Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill, Racing Reform Bill

Second Reading

Now for something serious and meaningful.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: In contrast.

In contrast. I move, That the Racing Reform Bill be now read a second time.

When this bill was introduced, it was acknowledged that racing in New Zealand has a long and proud history. Racing plays an important role in our communities and regions, employing 14,000 people and contributing $1.6 billion to New Zealand’s economy in 2016-17. The submissions on this bill, from a wide-ranging mix of interested parties, confirmed just how important racing continues to be to the economic and social fabric of this country.

However, racing, sad to say in New Zealand, is in decline, and economic and social benefits New Zealanders receive from it are at risk. This was confirmed by an Australian racing expert Mr John Messara in an independent assessment of the New Zealand racing industry. The Messara report, commissioned by the Government, provided recommendations for urgently needed reform. A ministerial advisory committee was subsequently appointed late last year to provide advice and guide the implementation of Messara’s recommendations. This Government would like to thank the committee again for its work to date, and particularly since they started on the fourth day of January, when everybody else was on holiday, to do their task.

As said in the first reading, this bill forms the Government’s first legislative response to the recommendations of the Messara report. It’s a first step in revitalising the industry to a financially viable future state. This bill amends the Racing Act 2003 and the Gaming Duties Act 1971. It reconstitutes the New Zealand Racing Board as the Racing Industry Transition Agency, or RITA, and RITA will manage the transition and day-to-day operations of the industry for a limited period. It also introduces two offshore charges: an information use charge, and a point of consumption charge. This charge, and these changes, ensure that overseas betting operators start to contribute to New Zealand, including to the racing and sports codes from which they benefit.

This bill will allow betting on sports not currently represented by a qualifying domestic national sporting organisation, and will place the formula for calculating payments to racing codes and sporting organisations into regulations. The totalisator duty, which is currently paid to the Crown, will be phased out, and these funds will instead be reinvested with the racing and sport sectors. A proportion of these funds will also be set aside for industry-led gambling harm minimisation initiatives.

The Transport and Infrastructure Committee received submissions from 42 submitters, and the vast majority expressed general support for this bill. The members of that committee, including the chair, Mr Darroch Ball, officials, and submitters, have all helped to strengthen this bill. The committee has unanimously reported the bill back to the House with some proposed amendments, most of which were of a minor nature or a simple drafting change.

All of these recommendations are well considered. For example, this bill, as introduced, allows for regulations to be made that determine the distribution of betting profits to racing and sports. Might I say that that regime was the one we inherited from the previous Government, although it seems to have evoked certain comments from members of the previous Government, which would seem to not understand that they, with respect to those aspects, were the architects of them. So if there were defects in what they drafted, then it’s quite possible we can fix these defects up now as we go to the committee of the whole House.

The committee has recommended including an explicit requirement for the Minister for Racing to consult with the Minister of Sport and Recreation before recommending these regulations. That recommendation is new. In short, the Minister for Racing will be required to consult with the Minister for Sport and Recreation before recommending these regulations. Whilst this consultation would have occurred anyway, making the step explicit reflects the increasing significance of the sport sector as both a stakeholder and contributor to betting in New Zealand.

The intention of the transitional provisions of this bill is that the reform process will be completed within 12 months. However, like any change process, this is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. To cater for the event that the transition needs to be extended beyond 30 June 2020, the bill provides for an Order in Council to extend the transition period. After consideration, the committee has rightly recommended limiting this extension provision to a date no later than 30 June 2022. This extension provision is merely a contingency. This Government is committed to reforming this industry as quickly as possible. Indeed, that is why this bill needs to be enacted this financial year.

The officials supporting this bill have suggested some further amendments, also minor in nature, that were identified after the departmental report to the select committee. These will be addressed by the Government through a Supplementary Order Paper at the committee of the whole House stage. The main purpose of this Supplementary Order Paper will be to make some minor changes to ensure that betting use information agreements, currently enforced or under negotiation, can smoothly transition into the new offshore charges regime, as is the policy intent of the bill.

The Government intends to introduce a second bill later this year. This will build upon these additional reforms by establishing the future governance structure for New Zealand racing, and implement the other agreed recommendations from the Messara report.

In conclusion, it’s important that we see that this bill is on track to implement these urgently required reforms. This bill is an important stepping stone towards a better future for the racing industry in New Zealand. It will also be the kind of response that was first asked for in a report by Judge Thaddeus McCarthy as long ago as 1967, a period which a member of the Opposition will remember well, he being from a bucolic, equine background, dare I say it, on the outskirts of the Manawatū—no names are given in that respect. But this is a serious piece of legislation which has been definitely needed by a once-great industry which has been faltering of late. We in Parliament need to respond to it, not just for the people engaged in the industry as owners, breeders, and investors but because thousands and thousands of young New Zealanders of all backgrounds desire to be engaged in this industry for their employment. Their energy and drive will take this industry on to great things in the future, not just in respect to the contribution to the GDP to this country, which, if it was in equivalence with Ireland, would be now $3.2 billion. So we’ve got a long way to go, we’ve got short time to make it up, but make it up we will. Then our potential to treble the exports of our bloodstock in other parts of the industry offshore become an enormous possibility as we speak. Accordingly, I commend this bill to the House.

Second Reading

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m pleased to take the first call on the second reading of the Racing Reform Bill on behalf of the National Party, and add that we will continue to support the bill.

Needless to say, I was actually on a racing club at the time that Sir Thaddeus McCarthy’s report was considered and I remember the same nervous attention was paid to that as was paid to the report of John Messara. Nothing’s changed in 40-odd years, and that’s, of course, the problem that a lot of our industry has in New Zealand, particularly this one.

The racing and, more importantly, the horse breeding industry has great potential for New Zealand in so many ways. We have heard of some of that during the course of the shortened select committee stage that was held a couple of weeks ago. A healthy racing industry in New Zealand will give the breeding industry the confidence to invest and grow. This is really where the potential for us is, actually. The racing industry itself is just the reason that enables the breeding industry to take off. And, of course, we have the potential in New Zealand, as one of the three best breeding areas in the world, to produce horses of almost unique quality. That’s, I think, one of our great opportunities, and that’s the great opportunity that this bill will create for the New Zealand racing industry—or it will enhance their ability to produce horses, and a product, actually—but I’ll get on to the product in a minute. But it enables us to produce horses that will be marketed to the world.

This industry has potential to bring people and attention to New Zealand—and opportunity, actually—which most other industries don’t readily have. You could compare it to the America’s Cup, for example, because it does bring the same kind of interest to this country if we do it properly. The other area that we’ve got great potential for in the racing industry is to produce a product—in other words, a racing product that is then marketable to the rest of the world. We’ve heard a lot of talk around the challenges of gambling and things like that in New Zealand, but, in fact, this bill will not necessarily increase the gambling that takes place in New Zealand; it will increase the attractiveness of an outstanding product that we can market to the rest of the world. I think that’s the exciting opportunity that we have in the racing industry, and it’s one that I think New Zealand should pick up.

Interestingly, another thing the racing or the breeding industry does for New Zealand is it diversifies our land use. Some of the members of this House will remember the days when every dairy farmer in Taranaki had a couple of horses on them. Those days have long gone. May they come back.

I just want to reflect for a bit on the horse and what an amazing impact it’s had on the human race. Frankly, we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for the horse and the use of it. It’s taken us to war. It’s taken us down the road. It took me to school. Couldn’t catch the thing when I got there, but it took me to school. So there’s a whole lot of opportunity that the most extraordinary of all animals, in my view, has created for us. They are an extremely competitive animal—very like humans, actually. I think that one of the really intriguing things about this industry—and about the horse, in fact—is that it’s the most extraordinary thing. For anyone who’s ever happened to have a ride or be part of a good horse, it’s the most exciting thing in the world, and I can assure you that the horse is just as excited as the person on top of it. Hard to believe that, but it’s a fact.

💬 Jonathan Young: How do you know?

It’s a fact, I know. I’ve been there—all round the world. Interestingly, dogs, which are the other part of the racing industry, are very much the same. They’re very competitive, and the greyhound, of course, is that sector of the dog community that races.

During the select committee process we saw a number of concerns expressed, and we had expressed a number of concerns ourselves during the first reading. Many of these were addressed by submitters and a number of them have been addressed as the bill is reported back to the House. I was pleased to hear the Minister just a minute ago talk about a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that will be introduced in the committee stage, which will resolve another challenge that the industry, particularly the racing industry, had with this bill. I’ll explain why that happens, later on.

But I just want to address the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) and the fact that it had no finite end to it. It was able to be enhanced or elongated by an Order in Council. That has been put to rest, and, as the Minister said himself, it has been given a finite time. That’s been done by amending clause 22 to insert new section 68A(1)(ba) in the Racing Act to limit the extension of the transition period to a date no later than 30 June 2022. We’re supportive of that, and I do think that it’s necessary that the next piece of legislation get to the House in a timely manner. That is always a challenge, of course.

There was concern raised about the influence the Minister for Racing had in the distribution of betting profits. We’re pleased to see the bill’s been amended to ensure the Minister for Sport and Recreation is consulted in the process of this. This is achieved by inserting clauses 13 and 22 to insert new sections 17A(3) and 68A(2). That also gives us comfort that at least it seemed to be a reasonable process and a process that I think is very satisfactory from a sports perspective.

We were concerned about the process of appointing the RITA, as it allowed the Minister for Racing to appoint members without any cognisance taken of the sporting sector, which is a significant player and beneficiary in this legislation. We’d have liked to have seen a clause introducing the need for the Minister for Racing to consult on this, but, having said that, that hasn’t happened. But, having said that, we’re comfortable with the members of the ministerial advisory committee, who I think are extremely competent people—talented and diverse as they are—and we assume that they will be appointed to the RITA as that RITA takes place. I hope they are, in fact.

I talked about the SOP the Minister talked about bringing the House. It just will make some alterations which I think are advantageous to the industry and will certainly short-circuit the process of setting the way that those services can be charged for, and will also enable significant cost-saving, because that process is really in place now. The piece of legislation that the National Party, when in Government, brought to the House refers specifically to this part of the legislation, and that’s around the use of information charges, and that is, kind of, the charge for the use of New Zealand racing information or the charge for the use of sporting information and those events that go with them, and that’s where, I assume, that we will see some change. The other part of this, of course, is that there’s a point of consumption charge, which will occur naturally as part of this bill, and that should return a significant amount of money to New Zealand racing, but more particularly to New Zealand’s sporting sector.

Betting on horse racing—it’s estimated that about 10 percent of all New Zealanders have a bet on a horse race, probably the Melbourne Cup, each year. Many more wager on sports events. Interestingly, in Australia, sports betting tends to attract younger people; racing, older people. It’s quite possible that the same trend happens in New Zealand, and I wouldn’t want to think the first two speakers on this were representative of the racing people in New Zealand. But it’s certainly a fast-growing sport—well, a fast-growing form of entertainment, I suppose you’d call it—is gambling on sports betting.

I just want to comment a little bit on gambling, because I think that—obviously, I’m a gambler myself, in a small way, and I’m a very bad gambler. But I think the point about it is that we gamble on horses, on sport, and we do so with the ability to gamble against ourselves, effectively. We’re trying to pick a winner, and we’re watching that thing and we’re making a judgment on either the sports team or the horse or the dog or whatever. You go down to the poker machine down at the local club and you’re making a judgment on nothing. You’re just shoving your money in the thing and poking a button. You don’t even poke the button, actually—now you don’t even have to think that hard. I think that there’s such a difference between these two kinds of gambling that we shouldn’t even compare the two, frankly. This, for those who don’t have a problem with it—and I’ll touch on that very briefly before I finish—is, in my view, great entertainment for a wide range of people. People on a Saturday night will sit at home and they’ll watch whoever’s playing—the Crusaders playing whoever—and they’ll spend all night having the odd flutter on that.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Or the Blues.

And I think that—ha, ha! Anyone who gambled on the Blues is certainly in the problem gambling category. I think that, just to touch on that issue, so many people—thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands, of New Zealanders—gamble with no problem at all. There are, unfortunately, a percentage of people who, like everything else in life, either have addictive personalities or they get to a point where gambling is a challenge for them. Again, I’d like to say I’m sure that the poker machines are much more responsible with that problem than this type of gambling as well. But this bill does allow for further investment in harm reduction to take place, and I think that’s a satisfactory place we’ve got to.

So all in all, I think this bill will be good for the racing industry. It will be good for the sports industry, albeit with some of those concerns we have about it. We in the National Party will support it, and, again, some of those concerns will be expressed by speakers who follow me. So we look forward to the second tranche of legislation the Minister intends to bring to the House, but in the meantime, we do support this bill. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Second Reading

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak to the second reading of the Racing Reform Bill. Can I begin by acknowledging the leadership of the Deputy Prime Minister to get this bill to a second reading. I would imagine that there are people in the offices of thoroughbred racing, of harness racing, of greyhound racing, and the sports codes around the country who have been waiting for some time for this reform to take place who will be extremely thankful for the fact that this piece of legislation has got to this stage and, hopefully, will be passed soon to give some certainty not just to those boards but also to the many New Zealanders who work in the racing industry. I think for some time there has been quite a degree of uncertainty about the future of betting revenue, the future of small clubs and large clubs and networks of clubs around the country and their ability to survive, and they have been looking for leadership from this Parliament for some time. Through this piece of legislation, they will finally get the mechanisms to try and retain as much of the revenue from sports betting here in New Zealand. They’ll have a national structure, which I think will give them the confidence to make some of the important changes within their codes and within their clubs to make sure that whatever that future looks like, it will be a sustainable one.

Can I acknowledge also the previous speaker, Ian McKelvie, who—we’ve been to a few race meets together, and who, along with the Deputy Prime Minister, understands the fundamentals of the racing industry. The racing industry is one of those industries around the country that, you know, even though they do have racing events, does plug away quietly and does have a significant economic impact, especially in some of our regional areas. So that impact economically, that impact with jobs—I think I heard the Deputy Prime Minister say during one of our debates $1.6 billion, the last time it was counted—should not be sniffed at, and that ability for those local clubs to continue to have race meets, to support their local communities. At the other end of the industry, for some of our best trained and bred horses to be ambassadors for the New Zealand racing industry in other big racing forums is a huge potential for us, but it hasn’t for some time been maximised. I think the beginning of a renaissance of racing could come to fruition—and, hopefully, will come to fruition—by the fact that we’re giving the racing sector and the sporting sector the ability, once and for all, to sort itself out.

