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

Third Reading

I move, That the Racing Reform Bill be now read a third time.

This Government would like to thank the following people and organisations who have been instrumental in the development and passage of this bill: first, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for their time and effort in considering the bill, including those MPs and political parties who have constructively engaged in the preparation of the legislation; second, the many submitters that considered and subsequently contributed to the strengthening of this bill; third, the officials who provided advice throughout its development; fourth, Mr John Messara for laying out the blueprint for these reforms, and the ministerial advisory committee for their work in guiding the implementation of Mr Messara’s recommendations; and, fifth and finally, the New Zealand racing industry for their enthusiasm and support.

This bill lays the foundation for a wider set of reforms that are focused on delivering a New Zealand racing industry that is financially sustainable, internationally recognised, and competitive. This bill puts the New Zealand racing industry into transition so that the necessary changes are set up for a desirable future. The New Zealand Racing Board is reconstituted as the Racing Industry Transition Agency—or RITA—and RITA has a new membership and a legislative mandate that encompasses change management as well as business functions and powers.

This bill also addresses the industry’s immediate need for supplementary revenue to ensure long-term financial sustainability. It does this by implementing two offshore charges: an information-use charge and a point of consumption charge, phasing out the totalisator duty and returning this revenue back to the industry while retaining a portion for harm minimisation. This bill will enable RITA to offer better betting products on sports not represented by a qualifying domestic national sporting organisation, where an agreement is reached with Sport New Zealand. It also places the formula for distributing payments to sporting and racing codes into regulations so they can be more readily changed when this is needed in the future.

The revitalisation of this industry is under way, but this is a first step. As mentioned before, this Government intends to introduce a second bill later this year that will build on these initial reforms. This second bill will implement remaining Messara recommendations approved by Government, establish post-transition governance arrangements, and many other changes deemed necessary to ensure the revitalisation of this industry. As a whole, these reforms serve to emphasise the value of racing to the New Zealand economy, to employment, and to society. The Racing Reform Bill lays out an opportunity to deliver real results to grow this industry for the benefit of our regions, our communities, and our economy. We’re going to make racing great again in our country. Like KiwiRail, racing is back on track. Thank you.

Third Reading

I was stunned by the last statement from the previous speaker, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. I didn’t think it ever left the track! I’m pleased to take a call on the third reading of the Racing Reform Bill. On behalf of the National Party, I would add that we’re pleased to continue to support the bill.

The make-up of this bill has been preceded by great expectation in the racing industry. Ironically, it started some time ago when the Minister at the time, David Bennett, introduced the Racing Amendment Bill, which then went through a first reading and through a full select committee process. The reason I raise this, of course, is because part of this bill relates to that bill, and the consultation that took place at the time was significant.

It—this bill—has been very publicly debated in the industry for a number of years now, but certainly since the report of Australian administrator and stud master John Messara was produced late last year. His report was thorough. Interestingly, it replicated at least two or three other reports I’ve seen in my time in the racing industry, pretty much, and made the same recommendations. It’s nice to see those recommendations finally being worked on.

There were many, many submissions made, as a result of the Messara report, to the ministerial advisory committee appointed by the Minister for Racing, which convened earlier in the year. They have done a lot of work and reported the bill back to the House in the form it’s in. It was then briefly scrutinised again in a select committee prior to the committee of the whole House stage, where the Minister introduced the final adjustments with Supplementary Order Paper 249.

I want to thank all those who have worked so hard to get this bill to the post, because I think it’s significant for not only the racing industry but also the sector as a whole. I want to thank the Minister, the officials, the select committee, and, on this side of the House—the blue side of the House, as I’d call it—the Hon David Bennett, Nikki Kaye, Tim van de Molen, and Alastair Scott—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Name-dropper.

—who took a fair bit of their week out of—don’t be rude! They’re interjecting, Madam Speaker. They took a fair bit of time out of their recess to deal with this.

I’d also like to thank the many hundreds of people in the racing and sports sector who have given me and, I’m sure, my colleague a fair bit of advice on this over the last year or two. It’s worth emphasising how important a place racing plays in the lives of provincial New Zealanders, and I’ll do so by pointing out that the two biggest steeplechases in New Zealand last season were won by horses from Hunterville and Woodville—interestingly, both owned in the Rangitīkei. Then you get to the three big cups in New Zealand, owned by horses from Bulls, right where I live, Waverley—and, of course, that’s the home of Kiwi, the most famous horse of all time—and Matamata. All of those big races in New Zealand are owned by and raced by people who live in provincial New Zealand. That’s why this industry is so important to those of us who live in rural and provincial New Zealand.

Just to prove that this is not all about racing, anyone who took my tip on Kane Williamson last night and on the Black Caps would’ve actually been a whole lot better off today, and that’s a pretty harmless way to have a bit of fun, in my view. Who would’ve guessed we’d have been watching that at 6 o’clock this morning?

This bill will have significant benefits for both the racing and sports sector. The changes, when implemented, will benefit the sectors by a conservatively estimated $27 million. That is a significant amount of money, and I think that if they can manage that properly, they will have considerable success as a result of it.

We in New Zealand have a climate and soil type that produces great grasses and great horses. It doesn’t matter whether they’re eventers, race horses, polo ponies, endurance horses—to name a few—they have great value to the New Zealand community. They have great export value to us. They all derive from the thoroughbred. So not only is it important from a racing perspective that we have a very strong thoroughbred industry in New Zealand but it’s very important from our horse perspective as well, and I don’t think we should forget that in the course of, I guess, giving an industry a little bit of a leg up—and a much overdue leg up. The many thousands of volunteers who manage our sports organisations would also benefit greatly from this bill, making their roles just that little bit easier.

I want to turn now, briefly, to the future of the TAB, which is a vital cog in the Racing Industry Transition Agency’s (RITA’s) wheel. The TAB commenced business in 1952, funded by the thoroughbred and harness racing sectors. Sure, it was put through Parliament with a piece of legislation by the Government of the day, but it’s important to remember it was funded by those industries.

In 1997—again, with the help of legislation—sports betting was introduced to New Zealand. They were allowed to gamble or to game or to bet only on sports that had a parent body based in New Zealand, and that return to those sporting entities was set in that legislation. Both of those things have been overturned in this legislation, and I think rightly so, because I think it enables the industry, or businesses or bodies or whatever, to negotiate with each other. That’s going to be very important. The other issue is that it enables the TAB, in this case, and the other betting agencies from overseas—or, in fact, it won’t concern the overseas ones unless they’re gambling in New Zealand—to take bets on events that are not part of a New Zealand sporting body. That money will be returned to Sport New Zealand. In my view, that’s very positive for the sporting sector as well.

In 2002, the TAB was again subject of legislation under the Racing Act. It was then governed by the newly created Racing Industry Board—disbanded under this Act and replaced with the RITA. In about the year 2000, an opinion was sought by the racing industry from a QC, who, in a brief report, suggested that the beneficial owners of the TAB were the racing industry. I would suggest that that probably suggests to me that at some time in the near future, we should establish, very definitely, who does, in fact, own the TAB—put it into a structure that gives it independence from Government. It can’t be independent from legislation, because, clearly, I think gambling will always be legislated in this country. But I think it’s an opportunity for us in the future to look at who does own it and give it some certainty and independence from Government.

This is a great day for racing, in my view. It’s a great day for the sporting sectors in New Zealand, and I look forward to the successful implementation of this bill, and the benefit it will provide for those sectors, and particularly, as I said earlier, for provincial and rural New Zealand. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Third Reading

Thank you very much. What a fascinating path we’ve been on over the last week. It was only a week ago, when this bill was first introduced, that we had somewhat of a pantomime on the other side of the House, with one side of the National Party saying, “We support this bill.” and the other side of the National Party saying, “Oh no, we don’t.” Then, two days ago, after the select committee process was complete, we still had the National Party standing up without a unified position on this bill. I said in this House that I can guarantee that, come the time of the third reading, the misconceptions that the other side were stating and the reservations that they had about this bill would disappear. Here we are—here we are at the third reading of this wonderful bill, the Racing Reform Bill, and the lead from the National Party, Mr Ian McKelvie, stands up and says, “This bill is a great bill for racing.”

Well done—well done to the National Party for seeing sense, for coming around to common sense and falling in line with the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the saviour of the racing industry, who, in this first step, will make the changes that the racing industry in this country needs. Because that’s what this bill does. The racing industry contributes $1.6 billion, it’s estimated, to the New Zealand economy—that was in 2016-17—but that contribution was in dire concern because the racing industry was not sustainable. We heard it from everyone. We heard it from all contributors and submitters to the Messara report, a vital piece of information if this House was to consider the reform of the racing industry.

The racing Minister commissioned that report because the moves from the previous Government to look at addressing the issues around leaching revenue overseas, and looking at bringing some those overseas operators into the fold, were too late and too little. So the Messara report was commissioned so that we would know exactly what the state of the racing industry was. All the codes and sporting organisations, the jockeys, the trainers, the owners, and the breeders all had an opportunity to contribute to that and, through that report, we got some recommendations that allowed this Government to look at what needed to be done.

This bill is the first step in that. It establishes the interim provisions so that we can get on with making the changes that need to be made. There was very good cause to have a shortened select committee approach, because a lot of the consultation had been done, and in the midst of accusations from the other side that we were dragging our feet, they then accused us of going too quickly. I think that sums up the National Party’s approach to this bill and the National Party’s knowledge of the racing industry. At the first reading of the Racing Reform Bill, they drew out Gerry Brownlee, that expert in racing who didn’t know where Trentham Racecourse was. But nevertheless, the fact is that we are in a position to make informed choices because of the consultation not only from the codes that have been liaising with the Minister for Racing but through the Messara report as well.

