COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill

I move that the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 14 October 2021—

💬 SPEAKER: I’m just going to interrupt the member and ask him whether he was going to do, as had been indicated, that he was going to present a legislative statement?

I thought I’d do that after this, but, OK, yes. I do—no, not on this one.

💬 SPEAKER: Not on this one? All right, continue. That’s not what my notes say, but that’s all right.

Sorry, no, Mr Speaker, I do. I present a legislative statement on the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill.

💬 SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I’ll start again. I move, That the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 14 October 2021, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside of the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Last year, in the month before the election, the House passed two omnibus bills that were very similar to this one. They contained a wide range of measures that were designed to enable businesses, local government, and others to more effectively manage the immediate impacts of the disruptions that were caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. It is often the case, after a lockdown or after a period of restrictions such as the one that we’re currently experiencing and have recently experienced, that people are unable to comply with legislative provisions that apply to them. Things like deadlines for filing papers and so on. There are a range of requirements that need certain things to be done in person that cannot be done in person in the current environment, while we’re dealing with COVID-19. So there’s a need for us to make a whole series of minor, relatively non-controversial technical changes to legislation, with appropriate sunset periods, to make sure that things can happen in this environment that might otherwise not be able to happen—or we effectively might be forcing people to break the rules in order to comply with the rules. So this particular omnibus bill deals with exactly those sorts of issues.

In the tradition of the bill that we had last time, this one amends 15 different Acts and one set of regulations. The amendments are, in my view, largely common sense. They’re pretty practical solutions that deal with the challenges that have been caused by the current COVID-19 outbreak. So I’ll run through the amendments—some of the more controversial and interesting of the amendments—in a little more detail. Obviously there’s a lot of them, so I won’t go through all of them.

But two of the proposed amendments—and the ones that I suspect are going to generate the most debate—concern tenancies. One deals with commercial tenancies and the other with residential tenancies. There will be an opportunity for the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider these particular amendments. The amendments to the Property Law Act support commercial tenants and landlords to come to agreements that adjust rent due under their leases so that the parties can share the financial burden of the COVID-19 disruption. It enables more businesses to remain solvent through the COVID-19 pandemic, and it provides a way to help resolve disputes if an agreement can’t be reached. The other set of amendments applies prospectively to potential future restrictions, and it’s what happens for residential property tenants in the event that they cannot leave their tenancy because of a COVID-19 restriction. So it’s important that we have a clear legal basis there for arrangements that have been entered into already, in some cases, but potentially could be entered into as a result of a future situation. So this is a prospective, not a retrospective, piece of legislation, so it would apply to future outbreaks in the event that it was needed.

Some other amendments that are of interest to the House. There are occasions were people aren’t able to comply, or have to stop doing something that there’s a public interest in them continuing to do, because of the various rules that exist around COVID-19 and in-person interactions. A good example of that is changes to the Gambling Act. Now, by and large, I’m quite cautious when it comes to making any changes around the Gambling Act, but this one deals with some use of the provisions of that Act that I think we would agree there’s a degree of social benefit to. Organisations like Coastguard New Zealand and the Heart Foundation use what are called class 3 lotteries to raise funds for the very important work that they do in the community.

Now, under the Gambling Act 2003, class 3 gambling operators have to sell their tickets either in person or via post. Last year, we made an amendment—with a sunset provision that is about to expire—that allowed those class 3 operators to use email or phone to offer their lottery tickets, with the payments being made online. Those provisions expire on 31 October this year, so not far away. Coastguard New Zealand and the Heart Foundation have told us that the change has actually been a massive help in their fund-raising, and they raised concerns that, with those provisions expiring, they would lose the potential to raise that revenue to support the really important mahi that they do within our communities. So the amendment to the Gambling Act that’s proposed in this bill will extend the existing provisions that we’ve put in place as a response to COVID by another two years.

Other things that the bill deals with, it helps our courts to operate effectively in the era of the epidemic. Coroner’s hearings would be allowed to be held remotely, we would be able to make greater use of the High Court to clear the backlog in District Courts, court rules will be able to be more easily modified to respond to the circumstances created by COVID-19. Other provisions help with administration, like the extension of statutory deadlines, as I mentioned. The use of electronic signatures and the ability to serve infringement and reminder notices under the Land Transport Act remotely, and again these are just pragmatic and sensible changes that allow people to stay safe whilst continuing to transact the business that they need to be able to do.

So most—as I said—of the amendments in this bill are small changes but they’ll make a significant difference, either to individuals or to organisations, and they again exhibit a fairly practical approach that we have tried to show as a Government when it comes to responding to the issues that COVID-19 has put before us.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. Can I just start by begging the House’s indulgence to apologise to drum and bass listeners around the country, who I inadvertently insulted this morning in launching National’s COVID-19 response plan, when I indicated that I didn’t like drum and bass music. I was not at all meaning to insult them and I will endeavour to listen to George FM more—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: It sounds like they don’t like you much either.

Well, apparently George FM is creating a drum and bass playlist for me for Spotify, so can’t wait.

So anyway, I apologise for that. We will be supporting—

💬 Matt Doocey: You were young once.

I was young once, yeah, exactly. We will be supporting this bill through first reading with the caveat that this process is a shocker—it really is. I’ve expressed privately, and I’m happy to say publicly, our disappointment to the Minister at this. To have a bill drafted up, go through Cabinet on a Monday, be introduced to the House the next day, and then set down for first reading under urgency the next day is not a good process. It was justifiable last year. You could make a case it was justifiable last year because we were dealing with the teeth of the pandemic and people had to move quickly and legislation was taking effect and having effects that we needed to delay, fair enough. But a year later or more than a year later—18 months later—to not have the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, so to speak, to use the vernacular, is not good practice. And we will support it to first reading, because we accept the case that there are a variety of different things that are happening that it would probably be good for Parliament to delay or alter or make changes to because COVID has had various effects on things and the alert levels are having those effects, but I want to say to the House now that the Finance and Expenditure Committee will have to do a very thorough vetting job and iron out some of the fishhooks in it before we in the National Party will support this bill at second reading and beyond.