One of the big issues has been what the industry has called “leakage”, and that is New Zealand punters who punt on overseas races, on overseas betting forums, usually online. A lot of revenue has been lost out of what would usually have been taken by the TAB and has been placed on bets overseas. A lot of that revenue is lost to our shores and therefore lost to some of the sports codes and the racing codes here in New Zealand, and they have felt that. This bill goes quite a long way to making sure that some of the revenue from those bets that are placed overseas can be retained here in New Zealand. I think that’s a good thing, and that will flow back into New Zealand’s racing sector.

The other thing in terms of online betting is that a lot of those online betting platforms have been using New Zealand - based events or races to offer as a product and, essentially, have been paying nothing for it. So we might have a rugby game here in New Zealand or a horse race or a greyhound race in New Zealand, and an online platform in the likes of the UK can take bets on that, and not one cent of any of that revenue is of benefit to the sporting code or to the club that is holding that race meet here in New Zealand. Again, fundamentally, this piece of legislation will work to make sure that we take action and regulations to get some of that revenue here again, importantly, to pump into the sector.

I think when you look at some of the challenges at the grassroots, some of the clubs around the country really have been struggling to hold as many race meets as they have done in the past, and that is a sign of the times. But in amongst that, it’s the ability to pay good amounts to those winners. Hopefully, by the gathering up of more revenue and giving them the ability to do that—and, I think, some decisions made by race clubs around the country—they can offer a better product. I think the standard of the horses and the races will lift, and then, I guess, also from that, that export market that is extremely important to the racing sector in New Zealand can grow, and therefore we get more revenue from it.

As I say, this has been a long time coming, and I do again want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Winston Peters for his commitment to it, to drive it through at this point in this Government’s term. As I say, I think there will be a lot of people within racing and within the sporting sector extremely happy that we’re taking this piece of legislation and getting it through in a timely manner to give them the options not just to survive but also to expose our racing industry in a better way as an export market too. So with that, I commend this bill to the House.

Second Reading

I’m very pleased to take a call on this piece of legislation, the Racing Reform Bill. Firstly, can I just acknowledge all of those people that made submissions to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. We had a total of 42 submissions—a number of submissions from, obviously, the racing industry but also a number of submissions from the sporting codes of New Zealand. And I think that’s the first point that I would make at the outset of my speech. I was very clear when this bill was introduced that this is not just about the racing industry; this bill has huge potential to impact sport and sport funding in New Zealand.

I do want to acknowledge the Minister for Racing for the work that he has done. I’ve had quite a bit of feedback from, obviously, people in the racing industry in terms of this legislation. It is important that we ensure the viability of the racing sector—you’ve got $1.6 billion; you’ve got 18,000 jobs—but, again, as National’s sport and recreation spokesperson, it’s really important that we have balance in this debate. So the purpose of my speech is going to be to talk about what we heard at the select committee level, both for racing but also for sport.

So coming back to that—42 submissions—again some very strong themes came through. I think it is fair to say that there were people from racing and sport who wanted this bill to be passed, and National respects that. We acknowledge that. That is why not only did we vote for it to go to select committee but we’ve continued to vote for it through the House. And I want to make it absolutely clear that National has voted for this bill because we see the benefit for racing and sport, in terms of funding. But we do want to put on record, absolutely, here the appalling process that we have been under for this bill. We had around five days for people to get submissions in. That was over a long weekend, and it was reflected in the departmental report summary, it was reflected in the people that made submissions, that that is unacceptable. The reason that it is unacceptable is that these are huge amounts of money for both sport and racing. We had the betting operators turn up—the Remote Gambling Association—and raise really serious issues about not just the impact domestically but what it means internationally in trying to collect levies over jurisdictions. So I’d put it on record that National had major concerns around the process in terms of this bill.

But, coming to the substantive issues, one of the concerns that we raised during the select committee process was that we absolutely need to have a transition authority—that is called the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA)—but what is really important is that we do look at those issues of core representation. This is important, again, because if you look at the wide powers in this legislation given to the Minister for Racing, it matters who is on RITA. Again, I can’t possibly comment as to whether the Minister for Racing has appointed people or shoulder-tapped them before this legislation has gone through, but my plea to the Minister for Racing and also to the Minister for Sport and Recreation—who, I note, is not in the House, but I’m not allowed to say that, so I won’t say that—is that there is real consideration given to the people who are on RITA. It matters. They are making huge decisions around the future of funding of racing and sport, and National has absolutely argued for greater balance.

The second issue that we raised during the select committee process was this issue of certainty of funding for the codes. Now, again, we understand the arguments that have been put up in select committee. In fact, my learned colleague the Hon David Bennett, who did do some work on this—and National previously had a bill that had some provisions that were similar to this legislation—said that, while we understand the need to have flexibility around the formula, which was supported in a number of submissions, there was this idea that we couldn’t actually recognise that there’s been a huge increase in sport betting; that, actually, that was raised by a number of submitters; and that when it comes to the sporting organisations, they are absolutely running that argument. It was acknowledged by the Remote Gambling Association, who actually said, “This bill should be called the ‘Sports Betting Bill’.” Because, if you look at the amount of betting that actually occurs on overseas events, they estimate—they actually disagree with the Messara report—that it could be up to 95 percent of betting that is sports-related betting. So it is absolutely fair and real for the National Party not only to raise these issues of representation on RITA but also to raise these issues of fairness of distribution. We accept that there is a case for flexibility—National has previously proposed that—but we are absolutely interested in ensuring that there is balance between the Minister for Sport and Recreation and the Minister for Racing around that distribution.

We were pleased that, during the select committee process, it was acknowledged that the Minister of sport needs to be part of this. I do want to put on the record, because I’ve asked questions of the Minister of sport, that it is appropriate for Parliament and for New Zealand to understand what advocacy the Minister of sport has made in these areas, and I have questions back to a select committee hearing, where I’ll be grilling the Minister tomorrow, where he’s refusing, basically, to give that information, and I think New Zealanders need to understand where the Minister of sport is in this important debate for the future funding of sport, and we have raised those issues in the select committee process.

The other issue that we raised in the select committee process, which we heard from a range of submitters, was around the totalisator levy. Now, again, this is important because it cuts to the heart of the timing and release of some funding for both sport and racing. What has been argued by the Minister and what we landed on at the select committee—but National has raised the issues that were raised by some submitters—is a progressive repeal. Now, again, this is a large amount of money; this is $13.8 million. National raised the issue that select committee submitters raised, which was, “Why don’t you consider doing it immediately?” Now, again, we heard from officials. It’s not clear whether the Rt Hon Winston Peters actually argued for that in a Budget bid—I’m hoping that I’ll find that out tomorrow in select committee from the Minister of sport—but we heard passionate submissions from people who said, “If you’re really serious about viability issues in sport and racing, then you’ll consider the timing and release of that funding and that funding being earlier.”

So, again, as I’ve said before, National is very clear that we have heard the voices of both the racing industry and the sports sector. We agree that this bill needs to be supported because it can lead to greater funding for both sectors. However, we have major concerns about the lack of balance in this legislation and guarantees for the sporting sector. We have raised that in our minority report, through arguing the real issues of representation around RITA, through arguing this idea that no national sporting organisation could lose from this bill, but also through raising those questions of fairer distribution given the huge increase that is happening in terms of sport betting. We also acknowledge, and I hear this from sporting organisations across New Zealand, this issue of reduced amounts of funding that are coming to the sectors via other funding pools. So it’s very relevant for these sporting organisations.

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the national sporting organisations—New Zealand Rugby, Netball New Zealand, New Zealand Cricket. All of these sporting organisations have engaged in good faith in the process, but they have been really clear: it is time to give them greater recognition through this legislation, through the enormous amount of sport betting that occurs. They couldn’t have been clearer in their submissions. They have argued, for instance, that whatever is bet in the sport should come back to the sport. National has listened to some of the submissions that they have put up. Again, this is about recognising that, actually, when you look at sport as an industry, we’re talking about billions in revenue for the country. We’re talking about 35,000 jobs. Again, we’re balancing that with $1.6 billion of revenue for the racing industry and 18,000 jobs.

I do acknowledge the conversations that I’ve had with people in the racing industry about the historic investment that they have made in the platform and the infrastructure, and we need to recognise that, but we will be holding the Government to account in terms of balance. We know that the Minister of sport is slightly missing in action, but we have absolutely made it very clear to sporting organisations that we are a party of balance, that it is important that the Minister for Racing considers the millions of dollars that can potentially be lost if he gets the distribution wrong for sport—that’s coaches, that’s sporting organisations, that’s our top athletes, alongside those stable hands, those jockeys. It’s really important to have balance. National supports this bill to the House. We congratulate the Minister for Racing on the work that he’s doing for the viability of the racing industry, but we raise these fundamental issues for sport because we need to have balance in this House.

Second Reading

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just want to start my speech by saying thanks to my colleagues on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee who heard from the submitters during the recent recess break. Can I acknowledge the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who’s not here but did say to me on his departure that he had to get to a Cabinet committee and wanted to—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: We don’t mention when members are not present.

Sure. That’s no problem. Look, this is the second reading, and I, last week, was, in fact, at a fisheries meeting on the Chatham Islands, and as the meeting went on and I was looking out the window, I saw the Chatham Island Jockey Club there. Just when I thought I had no affiliation to this sector, I suddenly thought, “Aha! Here we are, right outside my window.” “1873”, the sign says, and I thought, “Wow.” They suddenly all got a little tetchy at me for not listening to them about pāua, but instead I said, “Tell me more about this jockey club.” And they said, “Look, it meets on 27 and 31 December, and then they have a picnic day on the first Saturday in January.” So there are some key dates for those wanting to get down and see, probably, one of the oldest jockey clubs in the country, and the only one, dare I say it, on the Chatham Islands, and therefore in the Rongotai electorate. It was good just to be able to have a chat, and a lot of them said, “Look, once we have this AGM finished, tell us about this Messara report and what’s been happening.” It was good to be able to provide just a quick update from the recent process, in terms of submitters.

We’ve heard that there have been 42 and, yes, I make no apologies for the truncated process. I was looking back through the public consultation angle. That’s been raised around this being too tight—“not enough people”, “last minute”. We’ve heard terms like those, but, actually, in September and October last year, 1,700 submissions were received. That’s pretty good, I think. And, look, I know that there’s been a member’s bill, an amendment bill, there from 2017 too. That was withdrawn. So I think there has been the time put in for people to have their say, and these submitters are passionate. We’ve heard that. We’ve heard how different codes and different parts of the sector were able to give their views—again, to say, “Look this is what we think.” In terms of the industry being—and I had a figure here—$1.6 billion worth in 2016-17, that’s a big sector. And I thought, “People are engaging in this because it does mean significant change.” They did say to me, “Does this mean the end of the Chatham Island Jockey Club?” I said, “No, because the Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, will be down here over the New Year to ensure that your track stays open. But it does mean change.”

💬 Jamie Strange: The Chatham Islands champion.

I think we need a champion of the Chatham Islands—there we are. But in terms of my link to the sporting sector, it was good to see Sport New Zealand there, and if you read their—they’ve only got a short submission, but it does say that they support everything. I was going to go through and pull out the lines, but, actually, there was nothing in there—in fact, the point to where the Minister for Racing has an influence on who the membership of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) Board is, and some of that future work—they were supportive of that. And they are the representative Crown agency who have the linkages with the national sporting organisations, and also there’s a part in there that says that if you are not affiliated to your national sporting organisation, the Sport New Zealand entity will ensure that they have an arrangement with RITA to ensure that that funding process is tight and accountable and is done with integrity. There were other submitters there, but that’s the one I wanted to pull out, because I thought it would be good just to get that clear, around them being supportive, but also to clear up some of that issue around the engagement and the truncated process that went with it.

I’m not going to say too much more, because I think that’s been covered. I commend this bill to the House.

Second Reading

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to support this bill. As Nikki Kaye mentioned, and I would agree with her—and we’ll talk about the title at some future date—it’s really about sport as much as about racing. It’s about gathering revenue for the codes, sporting codes and racing codes, from people who should be paying: those people who are offshore and betting on our sport and our people betting on sporting activities. I know there are some—and the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned them—existing agreements that already exist between the New Zealand betting agency and offshore betting agencies. But this legislation will make it compulsory for the information use charge—that is the IP, essentially; the information that we’re providing to other offshore betting agencies—and the consumption charge—that is, offshore people consuming and betting on our material in New Zealand—to pay for it, and that’s fair enough, whether it’s racing or sport, which is a very important point.

The sporting aspect of it is understated, certainly, in the title. It is understated and I don’t think it goes far enough to support the sporting codes as much as it should. I think that you’ll see some Supplementary Order Papers coming forward in that regard. Nikki Kaye’s mentioned representation on the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA), the interim agency, as being an issue. There’s also the issue of consultation with the Minister for Sport and Recreation. The Transport and Infrastructure Committee report recommends there be consultation with the Minister of sport—that’s an amendment—but, in our view, it doesn’t go far enough. There should be agreement with the Minister of sport, because it is important to sport and without that agreement there is a risk that the racing codes dominate the calculation of the distribution of funds. That’s why we advocate for stronger representation on RITA at the outset and for stronger representation in giving the Minister of sport a stronger voice by ensuring that there is agreement between those two Ministers, not just simply a consultation process.

I do support the racing industry. I’m very keen on going to the Tauherenīkau Racecourse. The next meeting is on 2 January, and 6 February is also a very, very good event. I’ve also in the past sponsored a couple of races at that event through my business interests. I love to watch the horses race. It is a family activity. It is, quite rightly, and should be, distinct, as Ian McKelvie pointed out, from mindless gambling on the pokies—mindless gambling on the pokies. This is not what we’re talking about. That is distinctly different and has a lot of issues around it. Pokie machines, in my view, are disgusting and should be minimised, and they cause a lot of damage in this country, in our communities. But horse racing and a flutter and a community get-together, using your brain to calculate the odds, whether it’s on sport or on the horse or on a dog, is a good thing and should be encouraged and supported, and that’s what this bill does.

There’s not much more. The only other point was I found it quite interesting that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee was chosen to consider this bill. I guess horses are a mode of transport, but I guess that’s the only reason. I couldn’t really see any other reason why we got it, but I guess there’s an argument for that.