We’ve also heard some concerns around where sport sits within these reviews. Concerns like, “This will decimate the sporting bodies of this country that are so reliant on the funding that they receive through sports betting.”—be that the current formula of 5 percent of turnover or 1 percent of profit. This is despite the fact that Sport New Zealand said that the bill is good for racing and good for sport. I note that the changes that are proposed in this bill will actually increase the funding that goes through sports betting to sporting organisations in this country, because it expands the reach of the TAB and allows them to offer betting in areas where they were no longer able to.

I reflect on my time as a bookmaker at the TAB for seven years, and there was a period of time where, on a daily basis, we had calls from punters wishing to place bets on mixed martial arts. The TAB was restricted on placing bets on mixed martial arts, because, at that point in time, that sport did not have a recognised national sporting body that was recognised by Sport New Zealand. Therefore, under the legislation as it was written at the time, the TAB were losing revenue on the possibility of offering bets on a very, very popular sport. That has been addressed now, because mixed martial arts have had a national sporting body recognised by Sport New Zealand.

But what the changes in this bill will do is allow the TAB to offer odds on those sports that either do not have a national sporting organisation, do not have one recognised, or do not have one recognised by Sport New Zealand. What that will mean is the TAB will be able to offer betting on those, and the revenue extracted from those products will be given to Sport New Zealand to distribute, and I think that is absolutely fantastic. It was a bizarre situation to be in—to be the world’s only shearing bookmaker and yet we were not able to offer odds on a worldwide phenomenon like the MMA. It is a common-sense change, and one that is well overdue, and I’m very pleased to see it involved in here.

We also heard concerns from the National Party around sports representation on the new organisation that’s going to be proposed. The fact is that this is a bill that introduces a transitional authority, and one that needs to ensure that the people that are on it have expertise in a transitional phase—that are taking into appreciation the “knowledge of, or experience in, the racing industry and sports administration at a national level”. That’s what’s guaranteed in the new organisation that comes after this transition phase.

But I suspect the National Party know this, because, despite their concerns registered at the first reading, and despite their concerns registered at the second reading, they had an opportunity yesterday at the committee of the whole House stage to put forward some Supplementary Order Papers to make some arguments and propose some changes so that their concerns could be addressed. Did they? Did they my foot. They made three speeches, and that was it—three. One from Mr McKelvie, one from Ms Kaye, and one from Mr Bennett, and that was that. Because what they realised is that this bill, particularly with the minor changes that occurred at the supposedly rushed select committee stage, is in exactly the right format and form that it should be to achieve what it hopes to achieve, and that is the first step towards looking at saving the racing industry.

The fact is that there are many provincial areas that rely on racing as a contributor to their local economy. They might be areas like Woodville that, regardless of the future of its track, will remain an area that is committed to horse training. They might be areas, like in the south of Wairarapa, that have one of the most beautiful, boutique racetracks in the country, that attract people from right around the country every summer and for the occasional winter meeting, and it is a track that is self-sufficient and will continue to stand alone. There are areas like the Waikato that are world renowned for the quality of product that they breed and export. But in order for that to continue to be an export product, we need to offer the races that demonstrate that the breeding and the horses that come from those programmes are world class, and at the moment that is not the case.

There are many clubs around the country that are struggling to put up the prize money that is required for those horses to be acknowledged overseas and qualify for overseas races for them and their breeding programmes and the trainers and the jockeys. We have a world class system, but the structure that currently exists is not supporting that world class system. You go anywhere in the world and you will see the influence of New Zealand racing in the racing industry. When I worked in the racing industry in Ireland, there was a strong New Zealand presence—be it through training, be it through breeding, or be it through the jockeys. That is exactly the case in the Asian markets, in the UK, in the US as well, and most notably, probably, in Australia. But it is under threat.

What is proposed in this bill will allow the first step towards making the changes that the racing industry needs so that it can be sustainable, so that not only can the three racing codes be supported but the national sporting organisations of this country can be supported under what is, essentially, a unique structure—one that I think this Parliament should be pleased that it introduced and should be pleased to be taking the opportunity to be revising and improving right now.

Third Reading

Look, I am pleased to take a call on this third reading of the Racing Reform Bill. The first thing that I just want to acknowledge before that member, Kieran McAnulty, potentially leaves the House is that absolutely National is supporting this bill, but with a range of concerns that are legitimate, that we have every right in this House to raise. We have been absolutely consistent that we are a party that support not only improving the viability of the racing industry but also we care about the thousands and thousands of coaches in New Zealand, sporting organisations from rugby to cricket to netball, who will be impacted by this bill.

I also want to quote and acknowledge a few people at the outset. I want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Winston Peters. He has heralded this bill through. It will lead to greater viability for the racing industry, but also there is a potential for additional funds for sport. No one is disagreeing with that. The question is: how do we ensure that we get the fairness and distribution right for our sporting codes in New Zealand?

I want to acknowledge Ian McKelvie. He is a very wise individual, whom I have sought counsel from during this bill, and I want to acknowledge him and other members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee: Tim van de Molen, Alastair Scott, and also the Hon David Bennett. Can I acknowledge David for his outstanding advocacy of the racing industry. However, I want to run through the bill for absolute clarity, because I’ve been engaging with organisations like New Zealand Rugby, New Zealand Cricket, and netball about National’s concerns as our sporting and recreation spokesperson.

The first thing is that the transitional agency that we’re setting up does matter. We do care, on this side of the House, about adequate representation. At the heart of that, we have raised serious issues about the process. It’s been a truncated select committee process—around five days for submissions. That was totally unreasonable, and it was not called for. We understand that the Minister has had a large time period since the Messara review. It would have been prudent even to give weeks extra for the process. You know what? It’s not just us who think that; it’s the submitters that have raised that, but it’s also the Minister himself in the Cabinet paper that he wrote. He put a different time line that would have seen—if it had gone to plan—weeks more for people to have their say and to have adequate scrutiny of public policy.

The next issue that we raise, again, is an issue that has been raised by many of the submitters—this wide amount of power. They’ve called the Rt Hon Winston Peters “the Kingmaker” with regard to sport. I think it is really important that we have acknowledged that the National Party support a range of mechanisms to curb that power. One of them was to acknowledge this issue of representation, where we said we want to have greater guarantees in terms of this balance around sport and racing.

The next is around the distribution for the codes. Again, we did put up legislation previously where we said, “Look, we think there is a balance here to be had.” We do agree that we could have greater flexibility in the formula, but we absolutely said publicly—and that’s why I went out there with our very serious concerns—that we needed a guarantee from the Minister for Sport and Recreation and the Minister for Racing that no sporting codes would lose as a result of this bill. Now, the Minister for Sport and Recreation had been very silent and quiet with the national sporting organisations, but also with the engagement with Sport New Zealand. I tried to get further information about this. It was good to see the Minister for Sport and Recreation finally fronting up and saying, “Look, no sporting organisation will lose as a result of this bill.” Great, we’ve had that. But, actually, what we have argued for is to have greater certainty in legislation that no sporting code would lose.

The next point that we argued for is around this issue of fairness of distribution. We heard from the Remote Gambling Association. We heard from New Zealand Rugby, from New Zealand Cricket, from Netball New Zealand, from Yachting New Zealand, and from a whole lot of sporting organisations about this issue of the increase in the rise in sports betting. Now, again, this was a point of difference from Messara to some of the sporting organisations, but also to organisations like the Remote Gambling Association, who have said, “Look, we believe that the percentage of sports bets occurring by New Zealanders on overseas events could be at 95 percent.” That is massive, and it would have huge implications around fairness and distribution.

So we are absolutely saying to the Minister, who has said in this House in a prior speech before I got up, “We want to make racing great again.”—well, I say to Winston Peters, “How about we make sport and racing great?” That’s what this side of the House believe in. Actually, we believe in fairness and we believe that, while there are important issues and viability of $1.6 billion, of 18,000 jobs, we care about those jockeys, we care about those stable hands, we also care about the coaches of New Zealand, and we care about the sporting organisations, which is billions in revenue for New Zealand, and also 35,000 jobs.

So we will be following this, and I will be, as National’s sports and recreation spokesperson, holding to the fire the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Sport and Recreation. That’s why we’re pleased with one of the amendments that happened in this bill, which is to at least require the Minister for Racing to consult the Minister for Sport and Recreation on these matters. Now, that doesn’t guarantee agreement, which was what was advocated for by some sporting organisations, but it certainly puts pressure on these Ministers. Why is it important? Well, I’ll tell this House why it’s important, and I’ll tell this House why I didn’t appreciate the lecture that I got from Kieran McAnulty because I rose to speak. He talked about an Opposition that was divided. We have been entirely consistent. We’re supporting this bill. We support the viability of both sport and racing, but you know what we heard the other day? We had the Minister for Racing saying no to the answer that there would be additional fairness of distribution for the sporting codes. Then when I had the Minister Grant Robertson turn up to my select committee for me to grill him on matters of sport, he said he will absolutely be advocating for greater distribution. So, clearly, if there was a journalist listening to this debate, they could take the moment to ask these Ministers about the difference of opinion in terms of distribution.

Finally, can I raise a couple of other matters. We did hear some serious issues raised by the New Zealand Law Society and the Ministry of Justice around penalty provisions in this bill. I think they are issues that should be considered. I have raised issues which I would have expected to see the Greens have a much louder and larger voice on, around the fact that this is a bill involving gambling. Where is the policy on harm minimisation? We have raised that in our minority report, and we would have loved the Green Party to have supported that provision. But I’m hoping we’ll hear from those members about the importance of harm minimisation, as raised by the Salvation Army and other organisations: Transparency International.

So can I conclude by saying this: I do genuinely want to acknowledge the Minister for Racing for the work that he’s done around the Messara review, but also this piece of legislation. I know—because I’ve received some communications from people in the racing industry—how important it is to get these additional funds; whether it’s around the totalisator levy. However, we will be absolutely firm and forceful about the need to have balance and fairness for the many hundreds of thousands of young people that play sport, for all of those coaches out there, for all of the national sporting organisations, for organisations like Tennis New Zealand, for which 40 percent of their revenue currently comes from the formula. That is our job as an Opposition party—a party that firmly believes in balance and firmly wants to make racing great again, but also make sport great.