I see the chair is here of the venerable Finance and Expenditure Committee. I used to hold that role. I see Dr Webb is here and Barbara Edmonds as well, and I’m going to have to rely on the committee, because I’m not a member—we’re going to have to rely on the committee—to do a thorough job. In that regard, it is not acceptable, in our view, that the Minister has indicated that the committee is going to be asked to report back by 14 October. That is not acceptable. That is in about 2½ weeks. And I want to flag now for the House that the National Party will be moving an amendment to the motion for the report-back date of 14 October to instead be 14 November 2021. That will give the House another month or so to really scrutinise this bill properly, and I think it’s a fair compromise.

In the ordinary course of events, you would send a bill to a select committee for four to six months. Our argument will be another month to really get to grips with it and that will allow the time for the House to pass the bill through all the rest of its stages by Christmas time, which the Government’s indicated they want to do. We don’t need 14 October. There’s more than enough time between 14 November and House rising for Christmas to pass this piece of legislation, so I think it’s a fair request. And I’d just urge the other parties here—the ACT Party, which is a long-time opponent of urgent legislation like this, but also the Green Party, who have spent a long time in their time in Parliament raging against the use of urgency and shortened select committee report-back dates. So I urge the Green Party in particular to join with the National Party and vote for a motion to amend the report-back time to 14 November, which would be an extra month beyond what the Government has flagged.

So I suppose the first point to make is why now—why this particular date? The Government has had quite a long time to get to grips with some of this legislation, and one could ask: what have they been doing in the last few months? Why do we have to deal with this now? This has not been well signalled, it has not been well planned for. We accept that there’ll be some disruption because of COVID, but, really, we deserve better as a Parliament than what we have got with this bill.

I want to flag up two particular things that the National Party is very concerned about. The first is this little amendment, which I noticed the Minister didn’t speak about, to the Local Electoral Act 2001. He didn’t mention that, and I’ll tell you why he didn’t mention it. It’s because the bill allows the Government to change the nomination times and nomination day for local elections. So the current law says—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: It’s the Governor-General.

Well, don’t say it’s the Governor-General that can do it. Dr Webb knows when it says the Governor-General that is the Government, because it’s the Government that instructs the Governor-General—that’s constitutional law 101. So the current law, section 73A, says the Government can adjourn nomination day for up to six weeks—for up to six weeks, right? So OK, that’s fair enough, because you need a bit of flexibility. This says the Government can do it multiple times—doesn’t set a limit for how often they can do it, but multiple times for six weeks at a time, including into the year following an election.

So the next local body election is 2022—that’s coming up, and there’ll be mayoralty changes round the country and it’ll all be very exciting—and I know that there’s one particular member of this House who’s gearing up for a bid for the Mayor of Wellington, and we look forward to that run, and everyone will be very excited about that. And there might be other members of Parliament who want to run for mayoralties and local councils—we’ll wait and see. But that’s 2022, OK. But what this bill does is it says the Government can say, “Actually, the 2022 local body elections, it is possible to continue to delay them until 2023.” And I’m sitting here thinking, “Why would the Government want to do that?” I mean, if you were being really cheeky, you would say they’ll just delay and delay and delay, so that when the member for Rongotai becomes the Mayor of Wellington, they might not have to have a by-election in Rongotai because we might get within the six months before the 2023 general election, when there doesn’t have to be a by-election. If you’re being really cheeky and really naughty, one would suggest that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Not the Speaker—Order!

I would never want to do that because I’m not a cheeky person, but there’ll be people who speculate about that. So I think this is not a good provision.

And you’ve got to ask yourself: is it even really necessary? Local body elections, as we know, are done by postal votes. We had this situation last year where the Government essentially decided to delay the election for however long it was—four or five weeks. We had a bit of back and forth about whether or not that was a good idea, but that was voting in person, and you can sort of accept the case that voting in person at a time of COVID was a potential spread, but local body elections are done by postal votes—and some people think we should change that, but as of now they’re done by postal voting. There’s no election day for a local body; it happens over 3½ to four weeks. The votes go out, people fill them in—45 percent of people or whatever it is; we’ve got to get the rate higher—and they send them back. The risk of having a postal vote at a time of COVID is, I would have thought, not that high. So why is the Government seeking the power, through this bill, through the Local Electoral Act 2001 amendments—it just subtly sneaked in there in one of the Schedules, not mentioned by the Minister. Why is the Government seeking this power? So that is something the select committee is going to want to have to get to the bottom of, because it’s not clear at first blush why the Government wants to arrogate itself this power—extra powers—and if they’re actually needed.

I see my time is running to an end, so I’m sure that other colleagues will want to pick up on the other changes to the Property Law Act, which even the Minister accepts, in his speech, was controversial. He actually flagged it up for the House. In a rare moment of honesty there was actually an admission that that was actually going to be quite a controversial measure—it’s retrospective and it actually interferes in the sanctity of the contract between landlords and tenants. And I know that members in this House will want to get to the bottom of exactly why that is going to be the case and why the Government is advancing that. So we’ll vote for this bill, but with—

💬 Hon Member: I’m not sure why, frankly.

Yeah, well, I’m beginning to wonder myself now, but with severe caveats around the time frame and around some of the little, hidden measures in the bill that the Minister didn’t really want to talk about.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. As chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, I thank the member Chris Bishop for his confidence in the committee. Should ever he want to come down, he’s more than welcome to help us out, because it will indeed be a busy committee.

Just a few short comments, really: firstly, one perhaps quirky one. I’m surprised to see in the Ministry of Transport amendments that they’re still using faxes in that ministry for sending notices, but that’s one of the amendments, and perhaps that will be the last piece of legislation that actually mentions the old facsimile machine and calls it a form of electronic communications.