Look, I’m not going to go over the other issues or the other suggestions that we might make to this bill. We’ll get to that in committee stage, but I do look forward to seeing the fine-tuning that the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned around those existing agreements, those existing international agreements, which we did discuss at select committee, and I think we agreed that the existing bill—there was some space for improvement, let’s say. Let’s put it that way.

So, overall, it was good to hear the Deputy Prime Minister suggest that extra time for RITA was not necessary, but, as he rightly pointed out, the select committee recommended a couple of extra years. But it was good to see that he was of the mind that it was only going to be a very short transition period, and that was good to hear. That is all I have to contribute this afternoon. Thank you.

Second Reading

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and I don’t have a lot of knowledge of racing, but it was interesting to read the select committee report and some of the concerns that have been raised by Opposition members. One of those concerns was around the process, and, I think, some of the speakers from the Opposition recognise that the industry is at a bit of a tipping point and there is an urgent need for reform because of the significance of its contribution to the economy—$1.6 billion—and also the great deal of enjoyment that a lot of New Zealanders get from participating at racecourses.

But I’d also note, in terms of rebutting some of the comments the Opposition members have made, that there was an awful lot of consultation which preceded this bill. Of course, the bill, in fact, draws on a bill that was introduced under the former Government and was discharged. So there’s been a lot of work in the development of it. There was also a lot of consultation as part of the Messara report. Yes, the select committee process in this Parliament was truncated, but you’ve got to balance that against the need to actually get reform happening. The Green Party endorses the need for some speed there.

One of the other concerns that seems to come up repeatedly is this issue of sporting organisations. Can I point out to the previous speaker, Alastair Scott, and others that it is very clear in clause 11 of the bill, which talks about the membership of the transitional governing body, that “(4) In appointing members, the Minister must have regard to the need for the governing body to have available to it, collectively, from its members,—(a) knowledge of, or experience in, the racing industry and sport administration at a national level;”. Certainly, the title of the bill isn’t as embracing of sport as it could be, but the actual membership of the governing body makes no real distinction between those who have racing expertise and those who’ve got sports administration expertise. They’re on an equal level. So I am confident that the Minister for Racing, in implementing this section and appointing members of the governing body, will ensure that there are people who’ve got that depth of experience, both in governance and in sports administration.

In addition, in terms of the way in which the funds are distributed, there were certainly some submissions from sports organisations that sought that any revenue that was generated from betting on particular sports would be returned to that particular sector, rather than being more widely distributed. I think that process would be very complex, but the work that will be done won’t actually change the fundamental way in which sports funding is done, and the requirement that has come in through the amendment that the select committee has made to require some consultation with the Minister for Sport and Recreation will ensure that that view goes through. So I think the decisions that will be made there will take into account the needs of the different sporting codes. That amendment that’s suggested by the select committee, I think, is part of several improvements to the bill that have come through the select committee process as a result of submissions that will improve the bill.

The Green Party supports the bill. One of the reasons we support it is because of the provision that some of the proceeds from betting will in fact go towards the minimisation of gambling harm—the way in which the bill and the reform of the sector ensures that we’re getting contributions and a charge paid by those remote organisations, offshore organisations, facilitating betting on New Zealand racing, and New Zealand sporting codes actually now being responsible for contributing something for their use of those codes. I think that is good that they are saying—and I think the National Party has picked up the need for more of a transition period there, but I think that is a bit self-serving of the offshore betting organisations. They have avoided contributing on a user-pays basis. The bill is making it clear that they need to. I think they’ll be able to organise their systems so that they are able to pay those charges.

The select committee, under the chairing of Darroch Ball, has improved the bill, and it proceeds in that improved state. Thank you.

Second Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, it’s a pleasure to rise now and take a call on the second reading of this bill. It has been an interesting process that we’ve followed. Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge our racing spokesperson, Ian McKelvie, for the great work he’s done on this—a fountain of knowledge on the industry, Mr McKelvie is, and as he mentioned—

💬 Andrew Bayly: A fountain of knowledge on many things.

On many things, indeed, yes, but in particular his involvement with the racing sector over a period of several decades now has been very influential in this particular piece of legislation. I would also like to acknowledge Nikki Kaye for her contribution from the sports and recreation aspect, because they are both important elements in the consideration of this Racing Reform Bill.

Now, I did want to, though, mention the process as well, because we’ve had a very truncated process here—the select committee process, in particular. Having only 11 days did not give the public a wide enough window to submit, and we heard that from a number of the 42 or 43 submitters we had who expressed concern around that short window, especially being over a long weekend as well. It’s another example of the Government not following best practice in terms of a process that enables the public to engage with Parliament, to have their say on what for them are important pieces of legislation, depending on their areas of interest and the industries. So that is one area that we were a little disappointed by.

We’ve heard the reasoning for it around the desire to have this legislation passed and in place by the start of the new racing season to enable that totalisator levy to be reduced and those funds to then flow through to the codes. But, actually, as the Minister pointed out, there’s a need for that funding, of course, but, actually, this should have been in place 12 months ago. The previous race fields legislation, the Racing Amendment Bill, that was started under the previous Government had its first reading, went through a select committee process just after the forming of the new Government, and, actually, there was broad consultation. The Minister then withdrew that in order to consider the results of the Messara report and then what that legislation might look like, eventually ending up where we are now. But, actually, there was no reason why that couldn’t have been passed 12 months earlier.

I remember sitting on that select committee, the Primary Production Committee as it was then, that was considering the bill, which is actually a more appropriate committee than the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider it. At that stage the Racing Board and the codes within that were making it very clear around their need for these additional funds to be promptly delivered by the passing of that bill, for exactly the same reason as now, 12 months later, or more than 12 months later, we’re saying again that it’s urgent to be implemented. The Government didn’t deliver for the racing industry 12 months ago. They could have had another $15 million to $20 million of revenue over the last 12 months, to this point, that they didn’t get because of the racing Minister’s decision. So that was slightly disappointing, but I certainly appreciate their now increased desire to have it in place for this season.

We do support this bill. There were a number of considerations that we threw back and forward across the select committee, based on what submitters were telling us and what we’d heard and the knowledge we had on this side as well. Really, what we’re trying to get to is a point where no group or code, whether that’s racing or sporting codes—none of them should be worse off as a result of this bill. That’s the outcome that we’re looking for. We want all of them to be better off, to have more revenue to be able to promote their industry, their codes, as a result of this to help reinvigorate, in particular, the racing industry. We’re aware there are issues there. The public knows that. The industries, in particular, know some of the challenges that they’re facing in that space. So it’s important that we do get this across the line for them.

Now, we talked a little through the select committee process as well around some of the uncertainty that this legislation proposes with regards to there being no clear representation on the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) board in terms of the different codes being represented, and that was a concern, but the parties were prepared to act in good faith on the basis that that transition happens over the 12-month period that has been allowed for under this legislation. Also, in the worst-case scenario, there is the ability to then roll that over for up to a further 24 months, if necessary, to enable that process to be completed and to enable the right outcome to be achieved through the subsequent legislation that will be coming before this House.

Actually, at that stage, as we were going through the select committee process, there was no limit on that, and that was a concern for a number of submitters, as it was for us on this side of the House, as well. It’s important to have some structure around this, and just having an open-ended ability to stretch this out with no finite date on it was not acceptable. So we’re glad that submitters supported that, and, actually, the Government has chosen to accept that recommendation as well to put a maximum two-year extension on the RITA process. So that’s got us to a point now where we’re broadly comfortable that we can support this with confidence in that it will provide the right outcome for industries within their different codes on this particular bill.

Now, one other aspect that was mentioned in, I believe, the Minister’s contribution at the start of this second reading, and it was supported by Mr Jones—and, actually, Paul Eagle mentioned it as well—is around the vibrancy in the communities. I have the same in the Waikato electorate. There’s plenty of racing in that electorate, and we are very proud of our racing heritage there. Small communities, in particular, love their race days, and whilst that was an element of the Messara report, which was more controversial in terms of closing a number of those tracks, there are plenty of communities that absolutely love it. They get their annual race day, one or two or three, or however many it may be, and for Mr Eagle, his comments around the Chatham Islands race club, in particular—people love that. It’s a real sense of community for them, and part of that is enjoying the festivities of the occasion, which means having a bit of a flutter on the TAB or, likewise, perhaps enjoying a cool beverage or two throughout that day’s entertainment as well.

So we may well be looking at putting forward a Supplementary Order Paper in relation to enabling that consideration for alcohol consumption at race fields around particular race days, when it comes to the committee of the whole House stage. So that’s something we’ll be considering: whether we do look to bring that into this legislation and this process, as well, or whether we look at a second tranche, potentially, further down the track.

Those are the key points that I really wanted to cover off there, and the last one that I’d note—which is more relevant within the Waikato—is that under the Healthy Rivers plan change, there’s uncertainty around how to consider equine properties in that. They’re not dairy farms and they’re not sheep and beef farms, so how does that sit in terms of the impact it has? So there are a number of ongoing challenges within the broader racing industry as well that we do need to be looking at, and so that’s one that I’m mindful of, too.

I just want to acknowledge, though, that whilst we see these challenges, this is one aspect that we will see support for the racing codes and also the sports codes in terms of additional revenue, which I am confident will help to reinvigorate some of that. We would like to see some increased stakes, and that’s a significant part of what helps to inspire people to get involved in this sector. Some of those potential owners who may choose to get involved in a syndicate, the trainers, the jockeys, the stable hands, the breeders, and everyone involved in this—we all need to see a little more contribution, and this will help to deliver that. So we do support it, and we look forward to this being rolled out and to the racing codes and sporting codes getting an increased share of revenue to enable them to do better as a result. Thank you.

Second Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on the Racing Reform Bill. As a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, I want to commend the work of the committee members under, obviously, the chairmanship of Darroch Ball.

It just reminds me, when we grew up—with some of us probably having been around a lot longer than others—of the vision of seeing your local racecourse filled with folk, and the point was made that it was often the hub of communities. I’m talking about small, rural New Zealand, and I’ve got a few racecourses throughout my electorate, but the numbers that you saw were testament to the importance of the racing system and the racing fraternity to not only small-town New Zealand but across the nation. So this Government, under the leadership of the Rt Hon Winston Peters, undertook a review of the New Zealand racing industry—the Messara report—and an independent assessment was done on the industry that showed to this Government that it was really in need of a modernisation, given that those early images that I said, back in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were no longer the case for many of the racecourses around New Zealand.

So this is a bill that is attempting to modernise the industry, because we realise the importance that it has both economically and socially in small towns. Racing contributed $1.6 billion to the New Zealand economy in 2016 and 2017, hence it’s important that we have a fit for purpose racing industry, and this bill is attempting to do exactly that. It does it by, first and foremost—and it’s interesting—two reforms, two pieces of legislation: the Racing Amendment Bill in 2017, and the Gaming Duties Act of 1971.

But going back to the Racing Amendment Bill, what we discussed at select committee was this transitional body, the Racing Industry Transition Agency—or RITA for short—which we wanted to set up, or which the Minister is saying could be the body to then implement the more detailed work that’s around the industry in terms of the courses that are currently open, and whether we’ve got too many and whether we need to make some changes there, and I think the proposal here around the transitional agency is a good one. The submitters that came understood the importance of having a transitional agency. Many of those that submitted are going to be part of that agency to ensure that the next stage in terms of the Gaming Duties Act will be fit for purpose. So I’m very pleased to see that that is being instigated as a result of this independent review.

But the other point that I remember that was raised at select committee was the concern over loss of revenues for many of our sporting codes. The select committee heard and took advice, and hence you will see that the Minister for Racing, as well as the Minister for Sport and Recreation, will now be part of the process that determines the distribution of funds. I think that’s a good measure of showing how we’ve listened to the submitters—particularly the sporting bodies—to give them that guarantee that they will be part and parcel of the distribution of the funds.

But what was also interesting was the point around gambling harm and ensuring that what we are doing here does not put aside or ignore the importance that gambling does have on many people. There were points made by various submitters around whether this bill is going to cut off the financial lifeline of providing much-needed gambling harm support, and this bill does do that—it actually guarantees that in the distribution of funds, those communities charged with eliminating or addressing gambling harm will be made.

We did hear from a number of submitters. I know that people on that side of the House are concerned about the truncated process. The interim transitional agency is really the opportunity to flesh out and make sure that we are doing a fit for purpose response to modernising the racing industry. I support what’s being proposed here in the report back from the select committee and I look forward to the bill’s third and final reading. Kia ora.

Second Reading

I’ve lost the member’s name.

Tim van de Molen: Andrew Bayly.

Oh, Andrew Bayly—I’m sorry. I was absolutely prepared for another member to rise, and the member caught me by surprise.

Second Reading

Well, thank you, Mr Speaker, and may I say I will never forget your name. It is a pleasure to be speaking in the second reading of the Racing Reform Bill. I didn’t actually have an opportunity to talk in the first reading, and, of course, racing in my electorate of Hunua—which is South Auckland—is an absolutely essential part of the local community but also business and industry. We’ve all heard the numbers: $1.6 billion of revenue or activity comes out of the racing industry, and 18,000 people are employed. But what people also don’t realise is that the sports horse and other parts of the equine industry, the non-racing component, also generates about $1 billion worth of economic activity around the country. Of course, with my electorate spanning Pukekohe—where we’ve got the wonderful Counties Racing Club and the Auckland Trotting Club, which is now the main centre for trotting in the Auckland region—but also all those areas like Cleveland and Whitford, where we have our sports horses, it is an absolute essential part, and, in fact, I live next door to one of the most famous studs in New Zealand.

So for me, this bill is vitally important to help get the racing industry back into shape. My family have been involved in racing for a long, long time. The big underlying issue for the racing industry is one of making sure that the fees or that what you earn when you race in New Zealand is more of a higher amount, because that underpins the viability of the racing industry in New Zealand. What we’ve got now is that our racing returns are making it very difficult to be able to generate sufficient returns to make it economically viable. Consequently, we’re seeing fewer and fewer owners taking on the risk of buying a horse at the Karaka sales, which are just down the road from where I live, and taking that risk and being part of a very exciting industry.

So what this report seeks to do is another step in terms of trying to resuscitate and make the industry more viable. On that basis, we do agree with the overall intent in the Messara report, of course. Part of it is around not only improving the stakes but also what happens with race courses and reducing those over time. It was interesting—I think only yesterday there was an announcement from Avondale that they are looking at different alternatives in terms of closing that racetrack, which was one that was actually nominated to be closed. So there’s still a lot of water to go under the bridge.