Third Reading

Well, as the Rt Hon Winston Peters said earlier in the same debate, he set out to get the racing industry back on track—so too do I with my contribution this afternoon towards this bill. I do want to really also commend the Rt Hon Winston Peters. This is an area that he has been passionate about over many a year during his time and tenure in this House. During the 2005 to 2008 period, the Rt Hon Winston Peters dedicated a lot of his time and energy into trying to bring the racing industry together. Following that, however, for about nine or so years the racing industry has, unfortunately, taken a slide backwards. Now, that has been damaging to the industry, and in regions, like for many of us in this House who come from proud regions, proud racing regions, we have seen the decline and the lack of investment, time, and energy by the previous Government.

So the rigour with which the Deputy Prime Minister has taken up his role as the Minister for Racing—one of his first actions that he did was to undertake or to recommend that an inquiry was undertaken into the industry. The foresight he had in terms of actually appointing John Messara, who had already done a massive overhaul in New South Wales of the racing industry over there—now, I understand it was somewhat of a coup to be able to get a man of his calibre to draft what would become the blueprint for New Zealand’s racing industry here. Those 17 recommendations have laid the foundations for what this bill is the first part of.

Now, I must commend the efforts of all of those that have contributed their time over, in particular, the last month, and those in particular that were on the select committee chaired by one Darroch Ball, who’s the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I understand he ruled that committee with a fair and even hand.

💬 Alastair Scott: Firm—firm hand.

A firm, fair, and even hand, as I understand—my colleagues Paul Eagle, Jan Logie, Meka Whaitiri, and the members from across the House. Now, I know that from both sides of the House, and we’ve heard contributions from both sides that have shown their passions for this industry. I actually do want to acknowledge the member Ian McKelvie. Many of us know of his passion for this industry, and whilst it may have been a little trickier in the previous Government to get everywhere that he would’ve probably liked to have gone in this sector, I am sure that he can stand with his hand over his heart that he’s very proud of what the Rt Hon Winston Peters and this side of the House are doing for your industry.

I won’t go on, because we know that this is an industry that is a significant employer within our regions—16,000 people. It brings in $1.6 billion to the New Zealand economy, and those figures are a couple of years old now, but those are the latest that we’re working with. It is a substantive industry. It’s one that many of us have longstanding family connections with, and I can imagine the people in Te Teko right now, I’m sure, will be watching this very valuable contribution to the House, saying, “Yes, here we go.”—that the racing industry is back on track—and “Yes, here we go, and we’re off, we’re off, we’re off!”, because this is a great bill for the racing industry. With that, I am pleased to commend it to the House.

Third Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I too support the bill in front of us today, and it’s quite obvious why we all are in agreement. It’s because we’re going to raise revenue from people that should be paying. We’re going to raise revenue from those offshore who bet on our races, our sporting events, our events that we have intellectual property for, if you like, based in New Zealand but they live in a different country. We’re also going to raise revenue from Kiwis who use other agencies, offshore agencies, to bet on either our sports or any other sport in the world. But they should pay their levy, if you want to call it—their tax, their royalty—to the Crown. Simply going by using another internet or another agency to bet should not allow them to avoid that charge.

So that’s a good thing. We support that because it’s going to support the racing industry, as is being widely proclaimed, I guess, this afternoon, but it’s also going to be supporting sport, and it was good to hear the Minister of sport say that no sporting body will be worse off, but that’s really not quite good enough. That is why we have some reservations around the bill. We think that it should be clearer about the representation that each of those bodies has—racing, greyhounds, sports agencies—on the Racing Industry Transition Agency, and we also think the distribution model of those funds, the additional funds as well as the existing funds, should be distributed. We think there should be a more transparent calculation, if you like, of what sport receives what amount going forward. We do understand that it is in regulation and it will provide a more flexible and more timely way of adjusting some of those calculations, but we think there should be more clarity around supporting, particularly, sport and those distribution models.

We also think that although the Minister of sport must be consulted on by the Minister for Racing, again, it’s not going far enough to support the sporting sector. There should be agreement between the Minister of sport and the Minister for Racing. To consult doesn’t give enough emphasis, enough weight, enough influence from the most important governing person—body, if you like—being the Minister. It gives an unequal power to the Minister for Racing. As I said in the second reading, the bill really should have the word “sport” in it. It is not just a racing bill; it is to do with sport more generally.

There’s a little bit of discussion around harm minimisation, around betting, and I just want to reflect on the way that I taught my kids the pros and the cons of betting. We go to the Tauherenīkau races every year or two—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: I hope they’re 18, these kids of yours.

Yeah, no, well, they would make the decisions, and I would place the bet on their behalf. Thank you for that. I think that that’s OK. At an early age, the kids would go to Tauherenīkau and I’d give them 20 bucks each and I’d say, “You can have the 20 bucks and everything else that you gain from the betting.” So the first year they bet, and, of course, one of the kids would make a lot of money. So the next year, they thought it was just a no-brainer—of course you’ve got to keep betting to make money; it’s the easy way to make money. Of course, the second year he lost it—he lost the lot. He ended up with nothing, so he learnt a lesson about gambling and about listening to people and taking odds that he knew were against him. Then the third year I gave him the 20 bucks, I said “Same rules apply. You can take the money and run—profits and everything.”, and he just put the 20 bucks in his pocket. So that is a lesson that we can all teach our kids very simply.

Gambling in an environment like the racecourse, like on-course betting at Tauherenīkau, is a fantastic family experience. We shouldn’t take that away because of the harm that pokies do. We should not be blaming the racing industry for a huge amount of harm, because the problem is that a lot of that is done in the pokie machines, where people addictively slot coins into that machine, and they are terrible things.

I’d like to also just reflect on my own experience in the racing sector. You know, I mentioned in the second reading that I’d actually sponsored a couple of races at Tauherenīkau and at Trentham, but I’ve also raced a horse, believe it or not—I have. I’ve been in a race, and—

💬 Hon Member: Did the horse win?

No, I was on the horse. No, it didn’t win, and I’ll tell you why. I was leaving London and moving to Japan—this was a long time ago—and a friend said “Right, we’re going to go on a horse ride. We’re going to trot around Hyde Park.”—you can do that. They have horses stabled just around the corner in London. So we had a guy guide us around, walking and trotting. We were wearing not hard hats; we were wearing soft hats, and we were in a group of a few people, and, anyway, we ended up cantering down the straight end of Hyde Park and then the next thing you know, my friend looked around and the police were behind us on their horses—not on a motorbike or anything. They were cantering and they were galloping—they were chasing us. That was the race that I was on, and so we thought, “Well, we’ve done nothing wrong; we’re off.” So we raced down the straight in Hyde Park in London as well. They eventually did catch up with us, and they pulled us over and they said, “Pull over, pull over.” They didn’t have any sirens or anything but it was obvious that they wanted us to stop. So we stopped. They didn’t scream or yell, but they knew that we knew that we should stop, and we did. And they said, “You’re breaking the rules. You haven’t got a helmet on.”

Tim van de Molen: Did they say, “Stop horsing around!”?

“Stop horsing around!” they said. “Stop horsing around!” Thankfully, the guy that was escorting us around quickly came up, and the rule was that you did have to wear a hat, but it did not have to be a hard hat. So we got away with riding a horse at full speed through Hyde Park with a soft sort of beret-type cap. And that was the race that was my horse racing experience—that horse race. I don’t win every race that I participate in, and that race I did not. So, thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

Third Reading

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you. I am very pleased to speak on the Racing Reform Bill even though I lack anything like the experience of the previous member, Alastair Scott, with either racing horses or gambling on them.

This bill is from a very enthusiastic and dedicated Minister for Racing, who inherited an industry that was in serious decline and, because of the commitment to revitalise that industry, commissioned the Messara report as an independent report with a suite of recommendations. This bill is the first of two pieces of legislation to help revitalise the industry and recognise the important status of the thoroughbred breeding industry and racing industry to New Zealand, and its economic contribution. So it’s certainly about getting the racing industry back on track.

The provision in the bill for a transitional agency, in terms of providing governance, the Racing Industry Transition Agency, or RITA, to take over from the New Zealand Racing Board—the members opposite keep worrying that there won’t be enough attention to sport and funding from the proceeds of racing for sport. Can I remind them once again that clause 11 of the bill provides for the Minister to appoint to RITA people who’ve got “knowledge of, or experience in, the racing industry and sport administration at a national level”. It gives no preference to just having people on RITA who come from the racing industry. So ensuring that there are people on RITA who’ve got that expertise in sport administration—as well as the change that the select committee has made that requires consultation with the Minister for Sport and Recreation in terms of any regulations which change the way in which the proceeds of betting are distributed—I think will lead to sports codes being assured that they and their needs will be adequately represented when it comes to the distribution of the proceeds of betting.

One of the key reasons that the Green Party is supporting this bill is because in it, in new section 17A, inserted by clause 13, it requires the agency, when it’s making decisions about betting profits, to ensure that some of those profits are retained by the agency in relation to harm prevention and minimisation from both racing betting and sports betting. And that is absolutely critical because, as the previous member noted, things like pokie machines, because they are available constantly, do feed into people’s addictions with gambling but, in terms of racing, there is less continuity. The importance of this clause in the bill is ensuring that there is funding available to minimise gambling harm and to deal with gambling harm.

That word “harm” is really important because it is not the individual that is the major concern here; it is the behaviour and how we can ensure that funding goes to reduce the harm that gambling addiction causes not only to the person but to their colleagues, their family—issues like family violence, alcohol addiction, problems at work, mental health issues that go back to gambling addiction. So ensuring that there is a portion of the profits of betting that goes to minimise this was critical for the Green Party’s support for the bill. A previous speaker, the Hon Nikki Kaye, highlighted this as well, but I make the point that there are regulations that the Minister will have to draft, through an Order in Council, and they will have to specify the amounts that will be retained, and the select committee has made some changes there by ensuring that those regulations provide for a proportion of the distribution of the betting profits.

