand Productivity Commission is no longer serving its intended purposes. We need to seriously get to work and improve the quality of regulation and reduce Government spending. So stop wasting time. I commend this bill to the House. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Speaker. What has actually been really clear is that this Government does not care for public consultation or engagement in relation to important bills that come before the House. Once again, this is another example of this Government putting through legislation without the ability to have a select committee, because, if we took it to select committee, the select committee—basically, public submitters would have the ability to be able to answer this question: do you want an independent advisory expert group that was set up for the purpose of allowing public debate, or do you want a Government agency controlled by a Minister whereby you are not able to participate in the debate? That is what a select committee process would've allowed the public to have been able to submit on. As I've said in the second reading of this particular bill, this is about control. It is about David Seymour being able to control the research and narrative that comes out from his own new agency, as opposed to being able to, again, allow there to be a high-level debate, which is why this commission was set up in 2010. It was Bill English who said it was about encouraging high-level debate. Productivity, we all know, is an issue for our country, and it should be something that all parties within this House are able to debate freely with the public, but how can they have that debate if it gets siphoned into a ministerial Government agency? I also look to Rodney Hide, when he spoke about when this Productivity Commission was first established. He said, "Establishing the Commission is one concrete step towards arresting New Zealand's productivity slide." So then I ask the question: why is it really that David Seymour wants to remove the Productivity Commission? I think what it is is because it's a personality issue—a personality issue. David Seymour was reported in a press conference on 5 September 2023 saying it had been "frankly hijacked" and that he wouldn't have appointed the chair that it currently has. If that's the case—you just don't like the chair—change it. That's your discretion as the Minister. Don't, basically, remove the public debate, the high-level debate, which a National and ACT Government put into place. So I do not support this bill. I do not support the process and the logistics in which this bill came to the House, which removes the ability to have a public debate, in the same way that the Productivity Commission being removed does not allow for a public debate. DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth): This bill is about evolution. It's evolution of how we as a country can improve the productivity that we so dearly need. It is a bill that is the result of our coalition agreement with the ACT Party, and obviously, effectively, repeals the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act 2010. This will affect the disestablishment of the Productivity Commission, because it is seen by this coalition Government as no longer serving its intended purpose. This Government sees a better way to cut red tape and improve the productivity that this country so dearly needs. It's an outcome that will improve people's lives, it will improve people's lifestyles, and it will improve people's livelihoods. And for that very good reason, I commend this bill to the House. HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you. I am going to ask a question of the Government, which is what are they afraid of? Because this organisation that is going to be disestablished today was an independent body that looked at our most important problem in this country, other than climate change, which was the productivity which underpins peoples' incomes in this country. I want to go back to an earlier person in charge of the Productivity Commission. There was a report done by a woman called Gail Pacheco, and I worked with her. She was an academic, she worked in workplace relations, and she looked specifically at pay gaps. I want to remind the people who are listening here that while we have heard from the National Party that this will be replaced by something which is an evolution, apparently, it doesn't do the same job at all. Because Gail Pacheco looked at the wellbeing of people, and she looked at what was going on in terms of breaking the cycle of persistent disadvantage. I ask members of the public to think—and, in fact, the Government—is a ministry set up to look at cutting red tape really going to support that end? Is it going to be able to look at the same issues? And the answer is no. It's comparing apples with pears. It's simply not the same thing. So I agree with the Hon James Shaw when he says that that's a side issue. Let's talk about that at some other time. Let's talk about the merits of this because we have a productivity problem in this country. We have a whole lot of businesses which have under four fulltime-equivalent staff. We have small businesses that need the support of good knowledge and expertise. And it needs to move away from political rhetoric. It needs to move away from an ideological commitment to actual evidence. And what we have in a small country is we have valuable people, and those are the people that are disestablished by this law. That's why the contracts are being broken, because those peoples' employment contracts represent those peoples' commitment in this area. And what they're being told today is, "You're gone. You're not coming to Treasury." You're not adding to the pool of knowledge that we desperately need in this country if we are going to actually build a productive economy in a very challenging environment with climate change, etc. If we want to build that kind of economy; if we want to support our small businesses, our little companies that make up most of what we need to build in order to grow; if we want to build better frontier firms, which are those big firms that bring in the research and development, etc., we are not going to do it all by something that we'll talk about the merits of later—something to do with regulation and cutting it. That's not the whole picture, is it? What we had here was actually what we call a quango. We have something that's got independence. Maybe it wasn't perfect. I, for one, during these debates, have learned that perhaps what we needed to do was actually further depoliticise. We probably needed to move to a model where the person appointed was not appointed by the Minister and we probably needed to move to a model where those reports came to Parliament and we looked at them and we had to respond to them so we all focused on the wisdom of what is the great knowledge out there in our community—the great goodwill out there in our community from people who have headed these organisations and worked for them. That would have been a good thing. That would have been a good, decent tweak. I remind the public: this Productivity Commission came up under ACT. It was ACT who thought about it. It was ACT who thought about that first iteration. Now we have ACT saying, "I'm not interested in listening. I don't want to know what the experts have to say. I don't want to know about productivity if it doesn't fit my incredibly narrow frame. I want to stay in control of the whole picture up there." So the public are being denied the whole picture. They're being denied the help of good, hard-working, expert New Zealanders who would have contributed further value in this area we desperately need. So don't bark on to me about how you are helping hard-working New Zealanders when you are cutting them off at the knees and you are cutting off all the voices out there that you disagree with. That is my problem here, because we are not going to solve the problems in this country by simply allowing the Minister, who is bringing in a ministry of regulation, David Seymour, to rule the roost. And it is very important that the National Party and New Zealand First think for themselves and think about that critically, because we have always had that tendency for a tail to wag a dog, and the Government is mainly not made up of the ACT Party. It is time, very early on, to recognise what is arrogant, what is shutting the ears and eyes to anything other than thinking that one person knows best. That is what is going on—an ideologically driven, one person knows best - solution from the Minister David Seymour. And everybody who's in the Government ranks and each of these parties participating is ignoring their better instincts, because I know that New Zealand First had some really good ideas around productivity. They were responsible for a lot of the support of the Government getting in behind and helping seed good products and businesses in rural areas where they had had really devastatingly low economic environments and really low incomes. And that all is part of a productivity story. And all of that is being blocked out—all those stories are being blocked out by a narrow ideological commitment to just cutting out people. That might make things more profitable sometimes, but it's not going to make New Zealanders better off. It's not going to help our wellbeing. It's not going to help the wellbeing of the people that Gail Pacheco was looking at in the fair chance report. It's not going to break the cycle of persistent disadvantage which is actually the reality for the majority of New Zealanders. What it is going to do is cut a whole lot of safety and regulation which, in fact, annoys big players—really big players. Yes, they might benefit, but are hard-working New Zealanders going to benefit from getting rid of one of those truly independent organisations we have—all those voices that we lose when we lose an independent group which were doing good work. It wasn't un-well-meaning. It wasn't wasting its time. It didn't cost that much money. It was something that was adding value in this country where we desperately needed it. We have one of the lowest productivities in the world in terms of who we are. We desperately need to get this piece right in a country that's changing rapidly. And this Government today turns its back on the chance to involve all of those people in it, and I am ashamed of that happening today. So I ask you to consider that and I do not commend this bill to the House. RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East): I just want to acknowledge the Hon Willie Jackson there. I'm quite new to the House and I learnt some good material there. "Razor gang vanity project", "social good vandalism", and "overseas far-right thinktanks". There's some awesome material there that I can use. Thank you for that productivity—the art and science of doing more with less. Not spending more and doing less like we've seen over the last three years, but doing more with less, more efficiently. As has been well canvased over these readings, the Productivity Commission has done some really fantastic work, particularly across the housing affordability, social issues, and identifying regulation constraints that, if removed, would enable us to be a much more productive people and therefore nation. In terms of construction costs, we are in the bottom 10 percent of the OECD—the Infrastructure Commission's told us that. Lots of agencies, NGOs, and laypeople can tell us the problems. We don't need the Productivity Commission anymore; it's the end of a season. So let's take those learnings and the learnings of the Productivity Commission over the last 13 years and now implement them in a more integrated and efficient way. I commend this bill to the House. A party vote was called for on the question, That the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill be now read a third time. Ayes 68 New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8. Noes 55 New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6. Motion agreed to. Bill read a third time. SOCIAL WORKERS REGISTRATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL Second Reading Debate resumed from 31 January. Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Kia ora, Madam Speaker; really good to have the support from the other side with regards to some of our initiatives and whakaaro, and glad that that member over there is learning something. This particular bill is a bipartisan bill. It's good that we can, on these types of kaupapa, come together, because it is a really important bill. This bill, of course, will delay the repeal of the experience pathways to social work registration from February 2024 to February 2028. I think one of the points that was made during the kōrero on this bill was that people with practical experience can actually do the business out in the workplace. I think that members probably know that. In this particular area, I've seen firsthand—I was telling Minister Mark Mitchell last nightinteresting enough, in my former roles as a CEO for our community groups, that we engage a number of our Māori social workers who never had the qualifications that you probably should have, and eventually you must have. But some of our best Māori social workers had community and life experience. I was telling Minister Mitchell last night that we had actually engaged former gang membersI thought he'd find that quite interesting, in terms of cutting to the chase, in terms of some of the gang problems we were experiencing in South Auckland. Who better to address some of the domestic violence that was going on in some of the homes that we were working with than ex-gang members who'd turned their lives around? I think some of the mahi that we did at ground level, particularly in the whānau ora space, where I would hope that this Government would continue to invest in that kaupapa, was rolled out by people who did not have the necessary academic qualifications in terms of social work. They can be some of our best people. So that is why this type of bill is really important, and that is why we as political parties—whatever our parties are—must come together to support a lot of these social workers who have great skills, who have life skills, who can change lives. As I said, through my organisation, Manukau Urban Māori Authority, Waipareira Trust—we had Manurewa Marae too over there, with Takutai Tarsh Kemp, mihi to her for her wonderful mahi out there, out south in Manurewa. We know, that at ground level, you can engage our people—that has been the Māori experience—and then we get the qualifications, as we must do. But first and foremost, it's about changing people's lives. That's why this kaupapa is important in terms of giving people space and time to