But as a general rule, we very much support the intent of this bill. I’m sure that my friends and people who attend the Counties Racing Club—and I note that on 20 June, only a very short time away, the Lindauer ladies stakes day is going to be held in Pukekohe. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to attend it, which makes me most upset, because I’ll be down here doing my hard work in Parliament.

Anyway, we do have concerns about this bill, and I know my colleagues have talked about it—but there are genuine concerns. The first one is the process. It’s absolutely inconceivable that a Minister for Racing who has such good connections, knows the time frames, and knows the importance of this, has wasted so much time to bring this bill to the House; and then when he does, he only gives the industry 11 days to actually look through the proposal and make submissions. Five of those days were public holidays. That is just poor management of a very important industry. I know the Minister for Racing believes he’s the special champion of this industry—but one, that is just simple organisational skills, and that was very poorly done. Here we are, having to rush through this piece of legislation to be able to make this work in time.

The other thing is the protection around how this is going to be managed in the future. I know there’s the Racing Industry Transition Agency being put in place. But even amongst the different racing codes, the trotting codes, the racing industry, the greyhound industry, how the funding is going to be allocated is slightly unclear.

Then at another level—which the Hon Nikki Kaye has been talking about—there is this issue around how money is going to be distributed with other sporting codes. Those issues haven’t had the clarity they require, and I think we’ve got an issue with that. But we will be supporting this bill.

Second Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What a difference a week makes. Only a week ago, we were in this House, listening to the National Party contribute to the first reading of this bill, and we heard two different arguments from the same side. It’s something that we should get used to, but some members were saying they supported it and other members were saying they didn’t support it. But at least today they’ve come together and it seems they now support it. So good on them—good on them for finally realising common sense and supporting this bill which supports the racing industry of this country.

They do have some reservations, which I am absolutely certain in a week’s time they probably will no longer have. They’ve complained about the process, despite the fact that there was a significant consultation period on the Messara report, where the industry had every opportunity to express their concerns about what is facing the industry—which is exactly what this bill addresses, because what this bill does is it sets up the transitional process. That’s it. The other bills that are going to come after this—the second and third tranche, if there is indeed a third tranche. But, certainly, the second tranche that comes up next is going to go through the full committee process, because that will actually be proposing the recommendations that the Government adopts that came through from the Messara report and the consultation period.

So there’s actually no cause for concern here, because what this is, is a first step. What this does is it takes the first step under the leadership of the Rt Hon Winston Peters, a man who wants to preserve the racing industry for generations to come. For those that enjoyed racing when they were young—and they might be old now, they might be turning retirement age soon—and they look back to when racing was in its heyday, I want to ensure that heyday comes back so that when I am facing retirement in 31 years’ time, I can say that we played a part—

💬 SPEAKER: That will be the mid-point of the member’s career.

Sorry?

💬 SPEAKER: It will be the mid-point of the member’s career, just like for me. Thank you.

That’s right, Mr Speaker. With public speaking like this, I happen to agree with you.

Now, the point here is that we’ve had a bit of scaremongering going on on this bill. We have heard that sports is going to be decimated because of the changes that are not proposed in this bill. Now, that’s a very special type of scaremongering, to say that something’s going to happen because it’s not mentioned. But what the select committee process—now, keep in mind that the National Party have said that the select committee process was inadequate, but despite that, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have taken on board the concerns and they have included a provision, which the Government supports, to require the Minister for Racing to consult the Minister for sport on any potential consideration around the revenue for sport.

There have also been suggestions that the revenue for sport that is coming in through this bill and what it proposes is not enough and there’s not enough focus on sport, despite the fact that the New Zealand Racing Board has always existed for the preservation of racing in this country. It wasn’t until sports betting was allowed that the sport became an aspect of it.

So what this bill actually does and what it’s proposing is that once the transitional process is complete, sport are going to have a say in the body that replaces the New Zealand Racing Board—something that doesn’t exist now and the National Government had nine years to fix, but now it’s only because it’s this Government’s idea that they are concerned about it. But I know for a fact that organisations like Sport New Zealand are not concerned, because I don’t know if that side has listened to the submissions or read the submissions, but what they said was that what’s proposed in this bill is good for racing and it’s good for sport.

💬 Hon Member: There you go.

There you go—there you go. The organisation that that party on the other side of the House is supposed to be expressing concerns about has no concerns. So that’s absolutely fantastic.

The point here is that this bill, simply, introduces the transitional process so that we can move from what currently exists—which, in my view, and the view of my colleagues on this side of the House, is an unsustainable model—towards something that is going to save racing, and make sure that the huge, significant economic impact that racing has on this country, be it in the provinces like where I live in Wairarapa or be it in places like in the Waikato, where my good colleague Jamie Strange lives, where breeding is king—not only the product of racing but exporting the horses as well. And then there are the jockeys and the trainers and the owners. Racing is a significant contributor to our economy. This bill will go a long way to ensuring that it continues to be so in the future.

Second Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First, I’d just like to acknowledge the Minister that has brought this bill before the House, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. I think he has shown a real dedication to the racing industry over many, many years. I congratulate him on bringing this bill in front of the House. It is something that is very welcomed within the racing industry and, I believe, within the sports as well. So I wish to pay him credit for that. It builds on the work that had been done by previous committees of this House, and it is something that is important for the future of racing and sport in New Zealand.

We have a strong and proud history in racing, and let’s not forget that. It is part of our culture and our traditions, and we all love to embrace when a New Zealand horse wins the Melbourne Cup or another race. It’s part of what we see as our culture, and it’s part of our agricultural heritage, and it can be part of our future income earning potential as well.

There is a future in racing, and it is a strong future, and it may need to change and it may need to develop, but that’s like any other industry, especially any primary industry that works in a new market and with new directions. This is an integral part of giving racing not only the signal that this Parliament supports it but also the confidence to go out and achieve that future. We wish the racing industry the very best in doing that.

Aligned with that, sport has exactly the same opportunity from this bill. In fact, I would say sport earns more money out of this bill than racing will in the future. This actually will cement and create a future in sport that they would not have had a year ago, and I think that is something that they acknowledge. Of course, they’ll be negotiating for the best deal they can, but that’s part of this bill and this process.

If we go back to racing for a minute: if we look at the racing industry, there is huge potential in what we can see in the Asian markets, and, once China develops its racing industry, that will be an opportunity for New Zealand horses, New Zealand jockeys, and New Zealand trainers to actually go out there and take on that market—and particularly New Zealand breeders, because we are one of the very few countries in the world that produce world-class horses. On our borders and in our future there will be a large market for those horses over time. You just have to look at the Singapore and Hong Kong markets and how massive they are now, and, with the opening up of the rest of China, that will be a great opportunity for our region. There is also the Australian opportunity that we see now as well.

But this should not be let go as the opportunity for New Zealand racing. I wish to see the plan from the Minister for Racing for the next step. We know this is the first step of legislation. There’s another step of legislation that is going to come before this House later next year. But there is a step in between, and that is what we do with this money for the racing industry. If we just put that money into the grand pot and let it be evaporated around the racecourses of New Zealand, we will not get the full potential. There needs to be strategic change within the industry. There needs to be some hard choices made around tracks and what kind of races we have. Those choices are not made in this legislation. The Minister is not proposing to make those choices, but what the Minister is proposing is to give a cash injection, which would enable the industry to make those choices. I really encourage the industry to look at this money and then to go out there and look at what we actually need.

We need races that are of value for people to invest in horses and for trainers and jockeys and drivers to be able to get a return on their investment. We need to create that category of racing with this kind of money and not dilute it through the whole industry. We need to make sure that we create that world-class industry where there is that potential, and that will be the secret of what the Minister does next.

I will encourage him to take that on board, because this legislation gives an opportunity. But let us not lose that opportunity, like we have in the past. Let’s make this opportunity one that actually works for the industry going forward, and that can never be in legislation making those choices. Well, it could be, but it’s not actually the best place for it. The best place is for the industry, the Minister, and others to come together in agreement on that.

That brings me to the next big point of this legislation, which is that there is an element of good faith in it. All three codes have come together in good faith. None of those codes have guaranteed representation on the future board. None of the sports organisations have guaranteed representation on a future board. None of those codes have guaranteed distribution percentages coming forward from this, and none of the sports codes have guaranteed distribution percentages. But that is not a problem, because all have argued and agreed to work in good faith, and they’re working in good faith so that nobody is left behind, so that nobody loses out of this bill. But the rewards that this bill gives to racing and to sport are fairly and evenly distributed so that all can gain.

They all see the potential in working together rather than against each other for common goals, and that is the second thing I think the Minister needs to really support and work with. There is an element of trust between the three codes and between sports, and, if the Minister gets that right, he can continue that good-faith element so that the issues around distributions or representation on boards aren’t the major thing. What is the major thing is that there will be that gain there for racing and sport.

You may ask: how much is in it for sport? Well, if you look at the departmental report, they’re talking about $18 million to $33 million per annum for sport. Those are substantial investment numbers that could come into sport. So there is what we had in the past, called the race fields legislation, which had an information charge and a consumption charge, which would enable New Zealand racing and sport to gain from overseas betters on New Zealand races. In addition to that, the Minister has put into this legislation the removal of the levy that sports and racing would pay. That 4c levy now is in addition to the consumption and information charge.

Just on rough back-of-the-envelope numbers, you’re probably getting about $10 million coming out of that for sport. But, if you look at the potential, it could be that $18 million to $33 million. That will be a massive injection into our sports codes. As Kieran McAnulty rightly acknowledged, some sports may wish for more than that. But the reality is the TAB had been set up by New Zealand Racing Board and there is an element that other sports use that particular avenue for looking at how they get their investment.

This bill is an opportunity not only for racing but for sport, and I really encourage all the parties that are involved to continue with that good-faith element. I encourage the Minister to not look at just passing this legislation and then going on to the second legislation. That legislation won’t solve the issues. What will solve the issues are strong financial decisions made by our racing codes and our racing clubs and the racing industry in general. This gives the opportunity for that to happen. So I applaud the bill for this House. I think that it is good legislation that will enable good change to happen, and sports will succeed as a result of this as well. So I congratulate all those that have been involved in it and commend it to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Second Reading

It’s with great pleasure that I reiterate New Zealand First’s support for this Racing Reform Bill for two reasons, actually: firstly, it’s a really good piece of legislation, as the previous speaker, Mr Bennett, has outlined; and, secondly, for me not to do so would be career-limiting. Actually, I would commend the previous Minister for Racing, David Bennett, on his contribution just finished. I did have in my notes a scathing rebuke of racing being adrift under the last National Government, for which he was a Minister, but since he’s made such a conciliatory speech, and looking to the future, I will lay off.

But this is, of course, a very important industry for this country, with a $1.6 billion contribution to our GDP, but it has been stagnant over a number of years. I think, if we look back 10 years, we would see those same figures, and, of course, over time, costs and the like have risen and it’s becoming harder and harder for people in the racing industry to make ends meet—and, of course, the thousands and thousands of workers that are employed by the industry. If you look at similar sized economies, like Ireland, for example, that has a similar racing culture to our own, their industry has reformed itself and has been much more successful than ours over the last 10 years and is, in fact, thriving. So I think it does show the way that there is hope for the racing industry, for adopting some of the measures. Of course, we know this is just the first part of a two-part reform of the industry on the back of the Messara report. Mr Messara is highly regarded; his reform of Racing New South Wales has been incredibly successful and he has come here with huge mana and produced a report which will be the template for the revival of the racing industry.

I was just actually at the Fieldays last week up in Mystery Creek in Hamilton—of course, Mr van de Molen’s country and Mr Bennett’s country, as well. At the New Zealand First stand there were many people from the racing industry coming in and saying how grateful they were that they had a Minister that was taking the bull by the horns and actually rolling his sleeves up and getting some action going in the industry. It has been stagnant, they had lacked some leadership, and they were very grateful. As has been outlined, it’s that money coming in, and we need it flowing into the stakes, that then flows into the breeders, because there’s a return on investment. What Messara showed us was that if you’re racing a horse in New South Wales you can expect, for every dollar you put in, to get a 49c return. Of course, that might not sound good in terms of putting your money in the bank but this is greater than that. This is the thrill of racing, and the ability to have that once-in-a-lifetime horse. But it’s 49c on the dollar over there. Here, its 22c and it is declining. So we do need these wider reforms, of which this is the first tranche.

Of course, in the Budget we found—in the announcement and, of course, in this as well—the progressive decrease of the levy that the TAB needs to pay back to the Government, which, in three years, will have $13.9 million extra going into both racing and to sport, which will be hugely appreciated and is part of that virtuous cycle that this bill will start. Of course, there are the provisions in the bill to bring in the Racing Industry Transition Authority to oversee the second tranche. The second tranche looks at the structural reform of the industry, the footprint. That will be more controversial. It will have a greater consultation process, and is due that.

We’ve also, within this, looked at the gambling harm and—it’s been referred to by others—that is a serious issue. It’s good to see more resources going into that particular aspect. I commend my colleague Darroch Ball, who oversaw the select committee process. It was truncated but there were 42 submissions and, I believe, nine oral. There were some—as Mr McAnulty outlined in his contribution—small but significant improvements made to the bill through that process.

This is an important industry for New Zealand. It’s a cultural—rugby, racing, and beer. While we are a more diverse multicultural society these days than maybe we were back in the heyday, it’s still a very big part of our culture, going down to the local racetrack. I know I certainly enjoy taking my family down there in the summer on occasion, and to some of the race meetings down south. It is a legacy industry for this country. There is, as overseas examples show, much potential to grow it back towards where it was. We know that, as outlined previously, looking into Asia and the huge growth of the racing over there, the breeding has got significant potential to grow its contribution to our GDP. So, without further ado, I have much pleasure in reconfirming New Zealand First’s support for this bill. Thank you.

Bill read a second time.

I’m pleased to be able to make a contribution in the debate on the Wellbeing Budget 2019. But, more importantly, I am proud of a Prime Minister who is courageous in her leadership to say that we will look beyond GDP as an economic success measure for this country and we will broaden our focus to the wellbeing outcomes for people in their communities, across the regions in New Zealand, that will deliver real, transformative change. That takes courage. We support her leadership, and it will be the first wellbeing Budget in the world that any country can say is about more than economics; it’s about people.