But I think Mr Bishop was right when he identified the insertion of an implied term in commercial leases as one of significance that we need to have a good look at. Look, it’s significant in a number of ways, because it does defer to the parties in the first instance what a fair rent reduction in the circumstances will be. In fact, though, it’s worth noting that this is very similar to the Auckland District Law Society lease—I think it’s clause 27 which talks about premises being inaccessible and the parties having to agree a rent reduction. But look, I want to signal now that the Finance and Expenditure Committee will be looking at this, and it will certainly be looking to key stakeholders to assist with that.

The other interesting feature of this piece of law is the compulsory arbitration, which we don’t see very often, but, again, it’s something that’s very common in commercial leases. So rather than people running into court, commercial lease-holders—you know, the retailers, the small retailers in those malls that have perhaps been doing it hard on bespoke lease documents, which aren’t tenant-friendly and aren’t particularly even-handed. They won’t be going into court on those kinds of things. They’ll be asked to go straight to arbitration, and those arbitrators will be experienced people in commercial property and they will be able to, essentially, value what the loss of occupation is worth and where that loss should fall.

Finally, I just would mention the Gambling Act amendments. Again, like Minister Hipkins, I’m a little cautious around that, but I’ll say I’m a holder of raffle tickets in the coastguard raffle. I have been the recipient of their services—thank you for hauling me to shore on that singular occasion.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: What’s the prize?

I won’t trouble people with the details. Talk to me later, Mr Bridges. It’s quite a story. But look, it’s not really online gambling; it’s simply purchasing raffle tickets by electronic payments on a website. It’s a little different from some of the other online gambling that goes on that’s a bit more pernicious. They have to hold a class 3 gambling licence already. I think that’s a good extension in COVID times to the fund-raising efforts of our important not-for-profits like the coastguard.

So I look forward to presiding on the Finance and Expenditure Committee and having a very good look at improving this bill wherever we can. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill, which is an omnibus bill. I will be primarily speaking to the Epidemic Preparedness Act and the changes being proposed to that, but I want to start with the legislation that’s talking about roadblocks and paint the desperate and sad, tragic picture for the southern boundary for the Northland region and the Whangārei electorate.

Let me paint what happened here. So on 17 August, the Prime Minister at 6 p.m. announced that the boundary, the border, with Auckland—we’d all go into lockdown, and the Auckland-Northland border would be shut. Between 6 p.m. and midnight, which is when the legislation came into effect, or when the order came into effect, thousands of vehicles came into Northland. We were told by people at Green Bay that it was headlight to headlight, bumper to bumper.

The issue we’ve got with that is several-fold. First of all, they brought the Auckland risk into Northland, which has areas of deprivation and poverty least able to deal with infection—that wasn’t a good thing. Secondly, what it did was it burdened our infrastructure. So we know from some of the pharmacies out at Mangawhai, for example, that they had 60 percent greater uptake of prescriptions from Aucklanders from out of Northland areas. That takes a lot of work, to call back to an Auckland chemist, find out what they’re taking, then deliver it, so it certainly burdened our infrastructure.

The third point I’d raise before I go into the detail a bit more is that Northland was then required to stay in lockdown level 4 with Auckland, despite not having a positive coronavirus case. There was a positive case in Warkworth—that is not Northland. Yet Northland paid the price of another two or three days because—maybe because, and we’ve asked this question—thousands of Aucklanders came into Northland.

Rather than making that anecdotal, I asked this of the transport Minister, actually: how many registered licence plates crossed the toll booth north of Auckland between 6 p.m. and midnight, and how many of those registration plates were registered with Aucklanders? The number was actually 4,000.

💬 Hon Member: How many?

Four thousand. Now, what we needed to do, though, was take off those people from Auckland who would normally travel to Northland on a Thursday anyway. So I asked for the week as well. That was 1,000. So, net-net, 3,000 Auckland vehicles over that six-hour period traversed from Auckland into Northland and brought their risk with them—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: How many?

Three thousand, and each one’s got an occupancy of roughly one and a half to two people. That’s 5,000 people who brought their risk into Northland. Not fair. That should have been managed. There should be no epiphany here. You’ve had 18 months—not you, Madam Speaker, but the Government has had 18 months—to figure out that border, and yet we still allowed 3,000 vehicles to come into Northland. Not a good thing.

Now, then what happened is we stayed in level 4, as I’ve said, because there was some risk, purportedly—and I’m making the case that maybe it’s those people who came from Auckland into Northland. The concern I’ve got there is that the three Northland mayors were told 30 minutes before that 4.00 p.m. announcement that we were staying in level 4. The concern I’ve got is that the three Labour MPs were told the day before and were “extensively engaged” in decisions that included boundaries and checkpoints like this bill is talking about. How can that be? What happened to our local elected mayors? Why did they get 30 minutes and were told, and the three Northland MPs were “extensively engaged” 24 hours beforehand? What I’m hearing: it was a slap for what the councils are doing and the position they’re taking on three waters. That’s what I’m hearing. I’m hearing that because Whangārei District Council has taken a position against this ridiculous asset-grab, they had the courtesy of 30 minutes, and everyone else had a full day. I’d suggest that can’t be right either. Our elected representatives, our three mayors told, and the three Labour MPs in Northland had 24 hours. So that’s something that needs to be attended to.

I want to talk to the part of this omnibus bill that’s called the Epidemic Preparedness Act. How can this be preparedness? We are so underprepared for where we are landing here at the moment. That seems a misnomer in terms. If we can look at some of the areas where we’re underprepared: Middlemore Hospital—really interesting. I wanted to know exactly how many cases at Middlemore Hospital were involved in that very first case where the man went through the emergency department (ED), short-stay adult, up to the ward, was coughing, had three other people in the room—how many total people were involved with that? Minister Little wouldn’t give us an answer to that. It turns out between 300 to 400 people were actually involved with that. In ED on the day there were 75 visitors. There were orderlies for radiology, there were linen services, there were food services, there were people across several wards because the air conditioning went across several wards.