This bill is the first of two bills to put the racing industry back on its feet, to implement the recommendations in the Messara report, which suggested that there needs to be a much stronger focus on financial and economic viability for the industry. The changes that the bill makes in terms of ensuring that offshore betting operators contribute to the racing and sports codes where they are taking bets, contribute to the funding of those—that is a much fairer user-pays situation. That means the proceeds from that offshore betting can actually assist the industry. The bill also provides for the progressive repeal of the totaliser duty over three or so years, and ensures that the funding from that is used to help the industry.

So this is a transitional bill. The changes that the select committee made mean that RITA can only exist till 2022. It is the first of two bills and, with these provisions around a requirement that there be funding for gambling harm, the Green Party is pleased to support it.

Third Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a good day. Here we are at the third reading now of the Racing Reform Bill, and it’s been heart-warming to follow this process, as we’ve gone through, to see their support now for the racing industry. I’m encouraged in particular—in the Waikato, racing is a significant part of our success as a region, and we are a proud racing area. This will have a strong impact—a positive impact—for those participants within the industry and, potentially, encourage more to enter the industry, as well. So I’d like to acknowledge the great work of Ian McKelvie, our racing spokesperson, in this particular process, because he has put a lot of effort into it, and we got to the point where we were able to get some changes through select committee, supported by the Government parties, which was fantastic, and I’ll touch on those shortly.

But the other aspects which came actually as a result of the previous legislation, under the former Government, was looking around the “race fields” legislation to bring in consumption and use charges in terms of the information sources and then the ability for overseas punters to participate in gambling on New Zealand products, races, or games, as it were. It’s important that they make a contribution, and so that original legislation, under the previous Government, now wrapped into this particular bill, captures that quite nicely and will ensure that an additional contribution is made from those offshore providers, and quite rightly so.

It is a shame, though, that the racing Minister didn’t just progress the previous bill, which would have enabled those provisions to have been brought in 12 months ago now, which would have seen the racing industry receive $15 million to $20 million of additional revenue over the last 12 months, which would have been gratefully received, as we’ve heard from numerous contributors today and in previous stages around the need for additional financial support. So it was a shame that the Minister wasn’t able to put that through at the time, when it was broadly supported. We could then have had, of course, the current changes brought forward in a second proposal. As we’ve heard already, there will be an additional proposal in terms of changes to racing legislation.

Look, that’s gone under the bridge, unfortunately; it’s a shame the racing industry has missed out on that from the Minister, but we’re in a good space now with this, and this will see the totalisator levy repealed over two years. The previous Green member, Eugenie Sage, suggested three or so years; actually, it’s two years specifically, and that will be wound down over that period. So that will then bring in an additional $13 million to $14 million a year for the racing sector once that’s fully repealed and, obviously, stepped down between now and then. So that’s good.

Now, the two key points that were important for us when we were considering this through select committee, in terms of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA)—the board—was around having a finite end date on it. So the initial proposal as it was put forward by the Minister was that the transition authority be in place for 12 months, and if, for whatever reason, the final solution as it was seen by the Minister was not able to be implemented, then that could be extended. But there was no end line to what that extension might look like. It could have continued in perpetuity, potentially, under the original proposal. So that raised some concerns for us and for a number of submitters as well.

So we were able to get agreement from all parties. I’d like to thank the Government parties for that as well—to agree to a maximum two-year extension to that particular capacity for that board to transition through that phase. So that was quite important because all parties entered into this or are entering into it in good faith. We heard that, although there are no designated positions on the board in regard to specific codes or specific sports, they will have regard to both racing industry knowledge and sporting industry knowledge at a national level. So those are good provisions, but it requires all those parties to act in good faith—which they agreed to do, which was very, very gracious of them, and appropriate. Having that finite deadline was important to give them some comfort that that good faith was appropriate and would be respected.

The other key provision that we were very, very excited to see was that the Government support was requiring the Minister for Sport and Recreation to be consulted. As Nikki Kaye had pointed out—and I’d like to thank her for her work on this from the sport and recreation perspective as well—that’s not agreement with the Minister for Racing but the Minister for Racing must consult the Minister for Sport and Recreation, which is appropriate to get some distribution balance as best as possible across the racing codes and also the sporting codes. We’ll see that transition over time as it becomes quite fluid, potentially, with the volume of international betting on sports potentially increasing. We don’t know exactly what that will look like. The officials weren’t entirely sure what the modelling of those mock scenarios may play out like. That’s why it’s important to continue to evolve this and to make sure that consultation happens between those Ministers, to ensure that distributions are supporting all industries as best as possible.

But this, in particular, will support the racing industry. I’m very pleased with that. It will be great for my region and Waikato, and so I’m particularly thankful for that. I look forward to seeing renewed enthusiasm for the racing industry as a result of this passing today, and I thoroughly commend it to the House.

Third Reading

I understand that this is a split call. I call Paul Eagle—five minutes.

Third Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s another thankful Thursday in the House. This afternoon it’s the Racing Reform Bill, and it’s great to be able to speak on those bills where the House is in agreement. There’s always a little bit of argy-bargy, but that’s just part of the theatre and carry-on, when really everyone’s in agreement.

It’s my opportunity to say thanks, also. I do want to thank the Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, for this work. It is a piece of work, as I said in the second reading, that’s come through a member’s bill. There’s been an amendment bill, which was withdrawn, and the work carried through from that has come through here—and the hard-working Transport and Infrastructure Committee, which, of course, I’m a member of. Transport and racing go hand in hand, as you know, and this has travelled from whoa to go in record time. Look, that’s how all these things should be if you ask me.

But I do want to reflect for a minute. Yesterday evening, I was at the Kāpura Wellington Sportsperson of the Year Awards. I was there amongst not only the elite of Wellington sport but the grassroots community folk too. That’s the great thing about these awards ceremonies—it is that you have the full gambit of the sport and recreation community. So, people like Ardie Savea, the sports personality of the year, to the good old Kilbirnie Tennis Club in the Rongotai electorate, who came out with club of the year. So these things are good, but what it did do was it gave me an opportunity to have a conversation with those in the sports sector. This bill was certainly talked about in terms of—I mentioned last time that there was no racing club in the electorate, but certainly—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Come to Pukekohe!

We’ll come to Pukekohe in a minute, but I did manage to talk to a good soul about the Chatham Island Jockey Club, and I did mention that too at the second reading as well. Lo and behold, the June edition of The Chatham Islander came across my desk and I was able to read the Chatham Island Jockey Club racing reports. Good on top jockey Poppy Hunter. I’m sure Poppy’s got some thoughts about this, but what I can say, and what I did say last time, is that these changes are very welcome.

The point there is that those in the hall at the TSB Arena yesterday certainly talked about the future of all sport. Because we know that our rugby clubs, football clubs, tennis clubs, racing clubs and codes, etc. all across New Zealand are going to go through transformation in the next 10 years in the way that sport is structured. The way that people recreate is certainly going to change, and this bill reflects that. I’m really glad, and I know the sector will be too. I managed to catch up with the good folk from Sport New Zealand. They were supportive. There was some noise around their comments, but they did come through and note their support for this.

There were 42 submissions, and they were generally supportive as well. I know that this can’t come fast enough and there’s a lot to be said about talking about something but then doing it. So I think you will see much more change in the sporting sector. Codes that have been our backbone in our communities will all be looking at their facilities, the services they offer, the way that they offer them, the people involved, and, of course, the funding.

I don’t want to repeat what others have said, hence a different tack in my small speech here, to really reflect the reality of sport and recreation in Aotearoa New Zealand. So, I think that tonight there’ll be some realisation from some that change may be painful—and we’ve heard about places like Avondale, for example. There’ll be many more of those conversations around this country, and I’m really excited that we’ve got to this in good time. I commend this to the House.

Third Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker—very kind of you. This is, of course, the third reading of the Racing Reform Bill and we are working our way through this bill. It’s been a bit of a traverse, I must admit. Personally, I’m very connected to the racing industry, not only through family involvement but also, in my electorate of Hunua, we have a Pukekohe racing club and we had the Auckland Trotting Club set up their main trotting training facility literally next door to the thoroughbred racing club. Then, of course, we’re the home of many fine studs: Haunui Farm, which is a very well-known one, and Westbury Stud. That’s just to name a few in the thoroughbred industry. Then there’s Byerley Park. We have a rich history of racing in Hunua. And, of course, as I mentioned the other day, very shortly—Saturday week, I think—we’ve got the Lindauer Ladies Raceday at Pukekohe. Mr Speaker, if you have the opportunity to come up and attend that event—because I can suggest to you that it is a very fine event and lots of good racing and people that come from the Franklin area.

But, in terms of this bill, I think it is good that we are making some progress, because in 11 days’ time this bill has to be in force. So the first question is: why has it taken so long? Why has the Minister for Racing left it just literally a few days before it has to be enacted and operational—and, of course, it still needs to go to the Governor-General for her assent. So that is quite an issue, but, luckily with the support, we will be seeing this go into legislation at the conclusion of today, once it’s been signed, obviously.

The key issue about this bill—obviously National supports the racing industry, a rich history, and of course led by the fine fellow from Rangitīkei Mr Ian McKelvie, on our side, who has done a great job going round the racing clubs. I think it is a good excuse for you, Mr McKelvie. Of course, part of that is listening to people and hearing what they say, and people in the racing industry want this bill. So we do support that.

I think the contributions from the Hon Nikki Kaye are pertinent, and I don’t think they should be construed as being agin the racing industry; they’re not. But a fair portion of the proceeds that come out of this whole process, and the betting arrangements, is also allocated to some of our key sports. And it’s only fair that not only the racing industry benefits from this arrangement but also those sporting codes, because there are many, many, many thousands of people involved in those sporting codes.

