TUESDAY, 2 JUNE 2020
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
PRAYERS
SPEAKER: Members, last week was Samoan Language Week, but due to a combination of circumstances, we did not have the opportunity to have the prayer in Samoan. To make up for that, I have asked Agnes Loheni to say the prayer in Samoan today.
AGNES LOHENI (National): Tatou ifo ma tatalo. Le Atua Silisili ese e, matou te sulaina lau Afio mo fa'amanuiaga ma tofi ua e fa'au'uina ai i matou. E lafoa'i ni o matou lagona ma manatua ta'ito'atasi i le amana'iaina o le Masiofo o Peretania. Matou te tatalo ina ia tonu ma fa'amaoni fuafuaga ma fa'ai'uga uma i totonu o lenei Maota Fono. Ia talosia ta'ita'i o lenei Mālō ina ia maua le tōfā mamao, le fa'apalepale ma le agamalū, auā le manuia ma le filemū o Niu Sila. O le matou tatalo lea, e ala atu i le suafa pele o Iesu Keriso, Amene.





ORAL QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister
1. TODD MULLER (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Will she accept my offer to work with the Government to implement National's JobStart policy as soon as possible?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I understand the member wrote to the Minister of Finance to request this, and I will leave it, ultimately, to the Minister of Finance to respond to his correspondence. We do, however, welcome constructive ideas for getting people into work. Ideas such as the one the member has already proposed have been in the mix or already exist in some form as part of the Government's programme. I do want to add, however, that the focus at the moment is on making sure we're helping businesses to hold on to as many workers as they can, through things like the wage subsidy and other direct support like changes in our tax regime, and the small business loan scheme, which has already lent over a billion dollars. While we still have workers being laid off, we do need to make sure we do everything we can to keep them in work.
Todd Muller: I repeat the question: will she accept my offer to work with the Government to implement National's JobStart policy as soon as possible?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: And I repeat my answer: I will leave it to the Minister of Finance to respond to his request, but I will refer the member to the programme called Mana in Mahi, which is also a subsidy to employers that totals $9,580 in subsidy. A major difference between this scheme and what the member is proposing is that there is a requirement to keep an employee in training, to try and stop the potential churn that some commentators have raised might be an issue with the scheme the member has proposed.
Todd Muller: Why, then, did her finance Minister say in relation to JobStart on Friday—and I quote—"It's certainly an idea that we're prepared to consider … We welcome constructive ideas that are about getting people into work."; or does she not consider that JobStart delivers on that?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I actually just said we welcome constructive ideas for getting people into work, and ideas such as this are already in the mix. I have not dismissed it, because, if I were to dismiss it, I would be dismissing the entire premise of Mana in Mahi, which is also a subsidy scheme for employers to take on employees. A big difference, though, is that that programme has overcome the issue of people potentially being hired and then potentially being fired in order to access a subsidy, which I'm sure the member would wish to avoid as well.
Todd Muller: Does she agree that businesses in New Zealand would find a $10,000 cash grant for each new hire beneficial as they try to grow following the staggering impact of COVID-19?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Mana in Mahi provides that opportunity for employers. Again I highlight: it provides a $9,580 wage support element to it that goes to the employer. But it does more than that. It provides pastoral support so the employer doesn't have to worry about whether or not a trainee shows up for work every day. It includes an extra $2,000 for education support. If an employer is taking someone on with the intention of training them, that is also often a barrier. So it is a much more comprehensive programme. We have considered whether or not we could scale it up and/or broaden the criteria for it, and that's why I say ideas like this are in the mix.
Todd Muller: Does she support $10,000 per new employee for every New Zealand business who is prepared to take someone on at a moment of economic crisis?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I support the programme that is providing $9,580 in wage support already. So, when it comes to programmes that provide wage support, I do support that concept; in fact, I worked alongside the Minister of Employment in the development around the programme. I've been a long-time advocate of it. But what the member is advocating doesn't account for issues around churn, and it doesn't account for the fact that right now businesses need us to help them keep the staff they have.
Todd Muller: Has she received positive feedback on JobStart, as I have, from the business community since it was announced on Friday?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I've seen a mix of responses, but, again, I won't take the fact that some people have been negative about it as a reason not to pursue the idea of wage support.
Todd Muller: Yes—that was just Grant. Does she agree with Business New Zealand's Kirk Hope—and I quote—"No one has a monopoly on good ideas right now, and anything that will make jobs for Kiwis should be welcomed."?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can see the member isn't used to receiving praise. I have already said that we welcome constructive ideas. We have not dismissed the idea of wage subsidies. In fact, I've already acknowledged that we've used them in the past. So I again repeat to the member: I'm not dismissing his policy; I am pointing out that there are issues that need to be worked through, and we're considering them as part of our work programme.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister whether it's a fact that she welcomes any idea, even those that include throwing cash at the problem when it doesn't include their mates?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I think the member is perhaps referring to the fact that we have done a lot of rigorous work around the way we've used Mana in Mahi. I point to the fact that the member's last Government, the National Government, through the global financial crisis, used Community Max. It stumbled across problems. We want to learn from those, and that's exactly what we are doing in the development of our policy.
Hon Grant Robertson: Has the Prime Minister seen the feedback on the policy from economist Tony Alexander, who said, "This is an incentive for businesses to lay off 10 employees then go to the Government two weeks later and say 'I now need to hire 10 employees, can I have my money please?' "—
Hon Amy Adams: Read the detail.
SPEAKER: That's all right.
Hon Grant Robertson: —and he went on to say, "In reality, this is not what the economy needs at the moment."?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, and I have read the, I think, three or four pages that the National Party provided in detail around this policy. I'm not letting the fact that there was a lack of detail get in the way, though, of supporting constructive ideas. I am, however, pointing out that there are issues we would need to account for, and that's the kind of thing Mana in Mahi does.
Todd Muller: So the Prime Minister's confirming to the House that half a million businesses in this country do not see value in a $10,000 grant to assist them to take on an extra person?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I say again: there is very little difference between the concept of a wage subsidy and the concept of Mana in Mahi, except for the fact we have accounted for the fact that—oh, sorry, forgive me, Mr Speaker; it was actually two pages—the detail of the member's plan does not deal with the fact that we might see churn, we might see people who are employed and then within, my recollection is, six months be sacked, and they're expecting IRD to monitor all of that.
Hon Grant Robertson: Does the Prime Minister think it's her responsibility to finish Todd Muller's homework?
SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member knew that was out of order. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.
Hon Grant Robertson: I withdraw and apologise.
Todd Muller: I ask again: half a million New Zealand businesses are seeking clarification—do you support $10,000 on the table to assist them to employ one more person to get out of this COVID recovery nightmare?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I will just highlight again that, actually, that is not what I have frequently had correspondence from businesses on. It is about keeping their existing staff, and that is why we have focused on a more than $10 billion wage subsidy programme: because businesses don't want to lose the people they have. There will be a period in the recovery, and we are gearing up with that around apprenticeships and keeping them in their roles, around things like using Mana in Mahi, but I don't apologise for the fact that we have focused on job retention and then job creation.




Question No. 2—Environment
2. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for the Environment: How will new standards for freshwater, announced last Thursday, help create healthy waterways and swimmable rivers within a generation?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Yes. The Government is delivering on its commitment to clean up our waterways with reforms that will deliver environmental gains, jobs, and benefits for the economy while supporting farmers with $700 million in funding to assist with things like riparian planting and the installation and fencing of many wetlands to trap sediment. The standards apply equally to rural and urban waterways and include specific controls on covering urban streams. We're also setting higher standards for health at swimming spots, putting controls on higher risk farm practice such as winter grazing and feed lots, setting stricter controls on nitrogen pollution and new bottom lines on other attributes of waterway health. We're ensuring faster council planning, requiring mandatory and enforceable farm environment plans, and I've said these actions are supported with funding for on-the-ground works.
Marama Davidson: How will embedding mātauranga Māori principles for water management in our regulations recognise iwi and hapū kaitiakitanga and improve water health?
Hon DAVID PARKER: Consultation showed widespread support from all sectors of society for using te mana o te wai as the guiding principle to prioritise first the health of the waterway, then the needs of people, and then commercial needs. A mahinga kai attribute will assist in ensuring eco-system health so that all New Zealanders can enjoy and benefit from healthy rivers and clean water for the decades to come. And, lastly, in respect of the plan-making process that's being legislated under the Resource Management Act, there will be an iwi representative on panels.
Marama Davidson: What new obligations will be applied to regional councils to reduce E. coli and promote swimmable rivers and lakes?
Hon DAVID PARKER: I think we've got to the point that virtually all New Zealanders now agree that New Zealanders should be able to pop down to their local river in summer and put their head under without the risk of getting crook. This package includes an additional E. coli attribute that will apply to primary contact sites during the swimming season and will require councils to reduce those risks substantially.
Marama Davidson: What is the time frame for introducing a dissolved inorganic nitrogen standard to complement other tools for managing nitrogen runoff introduced in this package of reforms?
Hon DAVID PARKER: That will be a decision for the next Government, after the election. In the meantime, there is a new input control which puts a limit of 190 kilograms of synthetic nitrogen to be applied per hectare per annum. This is estimated to require a change in practice from an estimated 20 percent of dairy farms—80 percent of dairy farmers already meet this standard. The package also strengthens the existing nitrogen toxicity attribute in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management by requiring protection of 95 percent of vulnerable species from the toxic effects of nitrate levels, up from 80 percent in the current national policy statement.




Question No. 3—Prime Minister
3. TODD MULLER (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: What new information, if any, was provided to Cabinet today to inform the discussion for a move to level 1?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Today, Cabinet considered the time line for future papers on the move to alert level 1. As I indicated this morning, a paper will be brought on 8 June on the basis of our ongoing success in managing COVID-19 and the fact our team of 5 million has exceeded expectations. 
Todd Muller: Was there substantive discussion at Cabinet today over moving to level 1 today?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I've indicated, the substantive discussion related to the bringing of a paper on 8 June. The member will recall that in my post-Cabinet press conference—I believe it was a week ago—I indicated that was a time line that we would be working to. I broadened out, though, the original suggestion that 8 June was just around the level 2 settings to now include a review of whether or not we are ready to move to level 1.
Todd Muller: What was the specific advice, if any, Cabinet received today on whether to move to level 1?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I will refer the member to the criteria that we will consider on 8 June, as we have considered every time. Those criteria are the number of cases, which the member will have been able to see as well as I have: that we have had zero cases for 11 days now; we also have seen a reduction in active cases. So on that basis, we started discussing last week with the Ministry of Health whether or not we should bring forward our consideration of alert level 1. We also consider things like economic ramifications, the readiness of the public health system, contact tracing, and compliance issues. These are all in the public domain.
Todd Muller: Will she release the advice received over the pathway to level 1 because of the high public interest in this issue?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The criteria that we use for consideration of alert level movements are already in the public domain. When it comes to the specific decision, we proactively release Cabinet papers after they've been considered, and that will happen on 8 June. 
Todd Muller: Why won't she release the information discussed today as to why we are not in level 1 today? 
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Cabinet has not considered the move to level 1. Once we have considered the move, then we release the decision and the information. What I signalled today is we have brought forward that decision making. We've always said that based on the evidence that we have, we are willing to bring forward our consideration. The member can see as well as I can that we have had ongoing zero case days. That gives us confidence to reconsider the time frames. I will say again, though: moving earlier than that, there is still ongoing concern amongst the scientific community around asymptomatic transmission. It is worse for business if we move backwards rather than continually moving forwards. So we will continually balance our decision making.
Todd Muller: What is her response to the Deputy Prime Minister, who was reported this morning saying that alert level 2 restrictions have to be discussed: "It would be very difficult if it's not a matter of discussion because of what happened a day before Cabinet."
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The events around vigils and gatherings have absolutely nothing to do with the evidence base we have used for our decision making all the way through the management of COVID-19. The second point I will make is we currently have some of the most liberal settings in the world right now because of the effectiveness of our strategy to date. And for that, I thank New Zealanders.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Prime Minister as to whether it's her view that caucus—or, for that matter, having Cabinet as well—leaking like a sieve is not very good for party unity and Government unity. 
SPEAKER: Order! Order! 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: What's wrong with that?
SPEAKER: Very clearly there are some areas that are the Prime Minister's responsibility, and leaking from caucuses is not one of them.
Hon Chris Hipkins: What would be the risk of moving with urgency to reopen the border to countries such as China, as proposed last week by the Leader of the Opposition?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The basis of us moving to level 1 is contingent on us maintaining strict border controls. That continues to be one of our biggest risks. Maintaining those border controls actually gives New Zealanders freedom of movement and means we don't have to live with restrictions. [Interruption] 
SPEAKER: Order! Sorry, I'm just going to remind the Hon Louise Upston, yet again, that when she interjects, her voice comes through her leader's mikes. If she can't remember, I'm going to ask the whips to find a place for her which is not directly behind the leader, so we're not all subjected to her interjections at that volume.
Todd Muller: How does she expect New Zealanders to follow social distancing rules when her Deputy Prime Minister has publicly stated we should be in level 1 now?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The fact that we have different opinions on this issue has not meant that anyone in the Cabinet has deviated away from upholding the rules that are in place, or the expectation around the rules. What I will say is unlike, perhaps, some are modelling on the other side of the House, we are very aware of each other's opinions and we talk openly about them before we talk publicly about them.
Todd Muller: What part of the Deputy Prime Minister's recent comments on COVID-19 doesn't equal deviation from your view?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, to answer the member's question, he implied that the member was breaking the rules.
Todd Muller: Does she agree with her Deputy Prime Minister that in respect of COVID-19, we have, and I quote, "been too cautious for far too long now?"
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member runs the risk of me bringing up all of the differing opinions that sit within his one party. You happen to be asking questions about two different parties.




Question No. 4—Finance
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): How much new spending in response to the COVID-19 crisis—[Interruption] 
SPEAKER: Order! I'm just going to ask the member to start again and I'm going to ask the interjector to cease.
4. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: How much new spending in response to the COVID-19 crisis has the Government announced so far, and how much has been spent to date?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The Government has set aside $62 billion for investments to support the economy through this one-in-100-year pandemic. This includes the $50 billion COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund announced in the Budget and the initial $12 billion economic package announced on 17 March. To date, about $43 billion has been announced and allocated over the forecast period, including for schemes to protect jobs and support businesses like the wage subsidy scheme, the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme, and changes to the tax system. At the same time, the Government has committed significant new investment for essential public services like health and education. In answer to the second part of the question, the Crown accounts for April and May have not yet been finalised, but Treasury forecasts that more than $26 billion will be spent in the current year to 30 June to support the economy through this one-in-100-year event.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: How much additional spending has he so far planned to announce before the general election in September?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: At this stage, as the member knows, we have $20 billion remaining in the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to spend as necessary on response and recovery from COVID-19. As the member knows, the Government has been very flexible all the way through our response to ensure we meet need as it arises, but I don't have any specific plans in that regard.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Would he have to spend less if the economy was opened up sooner, as suggested by the Deputy Prime Minister?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, as I think I said in the House last week, the big difference in terms of the operation of the economy is between level 3 and level 2, where there's about a 10 percentage point improvement in output, versus the move from level 2 to level 1, which would be about half of that, at 5 percentage points. Like all New Zealanders, I want to see our society and our economy opened up as quickly as possible and in the safest possible manner.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Will he be explicit before the election about any tax increases being considered by a Labour Government, if it were to be re-elected, to pay for his additional spending?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As the Minister of Finance in the coalition Government, I've been very clear that we are not doing anything to the tax system in this period of Government that remains. It will be up to each individual party running into the election to be clear about their tax policy. That applies to all parties in Parliament.
Hon James Shaw: Has he seen any information about the increased cost of National's JobStart package if that was layered on top of the existing $11 billion that's gone into the wage subsidy, and what that would do for tax rates in the future?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I've seen a range of ideas being brought up from political parties, including spending about another $9 billion of the $20 billion that's remaining. I don't think all of the parties in Parliament have added up all of the promises that they're making, but I'm sure someone will do that for them.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Will he rule out the re-imposition of death duties?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That is definitely not on the coalition Government's agenda.




Question No. 5—Finance
5. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Last week, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) released its latest quarterly predictions for the June quarter. While the NZIER acknowledged the difficulty in forecasting under the current uncertain circumstances, its forecasts do see a decline in activity concentrated in the June 2020 quarter, largely reflecting the conditions of alert level 4 that occurred during that quarter. However, NZIER did forecast unemployment to peak at 8.1 percent—below Treasury forecasts and far better than a number of other countries. It also said, "Given the relatively short amount of time spent in lockdown reflecting our success in eliminating COVID-19, the New Zealand economy looks increasingly likely to be at the optimistic end of the scenarios that had initially been considered … With New Zealand moving down the alert levels, more businesses are reopening and offering a [wide] range of goods and services." As we move through level 2, we can expect to see further gains from our early success in getting COVID-19 under control.
Dr Deborah Russell: What reports has he seen on recent activity in the New Zealand economy?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We are already seeing a significant lift in economic activity from moving from alert levels 3 and 2. A report out on Friday citing analysis by AirDNA showed a 565 percent increase in short-term rental bookings in New Zealand, which is higher than almost any other country in the world. Friday's weekly economic update from Treasury also shows improvements in economic activity. Heavy traffic movement is now only 5 percent below its normal levels, while electricity demand is now above pre-COVID levels, and electronic card spending during level 2 has been nearly equal to pre-COVID levels. This lift in activity is thanks to all New Zealanders supporting the Government's strategy of going hard and going early. Cabinet is fortunate to be in a position to now be considering a move to alert level 1 on 8 June.
Dr Deborah Russell: What reports has he seen on the economic impact of moving through the alert level framework?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Reserve Bank forecast that GDP would go from being 19 percent below normal under level 3 to 8.8 percent below normal under level 2—an improvement of 10 percentage points. In comparison, a move to level 1 adds 5 percentage points, so half the value of a move from level 3 to level 2. While a move to level 1 would further free up activity, this research from the Reserve Bank shows just how significant the move from level 3 to level 2 was in terms of opening up the economy. The good news is that the vast bulk of the economy is now able to be back up and running at level 2, and a further step down to level 1 is primarily focused on increasing gathering size and reducing social distance requirements, which will add additional economic capacity.




Question No. 6—Economic Development
6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister for Economic Development: What special powers, if any, did Cabinet grant him that enabled him to allow 56 film workers from Los Angeles into New Zealand?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister for Economic Development): Cabinet agreed to border restrictions on 19 March preventing all entry into New Zealand, with some specific exemptions. Those exemptions included essential workers as agreed on a case-by-case basis by the COVID Cabinet Committee. Then, as an interim measure, on 21 April, Ministers with power to act on COVID-19 matters delegated further decision-making for agreeing workers as essential workers for the purpose of exemptions to border restrictions to the Minister for Economic Development and the relevant portfolio Minister for each specific application.
Hon Judith Collins: How many times has he exercised his powers to grant border exemptions on economic grounds?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I have now signed off 28 applications, representing 201 other essential workers.
Hon Judith Collins: When he is granting border exemptions to allow people to come into New Zealand, what isolation and physical distancing is he requiring to be in place?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: All of the people who come into the country through the exemptions policy are required to undergo a two-week supervised isolation or quarantine. I should say that 2,354 border exemptions have been granted to date; 1,906 of these have been for families or on humanitarian grounds—so the ones that are coming in as essential workers are less than 10 percent of that total.
Hon Judith Collins: What does he say, then, to the worried guests of the QT Museum Hotel who were, reportedly, exposed to a group of Avatar workers in the hotel reception who were not practising physical or social distancing despite having just arrived from the country with the world's highest number of active COVID-19 cases?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I guess the first point to make is that people coming into the country through the border exemptions regime are not screened on the basis of what country they're coming from, but all of them are required to undergo two weeks of enforced quarantine, supervised by officials from the Ministry of Health. Everybody coming into the country is informed and instructed that they have to comply with all of the public health guidelines, including physical distancing. Ministry of Health personnel are responsible for overseeing the quarantine arrangements when people come into the country under these exemptions, and I would expect that they would be informing those people that they are required to comply.
Hon Judith Collins: Then how can this supervision have been undertaken if there was a group of Avatar workers in the hotel reception at the QT Museum Hotel who were not practising social distancing but were actually mingling around guests?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: If the member has got a specific case that she wants to take up, I would suggest that she takes it up with the Minister of Health, who is responsible for quarantine arrangements for anybody entering New Zealand.




Question No. 7—Customs
7. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Customs: Does she stand by all her Government's customs policies and actions?
Hon JENNY SALESA (Minister of Customs): Yes. I especially stand by Customs' policies and actions that have led to a decisive response to COVID-19 at our border, including the handling of passengers entering New Zealand while enabling the movement of freight in and out of New Zealand. I also stand by the policies and actions that continue to protect New Zealanders from other forms of harm, including a record bust of three tonnes of drugs in 2019, and the additional funds that have been invested in the Customs Service to tackle illegal drugs and objectionable material coming across the border. I especially stand by the brave men and women of our New Zealand Customs Service, who've worked tirelessly to keep our country safe.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why is Customs refusing entry to New Zealand for vessels coming here for marine engineering work, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars of work and a loss of significant jobs, when the COVID-19 risks from crew are negligible and easily managed?
Hon JENNY SALESA: The decision about which kinds of craft are allowed in, whether they're marine or whether they're cruise ships, is, basically, focused on our actions to deal with COVID-19. And so one of the reasons why our Government actually had alert level 4, and the fact that we closed our border, is, basically, because our first and foremost priority is to protect New Zealand people's lives. We take that advice from the Director-General of Health and from the Ministry of Health, and, basically, in terms of lifting or changing that particular policy, it'll be a decision by Cabinet.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does she stand by Customs' decision to refuse entry of the large fishing vessel the Capt. Vincent Gann for urgent engineering work in Nelson, when it has come from American Samoa—where there have been zero cases, and they closed their border prior to us—when the crew have been at sea for weeks, and when the crew can be tested and quarantined when they arrive in New Zealand?
Hon JENNY SALESA: I stand by our Government's record: the fact that we only have one current active case of COVID-19; the fact that we almost have eliminated COVID-19. Cabinet makes these decisions based on the Director-General of Health and the Ministry of Health. I stand by our Government's record on COVID-19. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does she agree with the advice given by her officials to New Zealand marine engineering companies that these fishing vessels in the Pacific that are normally maintained in Nelson should go to Hawaii or other ports for repairs? 
Hon JENNY SALESA: I reiterate my response. I stand by our Government's decision to ensure that our borders are safe, and until the Director-General of Health and the Ministry of Health gives us other advice in Cabinet, I stand by our Government's advice on this.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why is the Government making an exemption to the closed borders for foreign film workers but not for blue collar workers in the marine engineering industry? 
Hon JENNY SALESA: In terms of exemptions, the member might want to reflect on who that particular question should go to. Those exemptions are given by the Minister for Economic Development. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does she accept responsibility for the unnecessary loss of jobs in the marine industry in places like Nelson, given the Government's refusal to provide exemptions for that important New Zealand industry?
Hon JENNY SALESA: Again, I reiterate my response. I stand by our Government's response to COVID-19. We have been really successful at addressing COVID-19, and in terms of opening up the border, that will be a decision that will be made by Cabinet, not by me as Minister of Customs on my own.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave of the House to table the relevant correspondence over the last three weeks to try and get access for these vessels to New Zealand that has resulted in significant job losses in my Nelson electorate. 
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to those documents being tabled? There appears to be none. 
Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.




Question No. 8—Housing
8. PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Housing: What is the Government doing to boost the delivery of new public and transitional homes, and why is this important as New Zealand emerges from the COVID-19 crisis? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): In Budget 2020, the Government announced funding for 8,000 new public and transitional homes. This is a significant boost to the Government's existing public housing build programme of 6,400 homes announced in Budget 2018. Kāinga Ora will finance its proportion of the additional 8,000 homes by increasing its borrowing by approximately $5 billion. This major investment is an important signal to the residential construction sector that the Government is ramping up its commitment to public housing, and the economic impact of the $5 billion investment in the residential construction market will be significant. Not only does this mean that 8,000 more families will have warm, dry homes to live in but it also means we'll be supporting thousands of jobs in the trades and wider construction sector to deliver these houses. With these latest announcements, that brings the number of homes to 18,350, either delivered by our Government or in the Government's public housing build pipeline—the most we've seen in decades. 
Paul Eagle: What progress is the Government making on its commitment to build 6,400 public homes announced in Budget 2018? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As at the end of March 2020, 3,749 public housing places, or 59 percent, have been delivered against the target of 6,400 new public housing places by June 2022. In addition to funding for the latest 8,000 houses, Budget 2020 also included $100 million of funding to deliver 1,650 extra places that have been delivered ahead of schedule over the last 2½ years. This is great news, and demonstrates our Government's absolute commitment to building more public houses. I'm proud of our record to date and our plan for the future, after a decade of the previous Government doing little more than selling off State houses. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Just to confirm, Minister: does that mean that flogging off State houses everywhere and running down the Housing New Zealand stock has well and truly been stopped? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Yes, it does, but, unfortunately, we are left with a legacy of a waiting list of around 15,000 people. But we are a Government with a plan to address that shortfall. 
Paul Eagle: What is the delivery time line for the additional 8,000 new houses, and where will they be located? 
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The 8,000 houses will be delivered over the next four to five years. Approximately 6,000 of these will be delivered in the two years following the completion of the existing 6,400 houses in the delivery pipeline. The other 2,000 houses will be delivered as transitional housing places over the next two years to enable the Government to reduce reliance on the use of motels as an emergency measure. In terms of where these houses will be located, that will be determined as part of the public housing plan. I have asked officials to bring this work forward as a matter of priority, and I expect it will be available in the coming months. 




Question No. 9—Tourism
9. Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) to the Minister of Tourism: What advice has he received on the number of Australians who visited New Zealand for the purposes of a holiday or visiting family during the Australian winter school holidays in 2019?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Tourism): During the Australian winter school holidays in 2019, 55,538 Australians came to New Zealand for a holiday; while 38,345 came at the same time to visit friends and family.
Hon Todd McClay: What was the total amount spent by Australian visitors to New Zealand in the 2019 Australian winter school holidays?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I don't have those figures at hand.
Hon Todd McClay: How many jobs were dependent on the amount spent by Australian visitors to New Zealand during the Australian winter school holidays in 2019?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: We know that some 400,000 New Zealanders are either directly or indirectly employed in tourism-related work.
Hon Todd McClay: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I didn't ask how many were employed in tourism.
SPEAKER: No, the member asked a question which was marginal as to its flow from the previous question. I allowed the question and it was addressed.
Hon Todd McClay: Has he received any advice at all on the economic importance of the Australian winter school holidays to the New Zealand tourism industry and the families and communities who rely on it?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: We know that any holidays are important to the tourism industry, including the Australian school holidays. But, of course, I have no say over what the Australians do in their school holidays.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Can he confirm that while New Zealand is currently in a reasonably long stretch of having no new COVID cases, Australia still continues to report up to double-digit new COVID-19 cases each day?
SPEAKER: Order! The member could have phrased it so that the member could have answered it, but he didn't.
Hon Todd McClay: What will be the economic consequence, and how many jobs will be lost, if the trans-Tasman border remains closed during the Australian winter school holiday season this year?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: A couple of things. First of all, a trans-Tasman bubble is something we would all like to see, but it depends on both countries deciding that it is safe to open the borders. In terms of addressing the question around—I think it was how many jobs we lost—
Hon Todd McClay: The consequences on jobs, yeah.
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: On the consequences on jobs, we know that this is a global situation. COVID-19 has affected every country. There is no international tourism whatsoever, so the effects on the industry have been devastating. We would like to see—
Hon Grant Robertson: How would you do it, Todd? Would you just open all the borders up—just open them up, bring them in from anywhere, Todd?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: —the trans-Tasman bubble open up as quickly as possible, but we must make sure that both countries are sure that it's safe to do so.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Supplementary question.
SPEAKER: Before we do that, I'm just going to ask the Minister of Finance: no matter how provocative the interjections that come from the other side, when he interjects—when he replies that loudly while the Minister is speaking, he interferes with the ability of the Minister to be—well, my ability to hear the Minister. I'd like him to stop it. So don't be provoked.
Hon Chris Hipkins: I'll have another go, Mr Speaker. What would be the economic consequences to the New Zealand tourism industry of COVID-19 coming across the trans-Tasman border and spreading in New Zealand?
Hon KELVIN DAVIS: We have seen the devastation that COVID-19 has caused to the New Zealand economy as we've gone up into level 4. The last thing that this country needs is for us to go from level 2 back into level 3 and back into level 4. What we need to do is maintain the course that we're on, making sure that it is safe on both sides of the Tasman before the trans-Tasman bubble is opened up.




Question No. 10—Immigration
10. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura) to the Minister of Immigration: Have he or his officials received correspondence regarding visa exemptions for foreign teams in the America's Cup; if so, when?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister of Immigration): I am not aware of any correspondence relating to visa exemptions regarding any of the foreign teams in the America's Cup. None of the syndicates have indicated that they want to be exempted from our usual immigration requirements. However, to be helpful to the member, I can inform the House that I have had regular correspondence with Dean Barker as the head of the American Magic syndicate on the subject of travel to New Zealand for the America's Cup since he contacted my office on 23 March 2020; this has included a video conference on 25 March 2020 and further correspondence since.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: It's an exemption from the closed border.
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Immigration New Zealand officials have also been in regular discussions—
SPEAKER: Order! Order! Some of us think this is quite an important question, Dr Smith, and it's not helped by your loud interjections, which appear to be coming through your colleague's mike behind you.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Point of order, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: No. I want to hear the end of the answer. If there's a point of order then, I'll take it.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Some members get points of order and some don't?
SPEAKER: I think the member is lucky that his colleague's mike was turned off.
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'll pick up where I left off, which was to say that Immigration New Zealand officials have also been in regular discussions with the America's Cup syndicate since July of 2019, and the member will appreciate that the context for those discussions has changed significantly since that time.
Stuart Smith: Why have some visas for America's Cup teams not been approved, given Immigration New Zealand provided specific instructions to staff on 18 August 2018 on issuing visas to America's Cup teams in a timely manner?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Because we have established a process for exemptions from the restrictions that are in place.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Oh, there are now exemptions? So there are exemptions now?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Exemptions from the restrictions that are in place, Dr Smith—listen carefully. And I understand that applications for exemption have been lodged with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and are being processed for consideration by the Minister for Economic Development.
Stuart Smith: Does he expect America's Cup teams to apply for visa exemptions under the "significant economic value" category; and, if so, how can they do this given the criteria is unpublished?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: As I've already explained to the member, there is no way to apply for a visa exemption.
Stuart Smith: Why, then, has he not communicated that to the America's Cup teams?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The America's Cup teams are well aware of the process for seeking an exemption to the border restrictions, and I understand that applications have been lodged and are being processed by MBIE.
Stuart Smith: Is he confident that visas will be granted in time for the first America's Cup team members to arrive by 15 June in order to adequately prepare for the event?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I am confident that the process that has been put in place and has been discussed with the syndicates will be applied appropriately.




