Committees — Business of Select Committees

I move, That the date by which—(a) the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill be reported to the House by the Finance and Expenditure Committee be extended to 21 June 2018; and (b) the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill be reported to the House by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee be extended to 31 July 2018; and (c) the Trusts Bill be reported to the House by the Justice Committee be extended to 5 September 2018.

This motion extends the report-back date for three bills that are currently before select committees. It extends the report-back date for the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill to 21 June 2018, it extends the report-back date for the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill currently before the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to 31 July 2018—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Can members not have conversations in the aisles now.

—and it extends the Trusts Bill report-back date, a bill currently before the Justice Committee, to 5 September 2018. In all of the cases of these extensions, the chairperson of the relevant committee has written to the Business Committee via the Speaker requesting this extension, and in all cases the Minister in charge of the bill has agreed to that extension.

Normally, this would not be a matter that would need to come before the House, but at the meeting of the Business Committee that these requests were presented to, the Business Committee was unable to meet the requirement for near-unanimity. Near-unanimity has been interpreted in recent times as, effectively, a supermajority of the members of the House—which, basically, means Labour and National, normally—and without the National Party present at the meeting that test is unable to be met, and therefore matters that normally would be determined by the Business Committee will have to be determined by the House until such time as that changes.

I hope that this won’t become common practice in the House, and I hope we won’t have to do this regularly. I hope that the Business Committee will be able to resume its normal functioning.

I would make one plea of the members opposite, and that is that on occasion—I spent nine years sitting on that side of the House, and on many occasions I found that I disagreed with the proceedings of the House. I was a member of the Business Committee for most of the last six years that the Labour Party was in Opposition, and whilst I disagreed very vigorously with some of the rulings that we were subject to, I never—and the Labour Opposition never—sought to stop the Business Committee from functioning and conducting the affairs of the Parliament as it should. I simply leave that as something that I hope the members opposite will reflect upon.

I should thank the Leader of the House for his gentle lecture at the conclusion of his comments. There are a number of ways you could look at these sorts of things. Firstly, the Business Committee is something that does its work behind closed doors, and, you know, it would be kind of odd that we don’t have something in front of the Parliament during what I understand is “Transparency Week”, where there should be a greater look and a degree of scrutiny at everything the Government is up to.

What sits behind this, of course, is a totally dysfunctional legislative programme being run by the Government. Take, for example, the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill. Well, there are some very relevant points here. Firstly, this is the third time the Government has sought to extend the period for report back of that bill. We know why it is—we know why it is. It’s because foreign investors are running from this country at a rate of knots. So you get the housing Minister coming in here today saying that the private sector can’t function properly in the housing market because of a lack of finance. So the Government is stepping in, alongside the finance Minister, who’s confirmed that, yes, the Government is going to borrow an extra $10 billion to try and facilitate some of these things. So there’s never, you would say, the scrutiny on some of these provisions that perhaps there should be, and maybe the House does need to, from time to time, take a little moment to work out whether or not the way the Government is operating its legislative programme is to the betterment of all New Zealanders.

We have no particular desire to see relatively straightforward matters that can be dealt with by the Business Committee not done so, or for the Business Committee to be rendered ineffective. But I do have to say that perhaps the threats that came through during the last week about not supporting some of the select committee changes that are consequential to a previous Business Committee agreement sort of indicate an attitude that the Government takes that the Parliament belongs to the Government. It doesn’t; it belongs to parliamentarians, and it is incumbent on the Government to get the votes for every stage they want to put a piece of legislation through.

Also, if the Parliament is to grant leave for particular actions, then, quite clearly, there has to be that support. I was a little concerned to hear that when you’ve got a Government that forms, I think, now, 62 or 64 or 63 seats—whatever—and then an Opposition that sits at 58 seats, that apparently, if they get together, that’s near-unanimity, but if there’s a sort of hint that there might be some kind of new near-unanimity declared from this Speaker, I hope that’s not the case.

It wasn’t my intention to participate in this debate, but I do need to correct a statement made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. It is not true to suggest that the Government has been making threats about not supporting changes that the Opposition members want to make to their select committee membership. Those changes are, of course, made by the Business Committee under the auspices of near-unanimity, and, of course, when we cannot achieve near-unanimity, the Business Committee cannot make such a determination. The members who were present at the Business Committee agreed to the Opposition’s proposed changes to select committee membership, but, unfortunately, due to the failure of the National Party to show up, we were not able to make that determination. The Government is not—

💬 SPEAKER: OK. Order! Order! I’m now going to—after having sort of two and a half speeches mainly not on the motion before the House—require all members to speak only to that motion now.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to conclude by saying I agree with the Leader of the House that this is not a habit that the House should get into. These are matters that can easily be dealt with in a constructive fashion at the Business Committee, and we look forward to the resumption of normal business at that committee as soon as possible.