That was part of the issue that we had with the bill: that it is unclear about how these sporting codes—these particular arrangements—are going to be reimbursed then and continue to be supported in terms of developing their own sports. So I think that is a crucial point. But, as I say, that shouldn’t be construed that this is agin the racing industry; it’s not. We are all passionate people that support the racing industry, not only the thoroughbred one but also the trotting industry and, of course, many forget the greyhound racing industry, which is really important.

Of course, I’ll just refer to that previous speaker. He admits he obviously needs to travel more in his electorate. Mr Eagle needs to take a short trip to the Chatham Islands, because in fact they do do racing in the Chatham Islands and it would be very remiss of the member not to know that, and also to take the opportunity to avail himself of attending one of those meetings; a very fine place, the Chatham Islands, I must admit.

I’m not going to say any more. Particularly in my area, racing in all forms is an essential industry. It supports a huge number of people, and it creates a whole lot of wealth and economic activity, and therefore on that basis I do endorse it and hope it moves through to legislation as promptly as possible. Thank you very much.

Third Reading

Kia ora. Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Thank you for the opportunity of speaking on the Racing Reform Bill. I was lucky enough to be one of the select committee members that listened to the wide variety of submissions on this key piece of legislation to restore the financial viability to the New Zealand racing industry.

Let’s just pause there for a moment to acknowledge the importance—not only the economic value that the racing industry provides New Zealanders but also the social benefits of coming together and enjoying a family day out at the races. This important piece of legislation, led by the Rt Hon Winston Peters, has really worked incredibly quickly to make sure that we have the right infrastructure and the transitional governance elements in place to ensure that the future of the New Zealand racing industry is sustainable.

While the process has been quick, I would like to point out that it has been a thorough process. The Messara report in itself received well over, I think, 1,700 submissions in its own consultation round. So, in addition to that consultation process, we’ve also seen a full range of submissions coming to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, led by Darroch Ball. Through those submissions that I heard, it was a resounding voice of support from the racing industry, that this legislation was most desperately needed as there was money being lost on a daily basis.

When we look at New Zealand on that factor and we compare some of the returns that those in the racing industry are seeing in New Zealand compared to their counterparts in Australia, we see that we have a long way to catch up in that space. This legislation enables New Zealand’s racing industry to be fit for the future.

In terms of the Messara report, it was really good to see that it outlined those key areas that this legislation begins the journey of enacting and making those key transitions. So, due to the concerns of the industry, the Messara report has responded and outlined some of the key areas that we need to be moving to make sure there’s improvement made: making sure that there’s leadership and management to pursue a more effective decision-making process; incentivising investment in racing and providing the means by which prize money for the racing industry codes can approximately double, and that’s the point I was previously making about our counterparts in Australia; and, thirdly, supplying the capital necessary for upgrading tracks and facilities. That was the voice we heard from the racing industry that was so much needed—the infrastructure and the investment and some of those key facilities to enable their grounds to be able to be used year round and for there to be good facilities for people to enjoy.

One of the submissions that we also heard—there have been concerns raised around the provision for gambling harm. It’s important that we outline that this bill also provides for the issues that were raised in concern to the harms of gambling. So the Racing Industry Transition Agency, with the nifty acronym RITA, which this piece of legislation sets up, will continue to focus on harm prevention and minimisation as well as contributing to the problem gambling levy that funds problem gambling in New Zealand.

There is unlikely to be a significant increase in the overall number of sports for which bets are offered as a result of the sports betting change. The bill introduces new money specifically to prevent and minimise harm from gambling. Included in this is a brand-new measure that a proportion of the additional funds generated by the repeal of the betting levy will be set aside. By setting aside, this will support industry-led initiatives on focusing and also preventing and minimising gambling harm.

The second point on this area that I’d like to make is that the additional revenue generated from offshore charges and from other changes in this bill will also feed into funding measures to prevent and minimise harm from gambling under the current problem gambling levy. So it’s important to clarify that those points were covered off as part of the submissions that we heard on this bill.

The part of this bill that sets out—it’s the first stage in initiating some of the most important changes we see. It’s essential that the transitional governance provisions are enacted to ensure that the industry is financially sustainable. And once these initial governance arrangements are put in place, there will be a second bill introduced that will provide additional detail to enable the New Zealand racing industry to be fully equipped for the future.

It’s important to note that New Zealand has a great history with racing, and it’s important that we continue along this track in the future. The best thing about this bill is it sets up New Zealand for a future where we will be able to continue to enjoy racing and to ensure that we can have a financially sustainable racing industry in New Zealand. Through this bill, this first piece of legislation, making this money available will provide some of the much needed financial relief and immediate increase to revenue for the racing industry that will enable those areas to keep functioning. That was most definitely what we on the select committee heard loud and clear.

I would like to commend the Rt Hon Winston Peters for his effort on his behalf. I would like to acknowledge Messara and his report and the work that has gone on in this area. I would like to also acknowledge the officials that have worked incredibly hard to bring this legislation to this point in time so quickly, and I would like to commend this bill to the House.

Third Reading

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We have a very favourable atmosphere in the House here tonight. Everybody is in favour of passing this bill and is speaking in very glowing terms of what’s happened in the legislation. So I just want to carry on that train of thought and, first of all, acknowledge the Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who has been dedicated to the racing industry for many years and has been able to shepherd this bill into Parliament and through it. He has added to it in some ways that I think the racing industry will be very thankful for and also those in the sports bodies will equally be thankful for.

I’d like to also thank all members of this House that have debated in earnest this bill and have come to the conclusion that it is something that we all need to support in a worthwhile and consensus manner. I think that that is a great tribute to the parliamentary process that that can happen, and has happened in this case. So I think that’s great to see.

Also, the speed with which the bill went through is not really much of a problem when you consider that the effect of most of this bill is something that had been suggested late in the last term of the previous Government, and also that had gone through a select committee process early in this term of Government. So it has been something that’s been on the books for some time, and that race fields legislation—as it was when it was discussed then—is essentially the core of the consumption and information charges that are in this bill. That is something that had been debated over a number of years and had had submissions on it over a period of time, so the quickness of this approach to the bill isn’t really an issue when we consider that we have had that debate in the past.

One of the big issues that has come out of the bill is the role of sports, and we need to be frank with that, as well. There will be some sports bodies that will be advocating for the best that they can get out of any legislation in regard to sports betting, and that is a negotiating stance that you would not expect them to resile from. You know, they have to look after their interests, and they want to get the best result they can for their sports bodies. On the other side of that, the racing industry feels that it has an equally strong role in that regard because the TAB is something that had been set up by the racing industry many years ago and, without that body, the sports organisations wouldn’t have had the ability to capture that income. So they do feel—and rightly so—that they have invested and built up that asset that is being used by other bodies.

There is a natural tension there, and it is not a tension that we should be afraid of. It’s actually good in the sense that it keeps everybody honest and it keeps everybody working together. There will be some points of difference as we go through this process and there will be some heated discussions in the back rooms between the sports and also between the codes, but that is normal and the negotiation that one would expect to happen as a bill like this progresses into the reality of making it actually work and how we decide on the distributions and governance of the board.

Those were the two main issues that had been raised during the select committee process. They were around governance and the distribution process and what equation would be used for the distribution of funds. All parties took a good-faith element to that, and they are going to take, on the basis that they are not represented on the board, necessarily, in their own right, but they trust that the people that will be represented there will take a good-faith approach to solving those issues.

Similarly, with distributions, that good-faith approach has been taken. I think that is something that we can take a lot of credit for in this Parliament—that our sporting organisations and our codes are willing to undertake such a big leap of faith but in a good-faith manner—and that is something that we can all learn from.

When we look at how that actually translates in practice, there will be some important roles over the next year or so. First of all, the Minister for Racing and the Minister for Sport and Recreation will both have extremely important roles. They will act in consultation together, and they of course will have slightly different negotiating positions, representing the parties that they represent. But they all know that the prize at the end of this is something that will be to the benefit of all parties, and I’m sure that they will be able to come to a conclusion that will be in the best interests of everybody.

In regard to racing, in particular, I think that there is a special emphasis on the Minister for Racing as to how these funds are used. In the first reading, in the second reading, and in the committee stage, I made it clear that I think that there is an opportunity here for the Minister for Racing to take an active role now in how this money is used. I would hate for this money that is going to the racing industry just to be diluted across all races and to not actually achieve those transitional and transformative requirements that are needed to get racing into the space where it can take advantage of the opportunities going forward.

This is an opportunity for racing to use that money wisely, and not just put it into the pot and think that it’s going to be the saviour, because it won’t be. The quantum of it is not enough to do that. But if it is used wisely, it can be the incentive to create that change within the industry. In providing that incentive, we can get those good stake moneys going in certain races, and we can get the infrastructure in certain racecourses that will provide that product mix that will take New Zealand racing to the next level. So it’s important that we use that money in the right way.

When we come to sport, this is of huge benefit to sport. Sport’s about 27 percent of the betting currently going through the TAB. Now, that will only increase over time. If you look at the modern demographic of our country, there will be people here that have come from many different countries and they will have many different sporting interests. You’re seeing that change within our sporting practices now, and that will flow on into the betting practices, too, that you will see. Also, New Zealand sport is highly regarded around the world, and it will be something that people will want to take an active interest in, as well.

So with that 27 percent that currently is there for betting on sport, that can only but increase. That percentage will increase over time, and that creates an issue for the second tranche of legislation that the Minister is proposing, and that is something that will deal with the TAB, its ownership, its structure, and its use of its assets. That is a much more difficult proposition. If you’re in the sports bodies and you are having an increase in your betting turnover, of course your incentive is not to see resolution of that, necessarily, at this point, but at a future point in time, when you have a higher percentage. So there will be some conflicts there, and I think the Minister will find that more difficult than this legislation to get the necessary agreement around everything. There are conflicting views around the role of the TAB going forward amongst the racing codes and also those participants in the industry. So we wish him all the best with that, and we look forward to that coming forward to the House, but we recognise the challenges that there will be in that area.