get the necessary tohus in the end, or qualifications. That's why we absolutely tautoko this bill, and 'glad to see that all the parties and members in the House can come together on this type of issue, Madam Speaker; kia ora tātou. JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's great to rise on the second reading of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. Just to touch briefly on the background of this bill, the Social Workers Registration Act initially brought in the rules around this, back in 2003. It established occupation regulations to ensure that social workers are fit to practie and accountable. The regulations are intended to protect the safety of the public, to ensure that the people who provide these services provide the highest quality service. I would support what we heard from the previous speaker, the Hon Willie Jackson that these social workers do a very important job in our communities. They help lives—and can help save lives, in fact—and it's a huge contribution that they make, but we need to make sure the people who are doing that also have the relevant skills necessary to deliver those services, often to people in quite a fragile life state. So the intention back in 2017 was to repeal what's called the "experience pathway" into social registration with a delayed commencement date. The decision to repeal that was made in support of the professionalisation of social work, to emphasise the standardisation of the workforce requiring social workers to obtain an academic qualification. However, the reality is that we have come through to 2024 and we are some 700 vacancies short and we just simply don't have the people that we need. Of course, we've had some significant life events and national and global events that have affected people in New Zealand and are continuing to affect the people. I refer to, obviously, the COVID pandemic and the long tail that is coming from that. Only recently, I was in Te Ānau, for example, hearing about the significant ongoing effect on people from the pandemic. It's still having quite a big impact on people's lives, and people are still trying to come to terms with the emotional and financial challenges etc. that stemmed from that period. e need these social workers; we don't have enougho the intention of this amendment bill is to add another two years for that experience pathway, so that people who don't have those academic qualifications but have the experience that is necessaryto ensure that we feel comfortable that they're competent, fit, and proper can offer these services to people in the community. e want to extend this by another two years with the amendment that will be made to ensure that people in New Zealand have better access. But we also do want to send a signal that we do think it is important for people who work in this area to have those academic qualifications, to make sure we have the standardisation and that they have the skills so they can feel comfortable offering these services to people and the community. So with that, I'll just say a deep thankyou from all of us, I think, here in the House to the people who offer these services across the country to our communities. They provide an incredibly valuable service and I thank them for their contribution. With that, I commend this bill to the House. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I was looking through this bill and thinking that it's a pretty good bill, and then I was thinking, "Who's voting for it?" and I thought, "Everyone is voting for this. We've got National, ACT, and New Zealand First voting to register social workers." And I thought, "Has National finally run out of things to disestablish?" Maybe they have. Is it now that they're actually passing Labour legislation because they've run out of their own bills to put? And is the point of registering social workers so that they can keep tabs on how many they're going to fire when they bring in social investment and get rid of the Public Service. I am pleased that we're passing a bill that does good things for social workers and brings more rigour into the sector, but I am highly sceptical of why we're here doing this in unison. It's good that we're doing more to encourage people to register and to be able to encourage that forward, but I am highly sceptical of how social investment is going to work, particularly for our social sectors, and how those communities that are the most vulnerable in New Zealand are served by social workers when a programme of 6.5 percent cuts to all social services will directly impact people like social workers in New Zealand. DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It's a pleasure to rise in support of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. In contrast to the previous speaker, Ginny Andersen, I want to focus on the importance of this bill. I don't think there's anybody in this House that would look at what social workers do and think, "Wow, why do they do what they do?". It's such an important role that they play and there's not a lot of people that would actually be willing to do what they do. So I'd like to just start by acknowledging the significant contribution that social workers play in addressing some of our most intractable challenges that we have as a country. This is an important bill, because this bill allows those that don't have the necessary qualifications but have the experience—it gives them the opportunity to continue to serve their communities. When I think of social workers I don't have to look too far than my own sister, who's a social worker, and the work that she does helping young Māori, young rangatahi, and young Kiwis throughout the country—and all those social workers out there that do a fantastic job in serving their communities. So this is a bill that we are happy to support on this side of the House. It does give a little bit more breathing room for the sector to deal with the workforce shortages that we face in social workers; around about 700 vacancies for social workers across this country. We've got to do a better job of encouraging people into the sector, and part of that solution is, of course, training more into social work. Another part is encouraging those that have the experience but don't have the qualifications to go and serve their communities. I think the benefits of this bill have been well traversed in this House, and I commend this bill to the House today. LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm very pleased to stand up and speak on this bill and make a short contribution. I also want to acknowledge the number of speakers that we have heard today. We heard the Minister for Social Development and Employment last night. We also heard the former Minister, Carmel Sepuloni, talk about the social worker registration, especially her impact and knowledge and lived experience of bringing the original bill to the House, shepherding it through. I also want to thank speakers on this side of the House, Matua Jackson, Willie Jackson—many of us know many social workers in our local communities. In South Auckland—a number of them qualified and unqualifiedassisted during the COVID period, especially in Māngere, where we had the floods and many of our mātua came through. I do want to make a short contribution as to why this bill is important. I also want to highlight and thank the many individuals who are not qualified but they have mana, and they have aroha, and they are involved in social work. This bill is about their consideration of becoming a qualified person. But in some of our communities—particularly iwi, Māori, Pasifika, ethnic—there isn't that need to become a qualified person because you are already there. The last point I wish to highlight: last night, the Minister for Social Development and Employment said in her kōrero; in her contribution—and I'm sure it's on Hansard—that she was considering reducing the time from four years to two years. I want to put a plea in to the Minister as she considers and reviews and puts the bill through the necessary processes: I would oppose that consideration for the simple fact that many of our community members that can go through and become qualified actually are quite busy—very busy looking after their families, going through the cost of living crisis, and other duties. It's not that study and becoming qualified is anything less. There's just the time. When you come from inter-generational households that you are supporting, you are working; you are helping three generations of your household. I would support that the length of time of four years needs to be supported. I commend this bill to the House. CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): I rise in support of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. "Kumbaya" had broken out until Ginny Andersen got to her feet and launched an unprovoked attack on this Government when we were just trying to be the nation's great unifiers. I stand here alongside all parties in support of this amendment bill. The bill, as you know, currently seeks to delay the repeal of the experience pathway for social workers' registrations. Delaying the repeal of that experience pathway will act as a short-term mechanism to help reduce the workforce pressures in the social work sector by continuing to provide an alternative means of entering that very important profession. The coalition Government, as the Minister Louise Upston said to us last night, recognises and values the critical role that social workers play in our communities. They provide essential front-line services to vulnerable New Zealanders. We saw the role they played during the COVID-19 pandemic, during the recent weather events of a year ago, Cyclone Gabrielle and the flooding around the country. So this Government is committed to supporting earlier interventions, which are more effective for those most at risk. There are two pathways for registration currently. As we know, it's the qualification pathway and you can do a achelor's degree in many universities across New Zealand. In fact, you have been able to for a number of years. Despite my youthful looks, my flatmate did a Bachelor of Social Work 33 years ago when I was in my first year at university, at the great university of Palmerston North. To be eligible for registration, as the House has well traversed, applicants must have a qualification prescribed by the Social Workers Registration Board. However, section 13 of the Social Workers Registration Act of 2003 provides this alternative experience pathway to registration for people who have had extensive practical experience but who do not have the prescribed qualification. It was in 2017 that Cabinet agreed to repeal the experience pathway with the delayed commencement date, and we believe as a Government that more time is now needed. As the Minister has suggested, perhaps it's going to be an amendment for two-year extension to aid the sector to transition to a mandatory qualification setting, due to social worker shortages that currently are faced. As the member for Northcote, Dan Bidois, has already said, the Social Workers Registration Board estimate that there are 700 unfulfilled social worker vacancies currently. This has been also in growing recognition, in recent years, of the importance of diversifying the social work sector to better serve the communities more effectively. Extending for a couple more years the experience pathway is a key avenue to supporting this. I look back, and this has had a long gestation, at the Social Services and Community Committee report back to the House in August 2023 ubmitters were almost universal in their praise for this delay. Submitters told the committee that delaying the repeal and retaining the experience pathway would, among other things, recognise the importance of real-world experience and having a range of pathways into the social work profession would acknowledge that qualifications are not the only way to demonstrate competence as a social worker, that it would help to fulfil the current workforce demand, it would allow for greater diversity in the profession, and it would allow for more time to explore other options with social worker registration. There were some differing views, but the National Party is satisfied that pulling in the extension from four years to two years will mean that the mandatory registration of social workers and the public safety will remain absolutely paramount. Looking through the explanatory note, it's been well traversed by previous speakers exactly why we're doing this. It also gives us the opportunity to consider other entry pathways, as I've said, into the social work sector. Carmel Sepuloni spoke last night, and she too, of course, has been a leader in this piece of work. Workforce pressures on social workers, exacerbated by COVID-19—this extension of this repeal will certainly help. So I commend this bill to the House. Bill read a second time. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Members, we are about to again begin the first of the maiden speeches, so while we transition and the gallery fills up, we may just take a one-minute pause. MAIDEN STATEMENTS ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Members, in accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, we will now have maiden statements. Following the maiden statements, the House will adjourn until 2 p.m. on 13 February 2024. I call on Todd Stephenson to make his maiden statement. TODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker, and can I wish you a happy New Year, and all the best for your family in 2024. Can I congratulate the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon on leading the National Party into Government and becoming New Zealand's 42nd Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, like me, has gained experience working in the corporate sector, and I hope this stands us both in good stead to help deliver real deliver change for New Zealand. To the Rt Hon Winston Peters, congratulations on leading New Zealand First back into Parliament and Government. People can say many things about the current Deputy Prime Minister and foreign Minister, but you can't question his commitment to public service. Congratulations to all the National Party and New Zealand First MPs elected. I look forward to working with all of you over the course of this Government. Now, that brings me to the ACT team. To the Hon David Seymour, with the 2023 election, you have firmly cemented your place in ACT history. Having already rebuilt the party to a multi-MP caucus in 2020, we returned in 2023, with more MPs and an additional electorate—good work, Brooke. On top of that, ACT is, for the first time, sitting around the Cabinet table with a significant number of Ministers. The Catholics have saints; in ACT, we have what some of us like to call "icons". These are people like Sir Roger Douglas and the Hon Derek Quigley who founded the party, Brian Nicolle who built it, the Hon Richard Prebble who led it into Parliament, and Catherine Isaac who anchored it in classical liberalism. David, your place as an ACT icon is now assured. I also want to thank you— Hon David Seymour: You also said I'm history! TODD STEPHENSON: —not yet!