What I’m going to do is ask Iain Lees-Galloway to very carefully consider the comments that he did make on reporting back from the select committee, because it’s certainly not consistent—the member indicated that the committee had agreed but that there was not a majority. The matter was not put to the committee. I think the member might want to correct his statement.

I seek leave to correct the statement.

💬 SPEAKER: Yes.

To put it precisely, the people who were in the room were of a view that the Business Committee should support those changes. The Business Committee, of course, did not consider that formally or make any determination because it was not able to.

Thank you.

The motion that the House considers is the extension of a number of bills, of which I want to particularly talk about the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill, for which the Parliament is being asked to extend the report-back date to 21 June. I want to remind the House what this bill is about. This bill was one of the 100-day programme bills. It was a bill that was presented by Government members as a very simplistic, straightforward exercise of just ensuring that homes were only able to be purchased by New Zealanders. The issue is that this is the third extension that has been sought to this bill—that is, the Government’s programme is so confused and the Government’s original policy was so poorly thought through that here we are, over six months after the Government coming to office, still messing with the timetable of passing a bill.

Now, I perfectly understand why the extension is being sought. You see, the core issue here is that overseas investment in the property market has been quite critical to supporting the massive growth in house construction. Over the last five years, we’ve seen 20 percent compound growth, and where the Government today in question time admitted that a major problem in continuing the rapid growth in new home construction is the issue of the access to finance and is the issue of the access to investment, and that further confirms—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I did indicate while Mr Lees-Galloway was speaking that I would from now on require members to speak narrowly to the motion. We’re not going to speak at all about the benefits of the bill or the reasons to be for it or against it. We are only going to talk about whether or not it should be extended. This is the second warning.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Isn’t it a little hard for the House to consider whether or not it should extend a report-back date on a bill if there isn’t some discussion about the rationale for the bill existing in the first place and perhaps some of the reasons why the extension is being sought? We haven’t heard from a select committee chair. We didn’t hear anything from the Leader of the House. We didn’t hear anything from his associate.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, I thank the member for his intervention. I think Dr Smith is well past that point.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So the issue for the House is whether we should be further extending the time frame for this bill to be resolved. We have seen contradictory issues around the detailed importance in this bill and the issue around housing. It should not take this Government until 21 June—next month—to finalise these issues. I’d further point out in terms of the time line that Government Ministers have made the point that they want this bill passed quickly in respect of the programme around trade negotiations and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was the original justification.

We’re also considering the extension for the Trusts Bill. That is to be extended by the Justice Committee to 5 September. Those of us that are members of the Justice Committee will know that there is an enormous workload before that committee with a whole range of bills. But it reflects very poorly on the Government that a piece of legislation that literally involves hundreds of millions of dollars of investment—the way in which trusts right through the banking and the private sector work—is to be delayed by a further three months. We need to acknowledge that by making that extension, we are extending the uncertainty for those tens of thousands of trusts, that high level of interest in that trust law, and the implications for so many in the sector. In this House today, we’ve been talking about the decline in business confidence that is driven by uncertainty, and the further extension for the Trusts Bill will add to the business uncertainty that there is about law in that regard.

The third bill that we are being asked to extend the time frame on, taken through to 31 July—another three months—is the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill. Again, I have to ask the question of Government members to justify as to why, in an area of financial services—an area, again, where there are billions of dollars of investment and of issues of uncertainty—the House would want to grant that further extension. This is not a new bill; this is a bill that’s been on the Order Paper and that’s been through processes of public consultation going back all the way to 2015. Why is it that it is not possible for the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to get on and consider that bill, to report it back by its timetable, and not to further extend that programme to 31 July 2018?

What we see in this motion is a Government only six months old and its programme of legislation is facing delay after delay after delay because of a lack of finalisation of the policy in three bills, all of which actually have substantial financial implications, whether those financial implications are in respect of the trust law, whether those financial implications are in respect of the large scale of investment that’s taking place in cities like Auckland in respect of housing development, or whether it’s in the financial services sector in the bill before the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. So my challenge is that Government members need to justify the delay, justify why it is that these bills—I can hear the words of Opposition from only two years ago, that banning foreign buyers was very straightforward and the Government could do it yesterday. Well, actually, this piece of legislation—

Order! Order! The member has, for the third time, gone off the topic of this and on to the quality of the legislation. His speech is terminated.