We are taking a number of issues very seriously. As the Minister of Finance has indicated, we are using evidence to underpin the top issues upon which we’re focusing in this Wellbeing Budget, like taking mental health seriously; like ensuring that we’re breaking the cycle of child poverty and domestic violence, with a key focus on child wellbeing, by investing in crucial national infrastructure like our hospitals—remember when the walls were seeping at Middlemore Hospital under the previous administration with I don’t know what—like investing in our schools now and into the future, and like managing our books responsibly and growing the economy to where there are more jobs for more people and they are not limited in their vision and opportunity for themselves. We’re reducing the long-term economic challenges like building a sustainable economy and preparing for jobs in the future, where all New Zealanders have a real chance to get a step up the ladder of opportunity.

This approach is underpinned by good evidence, it’s underpinned by an intergenerational focus, and it is underpinned by an investment strategy that sits across portfolios and says that no longer will we be making investments in isolation of the impact that it can have on people, and it works across other Government agencies in a joined-up way with communities and with providers. I think that’s a change we should all have confidence in.

When we think about mental health, for example, each and every one of us in this House is only one degree away from knowing someone with a mental health illness, knowing someone with drug and alcohol addiction issues, or actually knowing someone who has dealt either directly or indirectly with the issues around suicide. I’m not proud to say that New Zealand has the highest rates of suicide. It is heartbreaking when you hear stories from within your own whānau about the impact of that. But if we broaden the focus of how this Government is dealing with the issues of mental health, we can say that this is an opportunity to really turn the dial up on how we respond within our communities to all sorts of mental health issues. Whether you’re in towns or in the rural sector, many of our people need access to front-line services—people who have the expertise trying to deal with issues at a very preventative, local level, rather than escalating to a level where you need the crisis assessment and treatment team to go out into a community. We will be investing in the front-line services in the mental health space.

We will be ensuring that there are going to be drug and alcohol addiction services and kaupapa Māori services. Indeed, our Minister of Health was in Gisborne just the other week, announcing the support for that community to have access to improved drug and alcohol services, and it is also an opportunity to deliver kaupapa Māori mental health services. It will make a difference, and, importantly, when I think about the challenges and opportunities that we have to respond to young people in this space, again, this investment will signal that we need appropriate services for young people, to address issues around support, especially in the youth suicide space, but, more importantly, just access to online services, to front-line services, to nurses in schools, and the like. I am pleased about this particular announcement because I know in my small, little community, there is a need.

When I think about improving child wellbeing, I want to acknowledge Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jan Logie because we were with her when she made the announcement in this space, and there were all sorts of community providers coming out and saying, “Finally a Government who is serious about addressing the issues underpinning some of the greatest vulnerabilities that exist across many of our communities in New Zealand.” Under her leadership, with the support of many Ministers across many portfolios, front-line services in this area will have access to the resources and the supports that they need to respond to crisis but, more importantly, to the long-term wellbeing outcomes in the areas of sexual violence and family violence. It will make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable—those children growing up in households having witnessed violence—but, more importantly, long-term outcomes for them. There is an opportunity for us to think about the way in which a wellbeing Budget can impact just at a very local level people within our communities.

Now, I’m preceding the contribution of the member for Hamilton East. Do you know what he said was the deficit of this Budget? “Not enough focus on roads in the Waikato.”—not enough focus on roads in the Waikato. Well, I can test, actually, everything he said about more focus on roads by saying that I’d rather focus on people, but here’s what it means in your community, where the rubber hits the road. Take the winter energy payment. I grew up in Huntly, where fog is a pretty regular occurrence in the winter. There are cold, cold homes in some places, but, more importantly, the winter energy payment has meant that over a 22-week period during those winter months, people are eligible to get up to $450, if they’re single, in a winter energy payment. If they’re couples or people living with dependent children, they’re able to get up to $700 extra for that 22-week winter period. Now, I don’t know about you, but many people have said to me, “This makes a difference. I’m on a fixed income. It makes a real difference in terms of my overall health and wellbeing over that period of time.”

But if there’s anything that I have got feedback on within my electorate, it’s actually from our parents about the school donation. For decile 1 to 7 schools, instead of charging school donations, for each child who agrees to sign into this initiative, they’ll get $150 per student. We’ve got teachers in our team, and they know at the coalface in many low-decile schools how difficult it is to raise school donations from a very low socioeconomic community. But here’s the thing: schools see this as a real opportunity to do some extra things with this new funding that will come into those particular schools, and I know it will make a difference. It takes a lot of pressure off parents. I’ve heard a lot of positive things about that initiative. I want to thank the Minister of Education, but, more importantly, I want to thank him for being able to reach what we hope will be a fruitful agreement with their primary teachers and our secondary teachers.

Now, let me come very quickly back to some of the targeted initiatives in the Budget for Māori. Essentially, the focus on developing regional economies through whānau development and whenua—engaging people with their land—will be a positive thing for many whānau throughout our country. The investment in Whānau Ora and the social outcomes for our whānau under the leadership of the Hon Peeni Henare will, I think, continue to improve the responsiveness for many of our whānau in our communities to lead a more productive lifestyle in a way that they can design and in a way that has long-term beneficial outcomes. I applaud his leadership.

When I think about the cadetships led by the Hon Willie Jackson, this is an incentive to employers to pick up cadets and enable them to learn while they earn. It’s not an apprenticeship, but it’s to incentivise the cadets to be able to get into work and then learn some skills relevant to that workplace, and then be able to be grown by the employer. In the regions, this is an initiative, a critical investment, that has taken people up in Gisborne, transferring them from a life in forestry to actually going into manufacturing, and I’ve seen first-hand what those benefits are—credit to him.

I acknowledge Minister Davis in terms of the work that he’s investing himself in, in terms of trying to change the lives of those who are caught in our prison system. I want to really commend the investment in Māori Pathways so that there is a longer opportunity for lifetime positive outcomes—the reduction of recidivism—through that investment to support those who are in prison. There are many, many other things.

Lastly, big ups around the investment for kōhanga reo. That particular investment in and of itself has meant that a legacy institution contributing to language outcomes for our tamariki but, more importantly, lifetime learning outcomes for our whānau has been received warmly. I want to ensure that we continue to work hard on a wellbeing Budget that works for everybody through broad investments making an intergenerational impact through targeted investments, and lifting up and pushing forward the opportunities—in this case, for Māori—because it’s going to make a big difference. I support it. I support our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and her courage and conviction—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I had a circumstance happen just recently where a young person from a local school saw my name—Hon Alfred Ngaro, National list MP—and she said to me, “What does the ‘Hon’ stand for?” I said, “Well, it’s ‘honourable’. It’s when you become a Minister.” But also too, I then said to her, “Actually, under parliamentary rules, all members are honourable, and that’s the reason why we call them ‘honourable members of Parliament’.” The understanding is that the level of trust and the threshold is set high, and that threshold is set because it’s the integrity that we set in regards to what we do and how we do it and what we say.

Part of the role of being in Opposition is to hold the Government to account for the things that it says, and I know on the other side they’ll be saying they’ve heard a very common focus of the debates from this side, which is that the coalition Government are failing to deliver on their promises. Now, it’s very easy to say that, but you’ve got to be able to back it up. So, when I stand here in this House and make this speech, I do so understanding the integrity of having a debate where you’ve got to be able to back up your words. At the same time too, to the Government, they too have to back their words. So when I say the Labour - New Zealand First - led coalition—I notice they don’t say that very much—are failing to deliver on its promises, I want to back that up with evidence that proves the point.

On many occasions, the current Government has been told to be mindful and careful about the way that it’s put together its manifesto—its promises that it’s been making. However, following the election, Labour increased the funding envelope available to them. This was only made possible because of a previously growing economy. They were warned before the election that the promises they were making were too great and their funding too tight, and during that election campaign Labour dismissed these concerns and said all these figures were costed as is—in other words, there was not a problem. So here’s where the crunch comes, because when you come to a Budget—which, I tell most people, probably is the most important time in the life of Parliament over here because it’s where the Government of the day begins to declare its manifesto, the promises that it’s made when it’s been out there, and then people hold them to account.

So when we talk about broken promises, what would they be? These are not only coming from us but they’re also coming from the community. Well, the first broken promise is that they promised no new taxes. We all know they have introduced seven new taxes to date. In fact, during the urgency motion, there were another two more that were introduced during their period of time. Another promise? They promised $10 cheaper doctors visits for all. That’s not in the Budget—another broken promise. Again, when we talk about wellbeing, this is at the heart of wellbeing. Under a National-led Government, we made sure that not only were doctors visits for children under the age of 15 free but also after-hours and also their prescriptions. But no, under this current Government, the promised $10 cheaper doctors visits are not in there—another broken promise. There was a promise for $20 million for access to lifesaving medicines for New Zealanders with rare disorders—that is not in this Budget.

I want to go on the record as saying that I, along with a number of other MPs that are here, was outside Parliament on two occasions when petitions from Metavivor came along. They had declared the fact that they are at stage 4 with breast cancer. They need to ensure that they receive medicine and medication, which is purchased, bought, by Pharmac, to ensure that their lives could not only be prolonged but, in most cases, be saved. This funding here would have helped save lives. They went even further, these Metavivors, who said that not only is it a broken promise but these are lives now that eventually will die.

So I hope the weight of the burden of a promise made, and now a promise broken, is heard and resounds in this hall of Parliament, because a number of us were out there. In fact, a number of them said why was it that $200 million was spent—and now we’ve seen that there was no outcome, no result, out of that investment—on a tertiary fees-free investment, and yet that $200 million would have gone a long way. In fact, all they needed was $20 million to make up the shortfall so that those rare drugs could be purchased. There’s some accounting to be done.

Another broken promise: annual health eye check for seniors. It’s not in the Budget, so now we’ve got our elderly. People often say that a nation’s concern for wellbeing is indicated in regards to how it cares and it looks after its young and its old. So already we are having situations where both our young and old are not being cared for—another broken promise here.

The promised early childhood education funding for 100 percent qualified teachers—not in this Budget, again, for our young people. The promise to increase the age of breast screening to 74—not in this Budget.

The promise that no one would be sleeping in cars last winter—failed, and failing again. We’ve got more people sleeping in cars than there were previously, under a National-led Government. Another broken promise: they committed to not housing people in motels. The amount of angst that came from the Opposition at that time, who are now the Government, who would continue to criticise us for putting people in motels, and yet now we have not only increased the number in there, but the number’s been increased threefold of those who are now in motels.

The promise to build light rail to the airport within four years—no sign of even a business case, and that’s rumoured to be headed for the scrap heap. There’s a growing concern here out in our communities, because on one hand those members are going out there and ringing the jingle bells and saying “Look, we’re here—Father Christmas is here to give out and dish out all the dollars that are out there to help the people.”, but if you don’t have a plan, if you’re not considered, if you don’t know how to measure and monitor that, then there’s a real concern in our community that is growing.

There’s no commitment to build light rail, even to Auckland north-west, ever. I’m in the north-west. I’m actually in Te Atatū, and I can tell you that when people heard there potentially could be light rail and when that Minister, the Hon Phil Twyford, made the promise—and now it’s a promise broken. There’s no date, there’s no plan, there’s no promise, and there’s no funding that goes with it.

I want to touch just briefly on a couple of areas that I think are really important. I want to acknowledge that under my shadow portfolio of the Minister for Children, I want to acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin, who’s doing an exceptional job and who’s working as hard as she can to address some very complex and very difficult issues in the work she’s doing. I want to acknowledge also too that most of the plan that we’ve negotiated and talked about is some of the plan that’s continued on from the Hon Anne Tolley’s work.

But I have raised this, and I know this is a concern in our communities around improving our outcomes for Māori—in particular, Māori tamariki. In this there was a plan that was submitted to us and there was a Budget allocation of $1.1 billion—which we think is really important—around Oranga Tamariki. But we are now seeing those concerns where a number in the Māori community are actually coming to the fore. They’re coming to the fore because they’re saying that the uplift policy actually is not good enough; in fact, if anything, it’s broken. Us on this side, and even myself, we’ve been very cautious and careful because we know that the role and the task and responsibility for those at the front line is always challenging.

There are two areas that we think are really important that relate to this Budget: policy and practice. So while we said that in this Budget there’s been an allocation, an increase, to ensure that on the front line there is the promise of 900 extra front-line staff—those would be social workers and caregivers that are in there—there is a concern because both the ministry and the Minister have gone on record actually saying that they will work with Māori more intensively. I’ve got in the Hansards that I have here that that’s the same promise that was made nearly 12 months ago, and that was over another incident with Oranga Tamariki. So while I commend the Minister on what she’s doing, and it’s a very complex issue, I have to say that there’s some accountability that needs to be done in this regard, especially for our Māori whānau. I know that actually a number of the Māori MPs—I commend them—have been meeting with the Minister to try and address this critical issue as well.

I want to also then talk about, just briefly, some of the allocation that’s gone to Pasifika. I want to commend the Hon Aupito William Sio, who last year—he will remember. In fact, I saw him on the street, and there was nothing in the Budget. In fact, his expression was like this [Member opens his arms], and I’m pretty sure he said in Samoan, “It was a fa‘a moa Budget for Pacific.”—in other words, there was nothing in there, not even a chicken to take home. But, you know, I want to commend him for the work that he’s done in which he’s now been able to see an increase: $20 million over four years for the Minister for Pacific Peoples, around a language unit. I want to commend the Minister on that, and the ministry. We had previously done some work around setting up the framework to look at languages, and that’s where we’d left it. He’s obviously taken it further on to see how they could do that. The only thing I would say on that would be as to how the progression of that will continue to improve some of the outcomes around education. We look forward to seeing what that will be.

My time is just about up. On this side, I want to continue to say that the current Government is failing to deliver on its promises—they are broken. This is not just from us on this side; many in our communities are reiterating the same comments. So we would say that the current Government should keep its promises to the people of New Zealand.

It is an absolute pleasure to rise and take a speaking slot for New Zealand First. Never in the field of New Zealand Government Budgets and appropriations was so much owed by so many to so few. All over the land, New Zealanders concerned about our security, the environment, our fisheries, our resources, human trafficking, transnational crime, drug running, and our reputation as a credible and reliable nation committed to the rules-based order that underpins our ability to trade, to travel, to live, and prosper are rejoicing. All over the world, our strategic partners and friends—and even our only ally, Australia—who value our contributions to the United Nations, to the multinational force and observers, and to coalition peacekeeping operations in the interests of restoring, maintaining, and advancing peace are astonished and amazed.