—for all your support, encouragement, and advice that you have given me and continue to give me. This election has delivered an extremely talented group of ACT MPs with different backgrounds, experiences, skills, strengths, and approaches. I couldn't be prouder to sit alongside Cameron, Laura, Parmjeet, Simon, Mark, Andrew, Karen, Nicole, Brooke, and David. I've never felt so welcomed and supported within a team, and I know I'm going to learn so much from each of you. To the ACT staff here in Wellington and Auckland, thank you for everything you do for us to ensure we can deliver for voters. Without you, the ACT team wouldn't be effective as a party or in Parliament. To the ACT board, members, and supporters, thank you. It is only with your hard work and the efforts of volunteers that a political party can campaign, grow, and thrive. It is your efforts that have delivered the ACT team to Parliament and into Government, and you should be proud. To the almost quarter of a million New Zealanders who voted ACT, thank you. We don't take lightly the trust you have placed in us to deliver a better Government for New Zealand. I hope the start we are making lives up to your decision to support us. I also want to give a special shout-out to the electorate of Southland where I stood, and which delivered a very strong party vote for us. To the new and returning members on the other side of the House, congratulations. It is important for our democracy that people are still prepared to stand for Parliament and to take on this unique role. I look forward to working with all MPs over this term. So I stand here as the 30th ACT MP elected to this House. Given that we've only had 10 MMP elections, being an ACT MP, in one of the world's only classical liberal parties with elected representatives, is a rare and unique opportunity. How did I end up here? Was it something I'd planned to do for many years? Well, the truth is, actually, no. I have a reasonably simple approach to life: when an opportunity presents itself, grab it. I think this approach, to some extent, might have been shaped by my family and upbringing. I was born in Lumsden, Southland; my parents, at the time, were living in Te Ānau. I very much enjoyed during the election campaign people coming up and telling me they were also born in Lumsden. I actually recently discovered there's a Wikipedia page dedicated to people born in Lumsden, and I'm on it! My parents had met in Te Ānau a few years earlier, my mother working as a hostess on a boat taking people to the glow worm caves, and my dad as a caves guide. While Te Ānau was my mother's hometown, my dad had come there to teach at the local school. He had grown up in Dunedin with his younger sister Elaine, and my paternal grandparents, Martin and Kath Stephenson, who were Scottish; their families having come to New Zealand a generation before. My mother's parents, Alf and Thelma Excell, were of English descent, and after they were married, had moved to Te Ānau to become some of the town's first full-time residents. It was there that they had three daughters: my mother, Dawn, and her two younger sisters, Lynne and Cheryl. Before starting their families, both of my grandfathers, Alf and Martin, served in World War II overseas. My grandmother Thelma had also served in the Women's Royal New Zealand Navy. That conflict remains a defining moment in our history, and including our own. It's because of the service and sacrifice of so many that we can stand in this House today and enjoy the freedoms that they fought for. I'd like to think my grandparents would be more than a little chuffed to have their grandson in here as an MP. I have many fond memories of growing up spending time with my grandparents in both Dunedin and Te Ānau. For a kid growing up in Southland, Dunedin seemed like a big city, with its tall buildings, shops, and hydro-slide. I continue to have a fondness for Dunedin. It's where I went to university and I would again return to be admitted to the Bar. I also had the opportunity of practising law with Judith Ablett-Kerr, and that would be one I would cherish forever and I really appreciated that experience. Te Ānau would become a second home, particularly during the school holidays. A few years after I was born, my dad accepted a position as the principal of Mimihau School—that's just outside of Wyndham, and for those not from the South, it's kind of near Gore. During our time at Mimihau, my brother, Brad, would be born in Gore. He's actually a bit more of a petrol head than me, so I wonder if that was the start of it, by having been born in Gore—I'm not sure! Mimihau would also mark the start of our own family's "tour of Southland". Dad would grab his opportunities to advance in his teaching career, often with my mum working at the same school. In addition to Mimihau, this would see us living in Isla Bank in Western Southland and Bluff—right at the bottom of the South Island—before Invercargill. I attended four different schools before I went to high school. Our family made many friends in these communities, and some of which we still see today. I have no doubt that the experience of moving school, needing to make new friends, and fit into new environments built a significant amount of resilience which would later assist me in life. My parents had decided that my brother and I should only attend one high school. So we both attended James Hargest High School—now James Hargest College. I really enjoyed high school. It is actually my recollection that I never had a single sick day during my entire five years—someone's probably going to check that now. Our high school year group also got on very, very well and I'm delighted to have some of my high school friends here in the gallery today. It was during high school that I became more aware of current events and politics. I grew up during the fourth Labour Government and the significant and necessary changes they made to advance New Zealand. After high school I wouldn't live in Invercargill again, but still consider my hometown. It is where my brother Brad, his wife Lizzie, and my three nephews Scout, Dustin, and Murphy live. Scout is continuing the family tradition of going to James Hargest. My parents would continue to happily live and work in Invercargill for many more years. Sadly in 2010 my mother Dawn would pass away after a short illness. She was an extremely determined woman, always willing to try something new and ensure my brother and I had a great upbringing. I'm sad she didn't get to meet her three grandchildren, her numerous nieces and nephews, or my partner Alex, but her presence is always with us, and I know she would have been extremely proud of what Brad and I have achieved. Dad would eventually leave Invercargill after he retired, moving to Te Anau. He would again find love, marrying Robynne in 2022, and we would gain an extended family. It's great to have you here Dad and also Robynne up in the Gallery. In 1993 I went to the University of Otago and studied law and had the quintessential "scarfie" experience. In the same year as I started university, Sir Roger Douglas had published Unfinished Business and then, along with Hon Derek Quigley, founded the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers. It was over those early years of university that I discovered what I believed in, and that I was a classical liberal, and I found my political party—the ideas of individual freedom and personal responsibility, that the role the State should be limited, governments shouldn't do anything the private sector could do more effectively and efficiently, and of course, low, flat tax. These all resonated with me. So, while I might have explored my sexuality, trying both sides before picking a team, I've never done that with my political parties. I joined ACT New Zealand on its formation and went on to campaign for the party at four General Elections, work with it thanks to Priscilla Tate, and was twice elected to the ACT Board. In November this year, ACT will be thirty years old. While it makes me feel a little bit old, it's a significant achievement that Brooke van Velden, who was only one when the party was formed, has never known a political landscape without ACT. I'm proud only to have ever voted ACT, supporting the party even in the bleakest of times when the liberal flame was almost extinguished. In 2006, I embraced the opportunity to work overseas and moved to Australia. This would result in an extremely fulfilling career, the majority of which was spent in the medicines sector. The medicines industry is a great example of private investment in the capitalist system. These companies are everyday harnessing science, collaborating with stakeholders, and getting investment to deliver the latest medical treatments. It's a great example of where the private sector is doing something no government could or should do. No government could manage the complexity, let alone accept the considerable cost and risks involved. My work in the medicines industry also allowed me the opportunity to work with various patient communities, and some of their healthcare professionals. This has been extremely rewarding as I got to understand the day to day issues of people living with various diseases, and also learned the importance of patients having a voice in the healthcare system. Thank you to everyone who works in the health sector and the patient community, particularly those I've had the pleasure to work with. I know the difference your efforts are making every day. I'm committed to working with David Seymour to deliver a modern, efficient, and effective medicines access process so Kiwis can get the world's best treatments. We won't be able to do this alone and so I look forward to continuing to collaborate with those in the sector. So after my long association with ACT and my background of work in Australia, around the middle of last year a series of conversations took place about me standing. So I reflected on my history with ACT and what I'd learnt in the past 17 years. I'd been responsible for strategy and held leadership roles. I knew about government and public policy. Many times, I'd aligned people on a common goal, developed a strategy to achieve it, and then worked for an outcome. I knew that no company's place in the world was certain and that to be great they must continue to innovative, understand their customers and stakeholders, and compete for capital and talent. I thought these could be useful skills and insights to help address the significant challenges that New Zealand faces. And in the end, I didn't really have a compelling reason to say no—so here I am. We live an increasingly complex and global world, and we must ensure New Zealand doesn't fall further behind its peers. I'm here to play my part in how we re-think how our government operates and delivers for Kiwis. And while I'll bring a classical liberal lens, I'm always willing to speak with others who share a desire for a better government, for a better New Zealand. Finally, there is one person I'd do want to talk about, my partner Alex. Almost 14 years ago, Alex and I met in the way which is now so common, online. Alex is an amazing person: great company, super intelligent, funny, and incredibly kind and caring. He's also always taken a keen interest in my professional career. He is my greatest advocate, cheerleader, sounding board, and always provides advice and feedback. I got a lot of advice and feedback on my campaign from Alex, and I also look forward to the debrief on this speech tonight. I want to thank Alex's family, his dad John, brother Paul and wife Visjna, his nephew Kiwan and niece Talia for welcoming me into the family and also understanding and letting us move back to New Zealand. Thank you, Alex, for joining me on this next chapter of our lives—I love you very much. While ACT has a number of principles and values, there is one I'd like to read to you all: "Each person must be judged as an individual by reference to the person's own personality, character and actions and not as a member of a group defined by race, gender, sexuality, region, political belief or other group characteristic.". And so it is on my own merits, as everyone should be, that I want to be judged by my time in this House. So thanks to everyone who is here to support me today, I really appreciate you coming. And with that, it's now back to the business of a better Government for a better New Zealand. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Hon ANDREW HOGGARD (Minister for Biosecurity): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Over the years, there have been several maiden speeches that have inspired people or moved them to tears. This probably won't be one of them [Laughter], but, with luck, you may get a few laughs—got one already. I have two great-great-great-grandfathers who were members of this House in the early years of our democracy. In preparation for this speech, I did a bit of digging, hoping for some inspiration. One of them was Alfred Saunders. Well, he was quite keen on prohibition, so I struggled to find a lot to agree with there. Universal suffrage, however, I could agree with him on that. There was one comment in a speech of his I did find quite pertinent—and I paraphrase—that "members of this House should try to only speak when they had something useful to add that improved the knowledge of everyone". I think that's good advice and probably worth repeating. The other ancestor was William Cargill. Well, apparently, he wasn't big on talking, he hated Auckland—our capital at the time—and basically just wanted Otago and Southland left alone. It's hardly surprising that Invercargill was named after him and his birthplace. This leaves me with talking about the subject I least like talking about: myself. Firstly, I would like to thank those friends and family who have taken the time to come here today and listen. I would especially like to acknowledge my wife and daughters who, rather than miss out on their first day back at school, are watching on TV—wherever the camera is. It meant a lot to me to have them at my swearing-in at Government House. I figured that occasion was worth missing a day of school. Listening to me prattle on for 15 minutes—not so much. But seriously, I do want to pay a special debt of gratitude to them. Because as the other farming members in this House know, you aren't just leaving your family behind during the week to deal with the usual issues that may come up in the family home, but also, they get to deal with the thousand moving parts that make up a working farm. Such as the herd breaking into the maize silage crop—which I wish was a hypothetical example, but it's not: that vandalism took place at 1 o'clock this morning. I am truly fortunate that my wife and daughters can support me by handling all of this. This isn't new for them. If it wasn't for my wife, I would not have been able, over the years, to engage in various forums and be involved in farmer advocacy. I have probably spent more wedding anniversaries at World Dairy Summits with farming colleagues than at home with my wife. So once again, Audra, I am truly grateful for the support you provide to me. To Michaela and Payton: thank you for keeping me grounded and helping me recognise my place in the world—which is just below two cats, a dog, and several pet day calves. I would also like to pay tribute to my parents and brother and sister. It's fair to say it's not till later in life that you really, truly appreciate all that your parents have done for you. From my parents, I feel I learnt a couple of important lessons. Farming during the 1980s was not easy. Today, in this House, we are concerned about inflation, but I'm sure my father would love to parody that famous line from Crocodile Dundee: "That's not inflation; this was inflation." People nowadays think that dairy farming is an easy get-rich-quick scheme. I can tell you that was not my childhood—20 percent interest rates make life hard—but it was a childhood where I learnt all about work ethic and community service from the example of my parents, who did every role from school boards, to school sports, to community service groups, and beyond. It would be remiss also not to mention my sister and brother. I am thankful that as children, then teenagers and adults, we have stayed close. Given both are in agribusiness, we have run into each other quite a bit over the years in work settings. So far, just my poor sister has had to sit through a meeting referring to me as "Minister"—through gritted teeth. I'm not sure that my brother will have that level of control. I am sorry to them for making their lives so much more awkward because of me choosing to do this. For me, the path to Parliament is not one that I set out on. My education was very much run-of-the-mill State schooling, from Plateau primary school, to Maidstone Intermediate, and then to Heretaunga College in Upper Hutt. My classmates were a mix of children whose parents were scientists at Wallaceville, civil servants, tradespeople, and even the head of the local Mongrel Mob—a real melting pot of New Zealand society. From there, aside from thinking I should probably go to university, I still really wasn't set on any path. In fact, the decision of which university to go to was made more on the fact that a visit to Victoria University showed lots of hippy-looking types playing hacky sack compared to a visit to Massey University, where the uniform of choice was red bands, rugby jersey, and track pants. It was fairly obvious as to what culture was for me. My degree choice of agricultural economics was based more on its likelihood of getting me a spot in the hostels than any particular career interest at that time in "ag economics". However, in saying that, I did become very interested in all matters agricultural trade - related and international economics. My three years doing the degree very much laid the basis for my beliefs around the importance of free markets and that fundamental level of efficiency that will come when you do not interfere and let the market do its thing. It also taught me that when you actually know what you are talking about, you don't need to use big words—you can explain it in simple terms that most people can understand. As I went through my degree, I found that the thing I enjoyed the most about uni was working on the farm during the holidays. After Massey, I spent a year on a farm at Mile 47 of the Alaska Highway in British Columbia. This gave me a real appreciation of just how special New Zealand is for farming, and again the importance of open markets to drive efficiency—not to mention a lifelong dislike of snow. Coming back home in 1997, it was into farming for me. This was a few years into the expansion of dairy farming in New Zealand. The backdrop to my entire farming career has been this whole debate around farming and the environment. I sometimes lament that a lot of the debate seems to be stuck in 1997. Some have a view that things have to change, and I have constantly heard over the years that we have to change our farming systems. Newsflash: the difference between my first year of farming and today is like night and day. Farmers are not afraid or reluctant to change; we are constantly looking for better ways to do things. Change is a yearly thing. Every year, I and many other farmers in this country are always trying something new in our farming systems. Some work, some don't; we adopt, we adapt, and it's incremental. Like all good things, they take time. The biggest change I have seen isn't the physical one on the farms, but it's one of a mindset shift and what many farmers are looking at, as to what more they can do. We have seen the growth of catchment groups, and I see dairy farmers talking with pride at how much fencing of waterways they have done. I recall speaking on a farming panel at the World Dairy Summit in Rotterdam. All the other farmers got up and talked about what they were going to do and maybe intended to do, whereas I was able to get up and speak about what we had done, all without subsidies—a point that got a few laughs, but probably more grumpy looks from the EU! The biggest risk to further progress is ignoring this change. If the feeling amongst farmers becomes "Why do I bother to do all this, because there is nothing I am doing that is being recognised?", they will give up. They lose hope; they stop doing. Farming will continue to evolve. "We want to encourage that to continue in a way that is sensible, practical, and affordable"—to quote a former colleague. Early on in my farming career, we moved to Feilding, and I joined Young Farmers. This led to my first representative role as the Manawatū district chair, and then the regional chair. The big thing for me at Young Farmers was being a contestant in the Young Farmer of the Year. I remember watching on TV as a kid, wondering how good you must have to be to make it to the grand final, never thinking it was something that I could achieve. Competing in the Young Farmer contest taught me several useful things: firstly, with all the practical modules, stop, look at the problem, identify the issues, think out a plan, "What tools do you need?", and then enact the plan—as opposed to the "headless chicken" method, which I often see being utilised elsewhere. It was also my introduction to public speaking and the media. This is where I learned that kicking Prattley yards and swearing might make good television but is not necessarily good for the one doing the actual swearing. Making the grand final in 2003 still ranks, for me, as one of the things I am most proud of in life. Young Farmers was the place where I also met three current members of this House: a young Tim van de Molen, who was part of a dastardly plot to steal the Marton Young Farmers Club banner; Barbara Kuriger, who was an interview judge in my first regional final; and then rural affairs Minister Damien O'Connor when I was on the national committee. In Young Farmers, I was also the rep to the provincial Federated Farmers exec. So, when I became old and infirm at the age of 30, it was a natural progression for me! It was a role where I got to be involved in some of the bigger-picture issues for farming. My reason for undertaking leadership roles in Young Farmers was a feeling that I needed to pay it back for the benefits I gained from the contest, and with Feds it was about paying it back to a sector and a way of life I enjoyed—plus, I felt I had something to offer. I would like to acknowledge all my former colleagues from Feds in the gallery, especially Katie Milne, and also, importantly, a few of them who are sitting down here with me today: Mike, Miles, Mark. Great to have you here, guys. Thank you to all I connected with over the years in Feds. Thank you for sharing your skills and intelligence. I gained great experience from you all over the years. My time in Feds has also prepared me for this role, from gaining knowledge around a myriad of issues to trying to find compromise amongst that broad church that is the Fed Farmers National Council—to the most difficult challenge of all, presenting at a select committee and trying to understand what the hell the question they just asked me actually meant in English! When I started out in Feds, it was with no real view that I would be the National President. I just did each role, looked at the role above, and felt that I had something to offer, and one step at a time I got there. While some of it has been challenging over the years, the thing that kept me going through it all was all the thankyous and the pats on the back from my community up and down the country. To me, there is a no more satisfying conversation than the classic monosyllabic grunt followed by a handshake. That's my sort of chat! And here we are, and just like at Feds, the opportunity presented itself, the stars aligned, and I knew I could contribute. And, most importantly, I felt I should pay it back to the best country on the planet. While my passion is for all things rural, and I while it could be argued that, if farming is doing well, New Zealand is doing well, there is a bit more to it than that. All of New Zealand needs smart and pragmatic decision making. Rural New Zealand can't pretend problems that happen in towns and cities don't affect us; they do. Yes, we need a regulatory framework that gives farmers the confidence to invest, but every small business in New Zealand needs that. Every single one of us with children needs an education system that will equip our children with the skills they need to succeed on the global stage, and the list goes on. It's a huge privilege to be in this House and to help shape the future for this country of ours, but it also comes with great responsibility to think those decisions through. The responsibility is probably no more evidenced than by the wreaths on the walls around us. Each of those represents a decision made in this House that was paid for by other citizens. Especially poignant for me is the one to my left over there, for El Alamein. My grandfather served there, was captured, and spent the rest of the war as a POW. The thing I remember the most about my grandfather is his veggie garden. It was huge and meticulously planned out so that he always had food. He never ever wanted to rely on another human being for food ever again for the rest of his life. I can barely comprehend what he must have gone through to be so determined on that front. The portfolios I hold and the things we debate may not lead to such historical events as those represented around us; none the less, they can very well lead to huge impacts on individuals if we don't get it right. You may have noticed I do like the odd bit of humour, usually at my own expense, but I do take these roles seriously. Thank you to ACT Party team, especially David, for believing in me, but mostly thanks for making me feel welcome and truly part of the team, for all the support that has been offered and given from candidates, members, and volunteers. Special thanks goes to Mark Cameron. We are able to swap stories of what went wrong on the home ranch each day, and some days Mark gets to feel better, and some days it's me. Today, I think it's Mark! Finally, to everyone in this House: I'm here to debate the issues, to put my views and solutions forward. I look forward to playing the ball not the man or the woman. Thank you for patiently listening to me. I am assuming this is probably the last time that will happen! But just remember I am used to shouting instructions to people two paddocks away without a microphone. So trying to talk over the top of me might not work. Thank you very much. [Applause] LAURA TRASK (ACT): Kia ora koutou katoa, and thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise today with gratitude and humility to address this assembly for the first time. As I stand here, I am mindful of the rich history and responsibility that comes with being a representative of the people. Today, I would like to share not only my journey, but also the principles and vision that guide my commitment to serve New Zealand. Thank you to those supporting me from the gallery, and thank you to those that are watching me at home, including Riki and the kids who had their very first day back. Even my own kids don't get a free pass off school today—same as Andrew Hoggard. Looks like we're setting the example. Firstly, I extend my sincere congratulations to you, Mr Speaker, on your well-deserved appointment. Having been a resident in your old electorate for most of my life, I can attest to the respect and esteem you hold among our fellow Cantabrians. I begin with a timeless truth: "All that glitters is not gold", a quote from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. While not the grandest of utterances, it has lingered with me since my 7th form English class, and I hope to explain how it holds special relevance for those of us entrusted to make decisions for the country. I was born and raised in Christchurch, a beautiful city with the ocean to the east and the mountains to the west. As kids we enjoyed many days exploring the Canterbury plains, swimming in the Ashley River, and beach days at Spencer Park. I am proudly one-eyed when I say Christchurch is the best city in the world, the home to the Crusaders—would this be a speech to Canterbury without applying to the Crusaders?