What I’m really interested in pursuing is if we look at the ED services and radiology, they had one style of personal protective equipment (PPE), which included an N95 mask. Our orderlies, cleaners, and linen services seem to have just had a surgical mask. How can that be? Why are we giving some of our more menial workers, if you want to call them that—absolutely critical workers—less PPE than those who serve in other areas? That’s what bothers me. I’m bothered about that, and I will keep on digging and find out more, but there’s something not right there that we need to discover that the Minister does not want to be forthcoming.

Epidemic Preparedness Act—hardly prepared. In the middle of a pandemic, we’re figuring out hospital visiting policy. How many visitors can attend each hospital? That’s ridiculous. Yeah, it was all one region—Auckland, Waitematā, Counties Manukau. Waitematā and Counties Manukau seemed to figure it out. Why could Auckland City Hospital not figure it out? That needs some thinking.

I want to talk about epidemic preparedness. Where was our primary care? Where were our GPs, not just across the country but in Auckland? What I can share with you is that—because it’s just a written parliamentary question that came back 30 minutes ago—if we look before the outbreak, there were 372 GPs who’d said, “We want to vaccinate.” So at the end of July, 372 GPs across the country said, “We want to vaccinate.” How many were vaccinating at that time? A hundred and ninety-seven—50 percent of GPs who had said, over many months, “We want to be a part of this preparedness.” Only half of them were credentialled.

What we know is that the credentialling time is at least six weeks. We know it’s an 80-page operating document. You’ve got to take pictures of your entry and exit, for goodness’ sake. How can that be? You might say to me, “Well, it’s an infectious airborne virus.” Excuse me, in 2019, under this Government’s watch, we had the measles epidemic. That’s also an infectious airborne virus—oh, by the way, with an R0 about four to five times more than what coronavirus had. So we trusted our primary care to manage infectious airborne viruses in 2019 when we needed them, but now they’ve got to do six weeks training, they’ve got to go through operating manuals, they’ve got to have two on-site visits. If we were Government today, here’s what we do: we would credential all vaccinating GPs and pharmacies today. We trust them. We trusted them during the measles epidemic. We should credential them today. That’s the sort of preparedness I’d be expecting in this bill that is clearly missing.

I want to talk about the preparedness around ICUs. That’s an unbelievable story. I actually recognise that part of our shortage here has been around ICU nurses. I get that. But how can it be that we have had not one new ICU resourced bed this year in all of the Auckland DHBs—not one? Furthermore, the Minister only requested a report on the capacity of ICUs in Auckland to manage coronavirus five weeks ago. He’s had 18 months since the first coronavirus outbreak. Delta arrived on 1 April. We all knew that ICU was going to be a pinch point, if you like. And the first time we get a report on it, or the Minister gets a report on it, is five weeks ago, several weeks into the pandemic, or our current outbreak. How can that be preparedness? Why is that not part of the Epidemic Preparedness Act that we’re talking about here today?

I believe that part of that preparedness—let’s remember what we’re doing here is several things. First of all, we’re trying to keep New Zealanders safe and we’re trying to protect the health system. That’s what this whole COVID response is about. That’s why we’re doing this here today. I believe they’ve failed on both parts of that, but particularly the second, to protect our health system. They’ve failed to build ICU beds, failed to bring in ICU nurses, failed to build negative pressure rooms. I can’t believe that the Auckland DHBs earlier this year said to the Minister, “We’ve got $6 million left from a building project underspent. We’d kind of like to spend it on negative pressure rooms.” and were told no. Then, three months later, in the middle of a pandemic, we’re building negative pressure rooms at Auckland and Waitematā. I can’t wait to see that letter. If that’s a forceful letter from the Auckland CEO begging for negative pressure rooms and the Minister says, “No, go back through the approval process”—which, as we know, in this Government’s hands is years—that’s going to be a letter that will come into public domain and be quite interesting.

I make my point that I’m focusing on the Epidemic Preparedness Act, which is part of this omnibus bill. That is a misnomer. This Government has not prepared us to protect us or protect the health system, and they are accountable for that. We will be supporting this through to select committee because in its wider frame we support the wider intent, but there are parts of this that sit very squarely with that Government over there. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to be able to take a short call on the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill. The reason I want to take a short call is because we’re going to spend a few weeks scrutinising this bill.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Well, we want to know what you think, though.

And I thank the member over there, Mr Simon Bridges, for his confidence in the select committee, in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, as we go through this.

Now, I want to acknowledge the number of public officials who put this bill together. That’s the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Land Information New Zealand, the Ministry for the Environment, the Department of Internal Affairs. The reason why I’m acknowledging the number of officials that have put this bill together is because a little bit earlier today in the general debate—and I hope I had not heard right—I’d heard one of the members on the other side of the House refer to them as boffins. I think that was a sarcastic, particular view, because I see boffins as experts, and these public servants have been working hours and hours to be able to support this country get through to where we are. So it’d be really nice if the Opposition on the other side of the House actually gave them some credit and were able to cooperate and help us get this bill through.

I just want to look at one particular part in the bill—that’s Schedule 6, Part 1, which amends the Coroners Act 2006. Now, over the last year, being a new electorate MP, we’ve had to deal with the coroner’s office a number of times. This particular amendment allows them to do video meetings and teleconferences. It clears it up and allows them to be able to do that. My hope is this will be able to support the coroner’s office in what they need to do in order to get through the cases that they’ve got, and so I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. The Green Party is supporting this bill. We understand the reasons for why we might have a curtailed select committee report-back period, because most of this is just pushing out legislative deadlines, for really obvious reasons, but there will still be plenty of opportunity to scrutinise at the select committee, and, of course, our member looks forward to that.