All over the Pacific, nations who are bearing the brunt of climate change and who live daily with the consequences of more frequent, more destructive, less predictable weather patterns, cyclones, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes are breathing a collective sigh of relief and are thanking us—this Government—for the Wellbeing Budget and the historic investment by this Government in defence. All over the motu, throughout our homes, our communities, and our nation, people—young and old, men and women, adults and children—are welcoming the historic commitment of this Government to the wellbeing of our veterans and their families and to the wellbeing of our women and men in uniform and their families, and are voicing their approval, their gratitude, for this Government’s historic commitment to our military.

Internationally, there is only one thing, and one thing alone, that matters when it comes to a nation’s foreign policy, a nation’s strategic defence policy, a nation’s defence capability, and its plans for the future, and that is credibility. This Budget from this New Zealand First - Labour coalition Government has put the capital “C” in the country’s credibility in the eyes of the world. Why do I say that? Well, contrary to the predictions of some in the Opposition that this Government would cut defence expenditure, would not meet its commitments internationally, would not fund deployments, and would not meet the challenges of the capability deficit bow wave that had been created by successive Governments in, indeed, may I say it, probably the last 18 years and the last nine years in particular, this Government, contrary to those predictions, has done quite the reverse.

It has announced the largest investment in defence that this nation has seen. In the veterans and defence space, in this Wellbeing Budget, we’ve seen an increase in baseline funding for defence. We’re seeing $185 million additional for defence force operating funding over four years to support the delivery of the Strategic Defence Policy Statement of 2018. We’ve seen investments for navy, army, and air force capability, and for personnel growth, remuneration growth, vital military enablers such as health, security, and ICT, and, in defence, for estate maintenance right across camps and bases.

We’ve made the big decisions and funded them—not just talked about them; funded them. The P-8s: here we’ve made a big decision in defence capability that is a generational change, a decision that has been deferred and deferred and deferred to the point where our P-3s are going to come to the end of their life and the capability will be lost unless the Government steps up and addresses that question. It is with great pride I stand here and say that the $1.704 billion of capital funding for the P-8s has been appropriated.

💬 Brett Hudson: The Greens aren’t happy about those war machines.

A total of $2.4 billion, Mr Hudson. Nine years, Mr Hudson—who is chipping in—of being out there on the streets and telling people at Ōhākea and Linton and Burnham and Waiōuru and Papakura and Whenuapai that that Government cared about defence and our reputation internationally, and nine years went by and no decision.

💬 Brett Hudson: Good to see you’re implementing our white paper.

No decision, Mr Hudson—no decision, not at all. Mr Mark Mitchell has to go down in history, for sure, as the laziest Minister of Defence ever.

I take my hat off to Mr Brownlee. I can look back through the Cabinet papers and see the decisions. Next year, Aotearoa will sail into New Zealand waters—congratulations, Mr Brownlee. A Cabinet paper well thought out, a capability so desperately needed, and it will be delivered. This Government will make sure of that and is making sure of that. That project will be completed. That is the mark of a worker. That is the mark of a Minister of Defence who was actually interested in the portfolio and had some clout at the Cabinet table to get the decision made. Congratulations, Mr Brownlee, and we mean to ensure that that project comes in on time, to spec, and to budget.

💬 Brett Hudson: Good. We’ll be watching.

It does not excuse other Ministers of Defence, Mr Hudson, from ducking and shirking their responsibilities to the security of wellbeing of the people of this nation and the Pacific, but we’ve done it. Better than that, we’ve gone on, Mr Hudson. Those P-8s are necessary to conduct flights over our vast territorial area of responsibility, which makes up 11 percent of the globe, Mr Hudson.

It doesn’t matter where I go: in Shangri-La Dialogue recently, the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ meeting, travelling with the Hon Tim Macindoe, travelling with Simon O’Connor—the plaudits that are coming back to this Government are real, and they speak of nations who are respecting the decisions in the defence space that this Government is taking. This Government is not ducking its responsibilities and not shying away from its responsibility to its men and women in defence; it’s meeting them.

The operational funding for the Ministry of Defence: an extra $8.3 million over four years to take care of that outstanding problem left to us with the Kaikōura earthquake, which saw the destruction of their headquarters building.

💬 Veterans: $4.1 million allocated over the next four years to address deficiencies within Veterans’ Affairs in terms of its staffing and capability for case management. That is commitment to the wellbeing, and this is not just about the veterans; this is about the families of those veterans, who live day to day with these effects of deployments carried by their loved ones, increasingly becoming very obvious and of very great concern. That’s why I applaud this Government’s funding in mental health. The defence force personnel who returned from missions are thanking the Government for that extra focus and attention to mental health, and so too are the loved ones and the families who live with the consequences of deployments, day in and day out. I am thanking the Government from the bottom of my heart, as one who deployed and who has good friends who deployed and who need that help, day in, day out, and, sadly, I am reminded of those who took their own lives because that care was not available to them.

Veterans are very happy with this Budget. The families of the servicemen and women throughout New Zealand are very happy. I thank those members of the Opposition who have worked with me in trying to find a higher level of consensus so that we might collectively, as a Parliament, be able to support our women and men in uniform, going forward, together, without the political nonsense, because that’s how important this part of the Budget is. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’d just like to correct the characterisation of this Budget by Ron Mark, the member who’s just resumed his seat. It goes something like this: “Never before in the field of political endeavour has so much been taken from so many for so little.”—that, Mr Mark, explains Budget 2019. The centrepiece of this Budget has been the centrepiece of this Labour-led Government, and that is Labour failing to deliver on its promises—failing to deliver on its promises with its willing accomplices: its coalition partner, New Zealand First, and their side of Greens.

But in actual fact, as they moved into botching up completely the delivery of the Budget, they almost inadvertently, in fact, delivered on one of their promises. You see, when they took office, they claimed that they would be the most open and most transparent Government New Zealand has ever seen. New Zealanders are still waiting to see that, or they were. They’re still waiting to see evidence of that, but almost did. Well, actually, they did. The trouble was it was completely by accident, and the Government didn’t actually want it to happen. When, in the days leading up to the Budget, Treasury published summaries of the Budget documents online, we finally got to see the open and transparent Government that they claimed they would be, but we found out that they absolutely didn’t want that to happen.

The inquiry’s going on, and I’m not going to interrupt the inquiry, but here’s a little bit of technical fact: what happened, at a technical level at least, is the search engine on the Treasury website was configured—that is, set up by humans—specifically to return summary information from documents when searches were made. It is something that can be turned on; it is something that can be turned off. They failed to turn off a feature. It is not a bug; it is a feature. It is meant to be there. They failed to manage their information and, as a result, they published to the public information. Finally—once—for the first time perhaps in 18 months, they have been open and transparent, and we’ve found out they didn’t want to be. We’ve found out they didn’t want to be, so they’re now upset that they kept a promise. Well, we’ll keep it as another broken promise.

They promised when they took office that New Zealand was going to be better off for this Government and that the economy would grow, the jobs would grow, people would get better, but what have we got? What have they delivered? [Interruption] Well, they promised it, but they’ve failed. They have failed to deliver on that promise, too. They inherited an economy growing at around 4 percent, and right now, just 18 months in, it’s barely above 2 percent. Jobs had been growing at an average of 10,000 a month under National.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: What are they now?

Well, last quarter, they went backwards by 4,000—actually backwards—and all of this stems from their inability to have a suite of policies that can actually take New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses with them. Business confidence still remains at record lows because of the things the Government has chosen to do and is continuing to do in this Budget. They are things like showing it’s still not ready to govern, with 250-plus working groups, costing the best part of half a billion dollars; passing union-friendly laws that are going to take business relations, industrial relations, back to the 1970s, and back to the 1970s is where our economy will be as well; and banning an entire industry, in effect, by banning new exploration for oil and gas—particularly off our region that relies so strongly on it, and which delivers some of the highest average wages and salaries in the economy. What did they do? They looked to wipe it out overnight with no consultation.

They compound that, and continue to compound that, by continuing with very poor spending which fails to deliver any tangible and measurable positive benefits, such as the $2.6 billion on the fees-free policy. They had to admit in this Budget that no extra students had taken it up last year, so they had a surplus from that last Budget that they’ve had to reallocate elsewhere. There was the $2 billion for KiwiBuild, which promised 1,000 homes in a year and has only just scraped over 100. I think they’ll have to build about one every 19 minutes now to meet the target by the end of the financial year, and I don’t think we’re going to see that happen. There is the $3 billion slush fund for Shane Jones to dispense all around the country—no doubt seeking to try to get New Zealand First’s hopes of being re-elected to Parliament improved—and there is $900 million for diplomats.

All of that combines to maintain and continue an environment where New Zealand businesses do not feel confident in the actions of the Government, today and into the future, that will encourage them to invest in some more plant, to invest in some more labour, to seek to grow their businesses—and, in doing so, to give more people opportunities to reach their aspirations and to reach their dreams—and to lift incomes across New Zealand. It’s another promise that they have failed to deliver on.

But in no greater area have they shown this failure to deliver than transport. Just before I talk on transport in some detail, I’ll just point out that this was supposed to be a wellbeing Budget. Well, here’s a question—not for them, but for New Zealand—how can it be termed a wellbeing Budget when the first three pieces of legislation under Budget urgency are either increasing taxes, increasing costs on taxpayers, or introducing new taxes? How does that deliver wellbeing?

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: It doesn’t.

Well, it doesn’t.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: It absolutely doesn’t.

It absolutely doesn’t. The first of those taxes was—it was actually two tax increases—one on fuel excise.

Here we go. In transport, they promised that they would deliver a balanced transport agenda. What have they delivered? They’ve delivered an additional $1.7 billion of tax impost on motorists and will deliver them almost nothing in return, and I’ll get to the point on that in Wellington in just a moment. You can’t call that balanced—it cannot be called balanced. A Government cannot take all the cash off the motorists, give them nothing in return, and then try to claim that what they are doing is balanced. It is completely distorted. It is completely focused on light rail ideology—ideology that has been studied in this country, and in Wellington, just a few years ago, that study showed that light rail from Wellington Railway Station to Wellington Airport would lose between 90c and 95c in every $1 spent on it—90c to 95c in every $1, down the drain. They try to say they’re balancing this; no, they’ve failed—they’ve failed to deliver that balance.

The greatest recent example of that is this Let’s Get Wellington Moving announcement just a few weeks ago. They failed to deliver on their promise to unlock productivity and to resolve the congestion issues from Ngauranga to the airport in Wellington, because that is what Let’s Get Wellington Moving was set up to deliver and its mandate wasn’t changed. What was changed was the elements of it that they have decided they will part-fund, and I’ll get to the fact about how part-funding is another broken promise.

So what do we see? Well, OK, what are they not doing? We know that they are taking more money off motorists from Wellington and elsewhere through their fuel taxes. We know that they have deliberately structured this programme so that those fuel taxes will only pay for 60 percent of the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme, which forces—so it is raising new taxes by proxy—local and regional government to put a greater impost on residents to fund the difference: $2.6 billion. So their actions and their way of structuring this place a $2.6 billion greater impost over and above fuel taxes on Wellington region residents, to deliver what? To deliver something that will not benefit those of them that are paying for it, because there is no additional southbound line from Ngauranga to Aotea Quay, there is no second Terrace Tunnel, there is no undergrounding under Te Aro, and we’ve found out—it comes as no surprise, because it was in the Cabinet paper—that “We’ll only do a second Mount Victoria Tunnel”, which they’re promising and talking up, “if it can be shown that more cars won’t use it.” Now, that’s remarkable. Every time I hear the Greens talk about transport, they say “If you build any sort of a road, more cars will use it.” So, basically, they’ve set up a system they know will fail, because they’ll only support a business case for the second Mount Victoria Tunnel if more cars don’t use it.

By pure coincidence, when they do something around the Basin Reserve, motorists will benefit slightly from that, but there’s no way that congestion from Ngauranga through the airport is going to be resolved. There’s no way motorists are getting anything of practical use out of this programme, but they’re paying for the majority of it. They are paying for the majority of it through their increased fuel taxes and through this $2.6 billion regional transport tax, which will be levied in one shape or another, but mostly through increased rates on residents and ratepayers right across the region. That is a failure to deliver on a promise of a balanced transport programme and a balanced economy for New Zealanders.

A Government can’t take all the impost off one group, give them nothing in return, and claim that that is fair. It certainly isn’t good for their wellbeing, and it pretty much sums up this Budget.

I understand this is a split call. I call Gareth Hughes—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I guess the key takeaway from the speech from the last member, Brett Hudson, was that he’s a bit sad that there weren’t enough roads in the Budget. If we took the advice of the previous member, we would have roads everywhere. Now, the fact is that for the last nine years of the previous Government, there were road-dominated Budgets. The member doesn’t know what the term is, but the academic term is actually “induced demand”: when you build roads, they rapidly fill up with cars. What we saw from the previous Government was they literally borrowed billions and billions of dollars for these high-cost, very low - benefit cost-ratio motorways—the “roads of National Party significance”. On only seven roads, they spent billions and billions of dollars. It didn’t increase productivity, didn’t increase New Zealand up the economic rankings, and actually saw people locked into an only-roads, car-based mobility system.

What this Government is standing for is actually balance. So we’ve had nine years of road Budgets; it didn’t work. Now, we’ve got a balanced system that’s actually investing in rail, investing in public transport, investing in walking and cycling, investing in road safety, and, yes, even investing in new roads.

Now, in previous Budgets we’ve had nine years of roads Budgets. We’ve had “chewing gum Budgets”, black Budgets, and “block of cheese Budgets”. This was the first time New Zealand’s ever had a wellbeing Budget. We’ve seen Budgets that have myopically focused on the surplus or the deficit and Budgets that have focused entirely on tax cuts; this is the first time we’ve seen a Budget that is focused on wellbeing—a Budget that’s actually put wellbeing above gross domestic product.

You know, as a Green MP—the previous member talked about only having a “side of Greens”. Actually, I think you can see Green ideas in the heart of this Budget, because the thing we’ve been talking about for literally decades from the Values Party and now the Green Party in Parliament for decades is actually that we need to value more things than just GDP. What we know, of course, is that a car crash increases GDP, an oil spill increases GDP, and a devastating earthquake increases GDP, but it doesn’t increase wellbeing. That should be the true metric which we measure ourselves against.