—and many great sporting greats, a city that, in the face of disasters, has only strengthened the local spirit. It sets the benchmark for community resilience. Growing up, the family dinner table was a forum for spirited discussions on policies of the day and visions for New Zealand. My parents, each with distinct political values, mirror the diversity of ideas in this room, and throughout New Zealand. My father, William, or Bill, as he is known, a proud Englishman with traditional conservative views, migrated to New Zealand in the early 80s, seeking the island paradise lifestyle, working as a sales rep, and then a general manager in the food and beverage industry. In contrast, my mother, Sharyn, with a childhood marked by challenges, became a small business owner at 20 when she opened her own hair salon. Both my parents have the entrepreneur knack and have started their own business together in the 90s. As the eldest of three children, I enjoyed a childhood filled with opportunities and support. My parents instilled in me the values of hard work, personal responsibility, and determination. These principles became the bedrock of my character. In fact, my first job was possibly age ten, sweeping the hair off the floor at my Mum's hair salon. Now before my colleagues to the politically left scream child labour, don't worry, I was paid really well. I got a box of Just juice, Freddo Frog, and some change to go play the Pac-Man at the fish and chip shop next door. After graduating from Burnside High School—everyone from Christchurch can tune out, if you're watching—I embarked on a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Canterbury. These years were a time of exploration. I guess you could say that I was actually studying a "Bachelor of Socialising". I had no distinct goals. During my second year, a life-altering accident shattered my left wrist and my hand. The forced downtime prompted a reassessment of my goals and aspirations. Facing the challenges of recovery, I pivoted towards a career in pharmacy, completing my pharmacy tech qualification. Working in community pharmacy introduced me to the diverse realities faced by individuals dealing with serious health challenges, fostering an empathy and strengthening my connection to local community networks. Marriage to Riki marked the beginning of a new chapter. Together, we made career changes, moved to Auckland, and joined my family business Fire Safety Net (FSN), and transformed it into a national venture, providing evacuation schemes for buildings and emergency response plans to businesses. These years, while challenging with enormous professional development, were immensely rewarding, emphasizing the importance of hard work and determination. Now, as a parent of two children, I've learned the delicate balance required to navigate the demands of work, family, and community. Mum and Dad, I now understand what it's like to be the family taxi driver, taking the kids to rugby, cheerleading, basketball, hockey; the list just goes on. The invaluable experiences gained in the pharmacy, coupled with my role as an evacuation consultant in the family business, exposed me to the challenges faced by everyday New Zealanders striving to do the best for their families and themselves and their communities—especially us small business owners. Working as an evacuation consultant, I had the privilege of being invited into almost every worksite that you can imagine, from factory floors to hotels. I've literally been paid to help businesses navigate the red tape that has emerged from this room. I accept there's an irony in that that I am now standing here representing the ACT Party. The fact is, rules and regulations are crippling innovation and growth. The trajectory of health and safety measures has shifted from a lack of accountability to an absence of common sense. The fundamental right of the individual to work, and go to work and come home safely is indisputable. However, the proliferation of pointless tick the box exercises not only poses a significant financial burden on businesses, but, regrettably, fails to translate into less incidents and serious accidents resulting in death. Contrary to expectations, statistics reveal a concerning uptick in serious workplace incidents and fatalities. This begs the critical question: how can this worrying trend persist, despite excessive safety protocols? It is imperative that we have the settings right to tackle the workplaces with appalling health and safety, and let the rest of us get on with it. All that glitters is not gold. Sparkling sounding, well-intended legislation incorporating words such as "fair, clean, new, safe" in the title has often proved to not deliver any real, meaningful change, and often worse, has had unintended negative outcome. There are also unintended winners from regulation. Big business—who can easily afford to implement complex protocols—enjoy the fact that smaller would-be competitors face barriers to open and grow. Of course, there's my own sector. I've watched as others in health and safety compliance lobby for more rules, and more complexity, with the sneaking suspicion that the increased workstream isn't an unintended cost, but instead the whole point. I suspect this dynamic will be familiar to other sectors, whether it be tax compliance or resource management. But I've spent too much time talking to small business owners that are financially and psychologically battered by compliance costs, while they try to deliver vital services on the thinnest of profit margins. These people are heroes. They aren't fat cats. They are you: the butcher, the hairdresser, the tradie, the baker, the beautician. They are the everyday Kiwis. It is within this context that I find my calling to public service. I am honoured to stand here today as a representative of the ACT Party—this Parliament's champion of individual freedom, equal opportunity, and limited Government interference. If all that glitters is not gold, then what actually is gold? For starters: education. Every child deserves an education tailored to their unique talents and interests, and it's time our education system reflected the needs and wants of our communities. We need to transform the landscape of learning, encouraging diverse educational approaches. With initiatives like partnership schools, we empower parents, students, edu-preneurs, and iwi to forge a new educational path. Small businesses, the lifeblood of our economy, will excel in this House if we allow them. By unwinding stifling regulation, we can foster a dynamic market that positions New Zealand globally as it's open to business. To my colleagues of the ACT caucus, I want to thank you for your warm welcome and comradery. It's a privilege to work alongside individuals with such diverse skillsets and experiences, united in a common mission. I have said my thanks to the ACT board and their trust in me, and, of course, to David, whose tireless commitment to freedom inspires us all. My heartfelt appreciation goes to my family: mum, dad, Riki, Mahe, and Emelia. Your support means the world to me. I am sorry, Mahe and Emelia, for making you stand on the corner near school during the campaign and wave bright pink signs. Hopefully the shame has dissipated over the holiday break and you are good to go back to school. I want to remind you, however, that while I'm committed to serving the people of New Zealand, I am firstly committed to serving you. Mahe and Emelia, I hope to make you proud. To my friends, including those present today, I extend my gratitude for your unwavering support, countless hours of engaging conversations, and boring you with political debates. Despite the divergence in our political perspectives, your steadfast support for me remains unchanged. Thank you for your flexibility and the many social cancelations I made during the campaign and am now likely to make for the rest of my time as here. To the ACT party members, donors, volunteers, and support crew, your extraordinary efforts are the reason that we are here today. To the voters: I stand here today because of your trust and support. I am dedicated to representing your interests with integrity and passion. To my fellow candidates in the Banks Peninsula electorate, I commend you for the spirited debates, your collegial spirit, and I want to congratulate Vanessa Weenink, who actually secured the seat. To my fellow ACT candidates who did not secure a seat this time, particularly the Canterbury-based candidates—Matt, Ankita, Ben, Toni, and Ross—I wish you all the greatest success in your future endeavours. A special acknowledgment to Toni Severin and Ben Harvey for their guidance and influence in my journey. Toni, your encouragement to become an ACT candidate has been instrumental. I thank you. And to Ben: thank you for steering me away from the socialists during our younger years. Whilst we may not have always agreed on politics back at the University of Canterbury, the core libertarian ideas that we did discuss would find a place near to my heart as I travelled through life. To conclude: may our shared endeavours usher in an era in New Zealand that we don't just thrive on opportunity but we resonate with the profound wisdom shared by my 10-year-old son, Mahe, during his speech as his kaiārahi Māori leader at his kura: "He kaha ake tātou hei Kotahi. We are stronger as one." Thank you. [Applause] CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Mr Speaker, may I first thank you for taking on the heavy role of maintaining the honour of this House and for the opportunity to address it and tell of the reasons I have come here and where I have come from. There is a value which you will hear frequently in this address because I feel it deeply: it's gratitude. I am grateful to live in a safe country. For the most part, we are peaceful and free, but freedom and safety were not ordained. For many generations, New Zealand has built and preserved our society based on rights and responsibilities. Picking up the litter and putting it in the bin, especially when no one is watching; giving the benefit of the doubt to your neighbour or saying gidday to the person you pass on the street: little things which maintain trust and openness. These are all things that I think can be best summed up by the honesty-box culture. Every honesty box I see on the side of the road makes me smile, and in my opinion the number of honesty boxes that Kiwis have shows the health of this society. Each person who puts something grown or made out on the street shows a faith in their country, and along with those who pay up without the eyes of a store clerk watching, they exhibit their trust and gratitude to their neighbour, and by doing so, display what it means to be a New Zealander. I am grateful to our rule of law and our democracy, whose participation and process has seen me standing here today, addressing this house as an ACT MP. I am grateful to all those members and supporters who worked so hard on the ground to ensure ACT's bestever result, especially to the Tauranga and Bay of Plenty crew, some of whom have been around for a while, and others have joined before, during, and after the Tauranga by-election. I am so impressed by the work you've done, and it's a privilege to be part of an amazing and growing team. Our democracy and our way of life survives on the faith and peaceful satisfaction of the people who live within it. However, sometimes this enlightened country has needed defending from without. It hit me like a 240 volt the first time I walked into this Chamber and looked up and saw the names of places in which New Zealand's forces, including my ancestors, have defended our rights and our place in the world. It is an immense honour to be standing in this part of the House in particular, under the name of the theatre in which fought the man who bequeathed to me my surname and the medals in front of me: Stanley George Luxton of the Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment. It's an honour and a privilege to be guardian of these treasures, tangible and intangible. I want to thank all our servicemen and women, past and present, for what you've done for us. For I have had a fortunate life. My two sisters and I were raised by loving parents, who set about being the best parents they could be. Despite their childhoods not grounding them in what it means to be a happy healthy human, they made choices and sacrifices for the long term, and gave us an upbringing that was a gift. I am so grateful that when faced with the choice of an international corporate career, travel, and a life of country hopping, my parents Rod and Cherie chose, instead, to bring us home to New Zealand and move to what was then the small and not so well-known coastal town of Pāpāmoa Beach. Thank you, Lucko, for buying a 12-foot tinny with a sketchy motor to brave the surf and teach me to fish. And thank you, Mum, for giving me a moral compass. We love you both, Nanonan and Lucko. Thank you for all you've done for our family and the generations to come. Living by the beach and near the Rotorua Lakes meant that to take full advantage of what the Bay of Plenty has to offer required learning to swim. I'm grateful that Pāpāmoa Primary School pool was a community asset available. Without the competence to swim, the life I've led would have been very different. Swimming in some crazy places gave me the confidence to take on oceans and the hills, and now something equally daunting: politics. That small town of Pāpāmoa grew and fuelled the massive growth of the city to which it belongs. The small town changed into Tauranga's largest suburb. Having a family in the building game and with so much opportunity in the trades, I left school, which was never my forte, and at 16, I moved to a campground in Rotorua to start my building trade. It's a wild time when you are out of home and in a new town. I met some lifelong friends whose love and friendship is a blessing I cherish. Builders have a no-nonsense type of character—not to say that the on-site banter isn't the best you'll ever hear—but if it ain't straight and plumb, you'll know all about it. Every tradie deals with what's in the world, so it can be infuriating when the realm of rules and laws doesn't match the reality of what's on the ground. As our leaders get further away from the site of production, further from how buildings are built, food is grown, fish are caught, resources harvested, and services provided, it is no wonder that we have a productivity crisis. As with the recent examples of housing supply initiatives, tradies and property owners rightly ask: how does a Government think they can change the direction of a housing supply crisis without changing the real factors which our ability to provide houses and actually build more? I've heard it said, while sitting on an upturned bucket in a half-built garage at smoko one day, "This lot either thinks we're corrupt or incompetent if they think they that can build houses faster or cheaper than we can, without changing the stupid rules we all have to follow." This disconnect goes beyond missing what should be done; it also has a pervasive effect on something more important to our society: trust. It's a feeling whose shadow shows up in surveys and data, but it's real to so many Kiwis who just want to reharness the can-do attitude. How many of them have experienced the looming doom of a taxpayer-funded ute or EV rolling up the driveway or tanker track, or increasingly, an email arriving in your inbox with another pointless issue you