Question No. 11—Education
11. JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What action has the Government taken to ensure that New Zealand's most vulnerable children will receive a healthy school lunch?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): The Wellbeing Budget of 2020 funds the expansion of the free and healthy school lunch programme to 200,000 New Zealand children. This means that once it's fully rolled out, one in four schoolchildren in New Zealand will receive a free, healthy school lunch every day. We know that kids with full tummies tend to concentrate better, they're normally better behaved, and, of course, they learn more. The Government's model gives flexibility to schools to decide whether or not to deliver the lunches themselves or to outsource to an external supplier. We know that the schools and communities are best placed to understand what their children need.
Jan Tinetti: How will the expansion of the free and healthy school lunch programme to one in four New Zealand school students create jobs?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Based on what we already know from the way the programme is working in the schools that have been taking part so far—either making the lunches themselves or outsourcing to an external supplier—it's estimated that around 2,000 additional jobs in local communities could be created through the expansion of this programme. Several schools have employed whānau to help make and distribute lunches on school sites. In other areas, locals have been employed by locally based suppliers providing lunches. For example, 65 people have been employed in the Bay of Plenty region across 21 schools currently in the programme. As an example, at Murupara Area School, that began serving lunches in late January this year, the school lunches are provided by Manawa Munchies, a business set up specifically for this purpose, and it employs three local people.
Jan Tinetti: What are the next steps for the expansion of the free and healthy school lunch programme to one in four New Zealand school students?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Detailed planning is under way to support the scaling up of the programme. It continues to be rolled out, and the next group in the South Island will be announced shortly. The phased expansion of the lunches will begin during term 4 this year, reaching a further 50,000 students, and increasing to up to 200,000 students by term 3 in 2021.
Jan Tinetti: What reports has he seen about the free and healthy school lunch programme for the nearly 8,000 children who currently receive it?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The principal of Kimi Ora Community School in Flaxmere said that the programme had had a huge impact on kids' learning and also on kids' mental wellbeing. Because all students at the primary school receive a lunch, it removed the stigma of poverty; it's also reduced truancy at their school because families of children used to be embarrassed to send their children to school if they could not provide them with a lunch. Principals from Sunset Primary School and Kaitao Intermediate School in Rotorua have said that they're seeing higher attendance and better behaviour with their free school lunches. Sunset Primary School is also providing free stationery as a result of the Government's school donations scheme.
Hon Grant Robertson: Excellent.
SPEAKER: Yes, and, as was indicated to me, it's not always a question of poverty, the question of whether people have lunch, but it does impact on their behaviour. The Minister of Finance didn't have his lunch—that's the point that I'm making—and it's been clear to everyone in the House.




Question No. 12—Housing
12. NICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Minister of Housing: Will she do anything for KiwiBuild buyers caught up in the delayed Monark development, including the couple who wrote to her on Friday stating, "We want the Government, whose involvement induced us into entering this contract, to own up and enable KiwiBuild purchasers to exit their agreements with no further financial bloodshed"?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Yes.
Nicola Willis: What will she do for those buyers and will she ensure they can get their full deposits back, or does she think it's fair they face a $5,000 penalty?
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member's been here long enough. You can't ask three supplementary questions.
SPEAKER: Can't ask what?
Rt Hon Winston Peters: You can't ask three supplementary questions all at once.
SPEAKER: Well, I'm going to get the member to start again, and I'll focus.
Nicola Willis: What will the Minister do for those buyers, and will she ensure they can get their full deposits back?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Addressing the first part of that question, I understand the developer will be communicating with KiwiBuild Monark purchasers to inform them that they are offering to return the full deposit payable on all KiwiBuild contracts cancelled, and no costs will be recovered. This offer will be open for 10 working days from today. The developer and the Government remain committed to this development, and we are confident there will continue to be demand for these homes. I am also currently working with officials on the steps required to align the occupancy requirements on the Monark two- and three-bedroom homes, with the one-year requirement on studio and one-bedroom homes.
Nicola Willis: Why did the Government market homes in the Monark development before a construction contract had been confirmed, and will she apologise to KiwiBuild buyers caught up in the resulting delays?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I explained to that member last week, this is a type of contract that is no longer entered into by KiwiBuild. It has not been a type of contract that is entered into since December of last year. Selling off the plans is a normal part of property development, but we recognise that doing so prior to there being a contracting agreement does not sit well with Kiwi buyers. I think what that member does need to understand, however, is that selling off the plans is going to be an incredibly important part as we get through the post-COVID recovery in construction, and I look forward to hearing some constructive plans from that member on what she's going to do.
Nicola Willis: Will she apologise to distressed KiwiBuild buyers caught up in the Monark development?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I've not only offered my sympathy and apologies but we changed the policy in December, and I've fixed the situation for these people that want to get out of it.
 





URGENT DEBATES DECLINED
COVID-19 Outbreak—Alert Levels, Social Gatherings Rules Breach
SPEAKER: I have received a letter from David Seymour seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the breach of alert level 2 rules on social gatherings at yesterday's protest in Aotea Square in Auckland. For there to be an urgent debate there must be administrative or ministerial responsibility for the case of recent occurrence. The concept of ministerial responsibility for a matter qualifying for an urgent debate is narrower than it is in respect of questions for oral answer, which encompass any matter relating to public affairs with which the Minister has an official connection. An urgent debate is a way of holding the Government accountable for an action for which it is responsible. There must be distinct governmental responsibility for the particular case which is sought to be debated—Speaker's rulings 191/3. There is no governmental responsibility for the protest in Aotea Square yesterday. Therefore, the application is declined.





BUDGET DEBATE
Debate resumed from 27 May on the Appropriation (2020/21 Estimates) Bill.
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): This year's Budget comes during an unprecedented time—and I know we have heard that word over and over again over the last few months—with a global health crisis that, clearly, has economic implications globally as well. Fortunately, we have built up our nation's resilience by getting the books into surplus, achieving the lowest unemployment rate in a decade, and investing in our public services and our people's wellbeing over the past three years. We are now seeing the benefit of careful fiscal planning and management. We are winning the battle with our health response to COVID-19, but the war's not over. Now we're focusing on our economic response, and keeping jobs, new jobs, and training for jobs is very much our focus. Our response has given us the chance to get our economy moving faster than many other countries. 
Budget 2020 also continues the Government's careful and balanced approach to running the books, with a focus on the economy, yes, but also the wellbeing of New Zealanders. I have the privilege of being the Minister for Social Development, and can I say that our Budget is a response to COVID-19, but actions were put in place before the Budget was introduced. Those actions really sit as a backdrop to what was to follow with respect to the Budget in 2020. 
We did, at the Budget, see the introduction of an income relief payment to provide a cushion for people experiencing job loss due to the impacts of COVID-19. It is not the first time that we have had job loss cover of this nature. As referenced many times in this House during last week's debate, following the Canterbury earthquakes there was also a very similar scheme of job loss cover put in place, and following the global financial crisis we also saw a restart package. With respect to our COVID income relief payment, obviously the point of difference is that it is nationwide and it is at a much larger scale.
This will come into effect as many companies will be easing out of the wage subsidy or finishing up with the wage subsidy—apart from those who are able to get an extension to the wage subsidy. The wage subsidy was put in place to try and keep people connected to their place of employment, to support businesses with what is one of their biggest overheads—that being staff wages—and to support with saving jobs and providing people with a livelihood during that very uncertain period. And it has worked, but it was never going to protect us entirely from job losses, which is why we have put the COVID-19 income relief payment into place.
Not only did we see the wage subsidy put in place, followed by the COVID-19 income relief payment, but what we saw as an initial action, right at the beginning of our experience when COVID-19 really started to hit us, was measures put in place to support the most vulnerable—those experiencing hardship in New Zealand already. That came in the form of benefit increases of $25 per week and also the doubling of the winter energy payment. The feedback that I have received from those out and about, particularly superannuitants, on the impact that the doubling of the winter energy payment will make for them this year is that it is massive.
Can I say too that alongside the income support measures that we've put in place, we've never shied away from the fact that we also need to be putting a focus on the expansion of employment services and our support for New Zealanders who lose work at this time. In fact, we saw at the Budget an additional investment of $150 million to support with employment contracted services so that we can assist New Zealanders to redeploy, where they are able, into employment. Alongside that, in other portfolios we saw an investment in training opportunities, and can I make particular reference to the $1.6 billion that is being invested into apprenticeships.
I get asked often about the Welfare Expert Advisory Group's report and our response to it. Quite often, people's perception of what is recommended in that report is limited only to benefit increases, and, although we absolutely understand the importance of income adequacy—and that was part of the terms of reference—I can, hand on heart, say that we have increased benefits but that there is more to it. In fact, the expansion of employment services and ensuring that we are providing employment services that serve a broader group of New Zealanders—potentially not just those that have found themselves on benefit but those that may be at risk of being displaced from their work and those who may be looking for other options—was also part of the recommendation of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group.
There has been some criticism over the temporary income relief payment, and we as a Government have been very clear that it is temporary. However, we've also signalled that we will be exploring a redundancy payment or social insurance of that type, and, in fact, that was something that was asked of us by not only Business New Zealand but the Council of Trade Unions. In fact, referring back to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group's report, that was actually what was in recommendation 37: that we as a country should be exploring a redundancy payment of that nature. 
What became very clear, alongside income support and also support for employment and upskilling and training, was the absolute essential nature of our social services during this period. That is why, during the COVID period prior to the Budget, we did invest an additional $27 million to support Ministry of Social Development social services or contracted social services to be able to meet the demand during this time. It doesn't end there. For many of these organisations that are contracted by the Ministry of Social Development, often who also have contracts with other Government agencies, they have not seen an increase in funding for a number of years, despite, in many instances, the demand on their services going up. So we saw a significant increase in funding for our social services at our 2020 Budget. Can I say that I think that that was long overdue. 
If I just cite one of the contracts or nationwide services that benefited from that increase in funding, that would be the Building Financial Capability services—so our budgeting services. There are around 131 budgeting services across the country. They are local people serving their local communities. What we saw at the Budget was not only a baseline increase of 20 percent—which saw an increase of $9.7 million, off the top of my head—but also a recognition of the fact that during this period, when New Zealanders are more likely to be experiencing either job loss or reduction in income, there may be more New Zealanders seeking the support of their local budgeting services. So on top of the 20 percent increase, we also increased funding to reflect the COVID-19 demand, with an additional $25 million over the next two years to support those budgeting services to be able to deliver their very, very crucial services at this time. 
That was just one example of where social services had increases in funding. We also saw it again with our family violence and sexual violence services. Can I say, one of the things that I'm proudest of on this side of the House is that we have seen increases to that sector year on year since we have been in Government. The sector was underfunded for too long, and it was a reflection of the fact that the previous Government did not take it seriously enough and did not invest in areas that should be a priority for any Government.
I'm very proud of what is in this Budget. It all is a very different Budget and a very different Budget process from previous years. But, collectively, as Ministers and as a Government, across the three parties, we were able to determine what were priorities for us as a country. Getting the economy back on the road but with a focus, of course, still on our health is our absolute priority, and that is why, not only with the Ministry of Social Development but with a range of other ministries, there is a focus on jobs, upskilling, training, and further educational opportunities.





JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Budget 2020 as presented to this House. Indeed, as the previous speaker alluded, it is a Budget like no other. At the beginning of my speech, I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Finance, who presented a Budget he probably had no idea he would be presenting months earlier, or envisaging spending as much money as is going out the front door right now. These are remarkable times, so credit to him. He has not only managed the Crown's finances in a time of crisis to be able to roll out these support schemes to help New Zealand employees in particular—which I suspect is more an administrative miracle that he's achieved than a fiscal one—but he has also presented this Budget on due date.
I think that as we give credit where it's due, the Government should also give credit where it's due. We know the Prime Minister often chides us on the Opposition benches that prior to COVID-19 lockdown, the Crown's books were in better shape than when they inherited them. Suffice to say that having a lower debt to GDP may not, in fact, be due to the Government's success in lowering debt but maybe businesses' success in raising GDP. I think that one thing that we say from this side of the House is that we wish the Government had worked and come out sooner and harder in supporting businesses, because I think that many of the mechanisms which they say are supporting businesses are, in fact, failing to do that which they think and which they say is occurring. Why is it today—why is it today—that we still hear businesses saying, "We're going to the wall?" It's because those mechanisms which the Government has designed have not been fully tried and tested and doing the work they think that they are achieving.
Giving credit where it's due may not only be given to businesses because of the incredible work that's happened in our economy over these last number of years—and an example of that is what Stats New Zealand say has been record export volumes and prices for our red meat sector—but also because this Government inherited the very solid and sound financial management of their predecessors, and I mention John Key, Bill English, and Steven Joyce, as they led us through the Canterbury earthquake and the global financial crisis. Of course, these gentlemen and ladies across the way like to get the credit but do not like to give it back, and I think credit where it's due, and I think that we need to acknowledge that.
But I think that it's not just a matter of bouquets; I think it's also a matter of brickbats as we look here at Budget 2020. Yes, all credit that it came under a great trial of fire, and credit that support went out in those early days and continues to go out, but as my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith so clearly pointed out, prior to COVID-19 things were actually going backwards. The economic growth had halved, in times when we were getting those record prices from export commodities offshore. You just only have to read what Stats New Zealand said on 2 March this year—particularly, as I talked about, that beef and lamb trade rose to their highest level ever in the December 2019 quarter, and they boosted overall export prices right across the country. Volumes increased by 3.2 percent, values rose by 12 percent in the December 2019 quarter, yet we still see an economy under pressure, and people have wondered why this is. It just took two years for this Government to turn a solid surplus into a deficit.
Then we had COVID-19 come along, and COVID-19 has certainly dealt a massive blow—a massive blow—to the New Zealand economy. The Government are keen for New Zealanders to keep supporting their cheque account in order to continue to support this country. I think we have a confused economic landscape, and I would say that when spending is best described as throwing everything including the kitchen sink, we need to be cognisant of the fact that rainy days are here and rainy days will still come, and we need to make sure that we have got a kitchen sink for future rainy days.
So I would think that ensuring that our businesses are strong as they come through this—we all know that employees need an employer, that we would have companies and businesses who have more than staff-only costs: they have overheads, they have all sorts of other finance costs, and yet it's been very difficult for many of them to receive the support they need to be able to get through. On the other side of it, we want all of these people who have received wage subsidy support and all of the people who have lost their jobs to be able to come through this and find employment again in the future. 
Mr Alan McDonald, from the Employers and Manufacturers Association, head of advocacy, and I quote him, said his organisation has been calling for the past week for a return to level 1 more quickly than the Government has indicated. I think that what this is is businesses—it is businesses themselves—feeling the pain, knowing what the solution is. Credit to the health outcomes that have been achieved, but there needs to be a swift response. He went on to say, "Every day we are under these restrictions, more businesses are going to the wall and more people are made redundant." So this Budget is a recovery Budget, but I just hope that they don't leave the expenditure that is needed for this recovery to take place until it's too late. 
I applaud the recovery package for the arts sector that was just released. In fact, it was released very, I guess, spasmodically, in an episode type of way. We received, of course, funding provisions on the day of the Budget. Then the Prime Minister, in Te Papa last week, talked about other elements and mechanisms, and then, in Napier on Friday, further mechanisms which the Government will employ to support the arts sector. It's interesting, the arts sector. Of course, many of them are people in the creative industry who can't have work, who are the last to get back into work, because many of them perform before crowds. Going to an event when you have high production costs when you can only have 100 people there just doesn't make it work.
It's like, you know, you go to a cafe in town: the doors are open, but nobody's making money. In fact, many of them say, "We either make a decision to lose money slowly or to lose money quickly, and if we open our door to business under the current restrictions, we lose money quickly." Many of them say, "It's cheaper for us to not open at all." So there is this cry for businesses to be heard and to be acknowledged about the pressures they are under and to get the balance right between the health concerns and the economic concerns, and, of course, we understand this Government is quite divided in terms of those views.
But I think that on the Opposition side of the bench, we understand the importance of the health response, and there has been a very good response as "Team NZ" have put their heart and soul into it. But as I've said to our local media, New Zealanders will certainly cooperate and do the very best they can, until they feel it's been unreasonable, what's been asked of them. I think what we are sensing and perhaps the Government are sensing—which is why the Prime Minister has indicated today that they are going to look at level 1 next Monday—is that the public are not backing them in this decision and that there is a real cry, particularly from business, to get back into business.
I've always felt that the support package to subsidise wages has been reasonable, good, and quick, and it's been helpful, but I've always been disappointed that there has not been a really good awareness and support package that has quickly come to businesses, because on the other side of this—and we will get there, but let's hope we get there sooner rather than later—we need those businesses to be strong, to be employers, which is why I acknowledge and respect what Todd Muller has been saying: that we have a package that will help them take up and support new employment, because that's what we're going to need as we continue to see thousands upon thousands of New Zealanders lose their jobs. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in the House this afternoon on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to this Budget debate. As those members opposite and the team on this side will know, this is a Budget about jobs. It's about jobs, it's about jobs now, it's about making more jobs in the not too distant future, and then making even more jobs through infrastructure and productivity as we move forward.
But, Madam Speaker, this is the first time I've had a chance to speak in the House in this reduced size capacity, so I just wanted the opportunity to acknowledge yourself, to acknowledge the members opposite, to thank the previous speaker, Jonathan Young, for example, for his contribution—90 percent of it he got right. His message was bang on the money. It is about jobs; it is about employment. What the member who spoke previously failed to note was that this Government is proudly doing the mahi to make sure that today, tomorrow, and the day after, our focus is on New Zealand and New Zealanders and their jobs.
So that is what this Budget is about, and that is what gives me pride to stand up in this House of Representatives today, to speak to a response to one of the most unprecedented disruptions to the world's economy, to the lives of people around the entire world. We have seen disruptions before but we have seen nothing like this. The uncertainty around the world and the struggle to plan, to look forward, for a lot of the economies is stifling, it's scary, and what we are doing here is making sure that not only New Zealand businesses or New Zealand households but everyday Kiwis know that this Government has got their back.
I just wanted to take this 10-minute contribution to explain how we are doing that.
Simeon Brown: Oh, please!
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: So, just for the member who interrupted, Simeon Brown, can I suggest he take another poll, perhaps on last year's Budget, and what we should be spending on that. It might be as useful as the poll he gave the Twitterazzi a couple of days ago, which was a complete waste of time.
But I digress. I just need to acknowledge the new Leader of the Opposition, Mr Muller, and the deputy leader. They have taken on an incredible, gargantuan task of reconnecting with an electorate, and it's not so much wishing them the best of luck, but good on them. It was a successful, bloodless coup d'état, and all power to them within their electorate, as it were.
Let me, first, briefly outline the broad strokes of the Budget before I go into detail. So this is a $50 billion COVID-19 response—a recovery fund, as I said before, that is about jobs. But what probably has been mentioned a few times in the House and bears repeating is that the forecasts predict, based on the budgets provided to the public, a return to unemployment rates of around or less than 4.5 percent—probably closer to 4 percent—by 2022. We are looking at actual economic growth next year when, and as, this Budget takes hold and the wonderful people of New Zealand are allowed to get back out there and do their thing.
This has been a Budget that is about saving jobs, and the other side of the House seem reluctant to acknowledge that, actually, in saving jobs right now we are saving the economy and empowering it to move forward, to move forward quickly and efficiently. I say that because most employers—well, all the employers I've talked to—want to keep their people on board. They've invested in their staff, they've spent money, they've taken risk on the people working for them, and they would rather hold on to the staff they have. And, for the benefit of those members opposite, I just put a simple economic equation in front of them to ponder this afternoon. In a very basic economic model, there are two players in an economy—households and firms. In that model, there are two lots of flows, interaction between those two important sectors. You've got wages and goods and services going from firms to households. What are households flowing back? They are flowing their worker resource and their consumption. That seems to have been lost by the members opposite. It's an interdependent relationship, and this side of the House, as illustrated in this Budget response, has shown that we recognise the interdependent nature of those two core parts of an economy.
Yes, absolutely, talk about small business and our response to them—and if I have time I will go into some of the detail on some of what we've done—but you have to be able to talk about what it is we have done in terms of saving jobs through the wage subsidy scheme, but making sure that consumers, those households, have that income in their pockets. Without households having money now, there is nothing to spend in small businesses—or the big ones. So businesses need that confidence. They need to know that, as they spend money on themselves, as they take on those interest-free loans, as they apply for those tax breaks—the carry-forward tax breaks, for example—and take the risk and invest in themselves, and make the hard decision to move forward now in this COVID environment—because I do know how hard it is for them—their customers have money. But they need to know, also, that the Government is there to support them.
Barbara Kuriger: Tell us about their constraints. 
FLETCHER TABUTEAU: I'll talk to you separately and after this, Ms Kuriger. So what they need to know is that small businesses are being looked after as well, and so I wanted to bring to the House several examples. The first one that comes to mind is the loss carry-back scheme. It's a $3 billion fund from the Inland Revenue Department, funded by this coalition Government, which says to small businesses—well, businesses of up to 50 employees; so it is about small businesses—"Go and access that money. Go and look at your tax situation from the past. We will help you bring that forward as real money, right now, so that you can look at real fixed costs as you make decisions about moving forward." Not just the variable costs such as wages and the like but fixed costs around rent, insurance, those kinds of things—there is real money there.
There's also the opportunity, and I think this needs to be promoted more, for more promotion there, around small businesses being able to take out interest-free loans—interest-free loans. Several thousand firms have taken up the opportunity, but many more could avail themselves of that opportunity right now.
The one I wanted to talk about particularly, out of this Budget, was the research and development tax credit programme. New Zealand First is proud that, in coming into this coalition, we negotiated the return of a research and development credit programme. For those listening, it was scrapped by the National Government almost as soon as they came into Government, back in the day. We brought it back, and we fixed it up because, yes, we acknowledge there were issues with it at the time, but they just needed to be fixed, and fixed them we have. What the Budget has done is make sure that small innovative firms who are looking to create jobs through innovation and that research and development opportunity can actually collect the cash now and not claim it back as a loss or as part of their revenue programme later—get it now.
So I had about 20 more pages of notes on what we're doing for New Zealand business, but this is a balanced response from the Government, and we have done a lot of work to empower New Zealand. Thank you very much.





Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I want to highlight in this Budget debate how this Government is unnecessarily costing New Zealanders their jobs, because where I agree with Mr Fletcher Tabuteau is this Budget and the upcoming election is all about jobs. When I first came to this Parliament, unemployment was 10 percent. Can I tell you, as a constituency MP, the cost of that level of unemployment is horrific on the communities that each of us represent. I'm proud of the record in the 1990s when we got unemployment down from 10 percent to 4 percent, and I'm equally proud of the effort in the last decade. Here are the numbers for the members opposite: every year from 2010 to 2017, the number of people that were unemployed in New Zealand came down—it came all the way down to a level of 124,000 in late 2017.
Now, in this Budget in which we debate jobs, we should reflect on the fact that in this Government's first year, they inherited a very strong economy and the number of jobless went up by 13,000. And in the next year, 2019, unemployment went up another 10,000. We are in the best of economic times, and even before COVID-19 hit, we had unemployment rising. Then we come to this year's Budget, that forecasts unemployment to rise to 9.6 percent, or 240,000 New Zealanders—that is horrific. That's why every member of this House should be focused on how we can protect New Zealand jobs.
That's why I want to bring a story to this House of the business that I visited this morning in Nelson, which is a classic example of this Government's recklessness and incompetence in costing New Zealanders jobs. I am hugely proud of New Zealand's and Nelson's marine engineering industry. In the time that I've been the MP, it's grown up to 500 people employed—I'm talking about steel workers, I'm talking about marine painters, I'm talking about marine carpenters, I'm talking about marine electricians. They maintain vessels from all over the Pacific—jobs worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Yet this Government's policy right now is costing those people jobs, and let me tell you how. The Government has been approached—and I've been working with Government officials over the last three weeks, just a little example, trying to get the Capt. Vincent Gann vessel into New Zealand. Now, it's come from American Samoa. American Samoa has not a single case of COVID-19—absolutely zero. They closed their borders even before us, on 23 March. The vessel has been at sea for more than three weeks. The company, shipping agents, and myself have written to immigration Ministers, to customs Ministers, to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, to officials to plead for that vessel to be able to come into the port of Nelson for repair work. The vessel did come to Nelson two years ago—$6.5 million of work. Do you know what the Government had to say to Aimex and those that wanted to bring that vessel into New Zealand? I have the email in front of me: "The vessel should go to Hawaii or someone else for repairs."
Now, how is that consistent with the statement by the Prime Minister and the words that we have just heard from others that somehow they are protecting New Zealand jobs? They are not. They are actually costing companies like Aimex jobs. Aimex has already lost millions of dollars of work and contracts during COVID-19, and they have already had to lay off staff, and, if this decision stands, they will continue to have to make people redundant.
Here's the other insulting part. Why is it that the Government has provided an exemption for film workers from Los Angeles for the Avatar movie but not for the marine engineering firms in Nelson that want the $600,000 of work to repair this vessel? How many cases are there of COVID in Los Angeles as compared with American Samoa? Answer, I've checked: 24,000 cases of COVID-19 in California; zero in American Samoa. Can a Minister or a member opposite please explain why you are putting my Nelson constituents out of work by denying access for those jobs in Nelson?
I also have to say: where has the Government's interest been—and I challenge Mr Jones who's in the Parliament. Where is the guy who claims to be the "Champion of the Regions" when it comes to the loss of 100 aviation engineering jobs? I say it's bad enough that the Government has been absolutely silent and missing in action over those aviation engineering jobs, and now equally so with respect to marine engineering. Members ask: how is it relevant to the Budget? The Budget provides for $900 million of support for Air New Zealand. Why has the Government that claims it's the champion for the regions not tagged that $900 million of support to jobs and services to the regions? The embarrassment of Shane Jones on this issue has been appalling.
Hon Shane Jones: Physically impossible—physically impossible.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Here's what Nelsonians say, Mr Jones: "If it was 100 jobs being lost in Whangārei, would we expect Mr Jones to be silent?" I have an invitation to Mr Jones: come and visit Aimex engineering in Nelson and front up to the workers whose jobs are disappearing because of your daft policies in respect of Customs and Immigration in refusing vessels being able to come here for work. I invite Mr Jones and other members of the Government to come to Nelson Airport and explain to the hundreds of families that are affected by the redundancies that are a product of this Government's lack of responsiveness to the jobs crisis that is part of COVID-19.
The Budget also provides for $6.3 billion of support in Government business guarantee—a programme that was announced at the beginning of April: $6 billion. We're two months later, how much has been paid out? Less than $60 million—less than $60 million. That's less than 1 percent of what has been announced. What this Government is great at is big, flash announcements, big sums of money with no follow through. Can I give another practical example? Everybody knows the hospitality industry is struggling. I've got a restaurant in my constituency in Richmond called Armadillo's. It was provided with a very generous $35,000 grant from IRD under that scheme. But can members explain this for me: two days after receiving the bank money from IRD, the IRD demands it be paid back. It demands, two days after paying it, that it be paid back—an issue I'm trying to work through with Stuart Nash, because there's another 14 jobs being put at risk.
The fundamental part is this Government does not have a clue about how to protect jobs. I say that based on their track record. How could any Government in 2018 and 2019, inheriting one of the strongest economies in the OECD, over those two years push another 23,000 people on to the dole queues? New Zealanders in the 1990s, when we faced unemployment of 10 percent, turned to National as the party that could rebuild the economy and get people back into work. When New Zealand hit tough times with the global financial crisis, where did New Zealanders turn to restore the strength to the New Zealand economy and to get unemployment down? They turned to National. The reason that National is so important, whether it be producing the Budget, whether it's practical policies associated with the marine engineering industry or the parts of the New Zealand economy, is we get business. Giving Government grants and demanding them back just costs jobs. Blocking vessels that can come to New Zealand and provide jobs and employment, the Government says, "Send the boat to Hawaii." We say, "Bring it to New Zealand. Let New Zealand have those jobs." It's those sorts of practical policies that this country needs if it's going to recover from the challenges of COVID-19.





Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I had the privilege on Friday of being at Lake Brunner/Kotuku Whakaoho, and it's there that this Government is giving another example of the practical policies that it is putting in place to provide resources to the regions which both restore nature and create jobs. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: We provided a grant for that.
Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Te Kinga—well, the National Party talked about Predator Free 2050. They had a lot of vision but it didn't invest the pūtea to make that vision real. 
Hon Shane Jones: No pūtea. No sense.
Hon EUGENIE SAGE: So what the Provincial Growth Fund has done—thank you, Matua Jones—was last February, $19.5 million was granted to Predator Free 2050 Ltd, a Crown company, to invest in making predator-free Aotearoa real. So Mount Te Kinga, Lake Brunner, is getting $4.5 million to take the 3,700 hectares of that magnificent podocarp forest on Te Kinga and make it possum-free: eradicate possums so there won't need to be further work done there, and potentially eradicate rats, too. It's an example of a brilliant project where you've got Te Papa Atawhai—the Department of Conservation—working with Predator Free New Zealand Ltd, the West Coast Regional Council, and local landholders in the Lake Brunner conservation care group. That group of landholders has been involved in initiatives to protect water quality for a number of years. 
So here we've got the Government, through the Provincial Growth Fund, investing in pest control that will not only benefit biodiversity but will also benefit farming because this area is an area where there's been tuberculosis (TB). OSPRI's been doing predator control for a number of years. If we get rid of possums, we get rid of that vector for spreading TB. 
There were, in the 1880s, naturalists such as W W Smith, who talked about kākāpō being there, talked about flocks of tīeke or saddlebacks. Māori call the lake lake Rerenga ki taonga o ngā manu ki Kōtuku Moana, the refuge of treasured birds belonging to Kotuku Whakaoho/Lake Brunner. 
This is vision. This is vision supported by funding. The previous speaker, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, talked about National's response to the global financial crisis (GFC). Well, National's response to the GFC was, under that Minister, to crash conservation funding, slash it with the loss of 200 jobs in the department, and it has been this Government, over the last two years, which has had to rebuild the legacy of neglect that that Government created: the loss of expertise across the country, the failure to invest in the protection of nature. So this rebuilding is what this Government has been about. I am very glad that we have this Government in power and not National, because otherwise we would see that same slash and burn Budget that characterised National's response to the GFC. What we have seen instead, in Budget 2020 and this Government's response to COVID, is $1.1 billion invested in nature-based jobs. 
As we have heard from others, this Budget is about jobs. So this $1.1 billion is spread across Vote Environment, Vote Conservation, Vote Primary Industries, and Vote Land Information. It is an investment which will pay dividends in terms of restoring nature, which supports us as people, and the services it provides are the basis of our food and fibre export industry and are the basis of tourism, which will recover. We want an economy that is prosperous, but one that also is more resilient, more equitable, and one where nature is in good health. As Green Party co-leader James Shaw said in his Budget contribution, what we need in the long term is not a recovery but a renewal, a renewal of our relationship with the natural world and with each other. That's what this $1.1 billion investment is going to help do, and provide 11,000 jobs at the same time, to protect the livelihoods of families across Aotearoa so that they can put food on the table and support their whānau.
So it is ironic. Under the previous National Government, they slashed conservation funding. This Government is investing, and we are also investing extensively in pest and weed control so that the Crown is a very good neighbour of private farmers and other landholders and so that we can really get on top of the scourge of pests and weeds: $315 million going into biosecurity, including pest and weed control. Part of that funding is $148 million for the Department of Conservation to ramp up Predator Free New Zealand to work with iwi like Te Whānau-a-Apanui and Ngāti Porou, to restore the Raukumara Range forest to health, because we have seen, under nine years of National, deer numbers in those forests getting so high that the deer browse on tree bark and ring-bark trees and kill them. 
We're seeing, in this Budget, $27 million for the Ministry for Primary Industries to deal to wallabies in Otago, in Canterbury, in Waikato, and in the Bay of Plenty. There have been years when wallaby numbers have been increasing, damaging the health of the forests there and yet nothing done. We are seeing $100 million in new funding over four years to tackle wilding conifers. We will see, in the term of this Government, wilding conifers controlled in the Craigieburn Forest Park, where they have been a scourge on the landscape for decades as they have spread from previous forest research plantations. Getting rid of wildings in that high country landscape will benefit landholders with grazing and will benefit the landscape values and biodiversity. And we are creating jobs. These jobs in wilding conifer control can assist those who've lost jobs with the downturn of forestry as a result of COVID. 
This Budget is about investing in people and investing in nature so that we have got a more resilient country, economy, and so that people can get through the economic insecurity which is accompanying COVID. Land Information New Zealand is getting another $40 million over four years so that it can invest in controlling aquatic weeds in areas like Lake Wānaka, Lake Wakatipu, Lake Karapiro, the Te Arawa Rotorua Lakes, and so that it can invest in keeping our riverbeds in the South Island—the Rangitata and the Rākaia—and the Rangitīkei in the North Island clear of pests and weeds, so that the Crown can be a good neighbour. This is a massive investment to create jobs across the country, to think about what our long-term vision is as a nation. And there's $433 million going into environmental restoration, particularly in the freshwater space. A large part of that funding is going to restore the Kaipara Harbour, and a major chunk of it is going to assist the recovery of rivers and lakes—awa and moana—around Aotearoa. 
Under National, we saw a very weak national policy statement (NPS) under the former speaker; this Government has strengthened that NPS for fresh water: new national environmental standards and the strongest reforms for water in a generation, to make sure that we are on a track to having rivers that are swimmable within a generation, not rivers that we had under National with the failure to control agricultural intensification, that were getting more and more degraded, higher E. coli levels, and higher nitrate levels. So this Government is strengthening the regulatory base and investing in jobs to assist a lot of the landholders who are moving to fence off their rivers to protect those riparian margins, to prevent sediment pollution, and to prevent nutrient pollution. 
One of the things I was most pleased to see in the Budget was the $16 million which is being invested in adult education and courses, because, again, this was another example of this Government having to repair the neglect under National. In Budget 2009, National slashed funding for adult education from $16 million to $3 million. People going to night classes plummeted; the number of schools able to offer those courses plummeted. This investment, in Budget 2020, will enable a more modern adult education system and will enable people to get that digital technology training that they need. And that is part of a much bigger $1.6 billion investment in education, apprenticeships, and training, which will assist those who need the training to get jobs, and is investing in the people. This Budget is about investing in people and planet so that we have a resilient future and a country that comes through COVID as well economically as we have done in terms of our health. I'm pleased to commend the Budget to the House. Kia ora. 





KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Madam Speaker—[Interruption] 
Hon Member: So who's the new member? Looks different.
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Ha, ha! It's my privilege to stand and take this call. This Budget has a big task to address: the COVID-19 pandemic which has hit New Zealand. The world and New Zealand have been through this unprecedented pandemic. I hope and pray that mankind doesn't get to witness anything like what we have been through in the past few months. The pandemic may have got the whole world to stand still, may have grounded all our travel plans and the way we trade in the world; however, one of the biggest positive things from this pandemic was the human spirit which came together. 
During the pandemic, New Zealanders were very willing to help and support each other. I myself witnessed thousands of food parcels, loaves of bread, and milk being distributed by the Indian community. Here I would like to acknowledge some of the organisations that took this lead and distributed thousands of food parcels which included the Supreme Sikh Society, BAPS Avondale, BAPS Hamilton, BAPS Christchurch, Bharatiya Mandir, Auckland Indian Association, Gurdwara Dukh Niwaran in Papakura, Sikh Sangat in Tauranga, Gurdwara Guru Amardas Ji in Rotorua, and many more. They all came together to help those vulnerable who could not have access to their basic needs, and there were very generous people from all over the region, the Bay of Plenty, Hawke's Bay, and Pukekohe. They provided vegetables, fruit, and other things for the people who were in need of those things. From the bottom of my heart I thank all the donors for their generosity, which brought all New Zealanders together. There are more than 100 ethnicities in Auckland itself, and they all came together to support the vulnerable. 
Another issue which I would like to touch upon is those New Zealanders who are stuck overseas during this pandemic.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I appreciate that, but this is a debate on the Budget. So in making those comments, the speaker has to refer them to the Budget—relate them to the Budget.
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Yes, Madam Speaker, I'm coming to that. But this is an important issue which I would like to—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK, well, you've had three minutes—
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: This is my first opportunity to speak in this House. 
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did give the member some latitude, but would you come to the Budget.
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Yes, Madam Speaker. So on behalf of ethnic communities, because most of them are from small businesses and they are struggling to survive, this Government has been generous and fast enough to provide wage subsidies to businesses, which has helped the people in hardship, but there has been nothing for the businesses. They have got fixed costs which they have to pay—the lease money, the insurances, and interest to the banks—whereas they haven't got anything located within this Budget. We have been demanding from this side that we need to support businesses so that they can survive.
When I was listening to the speech of the New Zealand First member, Fletcher Tabuteau, he said that there are two aspects—one is the business, the other is the household. Households were given money to support them, to have money in their pocket so they can survive, but the businesses did not get anything. I was reading one of the stats that retail sales have dropped by almost 75 percent. The 25 percent was the only thing which was happening in retail, which was grocery stores. There were long queues of people who were waiting to buy their groceries. But what about those businesses who did not have a single penny coming into their cash tills? They are the ones which we need to help at this stage. But I don't see any plan from the Government that they are doing anything.
The only thing that I have heard of is they are giving a loan of $10,000 plus $1,200 per employee.
Hon Member: $1,800.
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: $1,800 per employee. So that is a loan which they have to pay back later also.
Hon Member: Interest-free loan.
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Yeah, interest-free, but they have to pay back that money. That is not money they are going to get in the long term for their businesses to survive. I was reading in the report that a restaurant in Whangārei—they moved to Whangārei after the Christchurch earthquake. They established their business up there and they were doing so well until the COVID pandemic struck them. Today, their business has dropped by more than 50 percent, and it's very hard for them and their family because what they reckon is the margin they have is a maximum of 15 percent of their turnover—50 percent if the turnover has dropped; now they're having only 7.5 percent of the margin to survive, and I don't think any business can survive on those margins.
That is the reason why we are saying that we have to help small and medium businesses so that they can survive for the future. And 95 percent of the businesses, as the Government is saying, can have a loan of up to $100,000 only if they employ 50 people. But most of the businesses in New Zealand employ between five to 20 people—that is the definition for small to medium businesses—whereas they don't employ 50 people and they can't take $100,000. That is why National came up with the idea that they can have a refund of GST for what they have paid in the last six months, and if they invest in their equipment or assets they can have a tax benefit against that also—up to $150,000. Today, the Leader of the Opposition, Todd Muller, time and again, asked the Prime Minister: will you opt for the proposition that the National Party has proposed, that $10,000 per new employee should be given to businesses? The Government has kept $20 billion as a reserve to be spent in the next few months. We know the policy which has been proposed by the National Party can have that money from there and it can be allocated for some kind of support for businesses.
These are the very important things which are very close to ethnic communities. As the spokesperson for the Opposition, from this side, I would like to say that I have been talking to many businesses. They are thinking about how they will survive in the near future. The 12 weeks' wage subsidy is going to expire very soon, and after that what is going to happen? We will see that more and more people will be made redundant, and that's not what we want to see. The Government members have been saying time and again that this Budget is focusing on jobs, jobs, jobs. But we are not hearing anything from them about how they are going to create those jobs. Only last month, we saw that 37,000 became unemployed, and that is a big challenge for this country for the future. We don't want to talk about the past three months; we want to talk about the next three years, about how we are going to make sure this country is back on track and try to progress as we did during the nine years of the National Government. I oppose this Budget.





WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā, tēnā tātou katoa i roto i tēnei Whare i tēnei ahiahi. E tino harikoa ana ahau te tū i tēnei ahiahi ki te kōrero e pā ki tēnei Tahua Pūtea. Tuatahi, māku me tīmata taku kōrero ki te mihi ki tō tātou tīma. Rima miriona tāngata i ū ki te kaupapa, ki te takahi i tēnei mate urutā, ki te aukati i tēnei mate urutā i roto i Aotearoa nei. Nā tō koutou ū ki te kaupapa, nā tō tātou ū ki te kaupapa, kua tae ki tēnei wā, ka taea e au te tū ki te kōrero e pā ana ki Te Tahua Pūtea me tōna tino kiko, me kī, tōna tino kaupapa, ā, ko te whakaora anō, ko te whakarauora anō i tō tātou ōhanga i roto i Aotearoa. 
Nō reira, e mihi ana ahau ki Te Minita mō Te Take Pūtea, arā, ki a Grant Robertson. Ia tau ko te mahi hanga i Te Tahua Pūtea, ehara i te mahi ngāwari, ehara i te mahi māmā, arā noa atu ngā tono mō te pūtea, engari, i tēnei tau he tino pakeke tērā mahi nā tēnei mate urutā, kua pāngia, ehara ko tātou anake i roto i Aotearoa, engari, puta noa i te ao. Āe, e tika ana te kōrero, kotahi anake pea tēnei kitenga i roto i tōku wā i runga i te mata o te whenua. Koirā te tūmanako. 
He tino ohorere te titiro o tēnei Kāwanatanga ki te mahi i ngā mahi kia takahi tēnei mate urutā i roto i Aotearoa. I kite i tērā ohorere i te marama o Maehe, nē? E whakaaro ana ahau i tētahi whakatauākī nā Kīngi Tāwhiao, hei ko tāna "Ki te kāhore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te iwi." He whakakitenga i taua marama kei kōnei tonu tātou te iwi e ora tonu ana. He whakakitenga anō ki roto i tēnei Tahua Pūtea kia ora ai tātou katoa i roto i Aotearoa, kia ora tonu ai te ōhanga o Aotearoa. Nō reira, e hiahia ana ahau ki te mihi tuatahi ki Te Pirīmia, a Jacinda Ardern; otirā ki te tīma o ngā Minita; me Te Minita o ngā Take Pūtea, arā, a Minister Grant Robertson.
Ka huri ahau ki ngā kaupapa i roto i Te Tahua Pūtea. Kua anga te titiro o tō tātou Kāwanatanga i tēnei wā ki te whakaora ake i te ōhanga, ki te whakawhanake te ōhanga i roto i Aotearoa. Ko te tino kaupapa? Ko te mahi, te mahi, te mahi. Ko te pupuri i ngā mahi, tuatahi, koirā te take o te moni atawhai, te moni āwhina, ki ngā pakihi kia pupuri tonu ngā kaimahi, ō rātou pakihi. Tuatahi, pupuri mahi.
Tuarua, hanga mahi hou. Kua kite anō hoki i tērā i roto i ngā kōrero kua whakatau i roto i ngā toru wiki kua pahure ake nei, ko te hanga mahi hou. Me pēhea te hanga mahi hou? I rongo ahau i tētahi kōrero, kāhore mātou e hanga ana he mahi hou, engari, mehemea e āta whakakarongo ana ki ngā kōrero i roto i Te Whare i tēnei ahiahi, kua rongo he mahi mō te taiao. Neke atu i te 11,000 tūranga mahi i roto i tērā kaupapa, me te pūtea e tautoko ana i tērā. Ka hanga mahi anō hoki i roto i te kaupapa waihanga i roto i Aotearoa puta noa i ngā tāone nui me ngā tuawhenua anō hoki. 
Ko te kaupapa tuatoru mō ngā mahi ko te whakangungu ahumahi. Ko te ako i ngā pūkenga kia whiwhi mahi, ko te tautoko i ngā tāngata kia hoki ki te ako pūkenga hou kia whiwhi i ngā tūranga mahi. I tēnei rā tonu, ka puta te kōrero mai i Te Minita mō Te Mātauranga, ka whiwhi pērā i te kore utu mō ngā tau e 2½. He mea nui tēnā, e tautoko ana ahau, pau te kaha. Kua rongo i ngā kōrero o Te Pirīmia i te rā nei e pā ana ki Te Mana in Mahi. He mana ki roto i te mahi. E tino tautoko ana ahau i Te Minita mō ngā Mahi, arā, Te Minita Willie Jackson, mō āna kaupapa mahi puta noa i Aotearoa, engari ngā mahi i Te Tai Tokerau, arā, ko Te Poutama Rangatahi, e toru, e whā pea ngā kaupapa i roto i Kaikohe, Moerewa, tōku ake takiwā e whai mahi ana rātou i roto i te ngahere, ki te whakatupu, ki te whakatō i ngā kākano, te tupu i ngā rākau, me te poro i ngā rākau anō hoki. He mea nui tērā kaupapa, Te Poutama Rangatahi, ka tautoko tonu i roto i tēnei Tahua Pūtea.
Āe, i rongo i ngā kōrero o Te Minita mō Te Taiao, arā mō Te Papa Atawhai anō hoki, arā ko Minister Eugenie Sage, neke atu i te $1 piriona te utu ka whiwhi i taua wāhanga ki te whakapaipai ake i tō tātou taiao, ki te tiaki i tō tātou taiao. Arā, ko ngā awa, ko ngā roto, ko ngā repo. Ki te patu i ngā ngārara, ngā paihamu, kiore, wīhara, wārapi anō hoki. Wērā momo ngārara katoa.
Ko tērā pūtea ko ngā tūranga mahi ka puta i tērā, neke atu i te 11,000 tūranga mahi. He mea nui tēnā mō ngā tāngata ka whai i tērā mahi, ka whiwhi i tērā mahi, engari mō te taiao anō hoki.
Ka tahuri ahau i roto i te toru meneti e toe ana ki Te Tahua Pūtea mō ngāi tātou, te iwi Māori, he mea nui tēnā, tata ki te $1 piriona te whiwhi; $900 miriona te pūtea ka whiwhi i a ngāi tātou te iwi Māori mō ngā kaupapa pērā i te whiwhi mahi, arā, Mana in Mahi, He Poutama Rangatahi anō hoki kua kōrero kētia tērā. Mō Te Whānau Ora. E hiahia ana au ki te mihi ki Te Minita, a Peeni Henare, mō Te Whānau Ora, me tō rātou mahi i roto i te wā o te noho haumaru, te mahi o ngā kaupapa whānau ora puta noa i Aotearoa. I kite ahau i te pai o tērā mahi i roto i te takiwā o Te Tai Tokerau, nō reira, ka hoatu wētahi atu moni ki a rātou ki te tautoko i tērā kaupapa. Neke atu i te $126 miriona mō tērā kaupapa. He pūtea nui tērā nā te mea e whakapono ana mātou, o Te Kāwanatanga, i te pai o tērā kaupapa o Whānau Ora.
Tuarua, ko te kōhanga reo. Āe, e menemene ana ahau anō hoki, nā te mea kua roa rātou e tatari ana kia whiwhi i tētahi pūtea kia tautoko i ō rātou kaiako, kaiāwhina, me ō rātou whare anō hoki. Neke atu i te $200 miriona te pūtea kua whiwhi i a rātou ki te utu tika i ō rātou kaiako, ki te utu tika o rātou kaiāwhina, ki te whakatikatika ō rātou whare. Tino hari, tino koa ahau te rongo i tērā kōrero mō tērā pūtea kua whiwhi i a rātou. 
He pūtea anō mō te whare Māori. Neke atu i te $40 miriona, ko Te Minita a Nanaia Mahuta tērā e mahi ana i tērā kaupapa. E mōhio ana tātou ko te torutoru noa iho o ngā whānau Māori kei a rātou tō rātou ake whare, nō reira, he kaupapa tēnei ki te tautoko, ki te āwhina, i a rātou ki te whakatū whare, whare mahana, whare pai anō hoki.
I te mutunga, ko ngā mahi toi. Harikoa ahau kua tohatoha ētahi pūtea ki Te Matatini, ki te papa whenua i Waitangi, ki Te Puia mō ā rātou mahi toi, kura toi anō hoki. E Te Minita, kua pau kē te wā ki ahau i tēnei wā, engari ka hoki ahau ki te tīmatatanga o taku kōrero ko te whakatauākī a te kīngi, a Kīngi Tāwhiao "Ki te kāhore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te iwi." Nō reira, tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare.
[Madam Speaker, greetings. Greetings to one and all in the House this afternoon. I am thrilled to be able to stand and talk about the Budget. Firstly, I would like to begin my speech by thanking our team. Five million people took on the challenge to stamp out the pandemic, to stop this pandemic from taking hold here in New Zealand. It was due to your unyielding dedication to the cause that we are now at this point where I am able to talk about the Budget and its essence, its substance, which is the recovery, the revival, of our economy here in New Zealand.
Therefore, I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson. Every year the formation of a Budget is not an easy task, it is not a straightforward task, because of the numerous demands for funding, but this year it has been extremely difficult because of this pandemic which has affected not only us here in New Zealand but the entire globe. Yes, he is right: this is a once-in-my-lifetime event. Hopefully.
This Government saw the shock and saw the work needed to stamp out this pandemic in New Zealand. We saw that shock in March, right? I think to the proverb of King Tāwhiao: he said, "Without foresight, the people are lost." There was foresight, that month, and because of that we are safe today. There is also foresight in this Budget to ensure we are all well and that our economy recovers. Therefore, I would like to firstly acknowledge the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern; Cabinet; and the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson.
I now turn to the substance of the Budget. Our Government has turned its focus to the strengthening of our economy, the development of our economy here in New Zealand. The main purpose? Jobs, jobs, jobs. It is, firstly, about retaining jobs. That is what the support payments and wage subsidies were for: to allow businesses to hold on to their workers and their business. Retain jobs first.
Secondly, creating new jobs. We have seen that in the discussions in the three weeks that have just passed, job creation. How do you create new jobs? I heard something, that we can't create new jobs; however, if people listen carefully to the speeches in the House this afternoon, they will have heard about jobs to do with the environment. More than 11,000 new jobs in that area, including the funding to support them. There will also be jobs created in the area of building in New Zealand, from the large urban areas to rural areas too.
The third point in regard to jobs is industry training. It is about learning new skills for new jobs; it is about supporting people to be able to train so that they can work in new jobs. On this very day, the Minister of Education has announced zero fees for 2½ years. That is big, and I support it. Great work. We have heard from the Prime Minister today about Mana in Mahi. There is strength in work. I strongly support the Minister of Employment, Minister Willie Jackson, for his initiatives throughout New Zealand, but particularly in the North, He Poutama Rangatahi, there are three or four initiatives in Kaikohe, Moerewa, my very own region, in the areas of forestry, in re-growing, in reseeding, and in pulling and sawing trees. This is an important initiative, He Poutama Rangatahi, and it continues to be supported in this Budget.
Yes, we have heard from the Minister for the Environment, and the Minister of Conservation as well, Minister Eugenie Sage. More than $1 billion will be allocated to improve our environment, to protect our environment, rivers, lakes, and swamps. To eradicate pests, possums, rats, weasels, and wallabies too—those types of pests.
That funding is where those jobs are created from, more than 11,000 jobs. That is important for those who get those jobs, but also for the environment.
In my last three minutes I would like to turn to the benefits of this Budget for Māoridom, which is huge: almost $1 billion will be received; $900 million will go to Māori for employment initiatives, such as Mana in Mahi and He Poutama Rangatahi, which I've already spoken about. And for Whānau Ora. I would like to acknowledge the Minister for Whānau Ora, Peeni Henare, for their work during lockdown, their work throughout New Zealand. I saw the benefits of that work in the North; therefore, they will get extra funding for their work. More than $126 million for that initiative. That is a substantial funding injection because we, of this Government, believe in Whānau Ora.
Secondly, kōhanga reo. Yes, I am grinning, because they have waited for so long for funding to be able to properly pay their teachers and their support staff and maintain their buildings. More than $200 million has been delivered to them to better pay their teachers and their support people and to improve their facilities. I am thrilled, I am elated, to hear about that funding.
There is also funding for Māori housing. More than $40 million—the Minister Nanaia Mahuta is spearheading that initiative. We all know that Māori homeownership rates are low so this funding will support them to build their own houses, their own warm, safe houses.
Lastly, the arts. I am happy that funding has gone to Te Matatini, to the grounds at Waitangi, to Te Puia, to support their art work and their art training. Minister, my time is now up, but I go back to the beginning of my speech to the proverb of the king, of King Tāwhiao: "Without foresight, the people are lost." Therefore, thank you, Mr Speaker.]





STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to follow the list member from the Far North. She mentioned work and retaining staff—that was the translation, so I assume that's what she exactly said—and that was the focus of the Budget, and that it's a rebuilding Budget. I want to focus on that because they are very noble things that we should be doing, we do need to retain staff—actually, it's far cheaper to retain staff than to get new staff up and running when businesses return to what will be the new normal. It won't be what it was before; I think we all accept that.
This virus has certainly had an impact, but it is the lockdown that all of the economic damage has been done by. It's absolutely the lockdown, not COVID-19. I think that's fair enough, we had to do something, and that's why it's so important that decisions are made quickly to move from one level to another, when it is appropriate, and that everybody has a clear sight on what the criteria is. Businesses need certainty, they need certainty so that they can retain those staff—they need confidence. It's not a matter of just getting up in the morning and saying, "I'm going to retain those staff"; there is a cost. 
Even though there is the wage subsidy—which is great, that's fantastic. It was used during the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes to great effect, and it was instrumental in many businesses surviving. However, as I go around my electorate and around the country talking to different businesses, it is clear that, as this first wage subsidy ends and we move on to the more than 50 percent drop in revenue for the second stage, a number of businesses aren't going to qualify for that. Their revenue will not reach that low point, but their fixed costs will still be eating into their profitability to the extent where they will let staff go, even though they could get money for those staff, because the cost of retaining them simply doesn't justify holding on to them. These are really tough decisions for these businesses. They have a huge interest in their staff; they know that they don't have a business without good staff.
I remember on 18 March in this House, speaking to the Hon Phil Twyford about Sounds Air. Sounds Air had approached me, and they were about to talk to the Minister, and I gave him a heads-up that they were wanting to talk to him. He, to his credit, rang them that night on 18 March. Sounds Air are not unique, other little airlines are in the same position, in that Air New Zealand was getting a $900 million loan from the Government, these businesses were sitting out there unable to carry full loads on their aircraft. No passengers, as we went into level 1, they weren't allowed to fly. So that meant those businesses, their fixed costs, having those aircraft that they own sitting on the ground—yes, the wage subsidy is a great help, but those fixed costs keep eating into their balance sheet. They're a significant issue.
So nearly 11 weeks later, what's happened? Well, they haven't got any money yet. The Minister assured them on 18 March, and, paraphrasing him, he said something like, "We won't let you guys down. We know how valuable these small airlines are for the recovery when we come out of lockdown." Well, they're coming out of lockdown now, and I'm pleased to say they're flying, and I've been on a number of flights, at least eight times since the lockdown ended. It's great, it's fantastic, they're out and flying. But on their Cessna aircraft, they can carry 12 passengers; under the current rules, they can only actually carry seven. I don't know the load factors on those aircraft, but I suspect that if the seventh passenger doesn't turn up, that's the profit. So these costs continue to go and build up for these airlines.
The point I'm making here is that, under this Budget, the Government has allocated a significant amount of money for business recovery. That's great, it's fantastic. But it's all very well to make a speech and make an announcement and allocate the money; it's another thing to deliver it. The point is, actually, in the case of Sounds Air, they're yet to deliver. And I know in a number of other businesses—I spoke to another significant freight operator who told me they were down 50 percent, and they applied for money and support similarly to Sounds Air, although they're not an airline, and, initially, officials said to them, "Well, just put your price up. Your freight volumes are down by 50 percent, but the solution is to put your price up." If only it were that simple.
The Government Ministers have to get their heads around business. I know they don't have a business background, but there are plenty of people around that they could talk to. You've got to understand how this works; otherwise, all of this money is going to be wasted—if it's delivered, and, given what they've done to date, it won't be, I don't believe.
I was speaking to some Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers in Central Otago the other day, and they were talking about retaining staff. Their visa conditions require them to work with their employer in Central Otago. They were supposed to go home in the winter. Unfortunately, they're from Vanuatu, and the borders are closed, and they can't go home. There is work for them, and that's in Marlborough. We can't get them up there because Immigration New Zealand (INZ) haven't processed their visas. It's been three weeks now; they haven't processed their visas. These people, under the rules, have to be paid for 30 hours a week. They're eating into work that New Zealanders would do later in the year, because INZ have not processed their visas. Very simple: process their visas, they get to carry on working until such time as they can go home, they want to, they need the money—they've had a cyclone, they need the money back home to help rebuild. Certainly, the vineyard owners in Marlborough, where they would go to prune grapes, need the labour. If the border opens up, there'll be people that will come in from over there. This is about recovering our economy, and this is slowing it down. It's all about managing it. You've got to manage the recovery, you don't just announce money. You've got to get out and manage it—and that's not happening.
The Green member talked about wilding pines and pest control, and I welcome that. In Marlborough, and, certainly, in South Marlborough, we have a significant issue with wilding pines. We have a problem with wilding pines because the old Forest Service and the catchment board, in their wisdom, tipped pine seeds out of an aircraft to try and stop erosion at one time, and, of course, lo and behold, we've got a wilding pine problem—a significant one. It's great to get people up there to work and control those pines; however, there are significant challenges with that. We're talking working in an environment up to 500 metres, and above, sea level. It's significantly cold even in the summer at night-time up there, and it's hard work. I don't know if you've ever seen wilding pine control, but it involves drilling holes into a pine tree and putting some chemical in there that kills the trees. Hard work, and some people will actually thrive on it. It's a wonderful job if you're keen and fit, but I suspect that a large number of the people that are unemployed will not be suited to that work. But we do need to get that job done, and the pest control is also a significant issue. I would implore the Minister to use contractors. Use contractors; don't use the Department of Conservation. I know how that would work: they'd start work at 10, they'd finish at 2, and they'd be driving back to town every day. We need to get the job done, and we need to get it done quickly.
We heard today in the House, we're talking about economic development, getting things done. Well, we have visas for Avatar staff, and America's Cup staff can't get their visas. Now, the Minister doesn't seem to know what's going on. One Minister says one thing and the Minister for Economic Development says another. Neither of them has told the applicants what they should be doing. I know this because I've spoken to them, and I think that's an appalling waste of energy. These America's Cup teams are going to spend tens of millions of dollars each for a 10-month programme. The value to New Zealand is significant. And yet, they are not helping. Just get on and do your job. It's not just about making announcements and putting a big number out there and millions of dollars—or billions of dollars in the case of the Budget—it's about delivering. I have no confidence that they actually have the ability to do that. We need them to do it. Our economy deserves it. Our people deserve it. Our businesses deserve it. But these people, I fear, don't have the capability to deliver. It is with that that I put my severe reservations on this Budget. Thank you.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I understand this is a split call. I call Paul Eagle—five minutes.





PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Things must be pretty gloomy at the top of the South Island, but no such luck in the paradise of Rongotai, Wellington East, Wellington South, and, of course, the wonderful people of the Chatham Islands. I saw the MP for Mana looking over here, which means he must have his eye on some real estate in my electorate. 
But I know that it's only good news on this side of the House, because on behalf of the people of Rongotai, they want me to say thank you to the Prime Minister, her leadership team, the executive, all the officials, and everyone else involved in the fantastic management of the COVID crisis. Too many people to name in this short slot, but I do want to acknowledge my colleague from across that heavily protected border of Rongotai in Wellington Central: the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, for his work, too, on such a fantastic Budget. 
We've heard the term "recovery" mentioned several times. The good news is I bring lots of good stories because, like others, I was certainly dealing with hundreds of inquiries during lockdown. I was going to focus on lots of other things, but I thought I'd talk about the business-related inquiries, because that seems to be topical. 
So, whether they were contractors; sole-traders; small, large business; you name it, they rang. They knew I was at home and so they managed to get some privileged time. But can I say that they were scared, because this was a time none of them had ever experienced. They were looking, really, for hope—but a bit more than hope; they wanted help and advice in real terms. 
I have to say that the business community in my patch are pretty resilient, and I want to acknowledge people like Amanda Elliot who's the owner-operator of the local New World there in Island Bay. She actually rang me in tears in the first couple of weeks, scared because, she said, "Look, this is quite an overwhelming experience for me." There was a lot of negative press at the time. She said, "Look, it's not true. We're doing our best within the rules, and we're trying to do the very best for locals." So I said, "Well, look, when I'm next down there, let's have a look." And I thought she was doing a pretty good job considering she didn't really know what she was doing except for running a store that she's run for most of her life. 
Likewise, when I look at a couple of local women who had taken a risk late last year and opened up a new gym franchise: F45 it's called; Mel Lourie and Rebecca Patrick—Becks. They decided to quit their consultant jobs and take a punt and open this new gym. They said, "Look, we've opened this new gym. What are we going to do? We are going to lose our membership. We're scared of it being burgled." It had been burgled, unfortunately, early on in the opening. So what I noticed between Amanda, Mel, and Becks is that they came up with innovative thinking. Their innovation was to say to the members, "Don't leave us in your droves; keep paying and we'll let you take home some of the equipment. That's our quid pro quo. We want you to stay. We want you to keep fit. We'll move online. We'll show some initiative and be innovative." So that's what they did.
I just want to add a bit more on—because the previous speaker, Stuart Smith, talked about an airline and I, too, have the privilege of being in daily contact with Air Chathams—that's the lifeline service down to the Chatham Islands. Craig and Duane Emeny—they were wholeheartedly supportive of our aviation package. Can I thank the Minister of Transport for that. They were enabled to keep the business side of it going, and what a wonderful way to ensure that just the necessities of life were getting out to the Chatham Islands.
But all in all, we made money available to businesses. In the Budget we are continuing that line to make money available to those most in need. That's the spirit of this coalition Government. When I look through other parts of it in terms of those bits that I think impact the electorate most, there are funds available in all sorts of areas of our Budget to help Kiwis, New Zealanders, ensure that they can get back to normal—a new normal, whatever we're going to brand it, however people respond, but there's money there for people to continue to live a decent life. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Dr Duncan Webb—five minutes.





Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. This nation has been built on a promise. From our inception, we wrote a promissory note, a document in which we undertook that every New Zealander would have the same protections, rights, and privileges. That promise was written in Te Tiriti, our founding document. In 1938, we came together as a nation and we extended that promise to a promise to protection against the suffering and deprivation which we saw in the Great Depression. In 1938, when the Social Security Act was first passed, Michael Joseph Savage promised to make New Zealanders secure against poverty, against illness, against infirmity, and against old age. That is a promise that, to this day, New Zealanders hold dear. We will not default on that promise. That is a cheque which this Government will honour. It will not be returned marked "insufficient funds", or, in modern parlance, in this store, the credit is good, and that social security card will not be declined.
There have been times since 1938 when the Government has failed the citizens of New Zealand and broken that promise, and we need to acknowledge that. However, as the Minister of Finance made clear in his speech, we will not make the same mistakes of austerity that were made in the 1980s and 1990s. This Government will not place the costs of the current crisis on the bent shoulders of those who have already carried more than their fair share. We will not burden our poorest, our weakest, or our sickest with the significant costs that lie ahead; we will make sure they have enough to get by and we all have enough to get by—a home to live in, schools for our kids, and food on the table. 
The role of Government has never been greater and more important than it is today. All sectors of New Zealand are looking to Government for guidance, for management, but, most importantly, for support, and this Government, under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern, will rise to that task. We have already committed billions of dollars to the wage subsidy to keep people in jobs, to building more State houses to keep people in homes, and to massive spending on infrastructure, education, and the environment so that we are resilient and ready for tomorrow. 
This is socialism with a New Zealand face—a country in which we accept as a nation the important role that Government has to step in where the market fails us for whatever reason. Today, the market is suffering from an ailment worse than we have ever seen. The market is a sick man, and we will help it. But I want to say why we will help it—why we will help the business sector—not because profit is good for its own sake and not to glorify material wealth or to promote unbridled consumerism; we will support the business sector for the people—all of the people. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. The cleaner who starts work at 4 a.m., the bus driver, the care worker who looks after our parents, the teachers and teacher aides who school our tamariki, the students stacking supermarket shelves—we'll look after those people and their whānau and all around them. They are the hard-working New Zealanders that we put first. 
This Budget supports business because business is one part—a crucial part—of our recovery. We know there is pain ahead, but what I've seen as a long-time resident of Christchurch Central is that we have an immense capacity to endure pain and hardship and to help each other, as long as it is shared fairly and equitably. The world ahead of us will be different from that which we leave behind in ways we cannot now comprehend, but we want to rebuild a New Zealand that we can be proud of—as proud of as we are of the achievements of the Savage Government. I want to acknowledge the very real personal pain of lost jobs and businesses that cannot easily be shared. We cannot save every job or preserve every business, but we will save every job we can and sustain every business that we can.
But protecting New Zealand for future generations is more than just this; it includes protecting who we are—our taonga as well as our whenua. That is why we are committed to preserving our heritage; our arts; our performing arts; and our museums, galleries, and libraries. Too often these are the first to go—the places where we preserve our wairua and mōhiotanga.
This is a Budget for all of New Zealand, one where we need to unite not only to fight COVID, which we have done so successfully, but to rebuild New Zealand together to nurture and protect each other. I'm proud to be part of this Government, which is doing just that.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I understand this is a split call. I call Denise Lee—five minutes.





DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. One of the benefits of participating in the Budget debate a little lower down the list is that you get to see, read, and hear others' reactions to the Budget and what the Government has put on offer. We all know that a Budget sets out the spending agenda, and it's where this coalition Government, once again, attempts to put its collective heads together and say, in a spreadsheet kind of way, "This is where we want New Zealand to go. This is what's important to us. This is what leadership looks like. This is New Zealand's future." 
We also know that this Budget is like no other. We're in one heck of an unparalleled crisis, the COVID-19 crisis—one that we will never again see in our lifetimes. We have been a little bit scared of what lies ahead—the uncertainty—and so we've looked to the Government for leadership and for certainty. What did we see? No plan and no substantive direction. 
When we've got $60 billion of net debt, which will head to $200 billion, and 150,000 losing their jobs over the next few months, what we got was an incoherent set of announcements using big numbers—eye-watering numbers. For instance, the Department of Conservation and the conservation job scheme for weed and pest control: $1.1 billion; $3.9 billion for health sounded large, but, actually, it was only business as usual, and barely enough to cover deficits. And how about that kicker: the $20 billion slush fund—unallocated? 
So what New Zealanders were asked to do was believe that big numbers equals big plan—that's what New Zealanders were asked to buy into—and what of those reactions that we have now the benefit of reviewing because we're a couple of weeks down the track from the Budget delivery? How about that former Labour treasurer in the Australian today, that said that this Government has "no idea whatsoever" except to throw money around? Then, we had Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ), here in New Zealand, where they said, "in many key areas Budget 2020 appeared to be missing in action, particularly stimulus related recovery investments, … it leaves"—good one, LGNZ—"those looking for further detail on how the Government intends to get the country truly back onto the road to recovery wanting." Shamubeel Eaqub: "There is still a need for transformative change." 
Now, all politics is local, and I traipsed up and down my local retailers as soon as we could in terms of lockdown levels to get their reactions. Now, granted, they did accept and were grateful for the wage subsidy extension, but they then went on to say that it doesn't fundamentally address cash flow as a business. They all said the same thing to me, one by one by one, "Are there going to be other announcements for us? Is there going to be more? What's coming next?", because what was there and what is there is not, fundamentally, enough. 
So, to the Government, today, I've focused on—very briefly in my five-minute call—their lack of plan. But, let's face it: even the best plan means nothing if you can't execute it. I wish this coalition Government very much good luck, because their track record isn't too crash hot. KiwiBuild: 100,000 is now—what?—390. Light rail is now no rail. Child poverty targets: most not met. Mental health: lots of talk; no delivery. 
What we need, and what we needed from this Budget, is logical streams of coordinated spend and a direction that ties us together. Where was the coordinated front-bench effort, bringing their best in our worst of times? What we needed was for the front bench to bring their best in our worst of times. New Zealanders deserve better because never have we been in more need than we are right now, and I'd like to thank Todd Muller for his exceptional line on 17 empty seats, because nothing screams louder than 17 empty seats than looking at this Budget 2020.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Dr—[Interruption] Order! I call Dr Parmjeet Parmar—five minutes. 





Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take this call. It appears that saying words like "research and development" and words like "innovation" makes you sound smart and fashionable. Obviously, the Labour Government is quite smart, so they like to use such words in their speeches, especially in their Budget speeches, and they used these words "research and development" and "innovation" in Budget 2020 as well. But when you look through their speeches to see what is there to support research and development and innovation, there is nothing, and it's quite disappointing to see that those words are used, for there is no substance to support actual research and development and innovation in Budget 2020. 
I would like to talk about some specific things here. The first thing I would like to talk about is the wage subsidy scheme. So, yes, the wage subsidy scheme we know has been good for businesses. Businesses wanted that. That kind of support was welcomed by businesses, but we know that the criteria that were set up for the wage subsidy scheme didn't fit for research and development companies that are in a pre-revenue phase, because the conditions are that the company that will be accessing the wage subsidy should have experienced a drop in revenue—that is of 30 percent. The second is, if they are new companies, then it's fine because, obviously, they haven't had any revenue in the last year.
But for research and development start-up companies, we know that these companies go through a pre-revenue phase for a number of years. So for a number of years they don't have any revenue, so how could they prove that drop of 30 percent in their revenue to access that wage subsidy scheme? Obviously they were left out, and this was brought to my attention by the research and development start-up sector. I took it up with the Minister of Research, Science and Innovation. I wrote a letter to the Minister on 31 March. Then it was covered in media on 6 and 7 April, and it appeared that the Minister was going to act on it ASAP. But then, on 28 April, I had not received any reply and I followed up with the Minister of Research, Science and Innovation. I was told by her office that I would be getting a reply by the end of that week; there was no reply by the end of that week. Then, what I noticed, on 11 May, very quietly, the website was updated to allow research and development companies in the pre-revenue phase to access the wage subsidy scheme. 
So during this COVID-19 crisis, we on this side have been working with the Government. We have been trying our best, but from their side it's been all politics—just politics. So that became part of Budget 2020. I didn't get a reply from the Minister's office about that. Actually, I'm really happy that now that the start-up R & D sector in the pre-revenue phase is able to access the wage subsidy scheme, but it took us so much effort to contact the Minister and get a response. I didn't get a response, but in terms of resolving the issue, that has been resolved. They had to wait until this Budget 2020 for this issue to be resolved. 
The second issue I would like to talk about is vaccine research by our scientists here in New Zealand. Our scientists have been begging—actually begging—to this Government. They have been asking for $10 million so that they can do this research, so that they can join the global effort to develop a vaccine. This Government kept dismissing their call—yes, they kept dismissing their call. It was the last week of April, when I called on the Government to support our scientists to develop a vaccine. We should understand that vaccine development goes through several phases, and it's not a successful vaccine until it has finished all those phases successfully and is available for intervention. So our scientists were lagging behind. They kept asking this Government to give them the $10 million to start that work, and, finally, they were so fed up that they started their work without that funding. So in Budget 2020, that money was given, but we can see all around the world Governments have been so proactive in supporting their scientists, and we didn't see that from this Government here in New Zealand. 
So the question is, does this Government actually trust our scientists? I'm really worried about our scientific community because we don't want to lose these scientists to other economies. It's quite disappointing, the way this Government has treated our scientific community. 
There are so many other issues that I would like to talk about. The next issue, in this limited time, is the loan scheme that they have announced, but we know that this sector doesn't need—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired.





Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): COVID-19 highlighted the amazing power of technology and how important that power is to enabling Pacific economic development by staying connected, by staying engaged, and by informing our people. We were able to reach out to people and to the regions right across New Zealand and were able to stay in touch with them without having to leave the safety of our living rooms or offices. At every online meeting I held with Pacific peoples—whether it was with residents of the main metropolitan centres of Auckland or Christchurch, or with people out in the regional economies of Palmerston North, Gisborne, Hastings, or Whanganui, or even online meetings with our community elders and church leaders nationwide, or with my political friends and colleagues from across the vast Pacific blue region—the response and feedback I consistently received from them, unsolicited, has always been, "Please give Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and all the Government Ministers our thanks and our appreciation."
Pacific peoples value good leadership, they value kind leadership, compassionate leadership, humorous leadership, but, ultimately, genuine leadership. This is the kind of leadership that Pacific people see our Prime Minister consistently exhibit. It is her leadership that is supported by all Government Ministers and very much respected by her coalition partners, New Zealand First and the Greens. Pacific communities right across New Zealand recognise that our Prime Minister has led a decisive health response to COVID-19, and that decisive response has saved lives and positioned New Zealand for a strong economic recovery.
My elders often say, "E iloa le laau i ona fua.", meaning every tree is known by the fruits they bear. I compare the fruits of our Prime Minister's decisive, strong, and compassionate leadership to what we now currently have: where New Zealand have had no new COVID-19 cases in the last 11 days. She has always credited—and I endorse—the contribution of 5 million New Zealanders, the efforts of our officials, and also the work of our Ministers and Cabinet. But the leadership role and the responsibility of the prime ministership fall squarely on her shoulders, and she carries that responsibility alone, and she has done an amazing job of it.
Our incredible health response has positioned New Zealand well for a strong economic recovery. I want to acknowledge the amazing role of Grant Robertson in the role that he has played in making sure that we allocate $50 billion in the COVID-19 fund in Budget 2020 to respond, to recover, and to rebuild New Zealand's economy. We've seen it: the health response, our support for businesses, our support for the workforce, and our support for the most vulnerable in our communities. Our plan to rebuild New Zealand is to protect jobs, to create new jobs, and prepare all New Zealanders for new employment and business opportunities to get New Zealand moving forward. Our coalition Government wants to make sure, as part of that overall package, that Pacific peoples don't miss out on employment and that business opportunities and are not left behind.
The Pacific package of $195 million in Budget 2020—part of that bigger overall Government approach—is an unprecedented amount of targeted spending that's absolutely essential so that Pacific peoples don't miss out during the recovery and rebuilding phase. The patterns of past economic downturns have seen Pacific peoples become the first to be hit and the last to recover, and we don't want to see that pattern repeated. We know the challenges our families face. We know the barriers Pacific peoples experience. We know about the inequities our children face, and COVID-19 highlighted all those inequities and barriers for everyone to see, but I want to acknowledge the response of this Government. I acknowledge Grant Robertson and the support of all Government Ministers right across the board, and especially my Pacific ministerial colleagues for their ongoing efforts of support in our Pacific response, and recovery, to COVID-19 in Budget 2020.
Our targeted approach for Pasifika, as well as for Māori, is evidence-based. It will help eliminate, over time, the barriers and inequities we face, and significantly contribute to New Zealand's recovery and rebuild. The targeted approach is about recognising that the rebuilding of our Pacific economy requires us to work with everyone. That requires Government agencies trusting our communities to know what wellbeing means for themselves and that our communities have the capability to play a vital role—in fact, the leading role—in our economic recovery work. Right from the outset, we have worked, on this side of the House, hard to establish a genuine partnership between this Government and the wider Pacific community of Aotearoa. We acknowledge that New Zealand is a Pacific nation and that we're an integral member of the Pacific family within the vast, blue, Pacific context. Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have worked hard—including the Minister of Defence—to maintain these links and lift our relationship to a higher level of cooperation and collaboration with Pacific countries. After all, we have a sizable Pacific diaspora that have strong historic and family links with the Pacific region.
We increased funding to the Ministry for Pacific Peoples to unprecedented levels to build up their capacity to reach out and engage with one of the youngest and fastest-growing population groups in New Zealand, and to work across the whole-of-Government agencies. We captured Pacific people's dreams and aspirations for a new vision by engaging with them right across New Zealand, and deliberately targeted at the view of our young people. 
Pacific people see themselves as being confident peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand and leading in so many different ways, often unseen and unrecognised. Pacific peoples see themselves and their families as thriving, resilient, and prosperous, but they see all of this from a Pacific lens, where language and culture provides confidence in one's identity and one's world view, where economic prosperity goes hand in hand with collective responsibility to one's aiga and community, where health and wellness isn't just about physical health, but also includes emotional and spiritual wellbeing, and our young people are seen not as they are now, but we see them for what they will become, "Generation 6 Bs": people who are proudly brown, brainy, beautiful, bilingual, bicultural, and bold.
With support from the Minister of Finance and Treasury, we were able to confirm that Pacific peoples of Aotearoa contribute $8 billion to New Zealand's GDP—this is despite the barriers and inequities Pacific peoples face in housing, health, and education. Our collective challenge is to envision a future where these barriers and these inequalities are eliminated, and our Pacific package starts to go someplace, begins the work to reaffirm and confirm those foundations of a targeted approach, which helps us towards the right direction in removing those inequities and those barriers.
So under this Budget, our Pacific Ministers approach is important, our Pacific languages and cultures kept our people safe. By providing that information in nine different languages, we will continue that work. We will continue the work around home ownership, and make sure that we lock in that goal of home ownership for future generations, and we begin to start the work through financial literacy and debt management, and making sure we unlock some of the land that sits with our churches and community organisations.
We're going to increase investment into the sciences, technology, and mathematics. One of the things is a digital economy accelerator to offer up the opportunities for new jobs and for new business opportunities. We're providing wraparound support right across the whole country in Tupu Aotearoa, making sure that wraparound support is provided to staircase people into further education or new job opportunities. That's just some of what this package has.
I just want to finish off. The Pacific package in Budget 2020 is a recovery package that sets us up for the rebuilding phase. It is about jobs, it's about new jobs, it's about sustainable jobs, it's about high-earning jobs, it's about jobs that provide dignity, it's about jobs that put food on the table, and it gives confidence and security to families so they don't have to be worried about the landlord, they don't have to be worried about paying for the bills—that's what Budget 2020 offers the Pacific community as part of that overall package. This approach has never been done before. That lot there can crow about what they did, but it's nothing compared to what this Government has done by investing wisely, by investing based on evidence, by giving charge to our people, recognising Pacific peoples are able and capable of leading their own recovery work for the benefit of all people—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired. I understand this is a split call. I call Brett Hudson—five minutes.





BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, this Budget—this Budget. The centrepiece of this Budget is the complete absence of any plan: lots and lots of headline numbers—some eye-wateringly large numbers, like an additional $140 billion of borrowing—an economy heading into a crisis with jobs going in their tens of thousands, and the Government presents a lot of money and no plan.
Now, that won't come as too much of a surprise to New Zealanders, because for the past 2½ years, they've shown they don't have a plan, and they haven't even been able to deliver on that. I mean, KiwiBuild, anyone? Three hundred and ninety homes isn't exactly close to 100,000 in anyone's books. In fact, there was a report last week that said if KiwiBuild were to continue on its current trajectory, it would take about 430 years to deliver those 100,000 homes. The really interesting question that raises is which would be finished first: the 100,000th KiwiBuild home or Auckland's light rail? Given the Hon Phil Twyford's track record, I'd put my money on the KiwiBuild homes, quite frankly.
So, no plan at all, but there was a $20 billion slush fund, an eye-wateringly large amount of money in New Zealanders' eyes with nothing tagged to what it will be used for and, more importantly, what it will actually achieve. The Government just set about giving itself enormous spending power to go along with the enormous governance power it gave itself just a couple of weeks ago with the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill, which gives it all the powers it might want under the sun. I'm reminded of something that a famous civil libertarian—P J O'Rourke—said. He said, "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." Without a plan, it can't possibly end well.
Now, it's not all going to be a brickbat. I will mention something that the Government did do in the middle of the COVID crisis which is very worthy—in fact, at the beginning of the COVID crisis—to give them some credit. The wage subsidy, as an immediate response to an oncoming economic disaster, has meant that some businesses have been able to retain employees and, importantly for those employees, they've had some confidence that they can still pay the bills. But what the Government has shown consistently through the lockdown and again in the Budget is they don't understand business and they don't understand the full pressures that come on businesses in times such as these.
So, yes, they put in the wage subsidy, and that was a great start and a great help, particularly for those affected workers, but the wage bill is not the only bill a business faces. In the midst of lockdown, businesses still had to pay their leases. They still had to pay their taxes. They still had to pay electricity and all other forms of regulatory cost impost that, among other things, this Government has layered upon them over the last couple of years. The bills still came in the door, and the Government showed a complete reluctance to do anything to offer direct assistance for those businesses to help them survive so they could thrive in a well-organised recovery that a National-led Government would offer. That's a real shame, because it's one thing to give an almost facade or a safety net of a wage subsidy, but if those jobs don't exist when the subsidy ends, how are those workers helped then?
The complete lack of the supports that businesses need right now to keep going is a hallmark of this Government and the governing parties' lack of understanding of commerce and of business. Along the way, the Opposition offered some very constructive ideas: a GST cash-back system. The six months to the end of December last year, getting a cash back for GST paid would immediately pump cash flow into those businesses to help keep them alive. The depreciation model would encourage investment. The JobStart that our leader, Todd Muller, announced last week would all help to keep businesses going and to give them incentives to grow as soon as possible amidst uncertainty.
I'd just like to finish by saying the police appropriations in the Budget are a huge disappointment—barely enough extra to cover inflation, not enough to fund things like mental health projects, and not enough to do the things we need to do. This Budget is a complete failure and a lack of a plan.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired. I call Simeon Brown—five minutes.





SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'd like to start my Budget reply speech by just acknowledging New Zealanders for what they have done in fighting COVID-19, because COVID-19 is what is the backdrop to this Budget. The Government claims that it went hard and it went early, but it is New Zealanders who have done the hard yards and who have paid the price. Today, I'd like to acknowledge the businesses in my electorate who shut their doors during the lockdown, people who've lost their jobs, people who couldn't be with their loved ones as they passed away, and those who had operations or scans or medical appointments that were cancelled or were postponed. These are the people who have paid the heavy price of fighting COVID-19.
And now we've got a Budget which was meant to be a plan, but there is no plan. And what more could demonstrate that more than the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister disagreeing over whether we should be in level 1 or not. Just yesterday, we had thousands of people protesting with no contact tracing, with no physical distancing in the middle of Queen Street, and we had thousands of people protesting—and I believe they've got a right to protest, but we have a Government which doesn't have a plan and can't make a decision over when we're going to allow people to have these freedoms back. 
We have, now, a Government which has introduced a Budget which is spending more money than has ever been spent before, borrowing up to $200 billion—$200 billion. A Government which believes money grows on trees—of course, native trees! Unemployment which will lead up to 9.8 percent, negative GDP of 4.6 percent, and a thousand people losing their jobs every single day. With such sobering facts as this, a plan is what was needed. But, instead, we get a slush fund of $20 billion for the Government to be able to go out and spend on campaign promises leading into the election. No plan for small businesses, no plan for job creation, money still going towards projects like KiwiBuild—which hasn't been able to build houses—and fees-free for students, which hasn't been able to increase participation rates through—
Chlöe Swarbrick: Has reduced debt.
SIMEON BROWN: —our universities. This is a Government which—and I hear Chlöe Swarbrick; $20 million for students but $175 million for the arts; $20 million for students but $75 million for racing. Let's put the facts on the table when we speak.
I'd like to also comment about the impact this has on my electorate of Pakuranga. We've been promised $3 billion for the shovel-ready initiative—$3 billion. Councils up and down the country have spent their lockdown talking about what would be on their wish list if they could have some of this shovel-ready money. Well, I believe it was around $132 billion of projects that was put together by councils up and down the country. One such project put forward by Auckland Council was the Eastern Busway, a critical piece of infrastructure in my electorate, in Pakuranga, a shovel-ready project that also includes a road as well. So I'm very pleased with that—the Reeves Road flyover—and the busway. I'm very multi-modal over here! It's a multi-modal project. It's also got a cycleway, just in case; walking as well. It's going to improve public transportation. It's going to cut congestion for people in my electorate, and it's an excellent initiative, but Auckland Council also has a crisis when it comes to money, and they've now had to announce in their emergency budget that they're cutting $20 million from the Eastern Busway because the Government has not yet announced what they will be funding or what they will not be funding through the shovel-ready projects. Twenty million dollars will be gutted if the Government doesn't come to the party and actually commit to this project through the shovel-ready projects initiative.
So my question to the Government is: when is that announcement going to be made? Are they going to wait until Auckland Council has made their decision around what the rate increase is? Is this some sort of cynical ploy to delay the decision on shovel-ready to enforce Aucklanders to accept a higher rates increase, whilst putting in front of them an option of slashing capital expenditure? The Government needs to come to the party so that Aucklanders have the certainty—and Auckland Council has the certainty—when making these decisions, so we don't have to slash projects and then wait for the Government to come and backfill it with their shovel-ready projects later on.
This Budget has no plan, and whatever initiatives they do have in here, their track record proves they will not be able to deliver on them.





Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister for Māori Development): E Te Kaiwhakawā, tēnā koe. Tātou katoa e huihui mai nei, tēnā tātou. There's a saying amongst my people, and it goes something like this: "Ki te kotahi te kākaho, ka whati, ki te kāpuia e kore e whati."—when a reed stands alone, it can be easily broken, but, bound together, it is unbreakable. I want to thank the team of 5 million New Zealanders who have contributed to an effort where today we can say it's the 11th day with no confirmed new COVID cases. 
That didn't happen by accident, because we're talking about the 2020 Budget, which was born out of a specific context. We've been talking about it all afternoon in this House. What the Government had to do over the last few weeks was respond to a global pandemic in a New Zealand way: four weeks of lockdown, two weeks of level 3, heading into the second week of level 2, and contemplating where we go to from here. But, if we take the signals in terms of the way in which the Government responded and continues to respond to a global pandemic, we put the health of New Zealanders first. Why? Because we know that the health of our economy relies on the health of our people, and we weren't going to compromise that simple action. That's why, even though the measures have been very strong and we acted quickly and swiftly to ensure that they were strong and decisive, we knew that if we could get on top of what the impacts were here in New Zealand, New Zealanders in the long run would be better-off for it and so would our economy, and that's the context within which the Hon Grant Robertson set this Budget. 
It's a unique Budget because we have the circumstances and the impacts of COVID19. But what I can say is that throughout New Zealand in our communities, even today, Kiwis are kind to one another. They are shopping locally. They understand the pressures that have been impacted on by individuals, communities, and across our communities in various different ways. I want to thank the essential workers also. They were quick to respond. In the Māori communities, our Māori health providers, Whānau Ora health providers, again were quick to stand beside the civil defence emergency groups to say we will put our hand up and act quickly to ensure that there is a welfare response. I also want to thank the local government sector because they too provided the essential services that, as we move through the alert levels, are a key part of the recovery. 
Now, this Budget is very simple in its intent. As we have observed, the response and the need to respond to the health needs and the impacts of the pandemic here in New Zealand and build up the strength of the health system—early vaccinations, more testing, the capacity to be able to do contact tracing, and ensuring that we have a health system that will not be overwhelmed were a second wave to occur—we are ready. But then we're also in a position now to say that, as we move down the alert levels and plea to New Zealanders for vigilance around observing still our health-related expectations in the way a new normal is created, we must turn our minds to the economy.
Actually, there is a plan, because that plan was rolled out right from the first week of lockdown, when a wage subsidy scheme was introduced, and that was a clear signal we recognise that businesses are struggling and we will step in—not back; in and forward. We extended that wage subsidy scheme. We've got a small-business package that is able to support those businesses that many members across this House talk about but we care about. We're also ensuring, in practical ways, that we are supporting communities to be able to build their resilience to create what this new normal starts to look like. When I think about the plan that we're talking about, it's one that involves people and communities. It's one by sector that we're making sure we're responding to.
But I take a point that was made by Grant Robertson in his Budget speech. It's about protecting jobs, and that was in the early quick response. It's about creating jobs. I want to thank all the various sector stakeholders who contacted members of the Government to actually identify what the issues were going forward as we were creating a recovery plan. They told us very clearly how they thought the sector could pivot and what the impacts might be foreshadowed for the next two years—as borders may or may not be continued to be locked down—but also gave us solutions. Those are the things that Ministers and members of the Government have been engaging with so that we could continue to emphasise our role in being able to support the creation of jobs.
Then there's the sustaining of jobs. Now, what we heard today from Minister Chris Hipkins—and what we've been doing in terms of signalling our intent around apprenticeship training, cadetships, trade training schools—is those are all fertile areas where many, many New Zealanders, young and old, will benefit from the Government's investment, because we know that in order to prepare New Zealanders for the impacts of COVID-19, now is the time to invest in skills training for the new economies that are emerging, which many members on the Government side have talked about.
Let me come to the Māori budget. I want to commend ministerial colleagues. Firstly, in the area of jobs, and sitting next to me is the Minister of Employment. He's been really clear that we've got to get alongside industry and we've got to get along specific sectors like forestry, like agriculture, and like horticulture to be able to support them to pick up our young people. That's why growing job opportunities across those sectors through He Poutama Rangatahi and Mana in Mahi are going to be really valuable investments.
Then take my colleague the Hon Peeni Henare. As I said earlier, the first groups to put their hand up to say "We will help in a welfare response" were Māori health providers, Whānau Ora providers. The increase in the Budget in that area will enable those providers to continue their work with some of the most vulnerable and challenged members of our communities and strengthen the ability of those providers to be able to support where it's needed most. 
Then we've got a real focus on culture and identity, because we do believe, here on this side of the House, that the core of an economic recovery is what makes us unique and different—our language, our culture, and our stories to our places and things like that. So Minister Davis, in particular in the area of education, through the gains in the Budget, I believe will make a strong contribution in this area.
In my own area, supporting a Māori housing strategy and housing outcomes will definitely make a difference. But here's the thing: when we go out into our communities, it's that and it's doubling the winter energy payment as we're heading into winter. Those are the things that people respond to and have reacted to very positively. But, in the Māori housing space, we know that if we can give people the security of housing, the ability to move from homelessness up the housing ladder, perhaps to homeownership—building public supply of housing—that is going to make a critical difference as the economy starts to turn over. 
There are so many good things to talk about, but I just want to come back to this single point. You would think, on that side of the House, that New Zealand was the only Government facing these issues; this is a global pandemic. Every country has had to close their borders in order to respond. Every business in many countries have had to come to the same point of grappling with the challenges—do they pivot, do they hibernate, or what? Do they substitute the work that they are doing—their business that they have? What we've signalled very clearly is that the backbone of our economy actually helps to sustain our export-led focus. We want that to thrive and survive. It's important that the small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) package that our team are leading is able to help businesses in a practical way move towards what that new normal looks like. 
We're being very active in that area. There are so many things that Minister Nash has brought in that help to provide relief for the SME sector that I know. If any of the feedback from many colleagues on this side of the House is anything to go by, they have valued the way in which we have continued to be agile to support what we believe will continue to be the backbone of the New Zealand economy, and that's our SME sector.
I want to end on this one simple point, and it is this—and it goes back, actually, to what the Prime Minister said all along: if we take care of the health of our people, then the health of our economy can continue to thrive in a way that we will be more confident, more resilient, and able to rely on each other in our deepest, darkest time of need. I think there's something in that—I think there's something in that. I believe that is the case because, as I move around New Zealand, people do respect the way in which leadership was shown on an issue where there was no room to dither—you had to be decisive. That's why I'm proud to support the Budget 2020 that has been outlined by the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and our Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The next call is a split call, I'm advised. 





IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Madam Speaker, thank you. I came to the House this afternoon with a preconceived idea of what I was going to talk about, but having listened to a bit of what's going on and thinking about life, as you do, I thought I'd talk about something a little different. But it certainly relates to the Budget and where we're at with COVID-19. 
I think that one of the things we seldom think of is—I'm almost of the generation that we shut the country down to save, frankly, and I'm not sure why. But the issue I've got with it is that I've spent a lifetime, and I'm sure hundreds and thousands of people like me have spent a lifetime, working for future generations of New Zealanders. We don't really work for ourselves, because we had the start in life we had and whatever we made of it, we made of it. But we spend our lives working for the future generations of New Zealanders. And the thing that most concerns us, and I think it certainly concerns me, is: who's going to pay the bill? 
The funny thing, or the sad thing, about it is that the very people that we set out to save in the process of shutting the country down—and I've got no question that that was probably necessary—are never going to pay the bill. I think that one of the things that is most concerning for many New Zealanders of my age and older is that they've seen this before and they worry about who's going to pay the bill to fix these things.
I think that's why we have such a concern about what we spend our money on and how we spend it in the course of the recovery. So it's one of those unintended consequences that I'm sure was never really—and we certainly probably didn't have time to think about that. But it is an issue that I think is very important and it's very important to the older people of New Zealand—many of whom probably were saved by the actions of the Government—and I don't think it's something that we've given enough credit to in this House. 
There's no question that the volatility and uncertainty caused by where we find our economy, where many, many of our constituents and people in New Zealand find themselves, in a place they never expected to be—and I think that's one of the things that we're going to have to manage very carefully as we move forward from here. I think that because of the volatility, uncertainty, and the unintended consequences, actually, of a lot of what's happened, we need to be extraordinarily agile in our response to some of these things and we need to move very quickly.
There's simple things, like you would have never expected, that out of the shutdown of the—well, basically the world economy—you'd end up with a surplus of potatoes in the world, for example. So you've got this massive glut of potatoes, which was something you would have never thought of. Our fishing industry: half of it has done OK out of the business; half of it has basically shut down because the fish and chip shops were shut. So these are the unintended consequences and things that are going to put pressure on small sectors of our economy. So you look at the fishing industry, for example, and you think it's OK, but there's a small sector—and not such a small sector of it—that's been hugely hit by the challenges of this.
The other thing about the potato challenge, of course, is that we may well end up with no potatoes being planted in New Zealand. If the glut of potato products arrives in New Zealand—because they'll ship them around the world as quick as they can—you may well find we have no potatoes planted, and the unintended consequence of that is that the price of potatoes in a year's time will be massive; we might end up in the Irish famine.
So I think that as we move to recover from this situation we find ourselves in, the Government needs to be extraordinarily careful how they load costs on industry and business and how they manage the process of change—because I don't question that change is necessary, and there's never been a good crisis when there wasn't huge opportunity. There'll be huge opportunity for our food producers, for example, to change the way they do things, to improve the way they do things, and to create new products, and I think that's exciting. But if more and more costs are loaded on to those food producers, it's going to be very difficult for them to progress that in the short term.
I think the same thing applies, interestingly, to our forestry. So we talk about the billion trees and the need to plant trees. At the same time, we're putting legislation into the House under urgency, which impacts on the profitability and the incentive to plant trees, frankly, for a lot of tree growers, because they'll be concerned about the sort of impact that could have on them. So there are a whole lot of things that I think we need to consider very carefully. 
The last thing I want to very briefly mention is the racing industry, which was probably one of the industries most seriously damaged by the shutdown, because the whole of the industry shut down and so there was no activity at all, no income coming into it, and 16,000-odd people out of work—well, not out of work but unable to work. That's a massive impact. I think that there are industries like that that have had this massive impact and that need all the support they can get to get them going again because they are an equally important part of the New Zealand economy as any other industry of $1.6 billion to $2 billion. 
So I think that the message I bring with this speech is that we need to be extraordinarily careful where we load costs on, how we manage the recovery, and how we look after small sectors of our bigger sectors who have got into trouble when the bigger sector looks OK. Thank you, Madam Speaker.





CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Good to have the opportunity to speak in this, the Budget debate.
The word "unprecedented" gets bandied about a lot these days. 
Tim van de Molen: An unprecedented number of times.
CHRIS PENK: An unprecedented number of times, says Mr van de Molen, thereby threatening to send me down a meta spiral of unprecedented speech-making. However, I think it's worth assessing. Even just on the health side of things the pandemic has been unprecedented in the sense that we haven't ever had one since the last one. And in a funny way, there's nothing more expected, at least as a matter of fact, if not timing and nature, than a health crisis and a pandemic. So it behoves all Governments—and I make this point with no particular partisanship—to be well prepared for such events. Of course, part of that means learning from the ones that we are experiencing at the moment. To that end, in the spirit of helpfulness, I would like to examine some of the lessons that we can learn—I say, particularly the Government, because they have been the decision makers, of course, in the way of things. But I would like them to take on board—and I say this on behalf of the Helensville electorate but also any other New Zealanders who might happen to agree with what I'm saying—the extent to which their response has not been unprecedented and the extent to which it has merely been a continuation of some of the themes that we've had these past 2½ years—for example, the lack of delivery measured against their own promises. Of course, the discussion is in the context of the Budget, but it's part, again, of a bigger picture than that.
I think one of the troublesome aspects of the Government's response has been a failure to acknowledge the seriousness of the decision making in relation to those who were affected in an employment context. The Minister of Employment, no less, the Hon Willie Jackson, described, at one point, the lockdown as having been brilliant. There was a general message that was emanating from the Government, at the time, that we didn't initially transition from level 4 to level 3, as had been widely expected at that time, that the delay was merely a further two business days, rather than seeing that an extra five calendar days would have afforded five days' worth of opportunity for businesses that had been struggling greatly under the yoke of lockdown to be able to try and get back up and running. 
Of course, a certain amount of lockdown was necessary. I don't think anyone in this House or, indeed, across the country would deny that. I don't wish to over-emphasise to the point that I lose that fundamental aspect of acknowledgment that the Government has made some good decisions along the way. If we are to learn from the lessons, and if the response is not to be unprecedented in a way that is negative, then we do need to look pretty hard at ourselves as a Parliament, and the Government, of course, in terms of the decisions that it has been making.
Looking now, in the future, in the present and into the future, in the context of the Budget, when the Government is looking for solutions to help businesses—and the reason I emphasise businesses, of course, is that it is they who employ people, including the self-employed, as well as those who work in a larger employment context—if they're looking for solutions to help businesses get back on their feet, a good place to start would be in the mirror—which isn't to say that the individuals on the Government benches have all the answers; I think none of us do—and to see, staring back at them, those who have the power in their hands to make life better for businesses by stopping constraining their ability to trade their way out of difficulty. Sometimes the best help that can be given is for the hindrance to stop. The answer, in that sense, is hiding in plain sight. It is the case that for businesses who are labouring under level 2 as opposed to level 1, after 11 straight days of no new cases, the best help that could be given is for them to return to life as somewhat normal. That, paradoxically, would be an extraordinary thing. 
I'll finish with a note about shovel-ready projects, so-called, in the area that I represent. Along with many other areas, a large number of projects have been prioritised. I'm reminded of that classic line from Gilbert and Sullivan, "When everybody is somebody, nobody is anybody." So when all the projects have been prioritised, none of them are ahead of the other ones, and what we're left with is actually delays, being behind schedule, even as we were before the crisis hit. So things are not going well in many parts of the area, in a way that is indeed unprecedented and if the Government can learn the lessons from that and start delivering on its promises better than it has been, that indeed would be unprecedented but in a positive way,





Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in response to the conversation by the last member, Chris Penk, about the word "unprecedented". I have to say it gives me absolute pleasure and delight as the Minister for Veterans and the Minister of Defence to be able to speak on the 2020 Budget and, a little bit more broadly, on what we've been able to do over the three years of this amazing term—a term which, in defence circles, has already been labelled as the golden years for the New Zealand Defence Force, the Ministry of Defence (MOD), and veterans.
I'm very proud of this Government. I'm very proud of the way in which they've picked up the challenge and seen those challenges off. In the last three years, there have been some massive challenges confronting both New Zealand and our partners in the immediate region, more globally, and here domestically at home. At home, we've faced things like the 15 March attack, the White Island disaster, Australian bushfires, and, most recently, Cyclone Harold in the Pacific, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the community, across the nation, across the world, the women and men of our Defence Force have served this nation loyally and professionally and proudly, and I am absolutely privileged to be their Minister.
During these periods of uncertainty, one thing remains very clear, and that is that the Defence Force is prepared to respond to these events and the direction of Government. They're always prepared to respond, but very often they've not been equipped to be able to respond in the way that they needed to; well, that's all changed.
I want to take this opportunity, before I go any further, to congratulate the Defence Force on attaining their ranking in the Colmar Brunton poll as the second most trusted Government ministry, Government department. That's actually a goal that I'd set for myself at the start of this term. It's nice to know we hit it before the three-year mark is up. It's no surprise to me, because it comes on the back of their dedication and their professionalism, as I said.
It pleases me that in Budget 2020, we've been able to announce a substantial continued investment in defence and veterans. Budget 2020 has provided a boost of $1.77 billion in operating and capital funding to enable defence to continue to deliver on its outputs. With the strong backing of this coalition Government, we've seen the greatest injection of defence funding in decades, with $4.3 billion in operating and capital funding allocated in total across the past three Budgets.
We've allocated $676.5 million in additional Defence Force operating funding over four years. It's been allocated in Budget 2020 to support the delivery of the Strategic Defence Policy Statement, a policy statement that's been hailed internationally as the most forward-leaning and forward-reaching policy statement in New Zealand's history. This recognises the crucial role Defence plays in promoting the overall wellbeing, safety, security, and prosperity and resilience of our nation. They do this in the space, in the frame, of serving their community, serving the nation, and serving the world—and I might add one more—and playing their role in the protection of the environment and in the protection of our resources.
This year's Budget included $666.3 million of spending for the army, navy, and air force readiness and front-line capability, vital military enablers such as information communications technology, as well as much-needed defence estate maintenance across all the New Zealand Defence Force camps and bases. In fact, just recently I announced the $206 million being pumped into Ōhākea, just on infrastructure alone. That's aside from the total $2.4 billion that's going in there in air platforms, plus new infrastructure to cater for the P-8s. I want to highlight that $63.9 million of this funding is for defence estate maintenance and defence estate and infrastructure work, which is going to be crucial and which will provide a crucial boost in the regions as tradies pick up on those opportunities.
I've got to say I found absolutely—well, it was despairing for me, as a former soldier, to go to Waiōuru, to walk into the very barracks that I went into as a 16-year-old soldier, and even the lino on the floor is still the same. The walls of the barracks, brown varnished: still the same. That does not reflect well on past Governments over the decades, who have not lived up to their part in looking after the women and the men who serve their nation—and do so in some pretty austere and challenging roles and environments.
There's an additional $7.6 million, over four years, secured for the Ministry of Defence to meet increasing policy demands, to continue to maintain and develop what is becoming renown as an international example of how to manage projects, how to scope projects, and how to manage whole-of-life costings and manage some massive projects worth billions of dollars.
A further $10.2 million is being provided to improve the Defence Force's internal security capability. Budget 2020 also contains contingent funding to support the delivery of the Defence Capability Plan 2019—once again, a very forward-reaching capability plan, built on the back of the coalition agreement, whereby in this coalition Government, Labour agreed that we would review the last Government's capability plan and we'd put some oomph into it. So we are looking forward down the line to seeing this country own its very first landing platform dock, which will be a heck of an asset when it comes to dealing with humanitarian disaster and relief operations, something that we're seeing more and more of as the climate has changed. The Defence Capability Plan—I covered that. Moving on.
Investment in defence capabilities is critical to our national resilience, and, as I've said, it's been deferred for far too long. Speaking of deferred far too long: Budget 2020 includes contingent capital funding of $898 million towards the replacement of New Zealand's ageing C-130H Hercules fleet with the new C-130J Super Hercs. As I've previously said, this was my highest priority as the Minister of Defence. I'll just say that there'll be further details announced soon on that matter.
Veterans: $840,000 being provided to Veterans' Affairs from the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to access information exchange systems, all aimed at improving health services to our veterans who fit in that very vulnerable group. Many of our veterans are over the age of 80, particularly the pre-1974 lot, entailing the Second World War. These are the vulnerable people. They deserve to have their services and their health cared for better than it has been in the past. This funding is going to be crucial to make that happen.
In terms of defence, veterans' budgets, and MOD, look, there's been a raft of announcements over these three years, so many that I started listing them here but I haven't got enough paper. Just recapping on the purchase of the four P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft; the purchase and delivery of the dive and hydrographic vessel HMNZS Manawanui for the navy; the doubling in size of the Limited Service Volunteer scheme; the ground support fleet vehicles for the army, navy, and air force that are replacing the light operational vehicles; looking into protected mobility as we step forward.
The frigate systems upgrade—Labour and New Zealand First signed off on that business case being produced in 2007, when we were in coalition Government. Imagine my shock, my horror, when I become the Minister 10 years later and the project has not started. But no mind, it wasn't a big project; it was only about the protection, safety, and security of our navy, actually; about our ability to operate at Rimpac alongside of our strategic partners, with vessels that didn't need protecting in order to be able to be there. So, yes, we kicked off that massive project, and those vessels were in Canada. COVID off to one side, we would've seen them back a bit earlier, but, you know, COVID has intervened in a way. But that was not a small project—some $640 million pumped into that.
Additional funding for Veterans' Affairs, new funding across Budgets 2018 and 2019 for defence estate regeneration—overall indicative capital budget there in 2030 of $2.1 billion. That's an increase from what the previous Government set up—it was $1.7 billion.
I could go on. Suffice to say that, thanks to this coalition Government, the Defence Force is looking at being totally re-equipped, the air force totally rebuilt, the navy—a six-year gap in capability with the loss of the dive and hydro vessels has been filled. We're looking down the line at a very bright future for the New Zealand Defence Force as they advance forward, picking up new capabilities, able to, with confidence, deploy into whatever theatre they are asked to deploy in. The Government should take some confidence and some heart knowing that we are deploying our women and our men with capabilities that will give them the highest surety of completing the missions safely and coming back home. Thank you.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The following call is a split call.





HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): The previous speaker, the Hon Ron Mark, spoke about the brightness of the future. I just want to highlight that from a Clutha-Southland and Otago Southland perspective and look at what the Budget has done for my fine area. So let's have a look at that.
Let's just set the scene for a minute of what's happened there for the last three or four months. If you take Te Ānau, a beautiful town in Fiordland, gateway to Milford Sound, we know in Milford Sound we have around about 130,000 visitors in the busier months per year. But Te Ānau, October to December last year, lost a number of days due to heavy weather; then the Chinese border shut in February; then they had the floods in February, which washed out Milford Road; and then we had COVID. Basically, 93 percent of their market dried up straight away—93 percent of visitors to Milford Sound are international.
Now, go up the road a bit to Queenstown, the jewel in the crown of New Zealand tourism. Queenstown was the fastest-growing region in New Zealand over the last 11 years—the fastest-growing region, growing 7 percent year on year. Compound that for the last 11 years. It's now the hardest hit as a result of COVID. Approximately 75 percent of tourists that visit Queenstown are from international destinations. A lot of those businesses rely solely on international tourism—90 to 95 percent. Businesses built up over decades and generations, and the member across the hallway there says that's crap. Well, I invite that member down to Queenstown to talk to some of these businesses, people that have built these businesses up over decades, who phoned me up in tears on the phone because they've put their houses on the line to grow these businesses. They've taken huge amounts of debt on to keep employees in work. Now these businesses have lost basically all their revenue overnight.
If we look at what happened throughout COVID, these businesses were asking the Government and the tourism Minister for some certainty—certainty in terms of what's your Government's plan going forward. How is a business supposed to plan if the Government is not going to share their plan?
We saw in the tourism COVID committees, the Minister of Tourism—I actually asked the Minister, it was around about the period when they were talking about the numbers attending funerals, and I said to the Minister, "The Earnslaw, this is a ship, how many people are allowed on the Earnslaw?" His reply was, "You need to ask the officials. The officials need to get in touch with that business." Well, Minister, if every single tourism business has to talk to officials about the rules, how on earth are they supposed to plan?
Every week, we lost somewhere between 400 to 600 jobs in Queenstown. That's a population of 26,000. Four hundred to 600 jobs per week is a lot. Millbrook: 300 jobs. Skyline: 500 jobs. Nomads, a business where the owner started that 26 years ago—he just wanted some certainty from the Government. In terms of the certainty, if you look at the Budget, the Budget allocated, for an industry that's often the top or second top export earner for New Zealand, providing about $112 million of revenue a day, $41 billion a year, over 10 percent of our country's GDP—how much do you think of the new money they got in the Budget? Ten percent? Eight percent? Twelve percent? Andrew Falloon, have a guess.
Andrew Falloon: Eight percent.
HAMISH WALKER: One percent. For an industry that provides over 10 percent of GDP, they got 1 percent of new money: $400 million. And what was in that? A domestic marketing campaign and a working group.
I just want to acknowledge the local paper, the Mountain Scene, a very good article written by Tracey Roxburgh—and just acknowledge them for getting runner-up in the small community newspaper of the year last year. She writes: "Where, exactly, have you been, [Minister Davis]? … Please forgive me for being blunt … but you [have somehow] been dumbfoundingly quiet." We asked you, Minister, what are you going to do for the for the tourism industry? You replied, "There are [lots] of industries struggling at the moment." It goes on, later in the letter it states, "Again, I do apologise, [Minister] … it just seems, well, a bit shit really that you, given your portfolio, can't seem to answer [a basic question of what you're going to do for tourism]." "I asked if you're present, [Minister]." It goes on and on. "This, Kelvin, is your job." Please do something for us. You seem to be "asleep at the wheel." Well, Minister, this is an industry too important to fail.





ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak this evening on the Budget. But before I do, I do want to comment on the circumstances in which this Budget was written and on the enormous impact that COVID-19 has had on our country and on our country's finances.
I do want to commend the Government, including our public health agencies, on leading New Zealand through what has been an absolute public health crisis. New Zealanders right across the country have made sacrifices that at normal times we would never usually ask of them. They've responded and they've responded well, and it's been through their hard work that we are now in a position, more than most around the world, to defeat COVID-19.
I don't pretend that that has been easy. Those sacrifices, for many, have been incredibly difficult. Almost every family will have their own story, and my family are no different. In the early days of level 4 measures, my wife's grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and, unfortunately, with travel restrictions in place I wasn't able to see her before she passed away. She was a life member of the Labour Party and was known to many in this House and indeed stood twice for Parliament, to be here herself. That's a story replicated across the country, for many thousands of families and, indeed, many people in my electorate that I serve who could not be with family members in their final days or in their final hours. It's one of many heartbreaking sacrifices that Kiwis across the country made in the hope of defeating the virus and turning the corner quickly, and now it is the time to do that. 
The time has now come when we must turn our attention from a singular focus on the public health response to one where we also look to mend a shattered economy. A thousand Kiwis every day are going on the jobseeker benefit. That hides a larger number who are unable to access benefits. The Government's own Budget projections estimate that 160,000 New Zealanders will lose their jobs in the coming months. I fear that the group that will be hit hardest by that are those who are least able to afford it. 
Recent research out of the United States suggests that the bottom 20 percent of income earners are four times more likely to lose their jobs than those in the top 20 percent. It's for those people that we must now seek employment. The wage subsidy, despite some faults, did a good job in keeping people employed, but it doesn't recognise the other huge costs, the other huge impositions that businesses found throughout the lockdown, whether they be rental costs or other significant challenges. They also now have ahead of them a subdued economic environment. 
Nobody suggests that every job can be saved. Nobody suggests that every job should be saved. What's needed, though, is a plan to grow jobs, to give small businesses, the engine room of the New Zealand economy, the confidence to invest, to grow, and to take on the chance of hiring somebody new. The cost of not doing so is incredibly high: people out of work for a lengthy period, which we know makes it all the more challenging to get them back into the workforce when the time is right. But on that, there is nothing in this Budget. There's more spending—a lot more spending: $160 billion of new spending and new debt—but no plan for how to create jobs for those that we lost.
In recent weeks, we in the National Party have begun to release our economic plan. It includes JobStart, an incentive for employers to take on new staff to give somebody a chance. Our plan is one that will get the economy growing sooner with jobs for those who need them, one that recognises it'll be farmers and small businesses around this country in Ashburton; in Timaru; in South Canterbury, Jacqui Dean; in the Waikato, Tim van de Molen; in Taranaki, Jonathan Young, that will create the jobs that will pay the bills for the foreseeable future. 
Hon Scott Simpson: And Coromandel.
ANDREW FALLOON: One that puts jobs—and Coromandel, Scott Simpson. One that puts jobs at the centre of our recovery, knowing that that is the best safety net that there can possibly be to support New Zealanders and get this country back moving again.





PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today is the 11th consecutive day that we've had no new cases of COVID-19 here in Aotearoa. There is just one active case remaining, and no one in hospital receiving treatment for this virus. The Government has taken decisive action over the last few months. It's been an absolute privilege to see that up front and to be able to support that. But, equally, as the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, has often said, we as a team of 5 million here in New Zealand have also taken collective action, collective effort, which has meant that we've saved lives and we're in a good position now to have a chance of eliminating COVID-19.
I too just want to pause for a second—as the previous speaker, Andrew Falloon, did—to acknowledge the sacrifices that many have made, whether it's those who have stayed home during the higher alert levels or those who were at the various front lines that we've seen across New Zealand, helping to contain initially and then to stamp out the virus as well. I also want to acknowledge that it's been an incredibly turbulent time for many. Those who have lost their jobs, those for whom their futures are uncertain as a result of the virus, and those who have seen the loss of lives in their families and amongst their friends as well—I just want to acknowledge that in my contribution here.
It's in the midst of this pandemic, the midst of this turbulence and uncertainty, that Budget 2020 was delivered, and that's what the focus was on. So it's a little surprising when the member who resumed his seat just now talks about the fact that there was an absence of job creation and protection in the Budget, because that's exactly what Budget 2020 was all about. It was about ensuring that those people who were on the front lines, those people—New Zealanders who stayed at home—can actually have their jobs protected. That's what the wage subsidy scheme was about.
We went hard and we went early. We've heard that a few times, but what does that mean? It means that just on 20 March, when we had eight cases and jumped 28, we closed the borders because that was a significant risk to the spread of COVID in New Zealand. That was—and I acknowledge we've heard this word many times—unprecedented, because we've never done that in the history of New Zealand. It was a strong measure, but it was needed. We progressed up alert levels to lockdown, and I watched as the Prime Minister and the Director-General of Health communicated clearly what was expected to people as well. I saw the Government was agile in terms of considering feedback and acting on it as well.
The Government's initial economic response package, which included the wage subsidy scheme that we've seen extended in Budget 2020, was one of the earliest in the world and one of the largest, compared to the size of our economy. The focus there was on ensuring that we got money to employers so that they could maintain that connection to their employees; so that when we went back to some semblance of normalcy, people had their jobs; so that businesses had their workers, and that workers were able to put food on their tables. The focus there was on getting money quickly into their pockets and ensuring that there was support for them to pay their bills, because this is a Government that believes that everyone has the right to live with dignity.
The Government's plan, of which Budget 2020 was a part, was to respond, to recover, and to rebuild together—and to rebuild better. I'm paraphrasing here a little bit, but as the finance Minister said as he introduced the Budget, "If your house had burnt down, would you just rebuild it exactly the same, or would you use that as an opportunity to look at the changes that you could have made and to do it in a way that's better?" And that's what this Budget does. There will be job losses, though. That has always been acknowledged. It has also always been acknowledged on this side of the House that the Government will continue to do everything that we can to support businesses and families.
I heard the new leader of the National Party ask the Prime Minister at question time today, about five, six, seven times, the same question about whether their one policy that they have announced recently will be incorporated into the Government's programme. But that one policy, with all due respect, is not a plan. A plan for small business—
Kiritapu Allan: It's two pages!
PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: It's two pages? Still not a plan, Kiritapu Allan. But a plan is what this Government has done. To support our small businesses, the plan that we had as part of Budget 2020 was a targeted extension of the wage subsidy scheme to protect jobs, incomes, in businesses that were in the hardest-hit areas; the income relief payment for those who have lost their job since 1 March because of COVID-19; the investment specifically to support our tourism industry; interest-free loans for small businesses, and to date about 55,000 small businesses have applied, and about 95 percent of those have been approved for loans as well; supporting small businesses to grow digitally via e-commerce. I just want to point to the fact that Manaaki—which is a platform for small businesses in mentoring specifically for small businesses—conducted a survey, and I was really interested to note that the one thing that they pointed to that would make a huge difference for our small businesses was actually e-commerce and being able to project themselves in a digital world. Of course, once again the pandemic has shown us how things are changing in the way that we do things, and the importance of being able to connect digitally as well.
Practical assistance to help our exporters to seize international growth opportunities, which is an area I'm also particularly interested in—that's a $216 million package that actually looks at how we can transform trade. That goes back to the point that I made previously, in terms of how this Government is focusing on doing things better, and doing things together with those who are at the forefront. This particular investment, in terms of trade, will significantly increase the number of exporters that receive quite an intense form of support from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE), tailored support that allows them to develop their capability and to connect with overseas markets and global partners, both for those who want to expand those connections and also for those who are venturing into that space of export. We all know that trade, for us as a trade-reliant nation, is incredibly important.
The other interesting bit that I wanted to focus on as part of that package was a very practical, boots-on-the-ground approach that NZTE will be able to take and grow through this investment as well. So what they're able to do is to grow their team of in-market business development managers to provide that support to New Zealand exporters at a time when travel is particularly problematic. This investment in their capability growth means that we are able to have in-market teams that can work with our businesses here to meet customers, to vet new employees, to select distributors, all without our businesses having to travel—which, of course, is quite difficult at this point in time. This, of course, sits alongside a whole suite of initiatives that have been announced earlier as well to support our small and medium enterprise sector.
Job creation—very quickly; I'm running out of time. The Government's plan, of course, is to work alongside the private sector, specifically in areas of housing and infrastructure investment, so that we look at where we've got the need, what we've got to do, and how we create jobs in order to deliver those, which I think is absolutely brilliant.
I want to use the remaining time that I have to point to the fact that it's not just about economic support, which, of course, at this particular time is critical, as we all know, but so is supporting our communities, and through this Budget we've seen a $79 million boost to social service providers, $36 million in grants for community groups, and $22 million for the family violence sector. As someone who has worked in that sector for most of my life, I was incredibly thrilled to see that this is part of an ongoing package of support in every Budget to boost that sector and ensure that we close the gaps and we have an integrated system so that people don't fall through the cracks and become victims.
Finally, adult community education funding—very quickly. The previous Government cut that, which then meant that some of our lowest-paid families could not access the community education that they needed. It also specifically affected new migrants, for whom it was a place they went to combat social isolation and make their own support networks. We reinstated that through our Budget, and I'm incredibly pleased to see that.
All said and done, I am incredibly privileged to support a Government that is so focused on rebuilding our community and our economy, with the wellbeing and enhancing the mana of our people at the centre of all it does. Thank you.





TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think that last member's contribution sums up a lot of what we've heard from the Government in that the intention is good. There's been an unusual challenge that we're facing and they have put forward a response with the intent of providing the best possible outcome. That intent is admirable, but the actual delivery, unfortunately, is falling short, and that's where we're seeing a lack of substance in terms of how to actually provide the right solutions and the outcome that business, that community, that individuals and families need to come through this COVID challenge. 
This Budget is a gargantuan Budget. This sort of expenditure has never been seen before, so, understandably, New Zealanders are asking where it's going and how is it going to help their particular situation. It's not just about the volume of money—I'm sure Mr Jackson would appreciate it's not about the size; it's how you use it—and on that basis, the detail is lacking in this particular instance. There are a number of areas where there's been some good investment, and I do want to touch on some of those as I go along this evening, but there have been so many missed opportunities. 
Job creation is going to be a fundamental part of our recovery. The better we can do at creating new jobs and encouraging business to invest and to employ more staff and getting new businesses to start up and other businesses to retain staff—that will be a major contributor to the success of our recovery from COVID. There are a whole range of projects, and we've heard about shovel-ready projects. Expressway projects have a massive role to play within that, and in the Waikato we've been very fortunate. Under the last Government, we had great investment in the Waikato Expressway, a massive project connecting Auckland down into the heart of the mighty Waikato, and we'd intended to continue that. Unfortunately, this Government has cancelled it. 
Now, that extension down to Piarere, it's ready to go: a $560 million - odd investment, four-laning it down there, massive safety improvements, and massive economic potential for that area, as well. It's a no-brainer, and yet this Government refuses to pick up that project and get on with what that region needs. Instead, they got a $50 million roundabout out of the $8 billion - odd that was put forward for infrastructure investment earlier in the year. That's simply not good enough. That is a major piece of work that is critical to helping improve that connectivity in the "golden triangle": Auckland, Hamilton, and the Bay of Plenty. Not just there, but the next step as well, from Piarere across to the Kaimai Range, and then the stretch going through the Kaimai Range—let's look at a tunnel. We're spending massive amounts of money here. We need to be being bold with some of these visions but, actually, having clear plans around how to invest that money to create jobs for the benefit of New Zealanders. 
It's not just in the Waikato, of course. My colleague Matt King is very passionate about a four-lane expressway up North; my colleague Andrew Falloon, likewise, down in Rangitata, from Ashburton to Christchurch. These are important projects that have been cancelled by this Government but that actually provide massive job opportunities within those regions. The Labour members can jump up and down and say that it's not important or it's not what is needed, but, actually, it's about job creation—job creation, safety, and economic opportunity—and that's what these roads will deliver. So I would absolutely implore the Government to spend some of the additional $20 billion - odd that they have sitting aside in a slush fund and allocate it to some of these projects. 
We heard from Priyanca Radhakrishnan, the previous speaker, about "This Budget was very targeted, very planned." Well, I'm sorry, but putting $20 billion in a slush fund suggests otherwise, so my suggestion is to utilise some of that on these roading projects. That would go a nice way to helping out. 
Moving on from the roading to connectivity in general—and I'm talking here about ultra-fast broadband initiatives—I did see that the Government announced earlier they were looking to expand that. In rural areas, that is absolutely vital, and when we look at the lockdown that we've just been through, the requirement to have good connectivity was integral to businesses' ability to function well. So I would absolutely, again, ask the Government to look more seriously at investing that. Pushing out the fibre further outside our city limits to some of those smaller rural towns but, actually, getting the broadband out, as well, into the more remote areas—that's going to be a key opportunity to grow productivity as well. These are some of the measures we need, and whilst it's important that we have wage subsidies in place to support those who are out of work, we also need to be looking very much at creating new jobs and encouraging investment. 
It's not just about support. It's actually about enabling and empowering businesses to get on and do what they do best, because businesses are going to underpin our economic recovery here. The Government has a role to play in that, but businesses are the ones who employ the individuals, who give them the job, and who take a punt on someone who might not have the right skills, if they have the framework that enables them to get on and produce what they need to improve their productivity and contribute to our economic recovery. 
The building and construction sector is another one I want to touch on, and I'm very privileged to have recently picked up that portfolio on behalf of the National Party. Again, there is huge potential in this space. The job creation that can happen there is massive. There's 250,000-odd employees currently in the industry, who are playing a critical role now as we look towards the recovery in terms of construction, in particular, and in getting that sector up and running. Again, the ability for them to deliver then enables other businesses to get on and produce and to add economic stimulus as well. 
So that's where we really need to be looking more at streamlining the processes, overhauling the building code, and looking at where the liability sits within the industry, because there is far too much cost at the moment. That ends up coming on the end consumer, but, actually, the processes along the way are very slow and clunky and need to be reviewed. So it's encouraging to see that Minister Jenny Salesa, just last week, brought forward a bill around modular components and other matters. I commend her for that, and also for some of the recent changes around the small, 30-square-metre sheds and the like that can be built. Those are good things, but, actually, we need to make sure that we're bringing that in promptly, because there are businesses now who are missing out on sales as a result of people saying, "Well, if that rule's coming in, I don't need a consent. I'll just hold off until it happens.", and these are businesses that have had zero revenue through the lockdown who have now desperately been looking to sell sheds and the like, who are suddenly having that taken away from them because of an announcement with unintended consequences. So I hope to see that one delivered sooner rather than later. 
Also, in terms of rural New Zealand, this is a key part, and for me in the Waikato, the mighty Waikato, heartland of dairy country—that has played a huge role through this economic challenge that we're seeing from COVID. Dairy farming, or farming in particular, was an essential service, and rightly so. They were able to continue providing the hard work that they do in putting the food on our plates and producing the fibres and the like to get us trucking along as best as possible. The primary sector has underpinned our economy for many years, and I believe it will continue to do so. We need to make sure that we are giving them the right platform to grow and to be a bigger contributor to our recovery, and, sadly, this Budget hasn't delivered enough in the investment, innovation, and research space to provide new opportunities for our primary sectors to evolve and to adapt the way that they operate so that they can be more efficient, so that they can have a lesser impact on the environment, and so that they can produce more for less. These are all aspects that will contribute to our economic growth. 
It is encouraging to see the Government, just last week, soften their stance on some of the freshwater proposals they had put out. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as far as we would like to have seen them go. I just want to reiterate here that farmers care about the environment, and that's a common misconception we hear from the other side of the House. No farmer wants to be out there polluting their environment. They rely on having a top-quality environment to be able to produce as well as possible, so that is a total misconception to suggest otherwise. But bringing in additional impositions on farming in a time like this is just not appropriate. They need to be given a platform—the best possible platform—to improve their productivity and help our recovery. 
Now, local tourism is a nice part that I want to finish on today, and when we're looking at our recovery, again, international tourism is not on the cards for some time. Domestically, we need to encourage more, and in the Waikato we have huge opportunity there. Conservation is a big part of that, and I'm really passionate about getting out in the environment. We have a lot of walks around our region. I'm hoping to see people utilising that more and, down the track, potentially, a great walk in the Waikato region would be something fantastic. But there is so much on offer there, and I really would encourage people to take up that opportunity to explore their backyard, as well. Thank you. 
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The next call is a split call. 





GREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Sitting here all afternoon, starting from the new Leader of the Opposition's speech, we've heard that they are about small business. Now, I think they are talking to small business, but I don't think they're listening to them. I think they're telling business what they think they want to hear, because I want to give you an example of what happened with me in my Ōhāriu electorate post the Budget.
I walked into a cafe with a fairly hard-bitten group of businessmen—and they all are men—who are not necessarily always well-disposed towards my own politics. One of them—quite a cynical sort of a guy—for him, was quite effusive in his praise of the Budget. What it did, and he was quite clear, was allowed him—he knows his business model is not sustainable. He knows his business model—it's to do with event management—is going to need some serious adjustment. What this Budget did was give him the opportunity to keep his workforce together to enable him to adjust, to adapt, and to get his new strategy right for his new model. So what he said and why it was so effusive was because it meant, through our wage subsidy, he was going to be able to do just that.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm very sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for the House to adjourn for the dinner break.
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
GREG O'CONNOR: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before the break, I was just discussing the fact that while the Opposition may be talking at their small businesses, I don't think they're listening to them. I talked about the experience of one of my cynical members and the pleasure he had at what the Budget delivered him. The other one was one who availed himself of the business finance guarantee scheme, who once again said that that enabled him to keep his employees on. In both those cases, it enabled their businesses to keep going and to ensure that for any adjustments they need to make in the new environment, they have time to make it.
The other thing is that having run a $40 million a year business for 20 years before I came here, I did also understand that whatever you do for a business, actually, you need customers. To merely focus on what you are going to just give in a very short term, you actually need to take a little bit of a broader picture, which this Budget does, to ensure that we're actually looking at what it will deliver by way of a broad base that will bring the customers back.
I got another email from a land-owning gentleman in Scotland whose farm I'd worked on some years ago, who actually sent me to very tentatively say, "Are you on Jacinda's side or not?" When I pointed out I was actually in the same party, he then waxed lyrical about what those people in that part of the world think of her. Now, that's not anything to do with, necessarily—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: You're right.
GREG O'CONNOR: —an individual—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: You're right.
GREG O'CONNOR: —but what it means is this Budget—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Especially the Budget.
GREG O'CONNOR: —is going to—and what the Budget actually does is it ensures that the customers we are going to need are those very people overseas who will be the ones that will allow our businesses to take advantage of what this Budget delivers, because any Budget and any scheme can deliver to businesses, but unless it broadens out and ensures that those customers that are essential—the life's blood of small business, of big business of this country—can come here. So what this Budget is doing is ensuring that those very businesses keep intact their workforce, they keep intact their skills, and they adapt where they need to, as I spoke to of the first case of a Khandallah business that is able to actually keep his workforce intact so that when the benefits of the work we are doing internationally come to pass, when those customers that we're going to need that understand what a quality, well-led country that got through COVID is, we're already seeing it. We've seen the criticism. We've seen the American film industry coming back into town. Those things only happen because you are running an efficient, well-led country. 
This Budget is an absolute example of that; that now we're going to ensure that all those various schemes we've put in place, it's well-directed money, it's money directed to make sure that those good businesses in Ōhāriu, in my electorate in this case, in New Zealand, and particularly those who are dealing with the rest of the world, will be in a position to ensure that they are able to deliver for this country, and we're able to take advantage—the first advantage we've got—of being the country at the head of defeating, of getting control of COVID. Noticed by the rest of the world, this Budget sets the scheme—a great Budget.





ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Delighted to stand and take a five-minute call on the Budget. I want to start my contribution by congratulating our Government for its exceptional work of pivoting—right in the middle of COVID-19—to produce a Budget that has been exceptional. 
Smack-bang in the middle of COVID-19, our Minister of Finance turned 360 and created a Budget with the Government, in line to manage and support our people, their health, and our businesses. 
I want to acknowledge as well our leader Jacinda Ardern, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, for her daily updates. These daily updates—don't forget that she spent every single day of our lockdown working for this country. I'd like to commend her for that, because it was a tremendously difficult time.
On to the Budget, and as we move slowly towards level 1, I want to pause and acknowledge the support packages, the $50 billion Budget that has been offered to us all. We're only able to do this because we prepared for the rainy day, and my goodness, that rainy day is here and we are so very lucky that we have a Government that is not only compassionate but has good fiscal management. 
Look, our Budget has helped support 1.7 million people with the wage subsidy, and I just would like to acknowledge on behalf of my husband and I, who are small-business owners as well—
Hon Member: Very royal.
ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Ha, ha! Yes, very royal.
Hon Member: What sort of business?
ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: A construction business. We are running a small construction business, and one of the things that is so important, what's so important for us, is the contribution for the wages. That really supported us. That meant that our staff could stay working. That meant that our people could keep feeding themselves and look after themselves. 
I'm based in Pāpāmoa, the mighty Bay of Plenty, and I'd like to encourage the member opposite to come visit Pāpāmoa and perhaps talk to some of the businesses in my community who are saying thank you for this work. Thank you so much for being able to support. So those were 1.7 million people supported. This is a tremendous Budget.
I'd like to come very quickly now to two things that I'm particularly passionate about—two things that I'm passionate about and came to Parliament for. One of those things—as you may know, I've been a manager of Tauranga Women's Refuge, so I've managed a refuge. Now, Tauranga Women's Refuge spoke to me the other day—absolutely delighted. Their baseline funding has been increased to 60 percent—60 percent baseline funding. When I ran that refuge, for nine long years we did not have a pay increase. We operated on $21.25 an hour and we had 14 staff, so I am absolutely delighted—delighted that actually, on the ground, our first-class, exceptional front-line workers are going to be paid what they deserve. Hallelujah—I say. 
The final thing that I'd like to raise is a very small part of the Budget, which I'm personally delighted about, and I would like to acknowledge the Hon David Parker, Eugenie Sage, and Damien O'Connor for their work. This is around the $32 million put into food rescue. Why is this important? Food rescue is something that I've been really passionate about. Food rescue—we have $1.7 trillion worth of food wasted in the world every year. We have a huge amount: 8 percent of methane produced by food waste, and we have people hungry in this country, and we have people who have food that is good enough to eat but not good enough to sell going into landfill. So I'm very delighted about the package that has been put together that supports the environment but also supports the social aspects—$32 million. I'd like to acknowledge and thank those Ministers for working so collaboratively. Also, very quickly, I acknowledge the select committee work, which I led, in which a briefing was created looking at food waste in New Zealand. So I'm absolutely personally delighted for this work. Thank you.





Dr JIAN YANG (National): With additional money of $50 billion, this Budget is the largest in our history. Now our national debt will increase by $160 billion in four years, and our deficit will increase by about $100 billion over this—
Hon Member: 140.
Dr JIAN YANG: No deficit.
Hon Member: Oh, 106.
Dr JIAN YANG: Yeah. Sorry, $140 billion for our debt, extra debt, while $100 billion is our deficit in the next four years. So this is a huge amount of money. We understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our economy and on New Zealanders. So it is, therefore, necessary to spend more money to support New Zealanders who are struggling and to stimulate our economy. On the other hand, we need to understand that this is not free money. Inevitably, or eventually, we will need to pay it back. So it is important that each dollar is well spent. But this Budget did not have the particular plan to convince us that each dollar is well spent.
Well, basically, we say we have good ideas; we have money. But when you ask for costings, when you ask for what this money will achieve, we cannot find those details. What is shocking is that not enough is there to support our small businesses. Numerous small-business owners have come to see me, complaining about this. They need money, cash flow, to cover their rent, to cover electricity and water bills, and other ongoing costs. But there is no particular plan to support them.
Now, the tourism industry. The tourism industry in our country is particularly important—right? It employs about 400,000 people, and for the international tourism industry that is, again I will say, extremely important to our economy. But what have we got for our tourism industry? Four hundred million dollars—$400 million—for a most important industry of our country. And tourism—sometimes tourism, sometimes dairy industry—can be the number one exporters of our economy, but then just $400 million for our tourism industry.
On the same day, on Budget day, the Tourism Export Council of New Zealand sent a letter to industry, to international tourism providers. I quote: the letter says, "The Budget 2020 announcement today of Government's $400 million plan to help the tourism industry is a sad day for all businesses involved in the international tourism sector. Tourism touches every part of the national economy. The Government has failed the international tourism sector and appears to have given up on an industry that has produced so much for the NZ economy and society." It continues to say, "None of the suggestions TECNZ"—Tourism Export Council of New Zealand, so TECNZ—"put forward to MBIE to assist businesses has translated with announcements today. Is Government trying to overcomplicate things or are they not listening to the private sector experts in the industry who have been around for decades and know their stuff?" So this is what we hear from, particularly, the international tourism industry.
Another problem with this Budget is that, as I said, there are no details—right? How the money will be spent and what will be achieved—all these things we cannot really find. As I said, they have good ideas—so these are good ideas; this is the money—and as for details, wait and see. Take the $400 million for the tourism industry as an example again—right? TECNZ says that they are "immensely disappointed" with the recovery package, because it is so unclear how it will tangibly help businesses. It says, "The $400 million tourism recovery package has limited or no details around what exactly the two areas of a tourism transition programme and strategic assets protection programme is all about."
So there is no tourism plan. They put the "tourism" in bold—"tourism plan". There is no tourism plan attached to it with time frames on when markets will rebound, numbers anticipated to treble, and the cost it might take to attract visitors back. The recovery package does not help tourism businesses that needed a cash-flow injection to help with commercial rents, leases, and operating costs—so, no details.
Well, this Government has never shown genuine interest in supporting our tourism industry. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we'll expect the tourism industry will need more support from the Government, and it will need more data to have more targeted support and also a more targeted, better-informed business plan. But you know what? We have no such key data, such as hotel occupancy data. We don't have it. Why? Because Stats New Zealand stopped it late last year. So in the months leading up to the pandemic and in the months of the pandemic, we won't have data to tell the industry. This is simply because this Government did not put enough money to support the particularly important survey on accommodation occupancy, the hotel occupancy survey. Again, I would say this Government has never shown genuine interest in our tourism industry and hospitality industry.
This will have strong implications to the recovery of the industry. This is a sharp contrast to the previous National Government. When John Key was Prime Minister, he was also the Minister of Tourism. Under his leadership, New Zealand tourism developed so fast—right? But now we are, basically, not giving any substantial help to our tourism industry, so this is not good at all.
It is a rather common practice for this Government to simply throw all the money without well considering the plan. I'll give you another example. Just recently, the Government established what it called the international student hardship fund. The Government officials won't do this. They asked international education providers and supporting organisations to apply on behalf of international students. These organisations will have to do a lot of paperwork, and they'd have to report back to the Government as to how they spend the money.
Each student can have up to $1,000, and each provider or organisation can have only $20,000, but they have to do a lot of paperwork, and they have to assess whether these applications are genuine or not. But it's hard for them to do so, because they can't check the financial situation of each individual student. So this puts them in a very awkward position. They can't say no, because they can't justify their decision because they can't check the financial situation, but on the other hand, they can't say just simply yes. They have to say yes to everyone, because there's no clear criteria there for these providers to really implement. So this is their plan, again. The money's there but no particularly well considered plan. Again, this plan was not consulted on beforehand. This is typical of this Government.





Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Small Business): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Dr Jian is obviously against small business or he hasn't read the Budget or he doesn't understand what's in the Budget. Either way, now, like his new leader, he should do his homework before he comes down here and opens up his mouth. His speech was about how we didn't spend enough money—how we didn't spend enough money—and yet the Nats keep going on about how much money we're spending. I'll tell you the real insight. The real insight is that Dr Jian mentioned John Key's name more than he mentioned his current leader's. Well, Dr Jian, John Key and Bill English are no longer here, my son. They are long gone, the good old days. Do you know who your current leader is?
Hon Member: Nasty.
Hon STUART NASH: Nasty? I'm just pointing out a fact—I'm just pointing out a fact, Jacqui Dean. The one thing I would say, talking of Jacqui Dean, is under the Jacinda Ardern Government, for the first time in a long time, the Minister for Small Business is actually a Minister inside Cabinet. This is the Government of small business—this is the Government of small business.
Let me outline what was in the Budget for small business.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please.
Hon STUART NASH: The previous speaker said there was nothing in the Budget for small business. Well, if this is nothing, then heaven help me. First of all, there was $3 million for something called Business Connect. Now, this is rolling out Business Connect. What Business Connect does is it is actually addressing the major pain points that businesses have constantly told us they have when dealing with government—both central and local. When they apply for a licence or a permit or anything, they've got to provide all their information numerous times. They have no idea where they are in the process, so they go to check when their licence is about to expire: "Has my licence been approved? Where am I at?" They have no idea. Business Connect is changing all this. In fact, there have been a couple of trials on this with businesses, and what they found is in the first year they got about a 35 percent increase in productivity; in the second year, up to an 80 percent increase in productivity. Business Connect is responding to the direct pain points of small business. This isn't something we dreamt up; this is something small business said we need, and we're delivering.
There's something called e-invoicing—implementing e-invoicing. We've got another $12.5 million for e-invoicing. Now, e-invoicing is one of these 21st century constructs that is going to make it significantly easier for small businesses to pay their bills. One of the things that I have actually done a lot as Minister for Small Business is move the conversation around payment terms. I remember, when the previous Opposition spokesperson for small business, who happens to be sitting opposite me, came out and said, "Our policy is going to be that every business pays on the 20th of the month following." I thought that absolutely lacks aspiration—and probably a little bit of a lack of knowledge around 21st century technology. The 20th of the month following is a historic construct to do with cheques and mail, etc. etc. At the beginning of COVID, we went out and, in a letter signed by myself, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Finance, wrote to every single Government agency and said we want you to pay 10 days after receipt of invoice—not 20th of the month following; that could be up to 50 days. We wanted 10 days. In fact, we were looking at legislation before COVID. A discussion document was out there. 
E-invoicing gives life to this. What e-invoicing is is my accounting software talking to Kieran's accounting software, for example. It's generated invoices. It means they're correct, and it means people get paid on time. We all know, as we're told time and time again, that small business is about cash flow. Imagine getting your invoices paid in 10 days as opposed to 50 days. In fact, at this point, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) actually pays 75 percent of their invoices within five working days and 95 percent of their invoices within 10 working days. In fact, one of the first things I did as Minister for Small Business was I called in a company called Fonterra, whose payment terms were 120 days from the end of month of invoice—so it could be 150 days—and said to them, "How can you justify treating your customers like this." What did they do? They came back and they changed it to the 20th of the month following. Payment terms and cash flow are so important to small businesses. 
The thing about this is MBIE tell me that about 30 percent of invoices are late paid. That's not because of lazy accounts payable; that's because the invoices are wrong. So a small business puts their invoice in. On the 20th of the month following, they get a call saying your invoice is late; they've got to resubmit it. That is woefully inefficient. E-invoicing will change this.
E-invoicing was also part of our single economic market agenda. So we're working very closely with the Australians. We have the same platform—Peppol platform. So New Zealand and Australia are going to be one when it comes to e-invoicing.
There was also something about digitisation of small business. This is encouraging innovative initiatives to encourage small business to use e-commerce. Now, one thing we do know is that under alert level 3, those businesses that were already e-commerce enabled or already digitally enabled or using digital tools probably had a competitive advantage over those businesses that weren't. We understand in the 21st century we just need to ensure that our small businesses have the ability to use digital tools in a way that drives productivity, that optimises their offering, and that allows those men and women who work incredibly hard to look at the data that is generated from their business anyway and see how they can improve it.
One thing I've said to my MBIE officials is I see us—I see our role—as enablers. We're not going to go out there and be so arrogant as to tell people what they can do, but what we can do is develop the tools, look at the ways we can make them really accessible, and provide a level of training to get small businesses into e-commerce so they can again be part of the 21st century.
The other thing is we put $2.3 million into business.govt.nz. Now, I have no doubt that a number of MPs get an email from business.govt.nz. The reason I say that is because they have 850,000 email addresses of almost every single small business, sole trader, or large business director, to which they send out email newsletters. Now, they've done it around single issues—for example, we did it around the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme: just a single email saying this is going to expire on 12 June; if you're interested in this, we recommend that this is where you go and this is how you can enrol—to full-on full COVID newsletters, which list everything that we're doing. It leverages over 200 different websites. There are some amazing tools on business.govt.nz, and, in fact, I would recommend anyone who is listening to this that's a small-business owner, or any of the MPs, just to take a look at business.govt.nz. It is a fantastic resource for informing businesses of what is available to them to help them plan, to help them succession plan—cash-flow planners, Holiday Act; you name it, it is there. It is a great resource.
We also put money into the New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) organisational part number. Now, I have said, as the Minister for Small Business, whenever I'm speaking at any sort of chamber event or business conference, that I believe that this will be the last generation of business owner that will survive, let alone thrive, without being digitally enabled. The reason I say that is everything we are developing at MBIE and also at Inland Revenue is based on a digital platform. That is the New Zealand Business Number. It is very easy to get, and, in fact, to be part of the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme, a business had to enter their NZBN. So this is the platform upon which businesses connect and e-invoicing, etc., sits. It is amazing what we have achieved, and Minister Woods has had a lot to play in this in terms of innovation and digitisation. But it is amazing what we have achieved in just 2½ years in terms of trying to drive the sort of digital innovation that we think will make a huge difference to the small-business sector. 
We also put just under $10 million in Better for Business. Better for Business is an all-of-Government group that works really closely together on the issues that small business tell them are barriers to their success. They undertake surveys; they make a whole lot of recommendations. It is a very, very engaged group of chief executives, and it is, I think, one of the most valuable groups in this Parliament—not of MPs, of course; of officials—because it is the top CEs actually nutting out how to drive innovation and success in the small business sector. 
When the last member said that there is nothing in this Budget for small business, I hope, in the last 10 minutes, I have just very briefly outlined just a number of the few initiatives that we have in the Budget that directly relate to small business. There are, of course, a number of other initiatives, like research and development, employment training, wage subsidy, etc., etc., that actually do help small business, but this is a Budget about jobs and about small business. Thank you very much.





MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise and take a call in the Budget 2020 debate. We start off with the context of COVID-19. Never have we had a time that's reinforced the importance of a strong economy, low unemployment, and increasing incomes on people's mental health. We know that with the numbers of people losing their jobs, losing their incomes, we're facing a large number of people who are going to be facing mental distress. In fact, on the Epidemic Response Committee, Sir Peter Gluckman clearly outlined in his report that 10 percent of New Zealanders who will lose their jobs and/or income over the coming months, if not years, will face getting post-traumatic stress disorder. That is a serious mental illness. So if we're looking at 200,000 to 300,000 people in that category, that's 20,000 to 30,000 New Zealanders who will face serious mental illness. If there was a Budget for the Government to step up in mental health, this was it, and they failed. 
The problem is they believe their own rhetoric on mental health. The Hon Stuart Nash turned up at the Grand Hall when I attended an event for mental health and addiction services. He was there on behalf of the health Minister, Dr Clark, who at that time said he was busy dealing with COVID-19. We now know that is a debatable point. Now, he told that group that in Budget 2019, the Government invested $1.9 billion into mental health services. We know that's not correct, because a large portion of that money, maybe up to a quarter of it, was for the State abuse inquiry. Several hundred million was into Housing First projects. Now, they're all good initiatives—don't get me wrong—but they're not front-line mental health services. Yes, granted, the Government allocated $455 million to the new flagship front-line mental health service, much needed by New Zealanders—$450 million. That gave a lot of New Zealanders hope. 
Yet how much has this Government spent of the $455 million? As at February this year, $3.2 million; in May this year, $20 million out of $455 million. So what this Government is good at doing is allocating money. But with that example I gave, the health Minister can't even spend the money. It's not all just about giving big figures; it's about having a plan. So when the health Minister came out with his re-announcement of $40 million or $50 million for Budget 2020 for the front-line mental health service, he highlighted that his front-line mental health service was currently operating from 22 sites. How many of those sites were actually operating before Budget 2019? Twenty-two. There's no net gain of new front-line mental health services. And he announced he's going to roll it out to another 100 GP sites. Well, we have 1,800 GPs in New Zealand. When that gets rolled out under Budget 2020, by July 2021, those 100 sites will be 8 percent of GPs. And when I asked the health Minister what GPs they were going to be rolled out to, he didn't know. No plan.
This is the problem in mental health. The Government's believing its own rhetoric, yet they're not allocating the funding and they have no plan for increasing what their own mental health inquiry said. The indicative target of the mental health inquiry was to increase access from 7 percent to 20 percent. But ask this Government how much they have increased access by—they can't tell you. So it's all very well allocating a lot of money, but you've actually got to spend it and you've got to have a plan.
And now here they are faced with COVID-19, and the GP Dr Baddock, who's the New Zealand Medical Association chair, told the Epidemic Response Committee that we're going to see a huge amount of mental health problems over the next 12 months and beyond. We need to be able to deal with that. And where were they in Budget 2020? Missing in action. Yes, they'll point to initiatives like Mana Ake in Canterbury. What a great programme. The National Government should have done that; we didn't do it. But the problem with that is it's one region out of 16 in New Zealand—one out of 16 that it's been rolled out to. And in Budget 2020, if you look at the documents, it clearly states that initiative has only got funding for one more year. There is no confirmed funding for that initiative post-2020, 2021. Look at the Piki pilot that the Greens champion—what a great programme, providing free counselling to 18- to 24-year-olds. But the same problem: it's in one region. We have 16 regions in New Zealand. That is another initiative that has no secured funding post-2021.
And you can see why people are starting to get concerned. We had the Mental Health Foundation, who came out after the announcement in Budget 2020, who said, "The [Mental Health Foundation] remains concerned that the Budget is lacking in some key areas, including: No resourcing or implementation plan for the recommendations of He Ara Oranga—without a plan we are concerned that progress will stall and drift." And that's where this Government's mental health response is at: stalling and drifting. After announcing $1.9 billion, we now have the major stakeholders saying they're concerned that it's stalling and drifting. 
And not only that, we've seen progress go backwards. The annual reports for the DHBs—waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services: in the last two years, the waiting time has increased 75 percent. Fifty percent of DHBs are reporting their waiting time is longer. And you know what the DHBs were saying at those annual reviews, when we asked them about the $1.9 billion? They said they couldn't point to where the money is. They didn't think it had flowed out yet. 
So here we have a Government who should have stepped up in 2020. We've got a huge wave of mental distress occurring as a result of COVID-19, and we have very little. Yes, a continuation of Budget 2019. But for the points I outline, there's real concern that money is not being spent. Of the $455 million for the new front-line mental health service, only $20 million of that's spent. And what's really concerning is the health Minister will blame the GP practices and he'll blame the workforce. Yet what we do know is New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC) - accredited counsellors who are contracted to DHBs to provide primary care have been told there is no further funding to respond to the growing number of referrals they are getting. That's why Christine Macfarlane from NZAC, the president of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors, came out and called their initiative a total waste of taxpayers' money.
So we have a workforce. It can respond now to the growing demand of COVID-19. And I do want to point out—not out of petty politics, but maybe an initiative that we can all back to move forward—that post - Christchurch earthquakes, the former National Government committed to providing free 50,000 counselling sessions through the GPs. Why did we not hear of that in Budget 2020? Because as all the experts are saying, in an economy where people are losing their jobs, losing their livelihoods, losing their incomes, losing their agency to make decisions, and becoming overcome with the stress in their lives, we have not seen a response from this Government. What we needed in Budget 2020 was a plan, a plan for how this money was going to be deployed. We can't be told constantly, "Well, two years ago, we promised $1.9 billion." What about today? Where are the new front-line mental health services that will respond to the growing mental distress in COVID-19 in Budget 2020? Thank you, Madam Speaker.





Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I move, That this debate be now adjourned. 
Motion agreed to.





CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE (EMISSIONS TRADING REFORM) AMENDMENT BILL
Second Reading
Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): I move, That the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. 
E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Ki a koutou, ōku hoa Pāremata, huri noa i Te Whare, ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa.
[Madam Speaker, greetings. To you, my parliamentary colleagues throughout the house, New Year's greetings to you all.]
The most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is for there to be a price on those emissions that reflects the true cost that pollution imposes on future generations and is sufficient to induce investment in and adoption of cleaner alternatives. That is what this bill aims to achieve. Once this bill passes, our emissions trading scheme (ETS) will be one of the most efficient and effective tools that we have for meeting our climate targets.
Now, I know that many of the people and the organisations watching what we do here today will have been through an extraordinarily difficult time of late. This bill provides them with the certainty and the clarity about the future that they've been asking for. This bill is the product of five years' work, carefully signposted and consulted upon every step of the way. Its orderly passage through Parliament is important to maintain the certainty and the predictability that has been built up over those years. It is in no one's interests that the busted market of the ETS remains busted a moment longer. A reformed ETS will lead to investment, which will lead to increased productivity, jobs, and livelihoods, as well as lower pollution levels.
For New Zealand, as with any country, one of the most difficult aspects of the climate change challenge is to bend the curve of our emissions and get them on to a sustained downward trajectory. This has never before happened in our country. Once that happens, things can move quickly from there, which is exactly what happened in the United Kingdom. Once their emissions started coming down, the rate of decline just kept picking up pace, and even more so as the cost of low carbon alternatives started dropping too. The UK managed to reduce emissions by over 40 percent below 1990 levels whilst maintaining the highest levels of economic growth in the G20. We can achieve something similar here in Aotearoa. This bill, in tandem with the zero carbon Act, will help us to do that.
Carbon pricing broadly follows two forms: a carbon tax or a cap and trade approach. Twelve years ago, New Zealand opted for a cap and trade scheme. But previous Governments left out one crucial part: the cap. We got a cap and trade system without a cap, meaning that emissions permitted under the scheme were, in effect, unlimited. Combined with open access to a glut of cheap international units, many of which were fraudulent or non-existent, the New Zealand ETS failed to deliver on its purpose of bringing down emissions. Five years ago, the previous Government reviewed the ETS and kick-started the process that led us here today, and I would like to acknowledge them for that. I'd also like to thank the Environment Committee for its thorough consideration of this bill, the officials from the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries who supported them, and the members of the public who took their time to submit their views on it.
This bill can be understood as having four constituent parts. It is about first aligning with the commitment that we have made internationally under the Paris Agreement. Second, it provides the legislative foundation upon which we can start to make real change. Third, it sets the framework for how the emissions trading market will work. And finally, it strengthens the integrity of that market. Each part builds upon the last to create an emissions trading scheme that does what it is meant to do: reduce emissions. Let's take each part briefly in turn.
As members will know, the zero carbon legislation that this House unanimously passed last year was consistent with the urgent need to limit average global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2018 report. Critically, this bill updates the principal Act to align with our contribution to meeting that goal. This bill also amends the principal Act to lay the foundations for the future of the ETS. Once passed, we can build on what we have in front of us today to better incentivise more organisations to invest in the transition to a clean, climate friendly economy. These steps will happen through regulation, but, as you will have seen in the news this morning, they do include a cap on the total emissions allowed in the ETS and clear rules on auctioning.
Now, as we know, good Governments should seek to play a facilitative role in markets to help create and shape markets, as well as provide the framework within which these markets operate. This bill does exactly that for emissions. For a start, we're moving away from the scheme's $25 fixed price options for emissions units. This was always meant to be temporary, but it has ended up as an artificially low ceiling on the cost of emissions. What it will be replaced with is both a price floor and a cost containment reserve. Working in tandem, these mechanisms will stop the price of emissions either getting too low or too high. In effect, then, the gap between them, between the lowest price an emissions unit can drop to and triggering of the cost containment reserve, is where the market will operate.
A feature of this market will, of course, be better incentives for afforestation, and I know that there are some concerns about this. It is a simple fact that we need to actually cut emissions right across the economy rather than simply plant more trees to soak up ever-increasing emissions. As a Government, we have listened to those concerns and taken them into account throughout the process that's got us here today. We must remember that it is the independent experts on the Climate Change Commission who will advise us on the proportion of New Zealand's emissions budgets that should be met by domestic emissions reductions and domestic emissions removals like forestry. I'm not going to prejudge what they say, but I can tell you this: the commission is required to consider the implications, or the potential implications, of land use change for communities, and that, I hope, will provide the reassurance that people need.
Finally, this bill markedly improves the integrity of the scheme. It will do this in several ways: first, by phasing out free allocation to eligible industries on a fair and predictable pathway. We are also strengthening and simplifying the compliance regime, as well as introducing new infringement offences for low level offending and much stronger penalties for the failure to surrender and repay units. The bill also improves the transparency of the scheme by requiring the Environmental Protection Authority to publish data on participants' emissions and removals annually. This will build trust in the scheme, providing information to the market and allowing analysts to build a clearer picture on the emissions profile of firms within the scheme.
I often tell the story of the chief executive who said to me during the passage of our zero carbon Act that his young daughter had told him one evening that she no longer wanted to have children, because of the climate crisis. He asked me, "What do I say to her?" Well, what I can say is that today, because of this bill, every organisation covered by the emissions trading scheme can start to play a greater part in making this world cleaner and safer, a world that I am sure that chief executive is hoping will one day be home to his grandchildren.
Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.





Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is an interesting bill to be discussing in its second reading, given the post-COVID environment that we find ourselves in. I want to acknowledge Minister James Shaw for a typically thoughtful and considered speech, and we appreciate that from the Opposition benches, because, as became apparent during the passing of the zero carbon Act, I think that there is broad consensus across this parliamentary Chamber on the direction of travel in terms of climate change initiatives and climate change direction.
There was, as the Minister said, unanimity on the passing of that zero carbon Act, but this is the bill that is the "doing" piece. The zero carbon Act was the Act that set up the framework. It's this piece of legislation, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill that is the doing piece of the formula. This is the piece of legislation that makes the levers of climate change policy effective and cutting in terms of changing the way things are done, ultimately, on our pathway towards a zero carbon future. And, as the Minister said, we have collectively—across Government and this Parliament—made commitments internationally, first at Paris and then subsequently at various Conferences of Parties since. We as a Parliament take those commitments seriously, and I think it's important that business, the community, and New Zealanders understand that that commitment is a cross-party commitment.
However, just as it is with many other aspects of shared general consensus in policy direction, we reserve the right as the Opposition to argue the detail, the fine points of the legislation that's presented to us in this House. And there are a number of working pieces in this piece of legislation. For most New Zealanders, the intricate details of this emissions trading scheme bill will actually be something that they choose not to try and get their heads around, because, actually, it is complicated. It does deal with concepts that, in many cases, are foreign and unusual and unfamiliar to New Zealanders as individuals, as family members, as community members, and certainly sometimes as business people. But what, effectively, this bill does is give power to the levers that are required to initiate the change that will be required from now on and in years to come to achieve those international commitments that we've made, and the commitments that we've made to ourselves and to future generations.
Now, that all said, the National Party is going to oppose this legislation at second reading, not necessarily because we are opposed to every aspect of the detail of the legislation, simply put because we don't think now is the appropriate and right time to be introducing legislation that is, effectively, a further impost on the cost of living, on the way that New Zealanders do business in a post-COVID recovery environment. It's our view that, notwithstanding the contents of this piece of legislation, actually a 12-month postponement would be the appropriate, sensible, and right thing to do as New Zealand and other nations around the world look to a pathway beyond COVID, because it will be our primary productive, export-led industries and sectors that ultimately lead us out of the position that we find ourselves in through no fault of anyone's in New Zealand. It's a challenging environment, and it's an environment where further costs, further handbrakes on doing business, both domestically and internationally, just aren't appropriate right now.
So we're not saying that this bill is a bad bill. We're not saying that this bill is a bill that should not, ultimately, proceed. We're not saying that we agree or disagree with every aspect of the fine detail in the bill. But what we are saying is that a responsible, caring, thoughtful, kind Government would actually understand that the needs of New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses right at the moment is actually an ability to keep trading, to be in business, to recoup and re-stabilise business and enterprise, and, ultimately, to continue making our way collectively in a competitive international market place, where the last thing we need right now is a further impost of handbrakes and hurdles that are going to make our export sector less competitive internationally in a very competitive international market place—probably far more competitive now and in the next year or two than it has been in previous times.
There are a couple of aspects in the bill that I do want to draw attention to as we proceed, and my colleagues on this side, as this debate continues through this evening, will raise other aspects. But I particularly want to focus on the impact of the reduction in what's sometimes referred to as the "free allocation", and that raises the prospect of what's referred to as "carbon leakage". In New Zealand, we are fortunate, in many respects, to be at the bottom of the South Pacific, surrounded by the largest moat in the world, and that brings both advantages and disadvantages. But, in a period by 2050, I can't imagine a New Zealand that's not, for instance, going to want to have access to steel, to glass, to fertilisers, to aluminium, to all kinds of products that, if not manufactured here competitively, will have to be imported, arguably from less emissions-efficient countries than our own. And so for organisations such as Methanex, for instance, there are some very real concerns about the future viability of that business and the contribution it makes to our economy, both in terms of the products produced and the people employed.
Similarly at New Zealand Steel, same sorts of issues, and at O-I Glass in South Auckland—same sorts of issues. Our cement works in Northland, the aluminium smelter at Bluff, and fertiliser companies around the country. And then, perhaps most scary, when we start talking about carbon reducing legislation such as this that is proposed under this emissions trading scheme bill, is the impact, potentially, on the New Zealand Refining Company at Marsden Point. I had an opportunity to visit there during the summer recess and hear some of the particular issues that they have. I was reminded that, until the mid-1960s, New Zealand imported refined fuel from overseas, and that we didn't do our own—we actually imported it ourselves. And the real risk is that, if we aren't careful, and if we haven't got these measures right in this piece of legislation, the potential commercial ramifications for businesses like the New Zealand Refining Company are potentially devastating.
I can't imagine, even with the best will in the world, as I drive merrily around in my 100 percent electric vehicle, that any time soon we're not going to need at least some refined fossil fuel to fuel the New Zealand economy through the transition over the next few decades. That will be a requirement. I can't imagine a situation where we would want to put at risk New Zealand's capacity, New Zealand's financial security and economic security of having our own refinery capacity, by our tinkering in a bill like this that potentially puts it all at risk. I don't think that that is smart or wise.
I do want to just conclude my comments at this point in thanking the large number of submitters who presented on this bill, largely under the cover of COVID, I have to say. We, as an Opposition, felt that a piece of legislation that was as important as this should not have been progressed at the haste and pace that it was by Zoom meetings around the countryside. Now, Zoom meetings go so far, but this is important legislation. It's important that New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses had an opportunity to be heard respectfully and in an unhurried way. The Government's had nearly three years to bring this legislation to the House, and they are now, in the final throes of their term, bringing it with a rush and a bustle that I think is unbecoming of legislation that is as important to the future generations of New Zealanders and the actual transition that I think most of us, if not all of us, want to see in terms of a decarbonised economy for the future.
So I want to reiterate that the National Party will be opposing this legislation on the basis that the timing is wrong. Now is not the right time, and we will oppose it.





Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Mr Simpson, first of all I want to thank you and your team for the hard work that you did on the Environment Committee, and what the committee showed is that, when we work together, we can make real progress. I was surprised to hear you stand up and say that the National Party will oppose this bill, because you know and I know that this bill is good policy and it's the way forward for New Zealand. Now, I know the National Party's a conservative party; I know it's not a party of progress, but we will not do what the National Party did for nine years and sit on our hands. There is always a reason to do nothing. We are not going to do that, and, led by James Shaw, Minister for Climate Change, we are going to stand up and fulfil our international obligations. So this is a party of progress and reform, and this is the time for progress and reform more than ever.
I was interested to hear Mr Simpson talk about industrial allocations. Now, all we are asking—what this bill does is a very, very simple thing. It's a complex piece of machinery but the principle is simple. It says, "Carbon emitters should bear the cost of their emissions.", and this is a pricing regime to achieve that. But, as Mr Simpson points out, there are some industries which, if we asked them to bear the full cost, then it's likely that the industries would move overseas and be less carbon efficient. Now, that can't go on for ever. We can't keep giving New Zealand industries a free ride, but we want to transition them.
A really good example of the collaborative work that went on was the considerable refining of the industrial allocation framework. The fact is that, as it stood, it was a relatively blunt tool, but after it went through the committee process, we heard from many, many submitters, and the work of our officials was truly outstanding, under extraordinary circumstances, but we looked at that and said, "We need to have more flexibility." It may well be that international conditions are so extraordinary that we need to pause for some industries, but extraordinary is the threshold, not tricky, not competitive, but truly extraordinary, because this is an extraordinary challenge we face. But, equally, these thresholds have been unchanged since 2009. We know that there are industries out there that have been getting a free ride and more, and so we need to be able to increase and improve that reduction as well, to pare it back at a faster rate, if indeed that is appropriate.
So that's why we have set up the Climate Change Commission to get the best possible advice, to set up a very robust machinery, and we've done all of this in a very collaborative and hard-working way, and it's great to see that, behind the scenes, outside of this Chamber, we can really cooperate and improve things to make it a much better piece of law for New Zealand. So, with that, I want to commend this bill to the House and say that I'm proud to be part of a Government that is brave enough to move on climate change today.





Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm very pleased to speak on this emissions trading bill and to really follow on from the Hon Scott Simpson, who gave a comprehensive account of National's position on this bill and our position to oppose the bill at this stage. I want to take the liberty, as a rurally based MP, as are a number of other National MPs around the House, to really reflect on the implications of bringing the emissions trading scheme (ETS) and bringing agriculture into the ETS at this point, and to reconfirm the point that Scott Simpson made: that it is our position that, in this post-COVID economic environment, it not only makes sense to delay consideration of this bill but it's almost imperative to delay consideration of this bill for 12 months until there is a greater understanding, there is greater certainty in the context of great uncertainty, of what the future—immediate and medium- and, indeed, long-term future—we do have economically, and particularly for our primary production sectors, which, at the moment, are the sectors that are making the greatest contribution to the New Zealand economy and, it would seem, will be doing so for some time to come.
Tourism is on its knees. I'm not going to stray from the bill very widely, except to confirm that tourism is on its knees—international tourism—and will be so for a couple of years, three years, until those markets regain some traction in New Zealand and there is more confidence in those areas, which is why we can confirm our position—our considered position—of delaying consideration of this bill until more is known about the future of the economy.
I'd also like to confirm the position that we hold: that National had, and has, a clear criteria that would need to be met before we are comfortable with bringing agriculture into the ETS or, indeed, a similar pricing mechanism. That is—and it's a message which we have confirmed over a number of years—that there needs to be science-based mitigation of the impacts of agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions. We understand that this bill introduces an emissions trading scheme. We understand that. There are parts of this bill with which we do not disagree, as Scott Simpson mentioned. However, there is a very strong—very strong—push in the New Zealand scientific and agricultural sector to develop science-based mitigation measures.
It is almost unfathomable as to why those options are not being more seriously considered. Is it just blind idealism? Well, it could be, because there's a lot of work being undertaken to support farmers, to support farmers farming their way to better environmental outcomes. Just as they are doing as they're farming their way to better water quality and land-use outcomes, so they are doing to try to attempt and to further work to reduce their emissions profile.
I want to also raise the issue of the post-COVID environment impact on our economy, in the context of agriculture still, and to note the comments of the Meat Industry Association of New Zealand. Of course, that is the association which represents New Zealand's largest manufacturing sector and who say that the proposals will have a significant impact on the economies of rural communities across New Zealand. We've just seen, over the past couple of months since 25 March, the impact on rural communities, and, in the context of agriculture, we've seen it with meat-processing plants under levels 4 and 3 implementing social distancing practices within their meat works. That has had the impact of reducing production by up to 50 percent. That has had the impact of creating a bottleneck for processing with farmers who wish to quit their lambs, who wish to quit their cull cows, wish to quit their—pigs have been a particular bottleneck. 
Of course, you look behind that again and there are on-farm impacts. Will there be enough feed to carry this extra stock over? Will the condition of the stock still be that which they will get a good price when they eventually get through the meat-processing plants? The reason I'm giving this example: as the Meat Industry Association says, under the ETS regime, "Even a relatively small [reduction] in the amount of livestock being sent to processing sites of between 10-15 percent"—and that is due to depopulation of stock—"will likely lead to a number of plant closures"—well, that's just around the corner—"and significant job losses, particularly for small towns who are often solely reliant on the local processing plant for jobs,". That is Tim Ritchie, the chief executive of the Meat Industry Association.
So we began to see the impact on small communities because of COVID-19 and now the proposal from this Government, which has New Zealand First as a coalition partner, who are so-called champions of the provinces, in support of this piece of legislation, which has exactly the same impact on small rural communities. I know this—I know this. I live in one of those communities—
Hon Tracey Martin: So do I.
Hon JACQUI DEAN: —which is—well, Tracey Martin says, "So do I." Well, she should know better then, shouldn't she? Because that is the impact of this emissions trading bill. If farmers, if the agriculture sector, are forced to depopulate to make their operations affordable under the ETS, that will be the impact on small communities, because it is not just the farms and the farmers themselves; it's everybody else in those communities. It is absolutely the lack of confidence in those communities, and we all know what that means. Those of us who live in small communities have seen it during droughts: the supermarket doesn't trade as much, people leave the district, retail suffers, and people leave town in search of better opportunities.
Does the Minister honestly think—and I'll be interested when we get to the committee of the whole House stage of this bill, because I will be interested to know what work has been done, what economic work has been done, on the impact of bringing the ETS on small towns in rural New Zealand. Or is the ideology going to prevail in this? Because, under the ideology, there is a reality, and that reality is that, by depopulating stock, this Government is also proposing to depopulate rural New Zealand. For that reason, in this post - COVID-19 economic period, where nothing is known, nothing is certain, it is our belief that we should pause and pick up this work again in 12 months' time.





MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise and confirm NZ First's support for this Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill. 
It is with a sense of bemusement that I listened to the previous speaker, Jacqui Dean, because let's go back to why we're here: we're trying to address issues around climate change. We are trying to meet targets set for us and agreed by us under the Paris Agreement. Those were signed by the New Zealand National Party when they were leading the last Government, in 2015. Paula Bennett swanned off over there, swanned off on to the international stage, and they've come back here—that's 2015, and here we are in 2020—and they're still talking about kicking the can down the road. None of this stuff is easy, and I will absolutely agree with all the previous speakers. This is far-reaching and wide ranging legislation which the House and the select committee has had to look very, very carefully at. I understand this particular iteration of the bill is six years in the making. This is highly complex stuff, but we do not have the luxury of just forever pushing it out to another day. We do have to take some action.
In terms of farmers, of which I am one, we are the most impacted by climate change. You don't have to look far: for this year we've had three-quarters of the country in drought; there have been floods everywhere. And, whilst those things are not unprecedented, they are certainly becoming more frequent. All the statistics tell us this. We are reliant on international action, and to get international action we have to do our bit. So, in terms of fulfilling our obligations and what this bill looks to do, it just updates the current setting, set in 2009. It does put some price levers in there. That is absolutely imperative. It is about giving businesses certainty, giving them a pathway to reduce their emissions, so that we can meet our overall targets and our 2030 targets. 
These are the levers contained within this bill. We have got a floor in there, at $20—and remember, the price collapsed under the last Government down to about $3. That sends no signal at all. We had the forestry sector—essentially, planting collapse. We had deforestation under those circumstances. So we are putting a floor in there, to give some certainty for people like myself, actually, that are looking at the moment at planting some of our less productive areas in trees, which is an absolutely appropriate thing to do. It does give me some diversification of income, and it's a better land use for those rough faces and the like. It also extends a fixed priced option for $35 out to 2021, just to give some certainty. But then the cost containment reserve kicks in. And, whilst it's not in the bill, the regulations that the Government—the Minister—has set out show that there will be a $50 maximum, and that is a big price in terms of where it has sat traditionally, but that is the sort of certainty we need to give businesses: that that is the direction it's heading. 
Within that, New Zealand First has sought some assurances from the Minister within this process that the mechanisms are there, should that price get too high, and should the levers suggest that we'll have widespread afforestation over and above what is good for our rural communities, and for the reasons that Jacqui Dean rightfully raised. And the Minister has given us an assurance—and we've gone through this in some detail—that those measures sit within the zero carbon bill: the Climate Change Commission and the Minister must take into account the social and economic impacts of any measures brought forward in terms of setting future targets. So those mechanisms already exist and will be used should things go in a direction that is not in the best interests of our country and our rural communities.
There's more transparency in this, which I've already discussed. Actually, in the farming—the members opposite must have missed the press conference where Katie Milne, the president of Federated Farmers; Andrew Morrison, the chairman of Beef + Lamb New Zealand; and Jim van der Poel, the chairman of DairyNZ, were with the Prime Minister and Minister Shaw and others with the He Waka Eke Noa initiative, which actually gives farming a pause. It actually puts them in the driving seat to design their own systems so that they are fairly captured. I think it's imperative that we have the accounting system properly sorted out so things like riparian plantings or, potentially, soil sequestration are taken into account when we're accounting for what the liabilities are—or, indeed, the credits that some farmers may, in fact, benefit from from this legislation. So the farmers are very much in the driving seat as to how that scheme is going to be worked through. Within that, there's a 95 percent offset. There will be only 5 percent liability in terms of the initial impact on farmers. There'll be 95 percent free allocation, which is something that New Zealand First advocated for and got and won in the coalition negotiations with Labour.
So, as I say, it is a wide-reaching policy, wide-reaching ramifications. We don't want to see carbon leakage unnecessarily, but we do have to transition our economy. We have to get freight on to rail, and that's one of the reasons that we advocate so strongly within New Zealand First for rail. We have to actually do something. We don't want to be just kicking the can down the road for another 12 months to wait for another committee report. We actually have to get some measures in place. So, without too much further ado, I will commend this bill to the House. It is a wide-ranging bill. We will have to work with our sheep and beef sector. We will have to work with our forestry sector. We will have to work with our industrial and transport sector, and we will have to work with our carbon sink permanent forestry people as well, in getting some native bush into some of those erosion-prone areas that may not be suited to forestry or particularly sheep and beef farming.
So this is a really important bill. I commend the Minister for his tenaciousness in this and this Government, particularly for being brave and actually facing up to our international responsibilities—actually taking some responsibility for ourselves, not just setting off trying to buy our way out of this by buying carbon offsets from offshore, of which many were found to be fraudulent, which is an absolute bonfire of taxpayer money. This from a Government that's accusing us of not having a plan or not being fiscally responsible—just to set that money alight, essentially, by buying fraudulent Ukrainian carbon credits. I could go on, but on that matter, I will commend this bill to the House. Thank you.





Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. New Zealand is blessed to have the best farmers in the world, and our farmers are the best because we can adapt to markets better than anybody else, because our farmers don't have supports, regulation, and control like other farmers do around the world that makes them inefficient and unable to meet market demand and market requirements. Nobody in this House is saying that there isn't change going on in consumer preference; everybody understands that, farmers understand that, and farmers will meet those market preference changes as they can. We need to give them the ability to do that and not have it forced from Government regulation all and every time through this House by stringent rules that don't take into account the need for good science to back up any change.
Now, many members of the other side will come out and they'll say, "Farmers have got a break." That's what the last member said: "This gives farmers a pause." But it does not really give farmers a pause. The commission has the ability, and the Minister has the ability, effectively, to force farming into this scheme if they feel they haven't done enough by the time it gets to the cut-off date of 2022, and, effectively, bring everybody in in 2025 then. It isn't a pause. If it was going to be a pause, they would follow the leadership of the Hon Scott Simpson, who said, "Let's take a bit of time, work through, and then when you're ready bring it in." But when you've got it over people's head that it's going to come in if a Minister determines you haven't done enough, that isn't a pause; that is an effective challenge to that industry around what is going to happen from this Government.
We need to make sure that there is a practical and scientific base to the challenges we're putting on our sectors. Now, a number of our speakers tonight have talked about the importance of the primary sector in getting New Zealand out of the hole we're in now as a result of the funding that has been spent on the COVID recovery—that goes without saying. We all know that New Zealand will rely on our primary sector to pay the bills in the next few years. As our members have said, why then do you sting that sector with inefficiency, with Government regulation, and dogmatic control from Government, when they could actually be making more change if they let it happen in a more organic way? And that is the crucial success of New Zealand farming in the past and it will be the success in the future.
I was just looking at a document this afternoon and it talked about the Dutch approach, not necessarily to this bill but to sustainability. Look at this: "Innovation is a key commitment to sustainability."—twice as much food, half as many resources. The Dutch, for the size of their country, are now the number two exporters of food produce by value in the world. That is because they have met the market around them, and New Zealand farmers can outperform the Dutch farmers if we give them that chance. The problem we have is if we set too many rules, too many regulations without the ability for farmers to meet those rules and regulations through good science, and with the threat on them that, if a Minister determines they haven't done enough, they will then be included in a scheme that would be detrimental if it is enacted at a very high level, that means that our farmers could potentially lose some of that efficiency. They could potentially lose some of that judgment they will make in making sure that they produce products in a way that will meet the world market going forward.
So I trust our New Zealand farmers to meet the demands of world markets. I trust them to work as hard as they can, under the constraints that science and technology will allow, to do the best they can for our environment so that they sell the best products on the world stage. That will achieve more, I believe, than a Government trying to regulate. Give them that market ability to do what they're doing now and they will deliver to you more than a Government trying to threaten them and have over them this constraint. So this bill, the National Party can't support, because we believe that at this time it's really important that New Zealand look at its financial progress going forward. But also, importantly, I believe we also need to trust our farmers, to trust our producers, because they know the markets they're going into, they know the demands of the consumers there, and they will meet those demands with the best capability they have in New Zealand at this time, and that trust is more important, I believe, in this situation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.





ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. To the member who just resumed his seat, David Bennett, we do trust farmers, and that's why we've entered into a historic agreement with them to reduce their emissions alongside the Government.
I'd just like to take a very brief call. This is a weighty and complex bill—410 pages of goodness—and I especially want to thank our officials for their support, including their outstanding briefings. I heard the call from the Opposition saying that we should pause and slow down. Well, the environment can't wait. We've waited too long, and therefore I commend this bill to the House.





ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am very pleased to take a call on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill at the second reading. As has already been noted by my colleagues, we will be opposing this legislation at second reading. To be honest, for many of us, it is with somewhat of a heavy heart because at first reading we did support the bill and many of the proposals in it—as we still do, some of those proposals—but we are not living in the same world that we were living in when this bill was introduced. The global pandemic of COVID-19 has changed many, many things, and New Zealand is going to be recovering from this virus, in economic terms, for many, many years—potentially the next decade.
Before I get into my speech, I'd just like to thank officials. As others have noted, officials worked very hard on this bill, not just for the period that the select committee's been looking at the bill but, actually, for many years prior to this. More recently, they have, as Scott Simpson pointed out, been dealing with us via Zoom and putting up with the many questions that we had. As has been pointed out already, this is an extremely detailed piece of legislation. It has been, frankly, quite tough to get our heads around many of those details, and officials put up with us asking a lot of questions, bringing them back for many, many briefings, especially when it came to things like forestry.
There has been a general consensus on climate change across the House. Our general direction of travel is all mostly in the same direction. We always have our differences, but we are moving in the same direction. The zero carbon bill, we agreed on and voted for, but, as Scott Simpson mentioned earlier, this is just the framework; this bill that we are debating today is the meat. As Scott Simpson said, it's the "doing". This bill is going to have the most effect on New Zealanders. Most people won't get their heads around the detail of this bill. It is massively complicated, and it was, like I say, even tough for us to get our heads around. But what people will understand—what they will understand—
Hon Member: Not you, Erica.
ERICA STANFORD: —nice one—is the increase in cost to their daily lives. Fuel, groceries, and building costs—these are the things that are going to be impacted by the passing of this bill. Costs and handbrakes for doing business into recovering our economy are not required right now.
As Scott Simpson pointed out, we agree with many aspects of the bill and the overall direction. We started the process of looking at this bill with an open mind, but, as I said, COVID has changed everything, and, as was pointed out already, we do want to look at this bill again in 12 months, after we've got a far better understanding of the economic damage that COVID is going to do to the economy. I mean, at the moment, thousands of people unemployed, people are calling for the councils to reduce their rates or to have zero rates increases, and here we're introducing, potentially, a bill that is going to increase the cost of almost everything for New Zealanders, and it's important that we pause and take that into account.
One of the things that we looked at—or I, certainly, looked at—very early on, was I had a really good look at what National did when we were in Government. We had a fixed-price $25 price cap that was deliberately put in place to protect households and businesses from costs. Now, we've had a few speakers today talk about this bill giving certainty, but, in fact, it does quite the opposite. What we did by introducing the price cap, which began, I think, at, effectively, about $12.50 and was increased over time—gradually lifted—was to give certainty over time for business. This bill removes that cap altogether, meaning no limit—well, there's a price ceiling, but it for the most part doesn't give certainty to businesses for fuel and electricity, and indeed gives, actually, significant uncertainty for businesses for future costs. 
In a post-COVID world, what we need is certainty for businesses moving forward as we recover. Consumers and businesses need some reassurance about how much the price will be allowed to rise. I note that there was a press release today from James Shaw, and, if anyone was reading it, they will look at figures like the new cap on the emissions trading scheme (ETS) of 160 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, but what does that actually mean? What does that mean for the price of fuel, for the price of electricity, or for the price of goods? Saying something like that is all well and good, but what that means for everyday New Zealanders in a post-COVID world, when people are out of work and out of jobs and have lost their livelihoods, is a completely different thing, and we need certainty around that.
We've already heard from our agricultural spokesperson, David Bennett, so I'm not going to go into that again. But, basically, the forcing of the agricultural sector into the ETS if they don't meet certain targets by the 2022 date, which is fast approaching, in our view is not good policy. 
I just want to finish by reiterating the fact that, in the first instance, we had an open mind to this bill. We were prepared to sit—and, in fact, we did—for many, many weeks, discussing the detail of this bill and how we could make it work. But since the introduction of COVID to the world, and since the economic damage that has been wrecked on this country, we don't believe that we're in a position to be introducing what is, basically, a tax that will increase the cost of living for every single New Zealander at a time when we need to be working out how we reduce costs of living and increasing certainty for businesses, not taking it away. For those reasons, we oppose the bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call the Hon David Parker.





Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Can I thank the Hon James Shaw for bringing this bill to the House. It's the first substantial reform that we've seen to the emissions trading scheme (ETS) since 2008, and it actually counters some of the measures that were passed by the last Government that, effectively, neutered the ETS.
When the ETS was passed in 2008, the price of carbon by the time of the election was about $20 a tonne. The economy was not suffering at all, but we had a price signal to reduce emissions. The effective cap on price on that was through the international linkages to the international Kyoto market. There was an oversupply of Kyoto units caused by the US withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, but because those units had a future value because they were fungible into future emission periods, that didn't cause the price of carbon to go to nothing. The Kyoto Protocol's second period never eventuated, and countries, including New Zealand, pulled out of it, and I think New Zealand was right to pull out of it. But, because of that, the excess units that sat in the Kyoto pool had only one home to go to in the world, and that was New Zealand.
The last Government, who had already neutered the effectiveness of the scheme by a two-for-one scheme—so that you only needed to remit one emission unit for every two units of emissions, which made no sense—further moderated it by having a $25 price cap. So, effectively, they caused the price cap to go to $12.50 per unit, down from $20, and then they let the price collapse to close to zero because they didn't close the New Zealand system to those Ukrainian hot air units that other people have already talked about. That was an egregious mistake that was left in place by the last Government. It caused major deforestation on the volcanic plateau, caused a collapse in forest planting, and caused emissions to increase, all of which are the opposite of what an emissions scheme is meant to achieve.
Their next mistake was that they, effectively, muted the marginal price signal. The price signal is meant to penalise an increase in emissions and reward decreases. They did neither of those things through their changing of the free allocation methodology for industrial emitters. They then took out the 50 percent of emissions that were included in agriculture, and you can see that, by the end of that, they had effectively dismantled the scheme, even though they added in name. So this reform package actually restores it.
Since we've come to power, in fairness, Paula Bennett took away the two-for-one deal, and the price for carbon once the system was closed to international emissions units returned to $25 a tonne, and the economy hasn't suffered at all for it. Because we're now closed to overseas units, you actually have to have another method of setting price other than the international market, and that's why this system moves to auctioning, with a cost containment reserve which is set at $35. The market won't automatically move there. Indeed, in response to one of the other speakers' comments, I would note that post-COVID, the price for a while dropped to around $20 a tonne, which was a market response to the decrease in demand.
This does return the ETS to some measure of authenticity, and on that basis, the Labour Party is pleased to support it.





Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. This is a very, very interesting bill and one that is technically very, very complex. At the second reading this evening—
David Seymour: Tell us all about it. In detail.
Hon NATHAN GUY: I've sat on the select committee and actually done a few Zoom meetings through COVID-19, Mr Seymour, looked up people's nostrils and saw their hairs, looked at officials and nodded, and asked them questions. But what a shonky process to go through this bill and try and interrogate officials through a COVID-19 response when we had to do that through Zoom and the like. I felt it was a shambolic process. We should've at least waited until the Parliament opened up and came back and got on with it. But this bill here is 314 pages long. Then lo and behold, the Minister for Climate Change, midway through the process, dropped Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 506 into the committee, which is—let me get it right—410 pages. So here we have it, we've got the bill, we've got SOP 506—for those of you at home listening, this is almost a ream of paper. You pop down to the store and purchase a ream every now and again for your home computer, that's what we're debating tonight. For those also listening, you can bet your bottom dollar there'll be errors riddled through this process because it has been rushed; that is one aspect that I am most concerned about with this bill.
The other one is that this is where the rubber hits the road. We had some concerns about zero carbon, came through on the bottom line and said, "If we're lucky enough to be in Government next time, we'll change certain things." Now this one, we are concerned about all of the detail in this bill not having due process, and—
Michael Wood: Tell us about the detail.
Hon NATHAN GUY: Well, the cheeky little whip over there wants to know about detail. Well, he should get down into rural heartland and find out about the detail, find out about the cost that it's going to incur on consumers in his electorate. This is going to put the fuel price up. He's now nodding because he loves it because he's a Labour MP. He loves the food price going up. This is going to put the fuel price up. He's nodding. No, he's not; he's shaking his head. Well, he hasn't read the detail like I have. This is going to put the price of electricity up. Does he agree with that? No, he hasn't read the detail. The cheeky little whip over there comes down here and casts their vote. He's not across 700-odd pages like I am. And he has the cheek to come down here and say, "Give us some examples of the detail." I just have.
Hon Scott Simpson: He needs to get a haircut and a real job.
Hon NATHAN GUY: Yeah, he does. You're right, Mr Simpson. What I also want to talk about is this—
Hon Member: The bill.
Hon NATHAN GUY: I've just talked about that, the detail of this bill, and in particular the SOP.
I want to talk about farming communities, because, while farming leaders have come forward and provided a solution to stop this Government imposing a tax at processer level, which is not going to change behaviour inside the farm gate, farming leaders came to the Government and said, "Come on, let's work with us." So I salute those farming leaders that came up with a proposal called He Waka Eke Noa. And, of course, the Government hoodwinked these rural leaders, because they put out the press releases on the day and said, "This is a historical agreement. Farming leaders have agreed that agriculture's coming into the emissions trading scheme." Well, farming leaders didn't agree to that; so Government Ministers hoodwinked them, and it's in the bill here. It's in the SOP.
What this means in 2022 is that Government Ministers, the Minister for Climate Change and the Minister of Agriculture, will be able to get together and, if farmers haven't done their farm plans, they'll be back to the farming community and those leaders saying, "We're going to bring this in, a tax at processor level." Farming leaders didn't completely realise that that's what they had signed up to. This SOP 506 has all of that detail in it, 410 pages covering that aspect and others off.
The other thing I want to conclude on is that we are concerned about—also, when I think about rural communities, we don't have riparian planting included in this process. We don't have any of the shelter belts included in this process. We don't have—this is all to do with offsetting emissions. They aren't included. When farmers do the right thing and protect bush that is rejuvenating, that is not included. Officials said, "Don't worry, we're going to do some more work. We've been instructed by Ministers to do it but it's going to take us another couple of years and probably another 400 pages of work."
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order. The member's time has expired. This is a split call. I call David Seymour.





DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill. I thought that the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw, started his speech very well when he said the objective of climate change policy should be to ensure that carbon emissions are priced at the cost they will impose on future generations. He might have added a couple of other details. One is that it should be done in the most administratively simple way possible. Another is that it should be done using market-based mechanisms so that consumers—households, families—have choices about how they spend and producers—farms, factories—have choices about how they produce. And another thing he might have said is that this legislation has to ensure that New Zealand does not shoot itself in the foot and penalise itself by exceeding the ambition of other countries, who dominate the climate. That's what he should have said: "an administratively simple, market-based mechanism that allows New Zealanders to do their bit freely and with choice but that doesn't penalise New Zealand by needlessly getting ahead of our competitors around the world".
The problem with this bill—well, let's start with the administrative simplicity. It's 400 pages with a Supplementary Order Paper that's 300 pages. That's 300 pages of notes to fix up all the problems that have been found with it since the bill was introduced just a few months ago. If that is simplicity, I hate to think what it's going to be like for those producers and consumers trying to do business under this bill. And it gets worse, because it doesn't achieve the things that the Minister said. It's not a market-based mechanism; it allows the Government to decide how much carbon dioxide should be emitted by New Zealanders. Then it's allowed to decide how much by each sector. And then it says, "Wait, wait—that sounds a bit harsh." It then has—what are they calling it?—a "cost-containment reserve". In other words, so that they can contain the costs for favoured industries. This is a big Government bill that introduces enormous bureaucracy, enormous discrimination, into the way that climate change is managed in New Zealand. And that is a step backwards, particularly at the current time.
Need I remind the House—and the people listening at home certainly know—this is a country that has just had its Reserve Bank embark on $90 billion of virtual money printing; that has just undertaken to borrow 30 percent of GDP; and that has a net external indebtedness that means that, if people overseas lose confidence in New Zealand's economy, we will find ourselves deeply indebted, trying to pay back the rest of the world with a currency that has gone through the tank. That's the situation in which this Government is introducing new costs and new bureaucracy that have no connection to what the rest of the world is prepared to do on to the productive sector. It is a recipe for disaster. Which leaves the question: what should they have done?
Well, it's not actually that complicated. What they should have done is say that New Zealanders who wish to emit carbon dioxide must buy emissions units at a price set by the world market, of a quality specified by the New Zealand Government. That way, New Zealanders would be paying no more and no less than our overseas competitors. Under this bill, we face scenarios where our competitors for our farms or our factories are buying cheaper units overseas and the New Zealand Government says, "Oh no, New Zealanders can't buy them." That's how simple it could have been, but instead we have 700 pages of bureaucracy at a time when the New Zealand economy has never been more fragile. This is a disaster for climate change response, a disaster for the economy, and a bill that I am proud to oppose on behalf of ACT. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Dr Liz Craig—five minutes.





Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's an absolute pleasure to stand in support of this bill, because this bill is incredibly important in giving us the tools that we need to meet our commitments under the Paris Agreement and also to achieve our targets under the zero carbon Act. I'd like to thank all the officials who worked so hard on the bill and everyone who made a submission. I commend this bill to the House.





BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to stand here and speak on this climate change bill tonight. As you've already heard from the previous speakers, National is opposing this bill. If I go and begin with Minister James Shaw's speech today, talking about giving businesses and foresters the certainty they've been asking for, businesses have been asking for certainty for the last few weeks, and bringing this bill into the House and chopping down a few more trees is not giving businesses the certainty that they're asking for. 
It's been really interesting through this whole lockdown process because, for the last 2½ years, farmers have really felt like the butt of everything, and then all of a sudden, we get COVID-19, unfortunately—a terrible global pandemic that's hit the world. We've been very lucky in New Zealand to get away with the small amount of COVID deaths that we've had, and I feel sad for the families of those people that have passed away, but, really, we have had a good health result in this country. 
But what was really interesting during that time was that we didn't hear much about how bad the farmers were. We heard so much about how the farmers were going to be integral in getting our economy up and running, and, boy, does our economy need to be getting up and running again right now. It was really interesting about some of the dynamics that were going on with the cars off the road and with the planes out of the air and all of those sorts of things. There was still the same amount of cows, and guess what! The world didn't come to an end. So, you know, the cows are one part of it, but the cows are not all the parts of it. 
The thing that really gutted me the most was that, every day, I was walking down the walkway in Taranaki and it was just amazing how clear everything was. The day we went into having takeaways and everything else opened up again—and we do need to open up businesses again—what distressed me the most was that the rubbish tins were overflowing. So we are all in this together. This is not just about the farmers and the businesses; this is actually about our whole community taking responsibility, because one of the biggest gases that we have in this world is from food waste. I see an awful lot of food waste every day. Farmers go out of their way to produce this food in an efficient way, and it's time that food waste was taken into account. 
So, on this side of the House, National believes that you cannot tax a country into prosperity, and that's whether it's economic prosperity or whether it's environmental prosperity. So it's the same way that you cannot tax a country out of climate change. We are trying to meet global targets here, and that's what the Paris Agreement was about. It was about doing our bit. It's not about doing more than our bit, and our farmers would be the only farmers in the world who would be in an emissions trading scheme under the regime of this Government. What we don't need is tax; what we need is tools. 
So, while this Government is obsessed—and we see it time and time again—with saying that they're the best in the world at everything, our farmers are some of the most efficient farmers in the world. We have a huge amount of intellectual property that we can offer the world in helping to lower these global emissions if we're not taxed into a space where the money's going into some administrative scheme rather than actually going towards the science that we need. We need science-based mitigation, not money going into a hole where it's administrated and someone will take their chunk out of it. How much will ever go back into research? 
So we support the farmers farming their way into better environmental outcomes, and the income will follow. Tax, as I said, just goes into an administrative pool, and I wonder why we are doing this during COVID-19. We need our resourceful industries like we never did before, and this is a whole backward step at this point in time. Why couldn't we wait 12 months? Why couldn't we actually get a better bill, rather than the legislation that's now being fixed, and put it into some sort of context where we could actually live with it? So this is actually a very messy process. 
As many people who sat on the Environment Committee have said—and I didn't sit on the committee—it was done during lockdown. I speak very highly of Zoom. I'm sure Zoom has actually helped the climate over the period of the lockdown, because we've been able to be efficient and do a lot of things. But, to some extent, it has also not given our submitters the best chance to be able to engage with this while they've all been away worried about their families getting sick, worrying about the economy, worrying about keeping their businesses afloat—
Hon Scott Simpson: An insult to democracy. 
BARBARA KURIGER: You're right. My colleague Scott Simpson just simply said it was an insult to democracy, and it is. It's like sneaking something under the radar and bringing it back into the House. If you divided the amount of pages in here by the amount of MPs that are currently sitting in the House at question time, which is half, it's a great insult to democracy to bring this up right now. 
So I just say, look, let's give farmers the opportunity, and I commend the farming leaders' groups. The farming leaders' groups have got their heads together and said, "Let's find the answers to this.' But the answers are not in taxing the farmers. All they want to know is where are we today, and they've got a pretty good handle on that. They need to know where they've got to go, and they're looking for the tools that actually drive the change to get to the end outcome. 
So I have much pleasure tonight in standing here and opposing this bill, because I think it's the wrong bill for the wrong time. Yes, we do need to get global emissions down, but this—and the multiple trees that were cut down to do it—is certainly not the way for it to happen. So thank you, Mr Speaker. 
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Michael Wood. 
Hon Nathan Guy: This'll be the detail man. 





MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): That's right, I thought that Mr Guy deserved to hear from the "cheeky little whip" a little bit about the bill that he avoided for five minutes. It was Albert Einstein who told us that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and not expecting the same result. We know that tackling climate change is one of the great imperatives of our time. We know that for no single sustained period in New Zealand's industrial history have we succeeded in reducing emissions. We know that the current emissions trading regime that's been in place for nearly 12 years in different guises hasn't been especially successful at doing that, either. We know that price is actually a pretty good mechanism for guiding people's economic behaviour.
I do acknowledge the member on the other side of the House, David Seymour, for enunciating on that point this afternoon. The supposed party of free enterprise, who usually has a lot to say about that, has completely avoided that point over the course of this debate. Because what this bill does is finish the work that was started 12 years ago, or at least take it to the next stage, and put in place a functional emissions trading scheme in which price can be used to guide economic behaviour and reduce emissions. It puts in place the administrative structure that will actually bring some meaning to that. And it will give New Zealand an emissions trading scheme that, linked up with the zero carbon legislation that was passed almost unanimously by this House last year, will give New Zealand a world-leading scheme and actually put us on to the path to doing what all members of this House know we need to do, which is to reduce our emissions.
I commend this second reading of the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill—[Interruption] I know to the great disappointment of members on the other side of the House, who would have enjoyed eight minutes more on this bill. But I think quality counts more than the quantity that they have offered this evening. I commend the bill to the House, Mr Speaker.





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





RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT BILL
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 27 May.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, when we were last considering this bill, the Hon Scott Simpson had the call and he has seven minutes 10 seconds remaining if he should wish to do so. 
Hon Scott Simpson: Thank you, Mr Speaker.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Scott Simpson. Just before he starts, I'll start the clock at five minutes after you've done two minutes 10 seconds, just to let you know.
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I trust your mathematics, Mr Speaker.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Ha, ha! Might be a bit longer.
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Might I say at the outset that it's a great pleasure to be speaking and finishing my presentation on this second reading at the relatively respectable hour of 9.30 in the evening, as opposed to a couple of minutes to midnight last Friday night when the House was in urgency discussing this very bill. For those people listening at home or watching on television, or indeed in the Chamber who were not up at a couple of minutes before midnight on Friday night listening intently to the discussions taking place in this Chamber, the National Party will be opposing the second reading of this tinkering piece of resource management amendment.
This is by my count the 19th substantive amendment to the Resource Management Act (RMA), and bizarrely the purpose—
David Seymour: This one'll work!
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: This one might just work, Mr Seymour, yeah; it might just work, this one! That's what the Government thinks, but bizarrely, in the purpose clause of the bill and in the introductory comments, it says that the objectives of this bill are to reduce complexity, increase certainty, restore public participation opportunities, and improve Resource Management Act 1991 processes. The bill also supports the urgent need to improve freshwater management. Well, that's, effectively, been the same prayer that has been the preface and the purpose of every one of the 18 amendment bills prior to this one.
Actually, what's required in terms of resource management amendment is a complete start again. That is a very big piece of work. In fact, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with former Attorney-General, the Hon Chris Finlayson QC, a couple of years ago when he said, "Well, actually, the only real way to deal with the Resource Management Act is to start again." But he was quick to point out that in his professional and political opinion, that would be a 15-year project. It may well be, but if that's what it takes to actually get planning legislation and to get the primary environmental protection legislation of New Zealand into a shape that is finally a piece of legislation that can be respected, can be understood, can achieve results quickly, fairly, and equitably for New Zealanders, then maybe that's what's required, because this piece of tinkering legislation does not achieve any of the things that are set out in the purpose statement of the legislation.
One of the most troubling aspects of this piece of tinkering legislation is that it seems to have an element of vindictiveness about it. What I'm talking about is that the primary function of most of the changes in this legislation is simply to undo the work that was done in the last Parliament, led by my colleague the Hon Nick Smith. He made some very good changes, and this piece of legislation, effectively, just for the sake of pettiness, really, seems to want to just undo those. It's a bit of political point-scoring. The fact that it's taken the Government nearly its entire three years to get to it, I guess, tells the House and members of the public something about the Government's real enthusiasm for this. It's a rushed piece of legislation towards the end of their term of Government, and, as I say, there's a level of vindictiveness to it that I find quite upsetting.
But really, at the core of it, the thing that is most concerning is that the Government themselves have set about in November of last year to appoint an expert panel led by no less a person than a retired appeal court judge, the honourable Tony Randerson, to actually produce sensible, considered, well-thought-out RMA reform proposals. Now, it was pre-COVID that that committee, that working group, chaired by the honourable Tony Randerson was due to report before the end of last month in May. Now, we're told that the Minister in his speech the other night, at about 10 minutes to midnight, made it clear that he now expected that report to be, conveniently, another month or two away—conveniently because it's going to be in mid-September that we're going to have a general election. Isn't that fortuitous—isn't that fortuitous!
Dan Bidois: Who would have thought!
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: "Who would have thought.", says my colleague the member for Northcote. What we have is a situation where a piece of reform work is going to be presented to this Parliament, this Government, literally a few days, if not a matter of weeks, before the general election.
So why are we tinkering with this? Well, the questions remain unanswered. The select committee, as they went through their work, wasn't really able to provide any sensible answers. But what was very apparent at select committee was that there is very clear consensus that both the Government Labour Party, for one—no one quite knows what New Zealand First thinks about it, and the Greens, of course, will go off on an ideological flight of fancy, but certainly the Labour Party of the coalition and National, we agree that the RMA in its current form is underperforming. It's underperforming for our planning and built environment, and it's certainly underperforming in terms of being the nation's primary resource and piece of legislation to protect our natural environment.
There's nothing in this bill, for instance, that's going to address housing affordability; it's going to make building houses more difficult. They've tried to bring in under the cover of COVID a quirky little thing where suddenly climate change is going to have to be considered as part of the consenting process. Now, an earlier amendment backed by a Labour Government in 2004 specifically excluded—specifically excluded—consideration of climate change matters in RMA consenting, and that was done for the very good reason that every single council will have a different interpretation; every regional council will have a different interpretation. But, no, for some reason, a Government policy halfway through the select committee process sought to introduce, suddenly, that climate change should be a factor considered by resource consenting process. We don't think that that's a good idea, we don't think that's appropriate; we think it's just very messy and very ill-considered.
So we're going to oppose this piece of legislation. It's tinkering, it doesn't add any value, and, actually, what's really required is a start-again approach to resource management in New Zealand.





Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Look, I'm not even going to dwell on the retrograde do-nothing politics of the National Party when it comes to things as important as freshwater policy. But what I am going to do is I just want to touch on one thing and leave some of my colleagues to identify some of the other important improvements in this bill. What I want to talk about is, really, the shift in the way hearings will be conducted, particularly around fresh water. We know that the resource management process has got bogged down in appeals and in extensive hearings, and, really, it has been a costly process that, arguably, has been over lawyered and, in some ways, over engineered. 
So in the Environment Committee we looked at that process, particularly freshwater panels, and we said: how can we make it accessible, how can we make it understandable, and how can we make it easier to get great outcomes so that we can actually make our rivers swimmable? What we thought was, really, that we wanted to be careful about the use of cross-examination—was one point. Cross-examination can, in fact, not be the best way to get to the heart of a matter. In fact, when you've got laypeople coming to the tribunal, when you've got expert witnesses, what we want is a much more investigative and inquisitorial process. If we look at new clause 47(2) of Schedule 1 in clause 72 of the bill, we'll see that the freshwater hearings panel can "(a) permit a party to question a witness:" or/and "(b) prohibit cross examination:" or "(c) permit cross examination … but only if the panel is satisfied that it is in the interests of justice:" and "(d) regulate the conduct of … cross examination." So those processes are very much saying we do not want some legalistic full-blown courtroom drama on our hands; we want to get to what's best for our rivers.
Another innovation, and one that I think is really important, is the ability of the panel to appoint a friend of a submitter. We have a lot of concerned people who have genuine and real concerns but don't know the law, don't know the procedures, and they want to come and really be heard and help make our waters better and cleaner and fresher. Now the panel will be able to say this grouping has a legitimate voice, and we want to make sure it is effectively heard by appointing a friend of the submitter. 
They're just a couple of things which the select committee, in a collaborative way, looked at and said this is a better way to reach the end goal of having cleaner, swimmable fresh water in New Zealand—not a minor objective but one that this Government has stood on and is committed to achieving in the near future. Thank you, Mr Speaker.





NICOLA WILLIS (National): This bill is a clear example of how this Government operates, which is to say it talks big and it delivers very little. Because here in the Resource Management Act (RMA), we have a piece of legislation that is acknowledged—now, on both sides of the House—to be a key impediment to the delivery of affordable housing in New Zealand, to good development, and to good environmental management. And such is the agreement on that argument that members opposite have agreed that there should be a specialist panel looking at how the Resource Management Act be reviewed and improved so that it can deliver better results for New Zealanders in the future.
So we have an expert panel; it's been established to go about improving the RMA, and then what do we have here? You would think, if there was this expert panel going about looking at this issue in thoroughness and with due process, that perhaps we would be in this House awaiting the outcomes from that panel. But no; instead, what we have is this piecemeal piece of legislation which does a couple of bespoke amendments to the Resource Management Act without any reference to the wider reform that needs to occur. And we on this side of the House think that sort of thing is a distraction and will only create more cost, more delay, and more uncertainty for those who need to operate under this Act.
So we have a problem with the process. We also see very clearly that this is a step backwards. It's a Back to the Future series of amendments, because what it largely does is reverse good improvements made to the Resource Management Act by National in 2017. Those changes in 2017 were made in order to accelerate house building, to improve environmental management, to ensure more national consistency, to simplify consenting, to make planning more responsive, and to align with other laws. But Labour didn't like those changes at the time, for whatever reason, and so, in an act of, as our earlier speaker, Scott Simpson, said, vindictiveness, have gone through and reversed these changes. And it makes no rhyme or reason, because, as I said at the beginning of my speech, we on both sides of the House agree that, in New Zealand right now, we have a major challenge with a lack of housing supply. So you would think, in amending the Resource Management Act, members opposite would have a mind to "How can we improve this piece of legislation in such a way that more houses are built?" But, instead, let's look at what this bill actually does.
So the first thing it does is it says, "Actually, the rules that National changed to allow for some more subdivision, we'll turn over." In 2017, National saw that we wanted more subdivisions to be able to occur so that we could have more housing brought on, and we made it that subdivisions could occur unless they were specifically restricted by a district plan, so that—on the margin—more subdivision would occur. And, of course, this is very significant because if we think about the housing challenge in New Zealand, well, yes, there's probably a role for the Government in building houses. The members opposite haven't been very successful in that, for sure—only 395 KiwiBuild houses have actually been built—but even if you were to take into account all of the State houses that have been built, around 1,400 have been built. The much bigger picture of housing supply in New Zealand is private development—the 37,000 or so residential new dwelling consents that are issued each year. That is where the bulk of new housing comes from in New Zealand.
So when we think about how to improve our housing supply over time, that private sector development is really important. So where does it happen? Well, of course, some of it happens in major, large developments on a huge scale, but actually a huge amount of it happens incrementally, subdivision by subdivision. So it is an absolute mystery to us on this side of the House as to why that Government, who says it cares about housing supply, would come in and change the Resource Management Act to mean that people can't do subdivision unless specifically allowed to. That seems a step backwards.
But that's not the only thing that this bill does to get in the way of housing supply. The second thing that it does is it re-introduces appeals to the Environment Court for activities to subdivide. So what we can foresee happening is an increase in delays and an increase in appeals—hundreds and hundreds of appeals—adding cost, adding complexity, putting developers off the potential to subdivide and increase housing supply in New Zealand. And, again, these were changes made in 2017 to this Act because National recognised some real impediments within our resource management laws stopping new housing coming on. And Labour, in what can only be seen as an act of spite, because there is no better public policy rationale, have overturned that change.
The bill then goes further and it reintroduces financial contributions. Of course, at the moment, local government can have contributions required as development contributions under the Local Government Act, and National takes no issue with that, but what we did do in 2017 was we streamlined the pieces of law so that you couldn't require a financial contribution under the RMA as well as under the Local Government Act. Again, the Government comes in, overturns that, and we now have a situation where developers can be required to provide financial contributions under both pieces of legislation. But, mind, there is an exception here, a convenient little exception that the Government's own entities, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defence, are not required to make these financial contributions. Again these amendments do not make good sense. It is hard to see, in any way, that they align with the goal of bringing on more housing development.
So, taken as a whole, this bill is a corruption of process and it introduces bespoke amendments ahead of a wholesale review. It shows a rejection of what has actually become a bipartisan agreement that the Resource Management Act is failing New Zealanders and must be reformed. Instead of taking up that agreement with members opposite and working with us on sensible reforms, we've seen a petty act of spite overturning good amendments made in the past. And, finally, it steps us backwards in terms of some of the things—some of the small but meaningful changes—that have been made to reduce cost, uncertainty, and delay in our resource management laws.
So we in National oppose this bill. We do not hold out hope that the members opposite have it in them to provide the kind of wholesale Resource Management Act reform that is required to improve housing supply and improve environmental management in New Zealand. We can see that the delay in the panel until later this year is very symbolic of the approach of that side of the House, which is talk big, don't deliver, don't deal with the gritty issues, don't get to the nub of the problem. And, if we are elected in this election in September, we will repeal this Act, we will improve this Act, and we will do so in a way that ensures the provision of more housing for New Zealanders and actually gets to the nub of problems that members opposite are only interested in window dressing about.





Hon RON MARK (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well it really is a curious thing—and I've said it before—if you stand still in this place for long enough, you get to hear the same people, who were once in Government, giving speeches that sound just like the Opposition gave when they were putting legislation through that the Opposition of the day objected to. And you have the ironic situation where the Opposition today, who was the Government then, ends up giving the same speeches that we gave when we were sitting over there, and they wouldn't listen.
There's this old saying, "Brevity is the soul of wit." So I guess to not be brief might be said to be "wit-less", which is probably what I would conclude from a man who—the Hon Scott Simpson, who I greatly respected as the chairman of the Environment Committee when I served on it while he was in Government. I say that because his speech was a lot of huff and puff—used up the whole 10 minutes and didn't actually say anything of any worth, tragically. 
I'm reminded of Denis O'Rourke—a member of Parliament, NZ First—who sat in those seats over there, and for I think 13 hours in committee stage tried desperately to get the National Government of the day to make some sensible, common-sense changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA). And I have to sit here now and listen to Mr Scott Simpson saying, "Well, what's needed is to throw the whole RMA out and start again." But of course in the next breath, "But it'll take 15 years to get it done."
Well, we haven't got 15 years to dither and dawdle around, ladies and gentlemen. We've got a very short window of time to get some stuff done. I would simply say to the Opposition, the National Party's resource amendment—
Hon Member: Your time's almost up!
Hon RON MARK: Listen up, young fella, you might learn something. Listen up, both ears. Nanny used to say, "Mouth shut, ears open, learn a lot." OK, so listen up. The resource management amendment bill that the John Key - led National Government put through took about 30-odd hours of Parliament time. It had people virtually camped in here under urgency. Not one of the amendments that New Zealand First offered up were accepted, and now people have got the audacity to preach back at us that we're not listening. So get with the programme; we don't have 15 years to amend it. We've got work to do. This is a first step in a couple of phases. If the Opposition want to get on board and help, if they truly want to remove the bureaucracy, if they truly want to get—remember, Mr Guy, the troubles with the Horizons One Plan. Remember that—your area, Horizons. Well, what did the Government of the day do about that? Nothing. One Plan choked a lot of dairy farmers in the Wairarapa and the Tararua and, I know, through the Manawatū—and kept on going. Wherever the One Plan spread its tentacles, farmers died. Their businesses were severely impacted.
Hon Nathan Guy: They didn't die.
Hon RON MARK: Well, actually, be cautious, because we hear stories about people who actually did commit suicide. We hear stories about farms that went to the wall. We hear stories about equity that just evaporated overnight. And what was that all down to? It was down to the Resource Management Act and the way it was being implemented by Horizons. Some of us fought against those changes, but some sat there in Government and let it happen.
So some of us are sitting here trying to do something. My simple message is "Get on board. Help move this bill through. If one really does want to address the bureaucracy, if one really does want to get some common-sense changes, here's the opportunity. We would welcome that help."





Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): It's a pleasure to follow from the Hon Ron Mark and reminiscing about the One Plan. He was more or less indicating that the National Government should have been meddling in a court process. Yeah, that's not the way that we operated in Government. I know that New Zealand First may well have wanted to do that.
I thought it's ironic, Ron Mark banging on about the One Plan. Well, he's sitting in Cabinet now, and the Wairarapa water storage project, which is really going to help the community where he resides—finally, he's put some money in. Finally, he's put some money into it.
Hon Member: Thirty-five years they waited.
Hon NATHAN GUY: Yeah, and we, the National Government, put a lot of money in. I acknowledge the Minister for doing that, because Labour campaigned along with the Greens for no support for water storage projects. So it's kind of interesting how politics works on the other side of the House, for those that are listening, and no doubt we're going to hear more of that when we move into an election campaign—just a couple of months away. In fact, we can already start seeing that evolve with COVID-19.
You may well ask what this bill has got to do with COVID-19. Well, it actually has got a hell of a lot to do with COVID-19. When this response moves, as it is now, from a health response to an economic one, when the New Zealand economy is screaming out for infrastructure to stimulate it, to protect jobs, to grow opportunity, what is this bill going to do to help stimulate the New Zealand economy? It's a fair question. Their heads are down over the other side. I'll answer the question myself: very little.
This bill will do very little. If anything, it will be a couple of clicks on the handbrake. It will slow the New Zealand economy. Nicola Willis, our new housing spokesperson, gave a great contribution just a couple of moments ago to this bill, where she said it is going to be a step backwards. It is going to create more costs, more uncertainty, and more bureaucracy at a time when New Zealanders are thinking, "We need to really get started and build some infrastructure and build some houses to protect jobs and grow the New Zealand economy."
I'm really disappointed in this bill. It promised so much, but it's going to deliver so little. I've sat in this House and sat in the Cabinet table, listened to the Minister for the Environment Nick Smith, who had big bold plans to reform the Resource Management Act (RMA) and couldn't get the numbers through the National coalition with United Future and, at times, the Māori Party. So the changes that National implemented in 2017 were never as good as we wanted them to be, but we did make changes.
Now, looking back is one fine thing, but looking forward is really important. If we look back just for a moment, the RMA has had 18 reforms since it came in about 30 years ago.
Nicola Willis: It's a beast.
Hon NATHAN GUY: "It is a beast.", Nicola Willis rightly says. The volume size has grown by double. So there's been tinkering and changes and amendments—
Barbara Kuriger: Bigger than this.
Hon NATHAN GUY: Way bigger than that bill. We just debated that, Barbara Kuriger, and I mention that it's 720-odd pages long when you include the Supplementary Order Paper—that's the emission trading scheme bill. This bill is about environment and planning, the RMA is, and trying to get the balance right. But this is not going to get the balance right at all. It is going to mean that the appeals when someone wants to subdivide—take a developer: it's going to be so easy for people to appeal, and they're going to be bogged down in the Environment Court. There will be hundreds and hundreds of appeals though the Environment Court, which is not what I thought the Government would want to see on the back of COVID-19, when they're trying to open up the New Zealand economy and create jobs and kick-start our economy as well.
What is also interesting is the financial contributions. We get the fact that local government and councils should be able to strike a development charge on developers from time to time. We get that, because that's important when you think about all of the major utilities that are involved in building a subdivision—the roading, the sewer, the lighting, the footpaths. It's only fair that a developer makes contributions under the Local Government Act. But this means, now, that there's another contribution that could be required under the Resource Management Act. So if that sounds like double-dipping to those listening or in the Chamber this evening, that indeed is what it actually is.
What is also a bit bizarre, and I'm going to get into this when we get into the committee of the whole House stage, is how submitters will be able to cross-examine other submitters. Do you think that sounds a little bit bizarre, that submitters are allowed to cross-examine other submitters? I can see heads sort of thinking, "That's a pretty good question." Even on our side of the House, we're thinking, "How's that going to work?" So I'm curious to get the Minister in the chair to try and understand how that specific point is actually going to work and streamline the Resource Management Act.
We had 385 submitters. We heard 59 of them. Some of those submitters had spent a lot of time and effort into making very, very good submissions. Others were there saying, "Yes, we just think that the RMA is so frustrating that any change has to be better than it currently is.", but they obviously hadn't read the bill, because this bill is going to drop the anchor out of the back of a progressive and growing New Zealand economy and slow down our growth at a time when we really want it to turbocharge and grow.
So the National Party has some grave concerns with this bill. We can't support it. The other concluding comment is there's a review under way. The Minister will have that on his office desk, done by a retired appeal court judge. It'll be thorough, and the process should be a full re-write of the RMA, not more tinkering that's going to slow down the New Zealand economy. Thank you.
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.