Overall, I just wanted to thank everybody in the racing industry. They make a tremendous contribution to this country. Not only are they out there every morning and afternoon looking after their horses and dogs, working hard to try and get the best out of their industry, and to breed the best horses for New Zealand so that we can sell them on the international market but they are true standard-bearers for this country. They are one of our representative primary industries. They are seen as “New Zealand Incorporated” on the world stage, and they sell and market New Zealand as much as any other primary industry. Similarly, our sportspeople do exactly the same. So if we can encourage those people that go out there and sell what New Zealand means on the international market and make our communities happy in participation and enjoyment for what they deliver, then I think that’s a good thing for this Parliament to do to be able to support them so that they are able to continue that work for the best interests of our people.

Third Reading

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Otirā, e ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I’d like to just pick up on the contribution of David Bennett, the speaker who has just resumed his seat, and to acknowledge the New Zealand racing industry. We are world class—we are world class—from across the three codes: harness and gallops and greyhounds. We are world class in terms of the breeding programme that we have, we’re world class in terms of the jockeys that we produce, and, of course, we’re world class in terms of the facilities that we make available and, I guess, the gains that we bring in every small town, big town, and little town throughout the country.

So I’m pleased to take a call on the Racing Reform Bill in its third and final reading. I wanted to acknowledge the many men and women across New Zealand in the racing fraternity, and, of course, our jockeys—we cannot forget our jockeys—who are internationally acclaimed; no longer do they have to do just the domestic circuit in New Zealand, but now they’ve got the choice to go overseas and race in Kentucky Derbies, and in Japan, in Ireland, and in Australia. They are succeeding because we have an industry here that we should be very proud of.

So the Rt Hon Winston Peters has listened to the industry and has been informed by the Messara report, which over 1,700 people have submitted to; they’ve called for an upgrade, they’ve called for some reform, and he has responded. He has responded by the introduction of this first bill, which is about setting up the RITA—the Racing Industry Transition Agency—which will oversee the further structural reform that’s required in the industry. He’s also introduced the online betting, particularly because many people do bet in New Zealand, but we don’t get any return—we don’t get any return—and this bill is addressing that particular gap in terms of making the racing industry more financially viable. So I want to acknowledge the racing industry too, and I want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Winston Peters in terms of listening to the industry and in acting by introducing this bill in the House today.

There were concerns, as a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, from those sporting codes that presented. Of course, members across the House have talked about guaranteeing income for the sporting codes. There are two parts of this bill that absolutely acknowledge the importance of our sporting codes in terms of no risk to their income. They’re in both clause 11 and clause 17A(1)(b) of this bill, where we don’t only acknowledge the role of the Minister for Racing and the Minister of sport when it comes to distributions but also acknowledge that the membership of RITA must be informed by having a national sporting code rep on that board. So that should give some comfort to all members in the House, but particularly our sporting codes, that their, I guess, aspiration for financial viability and sustainability has been heard throughout this bill.

It reminds me—and I was thinking here, listening to the speakers—of when online sport betting first came to New Zealand. Some of the younger members may not know this, but I recall—Mr Speaker, you might remember this—when we hosted the Rugby World Cup in 1987 between New Zealand and Australia. I recall that the very first All Blacks game, here in Wellington, was between the All Blacks and the Australian team, and this new thing about sport betting was around at that time. So I put a bit of a punt on; I put $10 on my favourite All Black. My favourite All Black in 1987 was the one that wore the number seven jersey: Sir Michael Jones. Who scored the first try at the old Athletic Park in the 1987 World Cup game between the All Blacks and the Australian team? It was Sir Michael Jones. So those are the memories I have of the very first sport betting—

💬 Hon Jacqui Dean: How much did you win?

—opportunity. How much did I win? I can’t remember. I just remember I put $10 on it, and he scored in more ways than one.

💬 SPEAKER: I think the member might have had it on Centrebet, actually, given the timing.

I remember it was—it was timing—was exciting, and I think bringing sport betting indicates that sporting codes do have something that punters want to bet on, and it’s not just about appeasing punters but it’s also an avenue for which sporting codes can gain some income. So this bill enables and recognises that sporting codes in this country absolutely have a role. We guarantee that sporting codes do actually receive benefit from that ability to punt on their success or not.

The third point I just want to touch on is the one around gambling harm, because it is a concern. Yes, we’ve got an industry that’s a very proud industry in this country; but we also have to address the downsides of racing and sport betting and all of that—and that is the gambling harm that happens to many of our communities. Again, the levies that would normally be taken are now going to go not only back into the industry but they’ll actually go towards eliminating and addressing gambling harm. I think that’s a good thing for those submitters, particularly, that raised it at the select committee, whether we can ring-fence some of the income from betting. That would go not only towards gambling harm but also introduces the kind of programmes that we could be utilising to ensure those that are suffering from gambling harm are supported.

So all up, this bill, like all people have said in this House, is something we all support. It does lift our racing industry to another level, to stay world class, to keep the international reputation that we have, and also to make room for sporting codes in this country to benefit from the racing industry, and also for those international and national punters that want to have a flutter on both our racing and our sporting industry. It’s a good compromise between the two codes. It’s a guarantee that we have heard not just the submitters but everybody involved with the racing and sporting industry. It’s a well-crafted bill. I commend it to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s with great pleasure that I rise to talk about a Budget that I think marks a turning point in the leadership and administration of government, not just for New Zealand but, actually, for the world. When we have in our little country, in our little neck of the woods, a Government spending roughly $85 billion in an economy of our size, they are important decisions and careful judgments have to be made; careful judgments about what money is spent on what activities and what money is invested in capital and infrastructure and those things that sustain our communities and our economy in the long term. So these are important decisions.

For so long and for many, many years and many, many decades, we have approached the Budget as if the numbers are the most important thing. There is no question that the Budget is an absolutely vital document and an absolutely vital exercise for the Government of the day. But what is it about really? What is economics and what are economic judgments really about? They are about the transactions that individual people take. That’s what an economy is. It’s a collection of transactions, a collection of decisions that people get to make. So to have a Budget that is based on how people are, their welfare and their wellbeing, and sustaining people to make good decisions and to have great opportunities, that marks an incredible turning point in what a Budget is and what a Budget looks like.

I’m very proud to be part of a Government that has taken that transformational decision to say that we are going to treat the Budget as a Budget about people, as an exercise about people and their wellbeing, because in the end it is people who sit at the heart of an economy, because the economy is just that community of people. I say that this marks a turning point not just for New Zealand but actually for the world as well. And I’m very proud to be serving in an administration led by Jacinda Ardern and with a Minister of Finance of the calibre of Grant Robertson, who have persuaded the world that this is something worth looking at for them and for us to embark upon.

The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern has in her 20 months as Prime Minister established herself as a world leader for a lot of reasons, and there is no question that wherever you go, here and around the world, she has marked herself out as a leader who speaks to a generation—a new generation with new expectations, and those expectations are about looking after people. Here’s the thing: doing the stuff that is about looking after people is no different and not antithetical to the decisions about a strong, robust economy in the conventional sense that we are used to talking about: making sure we have a good Crown balance sheet, making sure that business is supported and given the signals to make good decisions, good investment decisions, to take on staff and to pay them well. We know those economic decisions, but they happen in a context, and this Budget fleshes out what this is actually all about.

I want to talk about some of the issues in the Budget that are dear to my heart. Can I talk about two of the areas of greatest investment in this Budget that are relevant to my responsibilities as Minister of Justice, specifically in the criminal justice area, and that is the investments we are making in mental health and addiction and the investments that we are making in domestic and sexual violence.

On the issue of mental health and addiction, we know that a large number of people who wind up in the criminal justice system, whether they are young offenders who come to the notice of the police or whether they’re adult offenders being sentenced for the umpteenth time off to prison—we know that a large chunk of those people are people who suffer mental health issues, including addiction issues. Yet we have been very slow to realise that if we actually addressed some of those issues, those underlying issues that are drivers of their offending, we might actually change who they are and what they do.

Credit to the previous Government: they allowed the judges and the District Court to trial new approaches, at least for the judges, when dealing with offenders who have at least addiction issues, alcohol and other drug issues, and they trialled the alcohol and other drug courts. But the wider issue of what happens at all ages and all stages of life and making sure that the services are there to support people, to be there for people on their mental health and addiction issues, this Budget represents a step change and a major step up in what we’ve done before. I congratulate my colleague the Minister of Health, Dr David Clark, for that.

The other issue is, of course, domestic and sexual violence and, as I so often do in this House because I’m so proud to work alongside her, I congratulate the under-secretary Jan Logie on the leadership she provides in this area and the leadership that she has provided, again in an innovative and really vanguard way for this Budget and this Government, having put together the joint venture of all the Government agencies on dealing with domestic and sexual violence and put together a package, a financial package in this Budget, that is about making a serious change for domestic and sexual violence.

Here is the figure that absolutely stunned me when I heard it for the first time, and that is, in our youth justice facilities—these are the facilities where our youngest offenders are detained, those under the age of 18 are detained, because of their offending, which is serious enough for them to be detained; we only have about 150 places, but they’re pretty much full all the time—98 percent of our youth justice offenders are victims of domestic or sexual violence. That is how insidious that nasty aspect of this great country is. We have to get serious about it. We have to get serious about domestic and sexual violence, and I am very proud to be part of a Government that has decided it is going to take it seriously. It’s going to put the money in and make a real difference.

I simply contrast these things with the messages that we’ve heard from members opposite in this debate about “How dare we tax people more!”, to the extent that we’re raising excise levies on petrol and all the rest of it. Actually, tax rates aren’t changing, but here’s the truth: they got away with nine years of running things down—running down schools, running down services that actually support people, running down the health system—and then they have the temerity to come here and criticise a Government that wants a good and even tax base. So we raise the revenue and raise the means to make sure that these services are there so that everybody in New Zealand gets a fair chance.