have to sort out to comply with some unworkable or out-of-touch rule. We've gone too far in the direction of centralisation. The only thing that has ever innovated and produced more in this world is private citizens working for themselves, their families, communities, and each other. Sometimes Government input is required, and when that is chosen by the citizens—in equal franchise—it is legitimate. But people in the productive economy know that, often, there are no solutions; only trade-offs, and sometimes what was traded away is hard to get back. The housing crisis has been talked about in every quarter. I believe strongly that if this doesn't get sorted, then the negative effects on every aspect of Kiwis' lives will lead to a broken future for our country which will be hard to repair. It could be seen as ironic that to come to Parliament means that I've put down my apron and am no longer swinging a hammer on-site to contribute some houses to our stock. But as the only licensed building practitioner ever elected to this House, I am here to enable my fellow tradies and everyone who thinks that New Zealand can only reach our potential if driven by our productive sectors. We do this by making space for the underground knowledge of the true experts of any society: the people that do. The world isn't a finite resource; innovation and exploration discover new territories of knowledge which we can use to help our fellow humans in every way to be freer and happier. As I'm sure each member of this House can attest, there are many reasons why someone chooses to get into politics. I have half-a-dozen circumstances that I could tell you which pushed me towards a political direction, but let me speak of one which forced me over the edge. I was not strongly suited to mainstream education. One of the most vivid memories I have is the feeling of entrapment and fear when, at six, I realised I couldn't leave "this place". It's a soul-crushing feeling, and perhaps it's not surprising that a love of school didn't take. I felt this in every year of my schooling, except for 18 months when at a newly opened school, Te ki Pāpāmoa, I was fortunate enough to be in the class of Mr Simmon. That school and teacher didn't follow every other experience I'd had of school until then. Because of a shortage of space in a growing school, our class was a rented house down an alleyway off school grounds. The way our class was run was so freeing and inspiring that I started thriving. I learnt to read; I was so comfortable that I didn't even wag school once—in fact, I would do my NZ Herald delivery run and still turn up to school early. This is the experience we want for every Kiwi kid. We know that education is the path to a better life. I was on the sidelines when began. I looked on from the back paddock—and I'll get to how I ended up in the back paddock in a second—and waited with a real hope for the future of New Zealand, when the charter school model would move into areas where the most good could be done. I looked forward to the day when every parent in the country could choose a school that was right for their child. The angriest that I can ever remember feeling in my life was the day that that gift of charter schools was taken away. The anger was fuelled by the hopelessness of knowing that so many kids would miss the experience of finding their place. This robbed our country and poor communities up and down New Zealand of the chance to see what these kids would do. The day kura hourua was stopped by the "kind" previous Government, I decided that in whatever way I could, I would help the political party who gave—if even for a moment—that chance to Kiwi kids. Now, to that back paddock. When the global financial crisis hit construction, I was about 20. So it was time I went on my OE, but it wasn't to Europe, America, or even over the Tasman. I moved to a place I will love for the rest of my life: a little pastoral island wedged between the Kaingaroa Forest and Te Urewera, a place called Galatea on the Kuhawaea plain. "Grateful" isn't a strong enough word for how I feel about this place and the community. It was there that I dairy-farmed, hunted, and played rugby. Galatea is the best place I have ever known. I had so many formative experiences and learnt some of my most important lessons while in the valley. Many of them influence my politics, from crime and gangs, education, health, and the society of our country, but the central experience—and the one I wish to briefly speak about—is farming. New Zealand is blessed to have a farming community who care about their animals and people but also about the land and the environment in which their work is enmeshed. My years on farm taught me to respect and care for the world we have. This lesson is held by farmers of all types. I am grateful to our agrarians who will, when the seasons demand it, often work themselves ragged to feed us and pay our overseas bills. When lessons are learnt on how to improve the environment they put that into action with passion. Rural people have a different view on life because when it comes down to it—when you've lived in the world of mud and blood and death and birth—one can't help but take a long-term view. Farmers know what it is to pull a calf out in the mud, or turn the tractor off at golden hour and watch the world come alive when the sun is low—to be eaten by bugs and covered in crap and love every minute of it. It's in Galatea where I met my wife Susan. To you, my darling: thank you for all the support and love you give me. I'm sorry, because I know you thought you were marrying a dairy farmer and living in Galatea and now you've got stuck with a politician, but it's your gracious manner and ability to be loved in every environment you enter which fills me and our kids with so much confidence that our family can do anything. To my two beautiful children—both of you: I'm sorry in advance for not being as available as you've been used to throughout your lives. I might not be there every night to tell you three things. But you are strong and you are both growing into the good people that we talk about. The list of people who've gotten me here and made me the man standing in front of you today is long: friends, family, workmates, opponents, mentors—past and present—the places and situations which have impacted on me. Sometimes it's hard to believe where I've found myself and the people I've been there with. From the moments when I've felt the sublime to the moments where the pain has nearly had me pass out. I am here for this country because of the potential it has to build on the good things left to us by the people who have gone before. We are so fortunate to have inherited traditions going back centuries and millennia; therefore, we owe to the future the chance to do better than we have, with the tools we can give them. I am not blind to the travesties of the past, but I'm grateful for the good which has been left us. As the immortal song says: "We don't know how lucky we are, mate". I offer my experiences to this House, and to make my contribution worthwhile. My trust in the sanctity of the individual, the rule of law, free speech, property rights—these are what I am here to defend. They are not physical items; they cannot be hoarded away in a quiet place and taken out just to be displayed and looked at. These treasures must be put in the world, defended, and lived up to. These concepts are anti-fragile—they only get stronger when challenged—just as those who defend these values must be anti-fragile too. I believe that every New Zealander should have the privilege, as Henley puts it, to be master of their fate, and captain of their soul. I might not know to the fullest extent how lucky it is to be the inheritor of these taonga left to us in this liberal democracy. But every day, I will be grateful. Thank you, Mr Speaker. [Applause, hongi, and harirū] SPEAKER: To make her maiden statement to Parliament, I call on Tamatha Paul. Just before she begins, could I just say to the gallery that these are great occasions. There's no question, I'm sure, we're going to hear a great speech. Can we sort of hold the applause, as much as possible, until the end? We're under a bit of a time constraint here, and there are still two more speeches to go. So, with that, I again call Tamatha Paul. TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Kia whakatāne au i ahau, i au au aue hā. Ko wai rā, ko wai rā? Ko Pūtauaki e tū nei, ko Ōhinemataroa e rere nei, ko Ngāti Awa te toki tē tangatanga i te rā, tē ngohengohe i te wai. Nei rā te pō i raru ai a Wairaka. Tū mai rā te āpōpō mō Papatūānuku e takoto nei. Whano, whano, whakatauhia ngā toki. Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e. [Let me make myself as a man. Who is this, who is this? It is Mount Edgecumbe that stands here, it is the Whakatāne River that flows here, Ngāti Awa is the adze whose bindings will not loosen in the sun, and not soften in the water. This is the night that Wairaka met her doom. Stand forth the future for Papatūānuku that lies here. Advance, advance, lay out the adzes. It coalesces, it assembles, it is bound.] Hoo! Big rākz now! I stand before you as a proud descendant of Wairaka. Wairaka brought the Mataatua waka back to safety through a storm at a time when it was tapu for wāhine to paddle—ahoy. Kia whakatāne au i ahau [Let me make myself as a man] is what she said so she could step into her full power and guide her people safely home. Our kuia of Ngāti Awa Marian McKay worked tirelessly on behalf of our iwi. She regularly petitioned this House for the return of our whenua, foreseeing the consequences of raupatu on our people. She, sadly, died way too young. She died of pneumonia from sitting outside this House, sitting outside in the rain. They wouldn't even let her in this door. Hoki wairua mai, e kui e. I am sorry that this House wasn't ready to hear you, but they will hear me. It wasn't so long ago that wāhine weren't even allowed to speak in this House, let alone vote for the people standing in here, but I am here, with Wairaka, with Marian McKay, with my loved ones, to navigate through the storm ahead. I know that all of my tīpuna are here with me today, as are yours with you. Ka huri aku mihi ki a koe e Te Ātiawa, ki a koe e Ngāti Toa, ki ngā mana whenua o Te W'anganui-a-Tara. [I turn my acknowledgments to you, Te Ātiawa, to you, Ngāti Toa, to those who hold authority over the land of Wellington.] This whenua has seen politicians come and go, but youse are doing the real mahi that will last beyond changes of Government. To all the iwi who are represented here today: kia ora, my cuzzies. I want to mihi too, āpōpō, those that will come after me. I hope that by the time you read this, we've stopped destroying our planet and stopped destroying each other. Although I am blessed with whakapapa that ties me firmly to this land, I can't say that that's the only reason that I am here today. Being an MP can get to your head and you can start to think that it's your God-given right to stand here, but I know that it wasn't destiny and it wasn't fate and it wasn't good luck that brought me here today. I am here because of the hard work of my community, because it turns out it doesn't actually matter what the lawyer thinks or the lobbyist thinks, and it doesn't actually matter what the polls say. What matters is people—people's stories, people's hopes for our futures, and people power. We ran an all-or-nothing campaign here in Wellington Central on the smell of an oily rag—without actually accepting any oil money, by the way. We made 30,000 phone calls and door knocks. We ran the biggest grassroots electorate campaign in Green history and we raised $100,000, which is actually really hard when we're all broke—probably from paying the rent in this city, as you're all aware. Ki a koe, Caitlin, my trusty sidekick, nei rā te mihi nui ki a koe mō tō mahi [a big thanks to you for your work]. But enough about me for now. Mr Speaker, congratulations on your new role, and thank you for letting us bring our saxophone in here today. I appreciate you learning my name—I think it's always good to know the name of your local MP. In fact, all of you work and live in my electorate, and although I can't promise to represent half of the views in this House, I do promise to try my very best to support every person in the city, whether they voted for you, whether they voted for me, or whether they didn't even vote at all. But if you do have any complaints, I'd ask you to please direct those to former Mayor of Wellington Andy Foster or former Mayor of Wellington Celia Wade-Brown. But in all seriousness, being the MP for Wellington Central is a really special responsibility, and it can be tough—I haven't even started yet; what do I know? We are a city that sees through the PR. At the moment, it seems like everybody has an opinion on Wellington, just like literally everybody in Wellington has an opinion. It's not easy representing this town, so I want to give a special mihi to the former member for Wellington Central Grant Robertson. Fifteen years of service is no small feat, and I've discovered that in here, a lot of people don't know when to call it—but I won't labour the point. But just know that I acknowledge you, I acknowledge your work, your legacy, and your integrity. I've noticed that our new Prime Minister likes to talk about our city like it's an ivory tower. I'm aware that the electorate I represent is one of the most informed, educated, and privileged electorates in Aotearoa. But privilege isn't something to be ashamed of; it's something to be aware of it. My city knows how to use its privilege, and that's why Wellington Central chose to elect a young Māori girl from a working-class whānau from Tokoroa. They elected a renter who lives in Aro Valley with her five flatmates and her dog, Biggieot once, not twice, but three times you have put your faith in me to represent you. I will not let you down, I will not take you for granted, and I will roll out of bed every single day and one out this Government, on your behalf. But my election to represent you didn't come out of nowherebeen building momentum since 2019, where we got organised, campaigned, and elected an independent student to our council. We set down the blueprint: that you can be an unapologetic voice for progress, and, if you back it up with organising, you can win. Even more important than winning is making change. Nobody can deny that our city is fundamentally different than it was just a few years ago, and that's a result of us understanding our power and wielding it. From the bottom of my heart, to every person who's supported me over the years: ka nui te mihi ki a koutou. The most important thing I learnt from being a city councillor is that you can fix the broken street