Adjournment

I move, That the House do now adjourn until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 21 February 2023.

I bring this motion to the House reluctantly, but Cyclone Gabrielle represents the most severe weather event that New Zealand has experienced this century. The devastation in many regions in the North Island is enormous and we are still yet to understand the full impact of it. Roads and broader transport networks, power, telecommunication networks, and damage to homes and businesses is enormous and will take a considerable time to recover from.

The declaration of a national emergency, as the Minister for Emergency Management has indicated, has only happened twice before, and Parliament did adjourn on both of those occasions. I know that members of Parliament across the House want to be in their communities at this time, and I want to join with the Minister in acknowledging the exceptional role played by MPs from all political parties in supporting their communities over recent weeks, and, in particular, in the last 48 hours. That is an important role that members of Parliament play, and it is one that I believe this House must strongly support to continue.

I also want to acknowledge that the declaration of a national emergency means that a large number of Ministers now take on an increased role within the response. This means that Ministers and the full apparatus of Government need to be focused on providing that response, particularly in the next 48 hours as we make sure that we get a full understanding of what is happening on the ground. As a result of all of that, I believe it is the right thing to bring this motion to the House.

Members of the House will be aware that this week was largely to have focused on the Prime Minister’s statement and the debate in response to that statement. I am sure colleagues will appreciate that the Prime Minister wants to be—and, I believe, should be—out and about in the communities that have been affected, making sure that the Government fully understands the situation that is there, and so that he can provide that leadership on the ground, as, indeed, I know other members of Parliament want to do as well. Equally, I’m sure, colleagues would appreciate that the Prime Minister’s statement is often a very political debate and that now is probably not the right time to be engaged in that kind of debate.

I would let the House know that it is our intention, when we do return on Tuesday of next week, that we will have the week that we had originally planned for this week—that will be the Prime Minister’s statement on Tuesday, the debate that follows from that, and then a normal House sitting programme on Wednesday and Thursday of next week. I would also like to add that the Minister for Emergency Management is providing information to MPs across the House about the response and also about some of the impacts on infrastructure, and that material will continue to be provided to all MPs to ensure that that information is available as and when it is needed.

So, as I say, I reluctantly bring this motion. I know that all parties would rather that we were able to carry on, but, in the circumstances facing many New Zealanders today, whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated, the right thing to do is to do our jobs in our communities and return here next week.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s fair to say this was not the way we expected or wanted the Parliament to commence in 2023. Right now, we should be engaging in the cut and thrust of the Prime Minister’s statement debate, but there we have it.

I firstly want to acknowledge the new Leader of the House for what, so far, has been a very open and collegial approach to an incredibly fluid process. I think there’s a bit of wisdom after the event and questions around the actions of the Government, which, overall, I support. But I think he’s on about plan D or E. What was contemplated on Sunday was very different from what we discussed in the Business Committee late yesterday, and different again from the motion which we’re now considering. But I do thank him for his engagement.

I also want to acknowledge the Business Committee, despite the direct attack on me that’s just been made. I was the first to approach the Leader of the House to express support for a determination that all members affected by the cyclone could be considered present for the purposes of voting. I enthusiastically supported one minor party’s ability to attend Te Matatini next week and to be present for the purposes of voting. I have encouraged the Speaker to exercise his discretion to support small parties, and I will be working in the Standing Orders Committee to make sure that definition is perhaps made more flexible, and that the question of remote participation—the sessional order for which is only COVID-related—can be more broadly applied if that’s the will of the House.

But the reality was that in the time available, for the short duration—bearing in mind that at that point, nearly all MPs were going to be able to make it here by late today or early tomorrow—it was not deemed—and not just by the National Party—necessary or appropriate to invoke that. There is a member of this place who may want to consider what role she wants to play, because being an MP means being here, and as Mark Cameron said, representing our communities, holding the Government to account even in an emergency—in fact, especially in an emergency.