There are other things as well in this Budget that make me very proud, so let’s have a look at the fact that we’re going to get 10 extra District Court judges. It’s disappointing that we have to keep beefing up, particularly, the criminal jurisdiction in our District Court system, but we do because there are backlogs and delays. That’s gone on far too long, and we’ve now got 10 extra judges to help to address that particular issue. Some, no doubt, will wind up in the Family Court, because that’s a problem too, and we now have a set of recommendations that this Government can have a look at, where we can start to make a serious difference in that jurisdiction.

I’m very pleased to see that we’ve got eight extra coroners. They’re part-time—they’re three-quarter positions—but eight extra coroners to deal with the backlog in that jurisdiction. It is very important that in the way we deal with people who suffer sudden and unexplained deaths, those people get their proper treatment and for those who die in unexplained circumstances or for whom there is difficulty identifying who they are, the coroner is able to make sure that the best processes are employed to identify people before they are returned to their families, and the police also have the best evidence to put before a coronial inquest to make sure that we get a good answer on why people have died.

It’s good to see more resources going into the Human Rights Review Tribunal—an extra five deputy chairpersons, who will have the power to make decisions because of the law change that this House passed recently—and we can start to clear the backlog there. These might seem small things, but, actually, if you’re somebody who has gone to the Human Rights Commission or the Privacy Commissioner or any of those others, you’ve laid a complaint, and you’re not satisfied with the outcome, you have a right to take it on appeal or review to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. It’s right that you should have that disposed of in a timely fashion, and these extra resources will allow us to do that.

Finally, they’re in the proceeds of crime fund as well, which has been rejigged—I know that members in the question time we’ve just had seemed critical about what’s happened with the methamphetamine programme. Actually, it’s all now in the rejigged proceeds of crime fund, with four very clear priorities, one of which is dealing with organised crime and the meth problem. But we’re dealing with the whole problem, not just looking at the users of it and going after them and blaming them. We’re actually going after the suppliers, the manufacturers, the distributors, and, knowing that they tend to start life in gangs of organised crime, we’re going to go after them—that’s what we’re resourced for.

This Government is about dealing with the root cause of problems. This Government is about dealing with people and their issues and the lives that they lead, and giving more opportunity and giving a better chance for equal opportunity. That’s what we’re doing. That’s why this Government is serious about making those investments in health and education and the things that sustain people and sustain our communities that in the end are good for business but, ultimately, are good for New Zealand long term.

Labour is failing to deliver on its promises, New Zealand First is failing to deliver on its promises, and the Greens are failing to deliver on their promises. I rise in opposition to this botched Budget, a Budget that has absolutely no circuit-breaker, no plan, and no initiatives whatsoever to turn this languishing economy around that was growing, under a National-led Government, at 4 percent, and is now at 2 percent. That is appalling, given that that Government over there inherited a surplus—a large surplus—and a growing economy. Through their hotchpotch of policies and their horse-trading between three parties, it has left us with demise and with debt, and that is unacceptable.

Look, I must admit that I absolutely flinch when I hear the other side criticise National Party people for caring about the economy, because, quite frankly, Labour does not understand the essential nature of a growing economy. A growing economy is so important because if we don’t have a platform that allows our businesses to expand, then they won’t be investing in their staff and investing in extra staff. What we need is a platform to create jobs within an economy so that people can be employed and can put food on the table for their families. This is why the economy is so important.

Equally, if we don’t have a competitive job market—and let’s think about the stats when National was in Government. We were creating 10,000 jobs a month with regards to a platform to create stimulus and employ people, and that has now dropped by 4,000. It’s appalling. If there is not a competitive job market, then people can’t look to grow in their career, and they don’t have those competitive situations with regards to employment terms and conditions. Equally, that doesn’t allow them to get ahead and achieve their hopes and dreams that they have for themselves and for their family.

Then, obviously, a growing economy generates revenue, and that revenue is important for us, as the Government and parliamentarians, to put into essential services like health, our welfare, policing, and education, so that our children get the best start in life. With regards to education, again, that is creating a platform for them to springboard off, gain the skills they need, and gain meaningful employment. In health, we want our people to be healthy and to lead healthy lives, and we want our people to feel safe on the streets and in their homes.

But Labour just don’t understand that. All they want to do is tax and spend, all they’ve done is create a hotchpotch of principles in this Budget that have meant that this economy is slowing, and to prop it up they want to tax hard-working individuals, and, ultimately, all that means is that our people are kept down, they can’t get ahead, and our most vulnerable are kept even lower. So Labour needs to understand that National Party people care about the economy for a reason: because it sets the quality of life for all New Zealanders moving forward, to enable them to achieve their hopes and dreams.

Look, I want to talk about some of the things that haven’t been provided in this Budget: the broken promises, the promises that Labour campaigned on but there is no provision for in this Budget. We’ve heard some stories in question time about people not being able to access the drugs that they need to combat cancers and rare diseases. Labour promised $20 million for better access to those drugs, and that is not even mentioned in this Budget.

We have got people that are struggling at the coalface with the rising cost of living. The first piece of legislation that went through this House after the Budget, in urgency, was more taxes—$360 million worth with regards to petrol taxes. Now, that hits people in the back pocket; trying to get around, trying to do their business. In places like Southland, where I’m from, where the geography is quite sparse, that really hits people in the pocket. So a tax that is going to be filtered into Auckland transport systems but one that hits Southlanders in the back pocket. So if you’re busy getting around, trying to drop your kids off at school or get around the district, you are worse off.

New Zealand First promised to champion the regions. They managed to secure, of course, a $2 billion slush fund, but, quite frankly, that has made absolutely no difference to the regions, when you’ve got Labour coming through the middle with respect to their vocational reforms. I want to know where the circuit-breaker was for those reforms in this Budget—there weren’t any.

The Hon Chris Hipkins took the time to come to Southland—it was quite a vibrant discussion—to talk about the closure and megamerger of our fabulous and successful Southern Institute of Technology (SIT), a polytech that is succeeding, a polytech that is reputable, and a polytech that produces high-quality students with skills fit for purpose, ready to go out into the job market and retain that talent in Southland, generating reserves of $36 million, as much of a community leader as an institution in our community, responding to market needs, training people in disciplines that we need, and attracting overseas students. SIT is integral, with respect to our Southland Regional Development Strategy, for attracting talent—and 10,000 more people by 2025. That institute is high performing and employs many people, from tutors and lecturers through to administrators looking after the students, taking care of them, and making sure that their needs are met.

The Hon Chris Hipkins wants to merge that successful polytechnic in with 13 others because there are a couple that are failing—on an operational level, I must say—and so it’s like taking a sledgehammer to a chestnut and wanting to pull down a successful performing polytechnic to try and pull up the rest, where he could be totally focused on those failing polytechnics and taking what the good polytechnics are doing and applying it to them. Well, there was no circuit-breaker in the Budget for that. Certainly, the slush fund is no circuit-breaker either, because Southland has received a mere amount in response to its needs—a couple of hundred thousand with respect to feasibility studies, and that certainly is not combating the jobs that are needed if the heart of SIT is going to be ripped away from Southland. Certainly if the time frames continue the way they look to be heading in, I will enjoy going to the hustings on that premise that certainly SIT is a successful polytechnic, and we won’t be ripping the guts out of that come election 2020.

Look, I want to finish with my spokesperson’s role in conservation. I certainly don’t want to be a “negative Nelly” all the way through; I do have to compliment the Minister on securing extra funding for Vote Conservation with respect to this Budget. It certainly is, and shows, a different set of circumstances that this Government finds itself in. We, of course, struggled with the global financial crisis. We struggled having to come in behind Cantabrians and Kaikōura people with regards to the earthquakes. Yet still, with those pressures, we kept the economy growing. But certainly conservation, compared to the priorities of health and education and policing is a “nice-to-have”. So it was good to see further efforts go into conservation, but I am still concerned in regards to the management of Vote Conservation by this Minister, in particular not investigating the future of biotechnologies and pest control for sustainability purposes. For that reason, I oppose this Budget.

I am recalling the day that the Budget was announced in this House. Right in front of me, a couple of seats ahead there, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern gets up, she delivers her speech, she holds up this Budget, and she says it is this reason right here—because she was delivering this Wellbeing Budget, a transformative Budget, a step in the right direction - type Budget—this was the reason that she got into politics. I want to emphasise that sentiment for us on this side of the House. When I look across this side of the House, I can honestly say we got into politics to fundamentally transform the face of Aotearoa New Zealand. The reason that we’re doing that—the reason that we’re doing that—is because we knew, after nine years of the previous Government being at the helm, when you came up into regions like ours in the East Coast, when we saw the economic disparities up in our home town, when we looked out and we saw the number of people that could not have access to fundamental things like services for mental health, when we saw the addiction rates in our community up in the East Coast absolutely rising sky high—we both know, Madam Speaker, in our region, where we’re from—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t bring me into the debate.

Where I’m from, in the East Coast, I saw, over that campaign period in particular, over a very short period of time, suicide upon suicide upon suicide in this very, very compounded time frame. It was absolutely shocking. The weight of—we call it the taumahatanga, that we felt up and down that coast. We saw young people, we saw old people, we saw Māori people, we saw Pākehā people, we saw farmers, sons and daughters, we saw those that had barely come into the cities before, we saw people of all shades in our community in the East Coast suffer from the lack of ability to access fundamental things like access to mental health services.

So when we say we’re delivering a plan to address mental health challenges, I stand here with my hand over my heart, and after I’ve been up and trooped all around our electorate, I know that all of my colleagues on this side of the House—we’ve been out all across Aotearoa New Zealand over the last few weeks taking this Budget out to our communities. Do you know what our communities are saying? Our communities are saying that, for the first time—some of them, in their generation, since they have had a political voice—they feel heard.

That was a real penny-drop moment for me, when I was up in a meeting up in Gisborne. We had the Minister of Health. He came in, and we called a midday meeting. It was very short notice. The Minister of Health, the Hon David Clark, had been up several times before to the Tairāwhiti District Health Board to meet with Jim Green and the others. He’d seen the lack of services in terms of the fact that we had no residential services or providers to be able to care for those that had mental health issues or those that needed wraparound services if they were suffering from mental health and addiction.