lights and you can try your best to patch up the leaky pipes, but, at the end of the day, it's just a fresh coat on a rotten house; a dirty system full of hollow men that place profit over people and treat citizens as customers. But we are not a company; we are a country. We don't need new management; we need real leadership, and I think that's something we haven't had for a long time—just blue and red shades of the same neo-liberal garbage. People often ask me who my role models were growing up, and, I'm sorry to say, it wasn't anybody in this House. I'm not impressed by the so-called halls of power; I am impressed by the power of the people. I am in awe of the determination of hapū. I am inspired by artists who speak their minds and open up ours. When I was growing up, watching my parents working 60, 70 hours a week, without complaint, which was the norm where I'm from—that taught me what hard work really looks like. I grew up in a small town called Tokoroa. I'm really proud to have grown up in the 886, despite what the 6 o'clock news might have you believe, and I won't lie: Tokoroa is not for the faint-hearted. The things I saw growing up there is exactly the kind of behaviour you'd come to expect when the only investment you're getting is new liquor stores on every street corner and new pokie machines in every pub. Without romanticising the very real issues, I would say that that's what has made us even more determined to look out for one another. This is where I learnt that if we work together and we share what we have with each other, there is enough for everybody to go around. That's the fundamental ethos of the Green Party. Although society would very much like us to hate ourselves in Tokoroa—and probably in the Greens, too—it has made us even more curious in understanding who we are and where we come from. That's a quote that has inspired me always, and stuck with me always, from Nina Simone: "My job is to somehow make them curious enough, or persuade them by hook or by crook, to get more aware of themselves and where they come from and what they are into and what is already within them, and to bring that out. This is what compels me to compel them, and I will do it by any means necessary." One thing I've learnt from listening to other maiden speeches is that a lot of us have done it tough growing up. I don't think anyone's journey here has been particularly easy. For some of us, that adversity has opened our hearts up to serving our people. But I can see that for some the pain is still there, and I can promise you that taking it out on the places that you come from will not heal you. But seeking answers to understand why things are this way will prevent us from repeating history and making the same mistakes. Another future is possible, and that's why I came to Wellington—because I've lived the worst of it. I've seen what happens when you cut wages, deny benefits, sanction people, sell State housing, strip and privatise public assets, and move people away from the land that they come from and lock them up and throw away the key. But if there's anything I've learnt from growing up in Tokoroa, it's that if we all just shared a little bit more and if we all work together, we can overcome the steepest of challenges, which is almost the complete antithesis of this House. This place has a nasty habit of chewing up and spitting out our best and brightest. It's clear that there is an unwritten rulebook: one set of standards for some, and another set of standards for brown women. For as long as you can come in here and unwind decades of progress overnight, we're never going to move beyond the status quo, and I don't think the status quo is serving anybody or our planet particularly well. But how are you supposed to stay in touch with reality in a place like this that isn't even a reflection of the real world? We go from our nice homes and our nice vehicles to the Koru lounge and to the front row of the airplane, and from a chauffeur to Parliament. But I'm here to tell you that this Parliament is not our future. The future that I dream of looks very different to the one in front of me today, because until we start making the right decisions to stop polluting our planet into extinction, until we stop ram-raiding Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and until we confront the uncomfortable truths about our history and build on the agreement that our ancestors signed—both yours and mine—we will be doomed to continue to repeat history. That's why a lot of people have switched off. We've just got tired of politicians on both sides of this House making promises that they couldn't keep. It's true that you can't make everybody happy, but at some point you have to put a stake in the ground for people who are doing it really hard right now. That's who I'm in this House to represent and it's not just me fighting, and fighting doesn't have to look like question time every day at 2 p.m. Fighting can look like speaking as little or as much of your reo that you have, reclaiming your whakapapa, or reclaiming our cities that have been gentrified. It's refusing to let this fast-paced ratrace strip you of your birthright to return to your maunga, return to your awa, and return to the knowledge that our ancestors have left for us. Ko Ngāti Awa te toki tē tangatanga i te rā, tē ngohengohe i te wai. [Ngāti Awa is the adze whose bindings will not loosen in the sun, and will not soften in the water.] If you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready. Ngāti Awa stays sharp, Ngāti Awa stays ready, and we do it looking so good. Huri noa I te Whare. Tihei mauri ora! Chur. Waiata—Wairaka [Applause, hongi, and harirū] Karanga SPEAKER: To make her maiden speech to Parliament, I call on Kahurangi Carter. KAHURANGI CARTER (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for your service to Ōtautahi Christchurch, my home. Thank you for your continued service in this Chamber, and I look forward to hearing more of the start of your early days in Parliament with Uncle John. Māku rā pea, māku rā pea, māku koe e awhi e i te ara, ara tuku, māku koe e awhi e. [Perhaps it will be me, perhaps it will be me, perhaps it will be me to help you on the path, the path of growth, I will help you.] Ko te kupu te kupu, ko te Atua te Atua, ko Ranginui ki runga, ko Papatūānuku ki raro, ka mate ai te tangata. Ka pō, ka ao, ka awatea, mauri ora. He kōtiro au o te kōhanga reo. E te iwi, e te whānau, e te Whare, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Ko Tainui te waka. Ko Karioi te maunga. Ko Whāingaroa te moana. Ko Hoturoa te tangata. Tainui Āwhiro; ngunguru i te ao, ngunguru i te pō. He hokinga mai ki Te Nehenehe-nui, taku Rourou-iti-a-haere, Te Tokanga-nui-a-noho, Te Kūititanga-o-te-whakaaro, ko Waikato Maniapoto te iwi. Ko Ngāti Rora, ko Ngāti Uekaha e mihi nei, e tangi nei, mauri ora. [The word is Scripture, God is God, Ranginui above, Papatūānuku below, as humanity passes on. Night brightens and turns to dawn, health and vitality. I am a girl of the kōhanga reo. To the people, the family, and the House, thanks and greetings to you all. Tainui is my canoe. Karioi is my mountain. Whāingaroa is my ocean. Hoturoa is my ancestor. Tainui Āwhiro that roars by day and by night. The return to Te Nehenehe-nui, my Rourou-iti-a-haere, Te Tokanga-nui-a-noho, Te Kūititanga-o-te-whakaaro, Waikato Maniapoto is my tribe. Ngāti Rora and Ngāti Uekaha greets you and grieves with you, health and vitality to all.] When I was a little girl living by the river, there was one character who spoke to me. Now, Disney doesn't always resonate with me, but these words did: "You think you own whatever land you land on, the earth is just a dead thing you can claim. But I know every rock and tree and creature has a life, has a spirit, has a name. You think the only people who are people are the people who look and think like you, but if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew, you never knew." The places I have lived in in our beautiful country have shaped the person I am today. My mother raised my siblings and I in a country town in the south Waikato called Te Kūiti. My mum raised my siblings and I in nature. We loved to eat from our garden. We would watch as a small, white flower would turn into a green fruit and ripen to bright orange. We would savour the sweet segments and toss the peels under the tree to give nutrients to the soil to grow more of our favourite fruit—a perfect circular economy, one given to us by nature and the "OG CEO", Papatūānuku. We lived on the Mangaokewa river and learnt from the awa that the only constant is change. My siblings and I would swim in the rapids, and we learnt from our teacher, our awa. Children don't swim in that river today due to pollution—teaching us another lesson, which is that we must do everything we can to ensure that your children and my children and every generation after can swim in our awa, living in harmony with nature. When I was a teenager, we lived on Lake Pupuke, a dormant volcano and our favourite swimming hole. We were lucky to live there: when Takapuna Beach was closed due to pollution, we could just run and jump in the lake. My grandfather Fred planted native bush on the lake and added a new tree for each of his descendants, symbolising their belonging and growth through the seasons of time. When our tamariki started school, we moved to a small alpine village and farming community in the foothills of Koro Ruapehu called Ōhākune. Koro taught us about respecting nature. When the conditions weren't safe, it didn't matter that my kids' school had scheduled a ski day. We knew to respect our koro and respect the conditions. When our children started high school, we chose to raise them in Christchurch. We were warmly embraced by the Christchurch community. It is evident on any given day when I walk the streets of Christchurch that we are creating a place for people and planet to live in harmony. In Christchurch, we really feel the seasons, and we learn about change. Hot, dry summers at Rāpaki Beach; falling leaves in autumn; cool, sunny days in winter; and colourful flowers in the spring all remind us that change is our constant. To my indigenous people around the world, from our mountains to our rivers and our seas, I stand with you. Ki uta ki tai. [From inland to the sea.] I come from a long line of orators: dignified, eloquent, witty Māori. Watching my Papa on the paepae elevating people with his kōrero, I see my brother stepping up to take his place on the pae, and I know our future is in safe hands with this young generation of rangatahi. We are a proud people, and I am so proud to represent you. Sitting in this room does not take the efforts of one person. For every politician here, we have a village sustaining us. To the people who make our coffee and tea just the way we like it, to the drivers who get us here and home safely, to the pilots who return us home and bring us to Wellington for a fresh week, to our cleaners, Uber Eats drivers, the friends who support us, the staff who give us their best, the volunteers who continue to turn up for us—thank you. It is the honour of my life to serve you. We've already seen changes to New Zealand with this newly formed Government. The result is an unwinding and unpicking of years of progress, with real impacts. What does this mean for New Zealand? Just within my whānau, my sibling the nurse is impacted by overflowing waiting rooms in a critically underfunded healthcare system at the point of collapse. My siblings the engineers are impacted with New Zealand's $200 billion infrastructure deficit. Historical underinvestment and climate change pressures call for a bold approach. My sibling the lawyer is impacted by a severely underfunded legal system impeding access to justice. My siblings the teachers, my parents the small-business owners, my nan the artist, my rainbow community, my haemophilia community, and all those affected by disabilities, my children the students, my friends the immigrants, my cousins the farmer are all impacted by the decisions we make in this Chamber. My hapū, my iwi, are impacted by decisions we make in this Chamber. All New Zealanders are impacted by decisions we make in this Chamber. If we think of New Zealand as a boat, a wakawhere are we going? How do we work well together to paddle the waka most effectively for every New Zealander? Because the truth is that we are all in the same waka, each other's waka. Growing up I played a lot of sport. Politics is a competitive sport. Athletes pursuing peak performance focus on training, rest, fuel, hydration, and stress management. Every famous person has an origin story. Every superhero has an origin story. Every villain has one, too. Every origin story has circumstances and choices. The choices we make are constrained by our circumstances. In my origin story, I didn't only make good decisions but I had lots of good decisions and choices available to me. How is New Zealand doing as a country when students are living below the poverty line? When the brightest minds for our future are having to make the choice between eating or heating, how is New Zealand doing as country? If we treated these bright minds like competitive athletes focusing on the best conditions for their peak performance, how, then, is New Zealand doing as a country? The opportunities I was granted by attending one of Auckland's top-performing schools in a well-resourced community meant the choices available to me were good choices. If these opportunities were available to all New Zealanders, how, then, would New Zealand be doing as a country? I stand here and I look up and I see my people: tangata whenua, tangata Tiriti, our rainbow community, our disabled community, our artists, my housing community, my Para Kore people, my siblings, my chosen family. To Darcy for raising the most precious thing in the world to us—our children; to my Mum, if my greatest achievement in this room is showing you that you belong here and that you are represented here, this is our moment. In the words of my tupuna Rewi Maniapoto, "Ka whawhai tonu matau"—we will fight on for ever and ever and ever. Ha ki roto, ha ki waho. Breath in, breath out. We did it! I am so honoured for the trust that you have placed in me. I stand here and I pledge my devotion, to being worthy of your hope, worthy of this seat, and my ambition is to represent all New Zealanders every day. I would like to congratulate everyone in this room and all your supporters, volunteers, and whānau for your efforts, for your sacrifices, and everything it has taken to get you here. I see our place as custodians, kaitiaki of these seats in this Chamber. We are here to perform and preserve for the generations to come. How can the waka of New Zealand move forward? How can we innovate and use historic lessons to move us beyond the same solutions we've tried before? As pioneers of many outstanding innovations, New Zealand has the ability to shape a better future for all Aotearoa. Like an athlete wanting to exceed their personal best, let's work together to exceed our collective best, because Papatūānuku deserves it. Our rangatahi deserve it. Participative Governments lead democratically. Having empowered and participative citizens gives the people in this Chamber access to move perspectives to help give us a wide range of options to solve New Zealand's biggest challenges. You have so much more power in a society than two ticks every three years. I urge every New Zealander to stay informed and stay involved in the decisions made in this Chamber. Follow your local MP on social media and see what they're up to, see how they are serving your community. Does their vision align with yours? The power lies with you, the people. We live in a country of plenty. It's important in this current political climate that we unify and steer our waka to ensure we leave a legacy of abundance for future generations through the tides of time. Tai pō, tai ao, tai awatea. Mauri ora. [Night tides, day tides, the tides of dawn. Health and vitality (to all).] [Applause, hongi, harirū] Waiata SPEAKER: All good. All right, we have another speech to go, and I now call upon, to make his maiden speech to the House, Scott Willis. SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Whakataka te hau ki te uru, whakataka te hau ki te tonga kia mākinakina ki uta, kia mātaratara ki tai. Ki ngā hau katoa o te motu e piri nei i a tātou, tēnā tātou katoa. Ki te mana whenua, tēnā koutou. Ki a tātou katoa e rongo ana i ngā hau e pupuhi ana, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. [The wind turns towards the west, the wind turns towards the south, making it intensely cold onshore and bitterly cold at sea. To all the winds of the nation that bring us together, greetings to all of us. To those with authority over this land, greetings. To all of us who feel the winds that blow, greetings and thanks to all of you.] Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you and congratulations yet again. I am very proud to be part of our new Green caucus; the biggest Green caucus ever, with such a wealth of lived experience from the Far North to the deep South. I am privileged to stand here today for everyone who voted for the Green Party; all of you who voted for climate, for nature, for people, and for Papatūānuku. Over the past years, I have loved working as part of a consultancy group called Climate Navigator. I've also been privileged to be part of an inspiring deep South kaupapa Māori organisation: Aukaha. I am honoured that some of my colleagues from both organisations are here today. Your mahi is essential, kia kaha. I owe a huge debt to all of my friends, neighbours, and colleagues who have supported me on this journey. I want to thank the deep South province, the kaitiaki group, my fellow candidate Fran, and local Green members for their huge support. I am proud to be able to represent you and I will do my utmost to uphold the faith you've shown in me. I am indebted to Ross, Dan, and Hugh, my campaign managers: you kept me sane, you kept me informed, you kept me prepared, and, most importantly, you kept me on time! To the Waitati Bookclub, I salute you. To my rural Green colleagues, here and right across the motu, thank you. I have had a fantastic summer break with friends, family, and birdlife, with time in the bush and at the beach. Working in my garden at Waitati, I was acutely aware of being surrounded by birdsong. It's something I hope to hear one day all around the motu. Digging a vege garden is very grounding; it takes me back to my own roots, to where it all began. I grew up in a small place called Otekaieke—and it's often pronounced "Ohtekaik". It's in the expanse and clear air of the Waitaki Valley. It was an idyllic childhood: building huts, roaming the paddocks, the waterraces, and the hills. We swam in the river—I know that's a unique thing; that was back when it was safe to do so—we rode our bikes everywhere; we trapped possums; and we generally ran wild. All in all, it was the perfect preparation for becoming a Green MP! During summers, I helped my father with the beehives, and carted hay. The winters were beautifully cold, dry, with ice in the creek and Mum's warm, welcoming kitchen. But I also remember the summers, when we were packed—because I'm the youngest of five siblings—into the Land Rover, in the back, and undertaking epic journeys to my grandparents' place in Roxburgh: fishing, hunting, swimming, picking apricots and cherries, catching up with cousins, and all after digging the Land Rover out of the snow one summer at the top of Dansey's Pass—that's the South. When I was sworn into Parliament, I placed my hand on top of a venerable old book. It's our Willis family tree. It speaks to my whakapapa. Originally published in 1633, it helpfully begins with Adam and Eve, and therefore unites me with everybody here! But my family tree also includes some interesting people: rolling forward some 5,797 years from Adam and Eve, you find one particularly inspirational individual: John Walpole Willis, who defended the emancipation of slaves in British Guiana in the mid-1800s, and stood up for Aboriginal rights during his time as a judge in New South Wales—a defender of the vulnerable; not afraid to stand against the tide. Whakapapa is central to who we are, as Tam and Kahu spoke about. It reveals the wrongs and flaws in our past, but it also helps us to find those threads and qualities to aspire to and to pass on. My parents gave me a number of those qualities. In my rural childhood, I got that sense of connection, or tūrangawaewae. I grew up feeling empowered and connected to the land. It makes it easier to grasp that we don't own the land; the land owns us. When I visit the Waitaki Valley, I know that Mum and Dad are still there in their ashes spread on the farm, in the trees that were planted, and in the colours of the ranunculus and the flaxes and the kōwhai. Mr Speaker, I stand before you as one of the oldest members of the Green Party caucus. Consequently, I have had a slightly longer journey to Parliament than many of my colleagues. I inherited a sense of adventure from my parents and siblings. I really did want to see the world. I went to university as a 17-year-old in 1987—so you can do the calculations there!—then dropped out and went to Australia. There I worked as a jackaroo, truck driver, and a bit of a sort of self-taught mechanic on a cattle station. I experienced the exhilaration of riding semi - wild horses, and bull catching in cut-down four-wheel drives. But I also learnt about the quiet competence of the Aboriginal stockmen and their families. They had always lived as part of that land in the Kimberley Country. I learnt about dispossession. I learnt about naked, corrosive racism, and I learnt about the indominable spirit of the Aboriginal people. In Morocco, my partner, Jenna, and I bought a donkey and got lost in the High Atlas Mountains. There, we experienced the rich hospitality of Berber tribespeople in woollen tents. We saw the ingenuity of life in that arid, arid environment, and we were given the hospitality of a tent, and a donkey, food, meal, and directions over a mountain pass. In France, I worked as a cook, builder, and donkey-trekking guide in an alternative rural community in the Cévennes. We milked goats and sheep, we made cheese and chestnut jam, bartered and traded. It was an experience that was about as far from centre-pivot irrigation and industrial dairy as you can get. In that community in France, I learnt about an economy within an economy. An economy of that nourished people, ideas, and an alternative vision for rural community. I learnt about agroecology and living simply. The catalysts for a journey into politics aren't always obvious. I had no intention back then of entering politics. But by the late 1990s, with the birth of the transition town movement, the slow food movement, and our two wonderful sons Bruno and Lucan, I wanted to make a difference. I returned to university as an adult student and spent several years reflecting and teaching on alternative rural living and global food politics. Then I was invited to spend some time as an intern at the European Parliament in Brussels, researching EU rural policy. Meanwhile, Bruno began his schooling on his fifth birthday with complete immersion in a French speaking école primaire, and Lucan learnt his numbers from his pushchair by counting dog turds on the streets of Brussels—un caca de chien, deux caca de chien. Now that's great preparation for the political arena! After that time in Belgium and France, we returned to Aotearoa and I co-founded and managed an NGO in Blueskin Bay, north of Dunedin. Our mission was to deliver local climate solutions. It allowed me to meet and work with some truly inspirational people, like my friend and mentor, Jeanette Fitzsimons. Jeanette, along with other Greens like Sue Kedgley, Gareth Hughes, Eugenie Sage, Mojo Mathers, Metiria Turei, and James Shaw, began to draw me inexorably towards the Green Party as an agent of change. I learnt something else very important from Jeanette, as well as from others like the Aboriginal community of the Kimberley Country, like my Taekwondo colleagues, like my French friends in the Cévennes, like my parents. They all taught me the value of perseverance. We might get knocked down, but we should never lose hope. Things may not go according to plan, but values and solutions are worth fighting for, and we should never give up. During my 12 years as manager of the Blueskin trust, I experienced a crash course in the realpolitik of progressive environmental change in Aotearoa. There were some great highlights and frustrations. Two of the highlights: firstly, developing Aotearoa's first peer-to-peer electricity retail service, allowing people to share renewable electricity. Second, building the first climate safe house—a model for how to rapidly build transportable, modular eco-homes to address the flood risk and the housing crisis. And two of the frustrations. Well, firstly, the inability to sustain the first peer-to-peer electricity retail service due to the power of the gen-tailers to manipulate the electricity market. Secondly, the rejection by the Dunedin City Council of Aotearoa's first community wind farm at Blueskin Bay on "visual impact" grounds. The wind farm experience in Blueskin revealed two things. It showed the incredible potential to build community resilience, but it also revealed the inadequacy of the Resource Management Act, which we are going back to. It pointed me directly towards the broken policy process in Wellington as the most significant barrier to any real progressive change on the ground. Misinformation from a small group of people and canny use of a flawed policy environment managed to derail a decadelong project to create an resilient community. From this I learnt a hard political lesson: it is easier to stop things than to make good things happen. Unfortunately, that is exactly what we saw in Parliament prior to Christmas. The coalition Government had the same approach: stopping things and rejecting solutions to the climate crisis rather than making positive things happen. This is the political reality we now confront. It's familiar to everyone who works in the search for transitions to a better energy future. It's the daily reality of a whole lot of people here today who are energy innovators. The reality we all know is that our energy policy is almost entirely designed to make those transitions as difficult as possible. I am inspired by those groups, those NGOs, those individuals who battle on against these policy barriers and continue to advocate for innovative solutions—like Otago farmers who want to host small wind farms; like 350 Aotearoa, whose petition to support Homegrown Energy I presented to the House last year; like Toast Electric here in Wellington; like the Te Arawa Climate Change Working Group and the South Dunedin Future programme. But energy policy is working against them, and I stand before you as someone who will champion everyone trying to work towards cleaner, cheaper, smarter power for energy, wellbeing, and for climate justice for all. And for anyone in any party who gets this, I stand ready and willing to work with you to help unlock New Zealand's energy potential as the Saudi Arabia of wind power. If the Government does eventually want to move and journey from saying no to saying yes on a more sustainable and secure energy future, then there are already a great host of people working on and demonstrating those alternatives. Everything we need to transition to cleaner, cheaper, smarter power already exists. Our critical political task is to remove the policy barriers that are stopping those solutions coming to fruition. Finally, I began this speech by recognising the importance of family and whakapapa, and I stand here because of the support of my family. To my parents, who gave me so much, I wish they could be here, but it is now up to us to take their values forward. I want to give a shout-out to my sisters, Susan and Liz, who made it here today, somehow, and to Robin and Richard, who couldn't make it. Thank you for everything, thank you for fishing me out of the Coal Creek pond, throughout this journey. My parents-in-law, Helen and Stephen, have been absolutely wonderful, and Bruno and Lucan: I'm so proud of you both. I'm pleased that I'll get to spend a bit more time with you both in Wellington, and I'm really impressed that you wear my suit so well. And Jenna, I know this is not an ideal situation for us, and I know—well, I know that, but you've been so supportive, despite everything, and thank you for accepting this journey. Je t'aime, mon amour. I have a dream for Aotearoa, and for Bruno and Lucan and their partners. My dream: Aotearoa will have clear-running rivers and bush bursting with bird life. It'll be a place where everyone lives in a warm, cosy home and with good, local, seasonal food on the table. A place where we harness the wind, the sun, and the water to power our homes, our businesses, our mobility. A place where everyone has enough—not too much, not too little, but enough to live a good life. A country where we live within our means and we engage that endlessly renewable resource—our creativity—to ensure everyone, whether rural or urban, can thrive. This shouldn't simply be a dream. It's all within our reach—it's merely a political choice—and we shouldn't stand for anything less. Kia ora. [Applause, hongi, harirū] Waiata—Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi The House adjourned at 6.22 p.m.