I am briefly responding to the reason why an extension is sought for the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill. The last speaker is correct that underlying the timetable is the date for the coming into effect of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) agreement. When the bill was originally introduced, there was doubt as to when it was going to come into effect. That is beyond the control of the New Zealand Government because it depends on the ratification moves of other countries.

As events have unfolded, it’s become clear that we have a little more time. There is a need to get it right, not just in respect of overseas investment in existing homes but also in respect of foreign direct investment into forestry. Because of the greater knowledge we now have as to the date when other countries will be likely to ratify the CPTPP, we can allow the select committee that additional period of time to finish its business.

I rise to speak on the Government motion that’s been put forward by the Hon Chris Hipkins today, which, as my colleagues have said, extends the time line, extends the report back of three very important pieces of legislation. Finance is really at the heart of an economy, and the ability to ensure certainty and stability, whether it’s in the area of investment, whether it’s the area of trust law or of financial services.

So in terms of the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill—this, of course, has been around the traps a couple of times seeking extensions, and many people have been contacted about this particular piece of legislation. There are grave concerns about just what direction the Government is heading in. In terms of investment decisions, the lack of certainty that has been provoked by the incoming Government is quite disturbing, and that is on a number of fronts.

The Minister that spoke before me, David Parker, referred to a number of matters. One was related to changes in the forestry settings. The Minister will know in terms of that particular piece of legislation just how complex it is, and so it would have been helpful for the select committee to have had the decent level of scrutiny required, a longer period of time for the submitters themselves to have input, and many of those that submit—as a previous Minister, those who get very involved are actually the legal fraternity—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m now going to require the member to address the question before the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So in terms of an extension to the report back, there is a significant number of players who are involved in this work who are seeking certainty, who perhaps have already made decisions not to invest in New Zealand. The Government has talked about its housing priority. So the time frame of this report back of the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill being reported back to the House by the Finance and Expenditure Committee—the motion is to extend that to 21 June 2018—will, of course, create a number of issues. The select committee has needed, in the past, time to consider the issues fully. There hasn’t been any reassurance in this debate on this motion to extend the report back of the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill around what that will actually entail.

The Minister spoke before me. He raised the issue of forestry. He raised the issue of housing. He raised the issue of what was the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has had a name change. But nothing really has provided certainty in terms of the report back on this important piece of legislation and, of course, the others that I haven’t referred to—the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill. The motion seeks for that extension to the House by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee—gosh, these select committee names are a bit of a mouthful—to be extended to 31 July 2018, and then, of course, the Trusts Bill to be reported to the House by the Justice Committee, seeking an extension to 5 September.

Extensions aren’t granted lightly. In the 52nd Parliament, there’s been a very clear indication that extensions shouldn’t be sought. They shouldn’t be sought lightly. The House, I don’t believe in this debate, has heard why these should be extended sufficiently. I’m hopeful that the members opposite with responsibility for this legislation—I would’ve looked forward to a longer contribution from the Minister responsible for the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill. It is a complex piece of legislation, and if it requires an extension it hasn’t really had the full issues of why that extension is being sought in addition to the earlier extensions that had been sought and granted.

I would be hopeful that members opposite would provide the House with very good reasons why extensions should be granted when other pieces of legislation have had shortened report-backs and shortened ability for the public to contribute. I think there’s a responsibility, when there is a shortened report back and less ability for people to participate in the select committee process, that then, when the select committee is seeking an extension to a report back, there is some balance that is put in place.

I’m curious to know from the Minister responsible for the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill why it is that the submitters would have less time and the committee would have a longer period of time, given something that was originally thought to be quite simple. The Overseas Investment Amendment Bill has a number of different components in it, as the Minister has referred to, both in terms of the purchase of land, the purchase of houses—

The member is now into the substance of the bill. Her speech is also terminated.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put, That the date by which—(a) the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill be reported to the House by the Finance and Expenditure Committee be extended to 21 June 2018; and (b) the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill be reported to the House by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee be extended to 31 July 2018; and (c) the Trusts Bill be reported to the House by the Justice Committee be extended to 5 September 2018.

Motion agreed to.