Now, I’m glad to see the international attention from around the world on this new approach to Budgets. I remember that while the previous Government were focusing on roads and tax cuts, the only time we got international press was when the previous Prime Minister was on Letterman or we were literally the butt of international jokes on The Colbert Report. We’re finally now getting international media attention for the right reasons, because the country and New Zealand is focusing on wellbeing and actually measuring the outcomes, and not just focusing myopically on GDP.

So the National Party has said “Well, how is this different?” Now, the difference, of course, is that every vote went through a Treasury process that asked the critical question, “How does it increase wellbeing?”—that’s the difference. The previous Government said “How does it build more roads? How does it just increase GDP? How does it support the National Party?”; this one asked the question “How does it increase the wellbeing of New Zealanders?” So that’s why you can see things like the child poverty targets in the heart of this Budget. That’s why you can see the indexing for benefits against average wages really improving the situation.

For the Green Party, this is our first time in Government, and this is a Budget that we can be proud of. If you add up all the Budget bid initiatives in the Green Party confidence and supply agreement, and across the work of our Ministers and other Ministers related, there’s $4.7 billion of spending which you can attribute to the Greens—and we’re glad to be working with our coalition partners, Labour and New Zealand First.

Now, for the Green purview, I think there’s big things to highlight. Jan Logie, in particular, did stellar work leading a work programme, a cross-agency work, to help reduce family and sexual violence. We’ve seen the tourist levy, which is doubling the historical amount of money that the Department of Conservation received in the last Budget. The tourist levy is going to deliver $180 million to the conservation estate, actually aiding the experience that Kiwis and tourists get with the places that we absolutely love. Significant spending in mental health. Significant spending in the environmental space, with $186.5 million improving water quality and support when it comes to the Resource Management Act. The $1 billion we’ve heard about for rail, and it’s absolutely fantastic to see the rail line opening from Napier to Wairoa; we just need to get it up to Gisborne. It’s a great first step.

From here, the Wellbeing Budget can do more to support Kiwis, to lift New Zealanders out of poverty, and to make sure that we’ve got a clean, pristine environment, that we have a tax system that actually benefits the productive economy and not just speculation and that leads the transition away from old, polluting forms of economy to the job-rich, high-quality, high-wage, clean-energy economy. This is my vision going forward. This is just the first step in a series of Wellbeing Budgets that see a richer New Zealand, a cleaner New Zealand, and a fairer New Zealand, one that moves away from neo-liberalism and an unfair economy towards true wellbeing for Aotearoa New Zealand. Kia ora koutou.

I call Golriz Ghahraman—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party is the proud heart of this Wellbeing Budget. We are leading progressive policies that are reflected in this Budget, but we’re also helping do Government differently. The way the Government works is reflected in this Budget and every Budget, and this one focuses on measuring our success in delivering the things that actually matter to our people and to nature.

This Budget delivers a massive boost on delivery of the Green Party’s confidence and supply agreement outcomes. So we’ve actually got a Budget for the first time on climate change. The actual work of the Climate Change Commission will set targets that are independently monitored to see New Zealand actually lower its emissions as part of a global move to combat this existential threat. We’re taking climate change seriously because that is central to the wellbeing of this country and the entire globe. We’re taking mental health seriously, with $1.9 billion invested in mental health services, including the line item in our confidence and supply agreement that everyone should have access to high-quality, timely mental health services, including free counselling for all under-25-year-olds. That’s huge. People are suffering. It’s huge and it’s urgent, and now we’re delivering on that. It’s not worth the surplus if our people are suffering.

But I want to focus as well on justice, something close to my heart. There is so much to celebrate in terms of doing justice differently in this Budget. I do want to start by celebrating the Green Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the prevention of domestic and sexual violence in this Government.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: She’s very experienced.

She is very experienced, says the Minister of Justice, and I know they work very closely together. But in terms of the record Budget success—the $320 million, for the first time ever, invested in preventing this epidemic in New Zealand—the beauty of this was not just the sum total of the money but that it did bring so many Ministers together across the justice sector, across education, and across health, because we’re admitting that everyone has to work together to prevent this absolute epidemic that’s affecting most New Zealanders. Let’s face it.

So there will be more support for front-line services. We will do justice in the courts differently to support fairness for victims, and that will take a whole-of-Government approach, which is reflected in this Budget win.

We’re providing mental health services to prisoners because we know that a vast majority of the people we lock up in prison actually suffer from serious, lifelong diagnoses of mental health and addiction challenges. So we’re investing $128 million in supporting an extra 2,310 people who are currently in prison without access to appropriate mental health services to finally get the help that they need. We’re finally focusing on rehabilitation and safe reintegration of prisoners back into the community because we know that that’s the only way that we will keep us all safe. That’s the only way that we will bring down the prison population and we will keep our communities safe and we’ll bring down crime. We are basing our work in the justice system on evidence, not on tough-on-crime rhetoric that only ever makes politicians look tough on crime while the rates rise and people suffer.

We are investing in our Human Rights Review Tribunal because, actually, the year and a half wait, at minimum—an 18-month wait—for cases to be heard by that tribunal is access to justice denied. We are investing in community law centres and we’re investing in legal aid, mental health services for our prisoners, and Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Review Tribunal funding. We are saying that access to justice shouldn’t be reserved for just the few; it’s for everyone. Human rights are for everyone. That’s what wellbeing depends on.

But the further work we do need to do in preventing what causes offending, imprisonment, and human rights breaches still remains and will come in further Budgets. It is in addressing the reform of our welfare system. It is in providing more mental health services. It’s in providing homes for everyone and jobs. We do see this as a first step in the Green Party, but we are so proud to be part of a Government that is actually doing Budgets differently. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m pleased to be able to take a call this afternoon, my first contribution on this Budget debate. We’ve come into this year with very, very high expectations. The Prime Minister herself has said that this will be the year of delivery. She apparently forgets that the Government were in office all of last year, or perhaps it’s just an admission that they didn’t get up to much of substance at all. She said that this will be a transformational Government and that this will be the first wellbeing Budget. Well, let’s check that lofty rhetoric with reality.

Last year, the Government cut $5 billion from the State highway network to put into Auckland cycle and rail projects. The roads of national significance that had been put forward by the previous National Government were cancelled. The new highway north of Auckland up into Northland, which would have been hugely transformational for the Northland economy, was cancelled. The Woodend bypass, which is incredibly important for keeping people north of Christchurch safe, was axed, and in my part of the world, in the Rangitata electorate that I serve, the Christchurch to Ashburton four-lane highway was cancelled.

The existing road between Christchurch and Ashburton is not fit for purpose. Traffic volumes have doubled in the last two decades as more tourists come to experience a beautiful part of the world in the South Island. More people are commuting for work. We have more people coming from Rolleston and Christchurch down to the Ashburton District, where there’s an unemployment rate of just 1.8 percent. On the back of a strong primary sector, more and more trucks are criss-crossing the district to grow our primary sector, ferrying goods, feed, animals, and crops. Growth at PrimePort in Timaru has continued, and with the new inland port at Rolleston, there is more heavy traffic travelling between Timaru and Rolleston.

All of this growth has made the road between Ashburton and Christchurch more dangerous. The road is now the second-most dangerous stretch of highway in the country for fatalities and serious crashes, according to the Government’s own statistics. Just this morning, there was another crash just north of Ashburton. Fortunately, it wasn’t a fatal crash, but the road was shut for more than an hour. So I was hopeful that in this Budget, in this Wellbeing Budget, we’d finally see some action, because what could be more wellbeing than keeping mid-Cantabrians safe on the roads?

Now, the Minister responsible for road safety, Julie Anne Genter, seemed to agree. She said that road safety is one of the highest priorities that this Government has. Well, how do we match that with the reality of this Budget? In this Budget, they’ve cut $10 million from road safety programmes. This Budget does not match the rhetoric. This Budget and this Government have failed to deliver on their promises to New Zealanders.

It’s not like they don’t have the money. In the hours after the Budget, this Government and this Parliament passed two further petrol tax increases to further increase the cost of fuel on all New Zealanders. It’s now heading back towards record prices. All New Zealanders have to pay that—not just those who are motorists but every single person who buys any good that is moved by truck.

In fact, very, very few New Zealanders are even benefiting from these new petrol tax increases, because it isn’t just those important highway projects that have been cancelled. It isn’t just those important highway projects that have been affected by the cuts; it’s also other important regional roads that people in mid-Canterbury and South Canterbury and Southland and Northland and the Taranaki have to drive on every day.

The cuts that this Government have made mean there’s less money for important intersection upgrades like the one at Rangitata, just south of the river. Residents there have witnessed numerous crashes and have literally had to pick up the pieces of the aftermath. The intersection desperately needs widening, and under this Budget and under this Government, it’s less likely to happen because there’s less money available to do it.

As the local MP, I’ve tried to meet with the New Zealand Transport Agency to discuss upgrading the road with them. I met them twice last year, in January and again in June. Early this year, I sought another meeting with them, but it’s been turned down. The Government have prevented me from meeting with the New Zealand Transport Agency. The Minister of Transport, Phil Twyford, says they’re too busy to meet with me. Too busy to meet with me twice a year—how incredibly petty.

There is, of course, more to this Budget than just transport. I do commend the Government for investing more in mental health. As an MP representing a provincial area, I’m keen to ensure that those new resources aren’t just handed out to the major centres and that the money is distributed across the country. Last year, 20 farmers took their own lives; 18 of them were blokes. We have a serious problem in New Zealand—particularly in rural areas—with mental health.

Prior to the last election, Chris Hipkins promised New Zealanders that in the Government’s first Budget they would end the need for school donations. Last year, we searched high and low for that pledge in the Budget, but it wasn’t there. I had schools in South Canterbury who contacted me, very alarmed at the fact that they’d budgeted for the fact that they were going to receive this money. They hadn’t asked for school donations from parents and, therefore, they had a hole in their budget last year because the Government didn’t live up to their pledge. They had holes in their budgets and this Government is responsible. This year, again, the Minister has failed. Only decile 1 to 7 schools will be included, with disadvantaged families at other schools missing out. Despite the promise Chris Hipkins made before the election, there’s nothing in this Budget for schools in Methven, nothing for Mount Somers, nothing for Pleasant Point—nothing for more than a dozen schools across my electorate. This Government, again, are failing to deliver on their promises to New Zealanders.

Not surprisingly, people are upset, and it’s not just teachers—it’s not just those employed in education. Many people feel duped by the promises that the Labour Party made before the last election that are now not being delivered on. My colleagues across this side of the House this afternoon have run through some of those: KiwiBuild, a failure; maintaining a strong economy, now going backwards; and homelessness and child poverty, where the Government have not yet been able to move the dial.

We in this House wonder why politicians are one of the least trusted professions in this country. It’s because of promises made and not delivered. It’s because of people who say one thing before an election and something else after. It’s because of parties who promise the earth before they’re elected to Government and then don’t deliver. We won’t be supporting this Budget from a Government failing to deliver on their promises to New Zealanders.

I understand this is a split call.

Tēnā koe. Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Kua hōmai he rima meneti ki ahau ki te tū ki te kōrero e pā ana ki tō mātou Tahua Pūtea e kīia nei he Tahua Oranga. Āe mārika, e tika ana tērā kōrero, he Tahua oranga tēnei Tahua Pūtea i tēnei tau.

I tū whakahīhī, whakaiti anō hoki ahau i roto i Otangarei i tētahi hui i te marae o Te Puāwaitanga i Otangarei i te wiki i muri mai i te putanga o Te Tahua Pūtea. I rongo ake ahau i tētahi kōrero, tētahi kuia, tētahi māmā, hei ko tāna, “Kahore mātou e hiahia ana kia tapaina he ‘client’.”—“We don’t want to be ‘clients’.”—ko tana kōrero. Tautoko mārika mātou katoa a Te Hon Kelvin Davis me Te Hon Willie Jackson i āna kōrero me te whakahoki ki ōna kōrero. Ko te take, e titiro atawhai ana mātou, e titiro ana mātou i te oranga o te tangata, koirā te tino kaupapa, koira te tino take o tēnei Tahua Pūtea Tahua Oranga.

I whakarārangi ngā kaupapa hei tautoko ake i tērā kōrero.

Tuatahi, ko te piki ake i te moni ka hoatu ki a Whānau Ora. Neke atu i te $80 miriona kia whakapakari ake i taua kaupapa o te Whānau Ora.

Kua tautoko anō hoki te Pūtea i te mahi i roto i ngā whare herehere. I reira ahau i te whakarewatanga o te kaupapa o Te Hon Kelvin Davis i Te Whare Herehere i Ngāwhā. Tata ki te $100 miriona kua hoatu ki te hanga i te whare herehere me ngā hapū me ngā iwi i roto i taua takiwā, ngā takiwā puta noa o Aotearoa, he kaupapa Māori i roto i ngā whare herehere. Hei aha? Nātemea ko tā mātou tino hiahia, e kore e hoki mai ēnā tāngata mauhere ki te whare herehere anō.

Kua hoatu ētahi pūtea hei whakawhanake i te whenua Māori. I tēnei tau ko te $100 miriona i tēnei Tahua Pūtea ka tāpiri atu he $56 miriona anō hoki mō te whakawhanaketanga i te whenua Māori, ā, kua hoatu wētahi moni mō ngā papakāinga Māori me te whakatikatika i ngā whare kei ngā wāhi, kei ngā tuawhenua me kī.

Koia nei ētahi o ngā āhuatanga i roto i te Tahua Pūtea e kīia nei he Tahua Oranga, nā te mea e titiro ana ki ngā tāngata; koirā te mea nui, te mea nui o te ao, he tāngata.

I haere māua ko taku hoa mahi, a Kiritapu Allan, ki te kōrero ki ētahi atu tāngata. Ko ā tātou taitamariki, rangatahi anō hoki i roto i a Whangārei-terenga-paraoa, i roto i Whangārei Youth Talks, ki ngā hapū māmā anō hoki i roto i Kaikohe i te kura o Hiwa i te Rangi. I tino mihi mai rātou mō ngā momo kaupapa pērā i a He Poutama Rangatahi, ka whiwhi rātou i ō rātou raihana taraiwa motukā, mō te whakakoretanga o ngā utu mō te kura, te haere mō te kura, me te NCEA anō hoki, te utu mō ngā whakamātautau NCEA. Hei tā rātou he mea nui tēnā hei whakamāmā ake i tō rātou haere ki te kura whiwhi i ngā pūkenga.