I just wanted to briefly talk about a few things that we have concerns about, even though we are supporting the bill. I mean, obviously, at the time, last year, we did not support the fast-track consenting bill—so, the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act 2020. This is one where the sunset clause is being extended. We still don’t see that that is the appropriate way to address any particular hold-ups to infrastructure delivery. Like, it’s really important that we get it right and that we have proper processes around protecting the environment. I do think that the Minister responsible has set a very high bar for getting through that fast-track consenting, but, ultimately, that is not the way to solve the particular challenges that we face with the Resource Management Act, and we’re looking forward to the new legislation that will replace the Resource Management Act in order to get better outcomes both for the environment and for communities.

The residential tenancies changes are welcome, but I don’t think they go far enough. Restricting terminations during outbreaks of COVID-19 is clearly something that needs to happen, but also there’s the issue around 90-day notice. So if somebody is issued a 90-day notice but then we go into a level 4 or level 3 lockdown for an extended period of time, it’s actually impossible for those people to look for alternative accommodation. For that reason, I think that probably we should be looking at whether or not the 90-day notice period is basically not counted during a level 4 or level 3 lockdown—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: This is crazy talk.

—because it’s not possible for people to look for alternative accommodation. What are they meant to do? They’re in a level 4 lockdown; they’re unable to visit other premises. Basically, everything to do with real estate is suspended at level 4, so it doesn’t make sense that the clock would be ticking on a 90-day notice to move out. It’s simply unfair for the people living in that property. I hear the Hon Simon Bridges saying that’s crazy. Obviously, the owners of private rental accommodation should have the ability to cast people out and make them homeless during a goddamn pandemic! What sort of morals do people in the National Party have that they actually think that the owners of property have more rights than the rights of New Zealanders to have a secure place to live in the middle of a pandemic? That explains why we have a housing crisis in this country, because that sort of person was in power for nine years while the supply of housing did not increase, there was no addition to the supply of public housing. It’s absolutely shocking and disgusting and immoral that anyone would hold that position, that owners of property should be able to profit at any price while we let people go homeless in this country during a pandemic.

Finally, when it comes to the changes to the Local Electoral Act, it will be interesting to see. It’s pretty obvious that if we were in a situation of a level 3 or level 4 lockdown, we wouldn’t be able to have public meetings. We wouldn’t be able to run a normal local body electoral campaign. So I think this is a pretty reasonable provision that has a number of safeguards attached to it. I don’t for one second believe the sort of bizarre conspiracy theories that were being peddled by Chris Bishop asserting that the Labour Government is going to use this power to somehow get an advantage in the Wellington mayoral race and not have to hold a by-election. I mean, that just sounds, quite frankly, a little bit deranged—although I guess that is where that party’s getting to. They’re really desperate at their 20-25 percent or less in the polls and making all sorts of random accusations.

But one concern I do have and that is not addressed in this bill, and that really should be, is the ability for New Zealanders overseas to participate in elections in New Zealand. That is a right that actually is very much jeopardised by the global pandemic and the fact that we have this strange constraint in our law that says you have to visit New Zealand every three years in order to participate in an election. Well, clearly, since the pandemic started, people have been advised not to travel. It’s extremely constrained their ability to return to New Zealand, and it’s quite possible that that constraint will extend for a period of—you know, now it’s been 18 months; it’s going to be over two years at best-case scenario.

To be honest, Andrew Geddis wrote a really excellent analysis of this. The requirement for New Zealanders to visit every three years in order to participate in elections is quite unusual, and if they are citizens of New Zealand, I really believe that this constraint should be removed completely. There are many citizens of New Zealand who, for whatever reason, are residing overseas. They still actively care about democracy in New Zealand. They want to participate in it—they are citizens, and they should be able to participate in it. I think that is an issue that really should be addressed in this legislation, or very urgently, because the Government is going to miss the opportunity to address this disenfranchisement of a huge number of New Zealanders who are stuck overseas at the moment and cannot return to New Zealand.

Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill. It is a very good example of why this Parliament and this country need an ACT Party. When everybody else loses their head, when even the National Party say, “This is terrible, it’s an abomination, it’s bad policy, it’s bad process, but we’ll support it.”, is when you need an ACT Party to say that this policy is wrong and this process of rushing through retrospective legislation that interferes in private contracts is completely wrong, it should not be happening in New Zealand, and if it keeps happening, the whole country will be all the poorer for it. That is why this country and this Parliament need an ACT Party: to point out these very simple truths.

Let’s talk a little bit more about this legislation. There are a range of initiatives in here that most people would have no trouble with. Many of them involve processes and procedures where people need to meet in person to sign or submit a form for various legal reasons, and all this does is say that you can be absolved of that requirement. In relation to the Gambling Act, the Coroners Act, a whole range of relatively benign changes made to those Acts around timing and the fact it is sometimes hard to do business under a lockdown, that is all OK.

But what we object to is the changes that are made to the Property Law Act that undermine private contracts for commercial leases up and down this country. I want to make it clear to people quite how different this is from what Governments normally do and what this Parliament normally does in New Zealand. Sometimes, people find that the law changes and they have to change their behaviour, but the one thing that we don’t do is change the law that affects people who have already made decisions. So if you signed a lease document and you had an expectation that you could continue to collect rent and that you could put in place a notice if a person failed to pay it, then that is an expectation written down in a contract signed by two parties. Neither of them were forced to sign it, both of them had time to consider it, both of them decided it was worth entering into—and both parties believed that that contract was binding, to be interpreted by the courts if necessary. Under this legislation, this Parliament is saying, “Oh no, no, no. It doesn’t matter what your lease says, we are changing a private document that two individuals voluntarily entered into.”

What does that mean? Well, what that means is—this is important—that if you sign a contract with another New Zealander, under New Zealand law, you don’t know when the Government might come along and change the nature of that contract. The Government doing that is something that we normally associate with banana republics, with countries in South America, with countries in Africa, with places where if you try and make a deal and you think that your rights are secure, a corrupt Government can come along and dash your hopes. That is why those places, sadly, are much poorer than New Zealand. People don’t save and invest to become wealthier in those countries like they do in Western countries like New Zealand, because you always take the risk that some corrupt Government will come and take your rights away. Well, unfortunately, by putting this law in place, by Parliament changing the terms of contracts that people may have signed 10 years ago, this Government is making New Zealand just a little bit more like those other banana republics. That is unforgiveable.