So the question of supporting this motion is a line-ball call, that’s really important. But we have heard from the Minister for Emergency Management, and I think more strongly the compelling testimonies from our colleagues and from media where we now know there are 170,000 houses without power, a grid emergency; people on the roofs of buildings with water centimetres below them. The tragedy potentially unfolding within our Fire and Emergency New Zealand staff—we do very much think about them and all responders right across the affected areas and thank them for the tremendous work, at some risk that they are putting themselves to.

So, on balance, it is appropriate to suspend the actions of this House, and to go back to the places that need that help and then to, I guess, start again next Tuesday at 2 p.m., where I really hope, after successive little interruptions and big interruptions, that we have an opportunity to get back to the business of this House that’s so important. We will be supporting the motion. We wish everybody affected by the cyclone as best an outcome as can be achieved from now on. And we support the Government in its efforts to support our people.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. To start, to be clear, the Green Party supports this proposal and thanks the Leader of the House for bringing it. But I do want to, firstly, again, express the Green Party’s aroha to everyone who has been directly and indirectly affected by the floods and now by Cyclone Gabrielle, and acknowledge the emergency responders of all stripes who are, right now, putting themselves at risk to keep our communities and our people safe.

It is clear we’re living in the times that we warned about. We are living early-stage climate change. The impacts are anything but abstract. For some, the impacts are literally the roofs over their heads; the loss of all of their possessions, their businesses, of power; of internet, the ability to tell their family members that they’re OK, or actually that they’re not, to be able to even reach out for help on those that we’ve always thought that we could rely and infrastructure we thought was reliable, to move beyond the doors of their home, and to have a sense of security for now and for the future. For so many of us, right now, that’s gone.

People have lost their lives. As a country and as a Parliament, we haven’t even had the chance to properly grieve or mourn for those people—right now, we are sending all of our well wishes to those volunteer firefighters who we desperately hope are still battling for their lives. We send all of our love to their friends and family and colleagues.

It’s the very strong view of our MPs, when we came to the discussion about this adjournment that, and particularly the MPs who are on the ground in affected areas—and you’ll see four seats behind me that are empty; 40 percent of our caucus were unable to get here because they are in those affected areas. They were very clear with us in our caucus discussion that this is not “business as usual” and that they did not believe it was appropriate for Parliament to be continuing on as if this cyclone compounding major unprecedented floods was a minor inconvenience that we just work around. It is not; this is a crisis and needs a crisis response.

We recognise that our Prime Minister and our Ministers and all of the officials across our agencies, that their focus needs to be on working with our people to do whatever is needed at this moment, and recognising that we would have had a political debate and ask questions—and we could have done that better today, in terms of the ministerial statement, if a hybrid Parliament had been enabled yesterday.

I do want to come in somewhat in defence of our Māori Party colleague who drove through the storm to get here to be present in this House so that that party could have a voice in these discussions today. So to be suggesting that they are not doing their job as parliamentarians in prioritising this, in doing that, and putting themselves at risk is not what the Green Party believes this Parliament should be encouraging. We believe that MPs should be able to do their job and be safe and be in proximity to their communities in times of crisis where that is possible through technology. If we’d made that decision yesterday, that would have been possible through technology. For those communities to be able to actually hear their MPs stand up and bring their voices—that they’d had conversations with people about—into this House would have strengthened our democracy. For the Green Party, that is a real shame. As we come to terms with the climate crisis, we need to strengthen our democracy to ensure those voices are stronger in this place as we make those changes. But, again, we support this adjournment proposal.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of my ACT Party colleagues opposed to the adjournment of Parliament, as the only party willing to hold the Government to account in spite of an emergency. Our MPs believe we have a duty as representatives to bring our voice, and the voices of members of the public, to this House to hold the Government to account and ask the questions that are on the minds of New Zealanders—those who have been affected by the floods and those who have not.

We’ve heard from our National Party colleague just before that even when there is an emergency—and especially when there is an emergency—we should be here to hold the Government to account. But rather confusingly, they’ve opted to forgo democracy and Parliament. The ACT Party believes we need to be extremely clear: when the Government, in an emergency, takes on extra powers, we should be here to hold those powers to account and to hold the Government to account.