Kua hoatu neke atu i te $75 miriona mō ngā kaupapa pērā i a He Poutama Rangatahi me te Mana in Mahi. E tika ana kia tautoko i ērā nā te mea ko ngā taitamariki puta i te kura, haere ki te rapu i te mātauranga, i ngā pūkenga kia whai mahi. Hei aha? Hei oranga, hei painga mō rātou, me ō rātou whānau anō hoki.

Mō te kotahi meneti e toe ana e hiahia ana au ki te kōrero e pā ana ki te Tahua Pūtea, te Pūtea mō Te Kōhanga Reo.

I tae mai taku whānau ki roto o Pōneke nei mō te whakarewatanga i tērā kaupapa; te whakaputanga o taua kaupapa mō te Kōhanga Reo. I rongo ahau i Te Minitā, Te Hon a Kelvin Davis e mea ana “He tīmatatanga noa iho tēnei $32 miriona hei tiaki, hei manaaki, hei whakakaha ake i tēnei mea Te Kōhanga Reo.” I roto i tana kōrero e mea ana ia, he mana tō Te Kōhanga Reo. I tae atu ahau ki te hui i taku marae, te Mane ā muri ake i tēnā i rongo ahau i te rīpoata mō te Kōhanga Reo, ka whiwhi $20 mō ia hāora ngā kaimahi. He mea nui tēnā ki a rātou, he tīmatanga tērā, ko tēnei he Tahua Oranga e kī ana ahau. Tēnā koe.

[I have been allocated five minutes to stand and to speak about our Budget, which is known as the Wellbeing Budget. Indeed, it is well named, for this year’s Budget certainly is a Budget for wellbeing.

I stood proudly and humbly at a meeting in Otangarei at Te Puāwaitanga Marae, the week following the announcement of the Budget. I heard the following from one elderly lady, a mother, “We don’t want to be ‘clients’.” The Hon Kelvin Davis, the Hon Willie Jackson, and I all agreed wholeheartedly with what she said. The reason for that is we take a compassionate view; we look at the wellbeing of the individual. That is what we are about, that is the main driver of this Wellbeing Budget.

Let me list the reasons that support this claim.

Firstly, there is the increase in the allocation to Whānau Ora. A little more than $80 million has been allocated to develop Whānau Ora imperatives.

The Budget also supports work being done in prisons. I was present at the launching of the Hon Kelvin Davis’ initiative at Ngāwhā prison. Almost $100 million is set aside to develop in the prisons, alongside hapū and iwi of that region and in other regions around New Zealand, a specifically Māori-focused programme. Why? Because it is our fervent hope that recidivism will be positively impacted.

Money has been allocated to develop Māori land. This year there was $100 million and this Budget adds $56 million for the development of Māori land, as well as some money being set aside for Māori settlements and for housing improvements.

These are just some of the highlights of the Budget, or should I say the Wellbeing Budget, because we think about people; that is what the most important thing in the world is, people.

I and my colleague Kiritapu Allan went along to talk to some other groups—to some of our young people, youth in Whangārei-terenga-paraoa at Youth Talks, and to pregnant mums in Kaikohe at the teen parent unit, Hiwa i te Rangi. We were thanked by them for various programmes such as He Poutama Rangatahi, where they are helped to get a driver’s licence; for the removal of general school fees; and for the removal of NCEA examination fees. They were clear that this would make it much easier to go to school to gain qualifications.

Around $75 million is going towards programmes like He Poutama Rangatahi and Mana in Mahi. It is only reasonable to support these initiatives because young people who have left school are looking for other options to gain the skills to get a job. Why? For wellbeing, to better themselves and their families.

For the one minute that remains for me to talk about the Budget, I wish to focus on the Budget as it affects Kōhanga Reo.

My family came here to Wellington when this initiative was launched; the announcement of the Kōhanga Reo package. I heard the Minister, the Hon Kelvin Davis, say, “This $32 million is just the beginning of funding to care for, to nurture, and to strengthen Te Kōhanga Reo.” He acknowledged the importance of Te Kōhanga Reo. I went to a meeting at my marae the following Monday, where I heard the report that Kōhanga Reo workers would receive $20 an hour. This is a big deal for them, it’s a start; in my view this is a Wellbeing Budget. Thank you.]

I call Paul Eagle—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I just acknowledge my colleague Willow-Jean Prime. I feel quite special taking a five-minute slot post her speech, because there are several similarities around talking about our tamariki. But before I do that, I do want to say how proud I am to be part of a team led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and to be involved in putting together and delivering the Wellbeing Budget.

It is different because, as we now know, it broadens its base from just looking at GDP to well beyond that. Coming from local government, I’m used to looking at things with a quadruple bottom line and I’m extra glad that that piece of legislation to reintroduce the four wellbeings means that they too can resume looking at Aotearoa New Zealand with a much broader perspective. My colleague Willow-Jean Prime talked about people, and that’s what this Budget is all about. We are putting the people back into the Budget and that’s reflected through the evidence-based approach, and can I say it’s been very, very, very well received, because we have focused on tackling those long-term challenges by doing things differently.

Look, there’s been lots of coverage of this Budget—particularly the photo—but I want to talk about a photo that I found when reading this. It really focused on taking mental health seriously, and this is when I thought of my colleague Willow-Jean Prime, next to me. It shows a person with a little fella on their shoulders, and I thought, “That’s what this is about.” It’s about all New Zealanders. I see that they’re pointing, and they’re pointing to a future of a dad or a caregiver here—it reminds me of me with my son—and giving him, in this case, the opportunity that we didn’t have in the last nine to 10 years to say, “Look, these are the things that, hopefully, when he grows up, he won’t need.”

We’ve had to put in place quite a substantial amount of resource to ensure that for those under 24 years, we can address some of those issues, and so I was really happy to be part of, really, an announcement that goes to addressing some of those issues that I hear here in Wellington. For example, I was here when Marlon Drake, the president of the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association, led a march on to Parliament. It was done during a recess time. There weren’t a lot of members of Parliament around, but I knew that it was so important when he said to me, “Do you know, when my students who I represent go and ask for help, they essentially get told ‘You’ve got to wait two to six months.’ unless you can tell them that it’s urgent, and of course everyone does. There’s just simply not the front-line service there, the resources, or the money.” I’m glad that there will be $455 million there that will give access for 325,000 people by 2023-24, and that new front-line service is something that I hope means the young people of today, and our leaders tomorrow, no longer have to spend their time marching and yelling out at the front of this building to say “Help—we need help.”

Another big part of that, too, is suicide prevention and response. I could speak all day, but I want to focus on this area because I know that the young people—I live close to a point on the southern coast of Wellington where it became known, quietly, as the point where young people jumped and ended their lives so unnecessarily.

I could go on and talk so much more about our plan for a new New Zealand, a different Budget that delivers on New Zealanders’ wellbeing. When I come to the opportunity to be able to speak again, I will continue on from where I’ve left off, but I’m really excited by what’s in this document. If we can deliver on this alone—and I know that we will, because work has already started—we’ll be making a big difference. Kia ora.

This is a Budget that shows a Government that is failing to deliver—a Government that is failing to deliver on its own promises, the promises it campaigned on, and the commitments it made to New Zealanders. This is a Budget that shows a Government that is failing to deliver a plan for economic growth, a Government that is failing to ensure that businesses make the investments needed to give Kiwis jobs, rising incomes, and certainty about their futures. This is a Budget that shows a Government that is failing to deliver lower living costs for everyday New Zealanders, but a Budget that, instead, as its very first action, has a Government passing an extra petrol tax for every single New Zealander. That shows the priorities of this Government.

We’ve had a lot of talk from the other side of the House about what is in this Budget. I want to talk a little bit about what is not in this Budget, because what is not in this Budget is any dedicated funding for Wellington transport. There is no dedicated funding to get Wellington moving, because what’s happened with the Labour-led Government, with their friends the Greens, is that for 18 months, the Government has sat around talking about what might happen in Wellington’s transport future. We were told to wait—“Wait patiently, something’s coming. Something’s coming.”, but nothing ever came. Instead, what we had was the spectacle of having Minister Twyford outside our railway station saying that some time in the next decade, the Government might like to do something around rapid mass transit—no commitment to whether that would be light rail, no commitment to whether that would be trackless trams. Actually, no decisions had been made.

We had a Minister who, when asked about the project that matters a lot to those of us who have to wait in traffic every weekend and every day in Wellington—when asked “Will you be doing something about the Mount Victoria Tunnel?”, he said, “Oh, sometime this decade, or maybe next. It just depends.” Then, when asked the question by me: “When you do duplicate that tunnel, will cars be able to use it?”, he said he wouldn’t make a commitment to that at this stage. I’ll tell you what, people sitting on Cobham Drive trying to get into the city in the morning for work, and mums and dads from Karori trying to take their kids to sport in Kilbirnie each weekend, have a very clear message for Mr Twyford, and that is to build another lane in the tunnel and let cars use it.

There were no dedicated dollars for Wellington transport in this Budget, nor was there a rescue package for the district health boards in deficit up and down this country. They’ve been told to struggle on. There was no funding beyond inflation adjustment for Pharmac, so the people waiting for cancer drugs will continue to wait and continue to wait. In this Budget, there was no tax relief for everyday New Zealanders. There was no desire from the Government to say, “Actually, you can keep a bit more of what you earn because we recognise you work really hard for it.”

There was nothing in this Budget to relieve pressure on rents, because, I’ll tell you what, here in Wellington we have experienced the absolute brunt of that. On 1 May 2018, under this Government’s watch, the median rent here in Wellington was $455. On 1 May 2019, what was the median rent? It was $510. That’s a $55 increase in rent in a year under this Government, and what is there in this Budget to address that? Absolutely nothing, because we know that the Government is failing to deliver on its central policy, KiwiBuild. “KiwiFail” means that New Zealanders who were promised that this Government would sort out housing for students who live in Wellington and who are looking for accommodation—“Oh, it’s all going to be sorted under Labour.” They have had no delivery. In fact, they’ve watched their rents climb and climb. New Zealanders looking for affordable housing are having ongoing struggles, and this Budget has nothing to deliver on that.

This is a Budget that has no funding for a number of the promises that Labour campaigned on, and I want to take a moment here to talk about the area of early childhood education. New Zealanders know what they heard in the election campaign, and they know what they hear from the Prime Minister and various Ministers. They know the rhetoric. The rhetoric is that this is a Government that cares about children. Well, actually, what we’re seeing is that this is not a Government that cares about early childhood education. We have had confirmed at select committee last week that while the Government forecast spending a certain amount of money on early childhood education in the past year, in fact, it spent $75 million less than that—$75 million less went into early childhood services than the Government forecast it would put in. So then you say to yourself, “OK, well, what would you do with that $75 million for early childhood education if you had that unexpected underspend?” Well, surely, the first thing the Government should have considered is delivering on the promises it made.

I remember Mr Hipkins standing on the steps of Parliament, standing outside the Beehive with a megaphone in his hands, pledging to the New Zealand primary teachers and to the kindergarten teachers that he would ensure there was a new funding rate to provide 100 percent qualified teachers for every early childhood service in the country. He pledged that. He pledged it was a priority. Then he went on to pledge that smaller class sizes in early childhood services and smaller ratios of teachers to students was a priority, and that it was something that Labour would deliver on. Now, were either of those promises delivered in this Budget? Absolutely not—failure to deliver. What makes it worse, of course, is that people actually believed them. People believed that when they went out and made commitments and campaigned, they would prioritise expenditure accordingly—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: They feel deceived.

—and they feel deceived. I have visited dozens and dozens of early childhood services across this country, and what they tell me is that Labour is not delivering for them.

Actually, Labour had every opportunity to do so in this Budget, because, as I say, there was a $75 million underspend in early childhood education (ECE) that could have been reallocated to priorities. It was not, because Minister Hipkins failed to prioritise ECE. Actually, the rich irony of it is—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Rich—rich? It’s an equity Budget, not a rich Budget.

—that the reason the Government says that it wanted to have more teachers have this additional funding rate is that it wants more qualified teachers in services. Well, under National, in 2016—and you should listen to this, Mr Jones, because some of your colleagues could use a few tips—70 percent of people in early childhood services had qualifications. That number—you’d expect it would have gone up under Labour, given the amount of campaigning that went on, but actually, no, the proportion has reduced. It’s now only 68 percent of people working in early childhood services having qualifications. It’s an absolute failure to deliver.

What’s happened to the number of parents complaining about the quality of early childhood services? Well, that’s increased dramatically too, because more people are concerned about the quality of care that their children are receiving, more people are complaining. Standards, in their eyes, have dropped. So we have an absolute failure to deliver.

The list of failures is huge, but the one that I really want to emphasise, and the one that concerns me most, is the failure to deliver a plan for growth, because New Zealanders are sensible people. They know that the Government doesn’t have a money tree at the bottom of the garden that creates additional funds into the future so that a band-aid can be put on every problem. They know that the only Governments who can continue to deliver increasing services in health, increasing services in education, increased investment in infrastructure, and all the things here that we in the National team want to see for New Zealanders—those things can only be sustained and delivered if you have an economy that is growing. What has actually happened to growth under this Government? Well, it went from 3.7 percent down to 2.3 percent—so it, essentially, went from 4 percent to 2 percent.

That is meaningful, because it means that there is less money coming in that is able to be spent on the things that are a priority for New Zealanders. The problem in this Budget is there is a gaping hole where a plan for growth should be and, in fact, what there is is increasing levels of discontent from business—and, Mr Jones, if you’re going to interject, this would be the time, because a lot of it comes down to you. There are a number—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Don’t bring me into the debate, thank you.

Sorry, not to you. Mr Jones would know, because the businesses have spoken to him and they’ve spoken to the Prime Minister. They’ve said “We don’t feel confident about investing under this Government.”, because one minute it’s employment laws that are being added, the next minute it’s people being told that all the dairy sector does is whine, and the next minute, it’s businesses being told that they’re to blame for every problem. Well, actually, what New Zealanders understand is that the people who employ them, the people who create jobs, and the people who invest and who are able to pay bigger wages are businesses. We need them to be confident and we need them to be operating in an economy that is based on a growth plan, and that is not here under this Government.

So this is a Budget that fails to deliver on the core promises of the Government. It is a Budget that fails to deliver for Wellingtonians here in this city, who are expecting things from this Government. It is, fundamentally, a Budget that fails to deliver a plan for economic growth, and, come 2020, New Zealanders will remember. You’re running out of time.

And don’t bring me into the debate, thank you very much.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.