That is absolutely unforgivable because it is something that no future Government can easily change back. Normally, if a Government changes, the next one can change the law back and say, “Actually, that was wrong. We’ve changed it now.” But no future Government will ever be able to restore the trust that is lost in the rule of law in New Zealand when a Parliament—this Labour Party – dominated Parliament—goes and interferes retrospectively in private contracts, with rushed legislation.

Now, here is the next thing. It’s bad enough that we’ve got a retrospective interference in a private contract, undermining the rule of law in this country—that’s bad enough—but they are not even following due process through this Parliament. They are using their majority to rush it through under urgency. So will there be proper consultation? No, there is not. Have they prepared a regulatory impact statement from Treasury weighing up the costs and benefits of this law? No, they haven’t. Will there be sufficient time, as they have indicated, under a rushed select committee process, for people who are affected by this law, to come out and say what is affecting them and have their views considered? Will there be time for that to happen in a couple of weeks? No, there won’t. Will this Government be waiting until that rushed parliamentary process is complete before the law comes into play? No.

Here is the third big problem. Not only is it retrospective, not only is it being rushed through Parliament, the Government is not waiting for Parliament. They say that “We’re announcing a law today and it’s in place from 28 September.” It is in place today. That whole democracy thing, putting it through Parliament, and the representatives elected by the people of New Zealand voting on it to actually make it a statute law, all of that stuff, that’ll come later. The Government is now making laws by press release, and that is banana republic stuff. That erodes the confidence that people have to save for tomorrow, knowing that maybe the Government will just take it all away. That is what is at stake with this legislation. That is what you get from a Government of children who don’t understand the implications of what they are doing to the future of this country, with their immature, ill-conceived, rushed, retrospective interference in the property rights, the rule of law, and the contracts that New Zealanders voluntarily enter into in a First World Western democracy—or at least it is for now.

So what should this Government have done? Well, they should have acknowledged there is a problem. Because they weren’t prepared for Delta, because they now have an interminable lockdown with no end in sight, small business is hurting, and they should have recognised that problem. What they should have done, instead of spending all the time we’ve had till now investing in bike bridges to Birkenhead, investing in the art in Te Papa, and spraying the COVID fund every which way, they should have been thinking about saving their money for a rainy day, and making the resurgence payment for small business weekly. Instead of messing with centuries of contract law and the property rights of New Zealanders, the certainty in the rule of law that New Zealanders enjoy, they should have used some of that money that they’re borrowing by the billion to compensate for small businesses that are actually affected by their ill-preparedness and their unending lockdown, by making the resurgence payment weekly. That is what they should have done, but no. Instead of that, they have decided to do serious lasting damage to the reputation of New Zealand as a civilised country with property rights and the rule of law where you can invest today knowing that your assets and your property will be there tomorrow. That is what they’ve done instead. They are now beyond an incompetent Government; they are a dangerous Government that does not understand the impact of what they are doing to the future of this country.

Once again, as often happens at times like this, there is one political party that New Zealanders can rely on to stand up, tell it like it is, and say, “No, this must stop, and if it doesn’t, every single one of us in New Zealand will eventually be far worse off than if it had stopped right now.” The ACT Party proudly opposes this abomination of a dangerous and damaging piece of legislation. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Before I start can I just point to the Huia Pin that I’m wearing at the moment—as many of my colleagues around the House are—to commemorate 33 police officers who have given their lives for the service of New Zealand. Today is the day they are commemorated.

It is very important that we do look at our history, because that speech made by the member who has just resumed his seat, David Seymour, could have been made here in the 1890s when New Zealand land reform was being done, when New Zealand was owned by 200 families. But for a very inspired Government, inspired by John McKenzie, we would have been in exactly the same place as those very banana republics that he is quoting, where all the wealth is in very few hands.

What the role of Government is to do, is to ensure that the wealth, the health, and the future prospects of all its citizens are considered. So when we look at this bill, that’s what this does—it ensures that at a time when we have had changes, considerable changes, we, as a Government, look at what needs to be done to ensure that everyone in this country gets the opportunities they need. We need to ensure that what needs to be done is done, and this legislation ensures that. So I have no hesitation in commending this to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, others in this debate on this side of the House have already indicated what an appalling process this piece of legislation is. Here we are, thrust into urgency, 18 months into the COVID crisis, by a Government that has completely lost control of its legislative programme, is asleep at the wheel, and has to come to the House to present under urgency an omnibus bill that will, literally, fix up dozens of small matters that need attention, which a Government if they were on top of their portfolios, if they were on top of their legislative programme and agenda, would have had sorted, giving full and proper process, proper parliamentary scrutiny, proper select committee scrutiny, to this piece of legislation and the changes that are contained in it.

And so my colleague Chris Bishop has very adroitly and articulately presented the case for why we oppose this urgency. And what he said was absolutely right: this is a Government that just is so far off beam in terms of their process and their agenda that they have to bring this piece of legislation to the Parliament, put it under urgency so that during the next fortnight recess, the select committee can hear and see and receive submissions. That process is simply appalling.

And to hear a Green member—the Green Party members used to stand in this Parliament on principle. They used to. They used to oppose that sort of thing. They used to actually have some principles. Now they’re entirely flexible, and it turns out that they have turned into a party that is literally just a party of private property denial. One of the things that is done in this piece of legislation is that it’s actually going to slow down a whole lot of climate change stuff. Now, the Green Party member didn’t mention that once. Oh, we have declared a climate emergency—I would have thought that the Green Party would have been encouraging the Government to speed up its process. They have to rely on Greta Thunberg to actually point out how slow the New Zealand Parliament has been in terms of this Government’s agenda.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: What did she say about Ardern?

Oh—asleep at the wheel? Oh, I remember what she said. It was “Blah, blah, blah.” “Blah, blah, blah” is what she said about politicians like our Prime Minister who talk a big game on climate change and then, under urgency, pass legislation that will slow it down.