The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern herself had been up to Te Tai Rāwhiti and had met with family after family and NGO provider after provider. As they said, she’d met with the police officers, and they said—and she said this in her Budget speech—that (1) those communities were crying out to be heard and (2) they had been seeking for so long the chance to have some real resource and funding channelled into our community, which is one of those communities that on a per-population basis suffers from some of the worst mental health and addiction issues in this country.

So when we had the Hon David Clark come up to our electorate over the recess—and, like I said, we called this meeting with very short notice. Well, I showed up about 15 minutes before that meeting. As sometimes is the case, you hope that there’re a couple of people in that room. It was the middle of the week and the middle of a day, and I said to some of my staff that were working up there, “Oh, maybe put out 30 chairs and we’ll hope that they get filled.” By the time that we arrived—and that was slightly early—that room was filled to the brim. By the time that the speeches had commenced, it was standing room only. When I looked out into that crowd of people, I saw members of all political ilk. I saw members of every single community, whether that be business, whether that be in NGO services, whether that be in education, or whether that be in health; I saw those people, the faces of our community, hankering. For so long, they had been hankering to be heard and to be seen.

When the Hon David Clark came in to our community to announce—and, you know, it’s actually not a large sum of money; it’s $20 million. It’s a large sum but it’s not the largest sum that has been announced in our region. But it was the fact that the community had been calling for so long to have these wraparound services in the areas of mental health and addiction—for far too long. Our young people, our elderly people, and our working-class people—their lives have been taken at far too early a stage.

When we went, I saw that the people wouldn’t leave. After the Minister left and after we’d called the end of the meeting, the people still just hung around. They just hung around. That indeed has been the reception that I’ve heard from those that have held meetings all throughout their rural communities, all throughout their urban communities: that when they take this Budget out into our communities, regardless of where those people are, people are saying we feel heard and we feel seen.

Another big platform and pillar for us—and, again, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern has been championing this area—is improving child wellbeing. It was very soon after the Budget was announced, and there was an announcement that for all schools under decile 7, if the school said to their parents or to those that had children enrolled in their school that they weren’t required to make a paid donation, the Government—our Government—would invest and pay $150 per student to that school.

Well, I got this email. It would have been less than 24 hours, I think, thereafter. It was from a principal of a school in Whakatāne. It’s a small decile 2 school It’s about 340 students. This school, it has had many challenging days. But this principal, he was so excited. He said to me, “Kiri, Kiri, Kiri—do you know what this means?” He said, “This means $51,600 additional extra to our operational budget, Kiri.” He said, “This is huge.” I want to just commend the Hon Chris Hipkins, who has been at the forefront of championing access and equity for all, whether it is children in our school or every single person who chooses to pursue an education. That is a fundamental pillar of this side of the House, our fundamental proposition for being a citizen in this country.

One of my other schools up there, Gisborne Girls’ High School—almost $120,000 will go to that school. That’s a huge amount of money for a school up in our region. Tarawera High School—it’s a smaller school, but almost $70,000. One over in Whakatāne—almost $160,000 will be going to Trident High School if they say, “No, we won’t ask our parents for donations. Actually, we will accept this generous offer from the Government, because this Government is committed to the wellbeing of children.”

Throughout the last few weeks, I have heard from educator after educator—educator after educator—telling me (1) how significant these school donation fees are, but (2) how fundamental the NCEA sum is that this Government will pay.

About three or four days after the Budget had been announced, I was at a community meeting. Very shortly after that meeting, this grandmother came up to me, and she said, “Kiri, I didn’t realise but my son-in-law hadn’t been able to pay the NCEA fees, and so my two grandchildren, they didn’t get their NCEA results. I went to pay the fee on the Monday. Well, the school said, ‘No worries, grandmother,’ ”—I won’t say her name—“ ‘the Government has just announced that they will be paying those NCEA fees—$77 per student.’ ” That there—they are small initiatives but they are fundamental, and therefore I commend wholeheartedly this Wellbeing Budget to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We have a Budget called—as the previous speaker, Kiritapu Allan, called it—a wellbeing Budget, but it was a completely underwhelming Budget in many accounts. Yes, there were some increases in areas that I think New Zealanders did appreciate, but, essentially, even using that term is questionable. In fact, I like what John Roughan, in the New Zealand Herald, said. He said, “The term ‘wellbeing budget’ is [a] tautology[. It’s] a bit like saying ‘healthy medicine’. It is also faintly insulting to previous budgets,”, he said, “implying they were not seeking the country’s maximum wellbeing.”

I remember, in Budget 2015—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who said that?

—I remember John Key increased—you need to stay with us, Mr Peters—the benefit for families with children by $25 a week, the first increase outside of Consumer Price Index increases in 42 years. To say that that is not a focus on wellbeing is just fake news. I recall Steven Joyce’s $2.2 billion family package in Budget 2017. To say that that was just concentrating on GDP is wrong, because it’s concentrating on what can be done for families in New Zealand.

It’s true to say that every Budget that every Government presents is determined and shaped to bring the best benefit to this country, to the people who live in this country, to families who raise children, and to people who need to be able to get by and have a bit more money in their pocket. I think that it’s quite telling that the first piece of legislation that came through under urgency, when we sat after the reading of the Budget, was all about increasing taxes. So that is not to do, I don’t think, with the wellbeing that people expected.

I listened to the previous speaker, Kiritapu Allan, as she talked about the acclaim that she heard whenever she went out and about in her region, but there’s lots of people who would have a contrary voice and contrary opinion to her. For example, the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand, they say, “We had hoped that the … Budget would be a turning point for [our] community health. There certainly has been consideration given to certain aspects of community health, which is always good to see, but it’s a shame that the Foundation has again been overlooked.” So it’s disappointing for many people.

Grey Power is very disappointed with the latest Budget. The president, Mac Welch, says, “It is obvious that the wellbeing of seniors is well down the list of priorities of the current Government, with absolutely nothing for seniors”.

The Child Poverty Action Group said that the Budget provides relief but nothing transformational for children in poverty. They went on to say, “Children simply cannot wait until 2020 for a meagre increase based on the previous year’s wage inflation. They need benefits to be based on actual and realistic costs of living.”—which is why John Key brought that increase back up when that occurred in 2015. That’s the sort of action, I believe, that people were looking for.

Radio New Zealand—of course, one of the favourites of New Zealanders—said, “The Government has allocated a few million dollars more to Radio New Zealand, but the $38 million splurge previously proposed by Labour remains elusive.” So there are a lot of people out there who aren’t quite as enthusiastic as the previous speaker made it out to be. I think that we need to understand that that is something for their consideration, and for New Zealanders also to be aware of.

The Cancer Society of New Zealand says it welcomes the Wellbeing Budget but was disappointed to see cancer not being made a priority: “For a long time now we have been advocating for a cancer agency, but we have seen no commitment from the Government for this.” I think this is the one that I probably like the most: the EMA, the Employers and Manufacturers Association, said they weren’t “expecting much for business from the Wellbeing Budget 2019, but [we were] still disappointed it did not tackle any or some of the members’ key concerns.” So this is a group of people who had no expectation at all, and ended up being very disappointed that there was nothing there. There was nothing there at all.

Can I just speak around the energy resources funding that comes through the Budget? From that Budget, we see that over four years, energy and resources loses about $3.4 million in their appropriation. There have been reductions in information services, there have been reductions in policy advice that the Minister could procure, particularly for consulting. It’s been reallocated within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) due to pressure on other MBIE areas. Essentially, what this means is that there will be less funding available for the Minister of Energy and Resources for policy, research, and consulting. Now, ordinarily, New Zealanders might say, “Less money for consultants; well, that’s a good thing.”, but, actually, we’re in a time of great complexity regarding the energy and resources portfolio.

When you think about the Government’s ban on new exploration permits and what that is going to do to our energy mix, when you think about the Speech from the Throne, which said no new mines on conservation land—by the way, most of the green minerals is on conservation land, and not all conservation land is beautiful pristine bush; some of that conservation land is used for grazing cattle and sheep. There is a policy that the Government stated in the Speech from the Throne that says no new mines. So that’s no lithium, that’s no cobalt, that is no rare earth elements—all the types of the minerals of high value for the low-emission future. So what we see is some complexity around this particular portfolio, and yet what we see is the removal of $3.5 million of funding for policy advice.

The Minister appeared before the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee this morning and told the committee members of the work programme that she and her ministry are undertaking. I would say that, actually, advice is going to be very, very important. We know the Minister does have a reputation of not listening to advice from her department—and, of course, that will not be the reason why this funding is being cut—but there is advice out there that’s come from consultants, such as Concept Consulting, who the Minister has disagreed with. There is advice there that is coming from the Interim Climate Change Committee which is contrary to the Minister’s policy. There are contrary voices out there, and I say, actually, that’s good, because that’s what consultants and advisers ought to do. They should challenge the thinking of the Government, yet what we find in this particular appropriation, in a particularly complex and important area regarding our energy and resources, is that $3.5 million has been withdrawn from the Budget around policy advice. I disagree with that. I think that whether that advice is agreed to or not, whether it’s welcome or not, whether the Minister supports it or not, it doesn’t matter. I think what we need for the sake of New Zealand going forward is to have every idea robustly challenged. I don’t see how that can occur; I don’t anticipate that there’s going to be any restructuring or change within the official Government advisory regarding that portfolio. But what is going to happen is that we are not going to see as much of the outside voice.

In fact, when I say “the outside voice”, I’m talking about people who move in and out of the sector who understand the trends and the science and the technology. These are the people who are at the face and the interaction and the engagement with the sector. These people are often our best thinkers; certainly, in the most technical areas, they are able to communicate the issues around that. So what I anticipate we’ll see is a lack of challenge when it will come to decisions and policy formation that, I think, is going to be a tremendous disappointment for New Zealand.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Racing Reform Bill

Third Reading