When the ACT Party heard of the cyclone and the travel disruptions that could occur, we did our best to make plans to be in this Chamber so that we could be here to ask questions of the Government. We’ve heard from our colleague Mark Cameron that his own farm has been affected, his own livelihood been affected, his community has been affected, and yet he is here to provide a voice for rural New Zealanders who want to ask questions of the Government—and that is his right and his duty to be here, as it is for all 10 of our ACT MPs. We should have at least made question time an option, even if it was a virtual question time, but instead we’re forgoing Parliament completely.

I do want to acknowledge that it is unfortunate that people across New Zealand have been affected by this cyclone. Many people have lost their homes and their livelihoods, and will be wondering what the effects of this cyclone will be in weeks and months to come. But for many New Zealanders, the worst of the weather event itself has passed. Flights are returning; travel disruptions—in some regards—have not happened. Importantly, members of Parliament who were affected are now able to fly down to Parliament like they were not able to yesterday. We know that people have been affected, but there are people who have been affected who still have questions to ask the Government. And it’s our job and our duty to be here to ask them for them.

On a rough count, looking around this House, there are around 75 members of Parliament here present. That’s 75 members of Parliament who can debate. That’s people who have made travel plans to be in Parliament and people who can question the Government, and I note there are around 11 or 12 Ministers that could be here to be held to account.

Parliament is making the decision to adjourn as the worst of the weather has passed. We know that the effects in the community are severe. There are people going through terrible, terrible events, but what will be different about tomorrow than will be different next week? There will be a clean-up happening in our communities tomorrow; there will be a clean-up in our communities next week. There are houses that may not have power this week, next week, and the following week.

We are in a national state of emergency, but we cannot suspend democracy because of the weather. We have a duty to be here, and we oppose the adjournment of Parliament.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai. I stand to support the adjournment. We think that it’s important that those that are in this House are out on the ground representing their communities, even if that’s not a priority. What we have seen in the last couple of environmental crises is the Wayne Brown fallout, and I guess it comes down to what type of political leadership we want to do: ones that are a little bit late to understand and empathise with what our communities are living through, ones that have to get guided and taught how to do it, or ones who naturally feel and have a connection to our communities. It’s not for me to tell and be a conscience for any other party except for Te Paati Māori.

We welcome the fact that there could’ve been a virtual solution, and that may well have been a good opportunity for us to be out on the ground and hold the Government to account. Unfortunately, that opportunity hasn’t been afforded. We look forward to that being discussed further in the future. What we do, though, is—if I can just give an insight into what I left: so we have thousands at home without power. We have marae that were standing up COVID responses that are still giving out manaaki packs and looking after all citizens of Aotearoa that have got COVID that are going into lockdown, elderly that don’t have families that live locally. They are the same people who have stood up responses, whether it be Te Kūiti, Manurewa Marae, that have gone out and provided accommodation, kai, assurance, support—physical, mental. Those are things that I don’t think a lot of politicians get to experience and see.

I have parents and grandchildren in houses this morning with no power, and I think what we can do is decide whether we make that a priority, to represent the very communities that we come from, or to arrive here and isolate ourselves from them. Again, it’s not my place to be a conscience for anyone else. But for Te Paati Māori, we recognise that a lot of those whānau don’t have power, they don’t have digital access—they’ve been locked off. They’ve not been able to sit there and get themselves connected to any type of authority or assurance. We have communities, rural particularly, that don’t have any Government support or agencies around them.

So I welcome that we have been given the opportunity to go home and make our communities a priority. Whether you’re a list or an electorate doesn’t really matter, you’re here for the service of other people.

Ka huri ki te kaupapa. Ka tautoko i te karanga a te Kāwana. Kia koha ehara kia hōhā kē. Me whakahoki ki tā tātou whānau. Ko te mea nui he tangata.

[To return to the issue at hand. I support the call of the Government. Give service, not irritation. We should return to our families. People are the most important thing.]

The most important people are those out there, not us in this House. Kia ora koutou.

The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 21 February 2023. Kia ora.

The House adjourned at 3.14 p.m.