And that is quite remarkable, because some of us in this Chamber remember a time when the climate emergency was being passed through, and all that sanctimonious, high-handed, grand gesturing stuff was being done, when the Prime Minister said, and I quote: “This is a declaration that will need to be supported by ongoing, continual action and activity.” That’s what the Prime Minister said when the climate emergency was declared. And what do we have now? We have this Labour Government coming to the House and introducing, under urgency, legislation that will slow down climate action—will actually slow it down.

But not to be outdone, then the Minister of Climate Change, James Shaw, the Green guy—the one that’s heading off on the big jet plane shortly to Scotland, with a crew of 14 people—said at the time when the climate emergency was introduced back in December 2020, “We have been reluctant to declare a climate emergency. It would just be empty words.”, he said. “It has to have substance.”, is what he said.

Well, anyone who will read this piece of legislation will know that what’s being asked here is that the emissions reduction plan that was set out in the legislation to create the zero carbon Act actually put in place some timetables, and it relied on the Government to actually meet those timetables. And what’s the first action of this Government in terms of their climate activity in action? Oh, let’s slow it down. Let’s delay the reporting times. Let’s link them into the Budget cycle. Now, there’s no logical reason at all why they need to be linked into the Budget cycle. In fact, if they thought at the time that it needed to be linked into the Budget cycle, they should have put it in the legislation—should have put it in the Act.

What is being asked now is an opportunity to simply slow down the process. Greta Thunberg is watching from the other side of the world, and she has highlighted that, in fact, when it comes to New Zealand’s approach to climate action, this Government has been very tardy indeed. And, in fact, we find out today that statistics released by Statistics New Zealand say that, actually, our climate emissions are increasing—a 2.1 percent increase in the last recorded year.

So shame on this Government for talking a big game and then slowing the process down. This is an appalling process and one that we don’t support.

I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you. Xiexie, Madam Speaker. I rise to take this short call on the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill, first reading. This bill is an omnibus bill that amends more than one Act. The intention of the bill is to make amendments to matters that are aimed at assisting the Government of New Zealand and the people of New Zealand to effectively manage and recover from the impacts of COVID-19. This bill amends or modifies a range of legislation, but I wanted to touch upon one of the Acts that it amends. Schedule 5, “Ministry of Housing and Urban Development” contains amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986. The purpose of this amendment is to support tenants to stay at their rental homes during future outbreaks of COVID-19.

Now, I wanted to touch upon one example: I know a family who moved house during the latest outbreak, during the level 4 lockdown. The landlord, by no fault of his own, said, “The house is run down, it’s a health and safety issue, I have to move you out.” So, because there is no law that stops that, the family had to comply and move. So that was a risk to the family and to all of us. It could cause a massive outbreak here in Wellington.

This bill does a lot of good things. It’s not how the Opposition makes it sound—everything is negative. It’s quite funny to see the Hon Scott Simpson talking in favour of climate change. When it suits your arguments, you do things and you say things that you actually don’t mean. We have to be consistent with our messaging, to ensure that people have the right to stay at home during the outbreaks of COVID-19. As the Associate Minister of Housing, the Hon Poto Williams said, this is about futureproofing tenancies. We need to help end the impacts of COVID-19, restrictions of COVID-19, to ensure our laws are fair, flexible, and responsive. I commend this bill to the House.

This bill greatly concerns me. I mean, there’s so much to oppose here, I can’t see frankly how we can continue to support it post - select committee. I did administrative and constitutional law a long way back, and here we’ve got a bill which comes along and delays the regular provisions of the law and gives powers to individuals, to members of the executive, to the executive as a collective, over and above those regular provisions, at their whim, sometimes for a year, sometimes for a couple. Well, that’s what lawyers would euphemistically say is problematic; I say it’s wrong actually, to do that, and to do what this bill does throughout it without really good reason. As Chris Bishop said in his speech, in 2020, in the eye of the COVID storm, he could accept that; they were remarkable times and they required that. But in this bill, the Government does do it through into 2022 and I say that’s not just problematic, it’s plain wrong.

And what’s the reason here? Why on earth aren’t they doing that in some cases just for a quarter or the least possible—stopping, delaying the regular provisions of laws of this land if it’s really necessary. Let me give you a couple of examples in this bill. Firstly, they are fundamentally giving themselves the power to suspend local democracy—election year, next year. And I say that is plain wrong. Let’s take the case of my city—Tauranga. We’ve already got a situation where there are unelected commissioners who do the bidding, frankly, of Nanaia Mahuta. That’s the situation and it happened on one simple promise from Nanaia Mahuta that democracy would be restored in the election year of 2022. But this bill gives her the power, the Government the power, to do away with those elections. That is wrong.

Commercial leases—we’ve heard a bit about that. I say what’s happening there is not only a breach of contract, which, by the way, really, really matters—the certainty of contract is one of the bedrocks of our society and the civilisation which we had—but it does it in a way which is now all about fair proportionality in consultation. Well, actually, I think we know what that means. It’s giving a break to the renter. And you might say, “Well, that’s real good”, but actually I say there’s a bunch of landlords out there who are also doing it tough and this overriding of regular law without any consultation of anyone in this significant industry for our country is just plain wrong.

Actually, someone said very recently that some of the things going on at the moment in relation to COVID are a bit like North Korea. I have to say there’s a touch of that here. There’s a touch of the Muldoon in this law. Jacinda Ardern may not look like Muldoon, she may not have the style of him, but in this bill, with these provision, it’s a bit like Fitzgerald v Muldoon going back—he’d be proud, I think, of a law like this.

What’s more—the second point I want to make—is it’s lazy law. It’s a lazy, complacent bill that enables a lazy, complacent Government to be even more lazy and complacent than they are. You see, what this bill fundamentally says about the Government is that they can’t walk and chew gum. We all accept that COVID-19 is a very significant issue for New Zealand and the world. But what this bill says is they can’t focus on that and anything else at the same time.

See, you know, the answer from this Government is it’s all about COVID. Yep, COVID’s important. But then they’re excusing themselves from doing anything in climate change, from doing anything about housing, about roads, hospitals, schools—all the while, because of COVID, they excuse the borrowing of a billion dollars a week that will heap up and be a millstone around the neck of the next generations in this country.

I want to focus quickly on climate change because this is a Government—indeed, the Prime Minister—who said it was her nuclear-free moment, and yet what is she doing in this bill? She is excusing herself and her Government from really doing anything for a few more months. Why on earth, as a result of COVID-19 and what’s happened, they feel the need for that? Was James Shaw caught up in the COVID-19 response? Not even a little bit. And yet this lazy, complacent Government is doing nothing about it. Nuclear-free moment? My backside!

The third thing I want to say on this bill is: how about instead of all this mucking around, the Government actually comes up with a plan to open up? I know it’s radical, Mr Speaker. I know it’s crazy. In a sense, I would say: why don’t they pick a plan, any plan? They’ve got ACT’s, they’ve got National’s, they’ve got John Key’s. Pick a plan and do something. But instead they’re not doing anything—nothing—and that’s why we have to have this bill all the rest of this year into 2022. I say that’s a crying shame.

You know, Ryan Bridge, the new AM Show lead is entirely right when he said earlier this week that the reason there is no plan from this Government actually in relation to really anything that is of importance in this country right now, but certainly in relation to COVID-19, is because everything they do is poll driven. I could focus on the fact that they’ve done something I don’t think I’ve ever seen at a level like this before in the history of New Zealand, and that’s get the public health sector to pay for all those, in actuality, explicitly political polls, and the constitutional propriety of that, but anyway—be that as it may. They are running this country on poll after poll after poll, and again, as Ryan Bridge said, that’s because Jacinda Ardern is waiting for us, the people of New Zealand, to tell her the plan. She doesn’t have a plan. She doesn’t want to work up a plan. That would be too fundamental. It might get her in trouble. She might lose a few percent of votes—well, she’s actually done that in recent times. But the reality is she’s waiting for us to tell her the plan.

That is lazy. That is complacent Government. Leadership actually requires vision and a plan, and that’s true now not just in relation to COVID-19 but I’d say more broadly in our country on housing, transport, the economy, education, and health. I accept and I understand that the Government’s been burnt by KiwiBuild, by a cycle bridge that no one wanted, but actually, as it says in the good book, that Mr Seymour may know well—I don’t know—“Without vision, the people perish.” That’s where we’re at right now in this country.

Instead of that, we’ve got a Government that’s giving themselves powers, abrogating, getting in the way of the regular provisions and rules of Government, because actually they’ve been too lazy and poll-driven in their approach to do the hard mahi that provides not just the provision, actually the strategy and the plan for New Zealand in relation to COVID-19 but a host of other things in this bill, like climate change, like housing, and in a bunch of other areas.

Finally, this really, really matters not because of politics, not because of politicians like me standing up and making the points we do, but actually because right now in New Zealand, if there was a plan we would have a country where businesses wouldn’t be struggling as much with the effects of lockdown, where people wouldn’t be struggling as much with lockdowns as hundreds of thousands—in fact, one and a half million or more—are, in Auckland, where there’d be greater freedoms, where people would be able to see their grandchildren on the other side of the world, and on the other side of the world Kiwis would get what they thought, call them old-fashioned, was their God-given right to come back to the country that they live in and that they belong to. But they can’t, because we have a pernicious lottery-type system running at the moment because that mahi wasn’t done.

As I say, I understand the position of National to be we’re supporting it at first reading. Frankly, I wonder why, because it seems to me this is a bill that is pretty regrettable in most regards. Yep, Chris Hipkins will be able to point to the odd thing it does here, which sort of seems pragmatic and OK, but overall where they’re suspending the need to do anything about climate change, where they’re giving themselves the ability to do away with local government elections when they feel like it, and in a raft of other ways they’re giving themselves powers I don’t think they need to have at this time, it’s, as I say, highly regrettable.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Mr Speaker, it’s a pleasure to be back in Parliament and to take the final call on this bill in this House. I want to begin by thanking particularly the staff at Parliament for all the incredible mahi that they are doing to keep all of us safe. I particularly want to thank the clerks, the messengers, all of our own staff, the security team, and the catering team, many of whom have been working from home and working exceptionally hard to keep this Parliament running.

I want to reflect on the speech from the leader of the ACT Opposition tonight, because, quite frankly, I found—

💬 David Seymour: The ACT Opposition.

The leader of the Opposition is fine by me. Quite frankly, I found it a bizarre speech from the leader of a party that claims to be the party for small business, because there’s a particular part of this law that we’re introducing tonight, which I want to reflect on, that the people in my electorate of Nelson have been calling for. A great proportion of our businesses, our small businesses, work in hospitality, in tourism, and in the accommodation sector. The biggest cost that they have been raising with me as their MP is the cost of rent to keep their businesses running. They have been coming to me, raising this issue, and the Government has responded.

We have responded by introducing law that will change the Property Law Act, and the reason we are doing that, Mr Seymour, is so that we can ensure our small businesses, our hospitality businesses, our accommodation sector businesses, our tourism businesses who face high rental fixed costs can survive. The feedback I’ve had from them today is that they are delighted. They are delighted that they are going to have the opportunity now to actually arrange a fair rent—because it’s what’s stifling their business. We know that in places like Nelson and places like Rotorua and Queenstown, this has been a source of concern and it’s been a source of frustration for me, which I said a couple of weeks ago, that large commercial landlords haven’t been willing in my electorate to negotiate a fair rent so that we can keep our tourism businesses open.

So I am delighted. It is bizarre to hear the ACT Party, which claims to be the party for small business, actually not backing a piece of law that will stop those small businesses from collapsing—because it will. And so on that note, it is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Instruction to the Finance and Expenditure Committee