Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill, Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill

I present legislative statements on the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Those legislative statements are published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill.

It’s a pleasure to bring these bills to the House, my first as the Minister for Economic Development in the 54th New Zealand Parliament. These bills are introduced to make changes to legislation administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). MBIE is one of the largest regulatory agencies and is responsible for more than 100 pieces of legislation across a wide range of subjects. Some of this legislation is very old and may have been amended many times, which can mean it is out of date or has become difficult to understand and administer.

Cutting red tape, removing obstacles, and ending unnecessary bureaucracy is an important part of the Government’s plan to grow the economy. Many of these changes are small in nature, but together they add up to countless hours no longer wasted on paperwork and barriers to success in our economy. These bills are about good regulatory practice and keeping legislation up to date. Collectively, the changes will reduce compliance burden and red tape, fix known problems with legislation, clarify unclear provisions, remove redundant provisions, allow legislation to adapt to changing information and technology, and ensure that people are getting their intended entitlements and regulatory protection.

These bills complement the Government’s ongoing programme of more substantive legislative reform and sector reviews of regulation. They allow us to fix things that have been longstanding irritants for businesses, members of the public, and MBIE but have not found a home in other legislation. Some of the amendments that were to be included in these bills have now found homes in other legislation. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill amends 24 Acts and associated regulations across five portfolios, including Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Science, Innovation and Technology, Media and Communications, Justice, and Energy. The Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill amends seven Acts, and amends and revokes associated regulations across three portfolios: immigration, workforce relations and safety, and energy.

In keeping with the range of MBIE responsibilities, the amendments in the economic development bill and immigration and workforce bill do a number of different things. They facilitate the use of electronic means to provide information to regulators and for regulators to provide notifications to maintain registers and to sign certain types of deeds. They remove redundant requirements to provide information, file reports, and renew notices that are always renewed in practice. They correct inadvertent errors in a couple of recently passed Acts: the Electricity Industry Amendment Act 2022 and the Plant Variety Rights Act 2022.

The bills facilitate the implementation of international mutual recognition schemes that allow managed funds based in our country to be offered more easily to investors in other countries, like the Asia Region Funds Passport. They provide for collaboration between the Commerce Commission and the Financial Markets Authority on matters involving unfair contract terms in contracts relating to financial services or products. They also ensure that people get their intended entitlements to paid parental leave in certain circumstances. They allow the Minister for Energy to approve dedicated electricity and gas safety instruments to keep technical regulatory requirements up to date. They provide for the register of the Electrical Workers Registration Board to delegate some functions, duties, and powers. They also strengthen aspects of the regulation of immigration advisers. Collectively, these amendments will make a positive difference to the people regulated by the amended Acts, and the businesses, people, and organisations that benefit from those Acts. The amendments will also allow MBIE to operate more efficiently and effectively.

Improvements to regulatory environments are one of the key ways we can help our economy grow. To grow our economy, we need better regulatory changes in New Zealand to complement our ambitious target to double exports over the next 10 years. Small changes done well also help remove the barriers that businesses, consumers, and communities actually face when they look to invest in themselves to grow their place in our economy. Each small change allows for those unneeded hours by lawyers and accountants to be redeployed to the best interest of their business or their regulatory requirements.

Our Government is a pro-growth Government. We believe in a better economic outcome for all New Zealand. We know that by dealing with barriers put up by Government—due to obsoletism, overlapping mandates, and outdated processes—we can make a real difference for those doing business. Part of the story of this Government is to remove those barriers to New Zealand and our New Zealand brand, along with local businesses across our country, so they can succeed on the world stage.

Fixing problems in legislation and regulation that cause barriers to businesses in our economy is one of the ways this Government delivers better public services. Whether through regulatory changes such as the proposals in these bills or through the tremendous efforts across the whole of Government in 2024, this Government will see results achieved for New Zealand and we will get business confidence restored again in New Zealand. I commend these bills to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

What she said, Madam Speaker, and a bit more, actually—I’m just agreeing with the Minister for Economic Development, mostly, on this piece of legislation. In many ways, it’s the rats and mice in terms of dealing with bits and pieces here and there. So it is interesting to listen to what the Minister had to say. Wholeheartedly, on this side of the House, we’re happy to take this to select committee and move it forward.

I guess the one challenge is speaking about being a pro-growth Government—and that’s aspirational; I agree with that. The doubling exports in 10 years—let’s be aspirational, but let’s actually have a plan and let’s actually have investment to make sure that happens. That’s the one thing I want to challenge the Minister on. I’ve been travelling the country over our recess, meeting with businesses and economic development agencies and sort of hearing about the challenges and things. One of the things, and with this legislation, is about how clunky much of what Government does is, how clunky the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment system is. So this tidies up a whole lot of stuff.

Again, it’s been a convention of this House for whoever’s in Opposition to support the majority of what is done. So we do support this. But, again, the challenge is around how we get our systems working correctly so that business, community, and innovation can thrive. That is my hope and challenge to the Minister, but also to lay out the plan, tell us how we’re going to spend money to double exports in 10 years.

Just out of curiosity, for the nobody who are in the gallery this morning, I would like to just share a little bit about some of the things in this legislation, because I know that the nobody who are here—oh, sorry, there’s the security guard. I know I shouldn’t mention the galleries—apologies, Madam Speaker. So the things we’re going to be mending are things like the Auctioneers Act 2013, the Building Societies Act 1965, the Charities Trusts Act 1957, or we can go all the way back to 1908 to the Industrial and Provident Societies Act. The amazing thing about this legislation is it is so interesting because that piece of legislation in the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill does something really important: it replaces “by the Customs” with “Customs”. So it takes out “the”. So it’s amazing stuff.

This is really powerful legislation, but it is important. I agree with the Minister, it actually is stuff that we need to do just to clarify and keep moving forward, so I commend these bills to the House.

Look, these bills tend to be relatively uncontroversial, and we haven’t identified anything that we have issues with. I guess it is worth noting the political tensions raised by the Minister for Economic Development around this belief that sensible regulation can be really good for the wellbeing of the country, while at the same time there is a political drive to slash regulations that actually often protect, for example, the safety of workers in the workplace or allow them to stay well. So I think it’s just interesting that in the context of non-controversial legislation, there are still political statements that I think are at odds with what has been said—between what has been said in the first speech and then what the Government is actually doing.

Look, these bills do make amendments to a series of Acts—and apologies, because I want to make sure that I get them right. But they make amendments to things like the Electricity Act 1992, to the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Gas Act 1992, the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, as well as the Mines Rescue Act 2013 and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987. I wanted to pick up particularly on the changes to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, just around the clarifications around immigration applications being put forward on behalf of an applicant, unless the agents are licensed immigration advisers; and personal criteria for cancelling, suspending an immigration licence. I think, to me, that’s an important conversation we need to have in select committee as well, around how that will impact people’s lives on a more substantive level.

As an immigration spokesperson, having worked with people who have been failed by immigration advisers, I think it’s important that we have robust systems in place to make sure that that workforce, which does really important work in supporting our migrant workers, actually has clear guidelines around, for example, what, how, and when their licence will be struck or suspended if they don’t act accordingly. Also, when we’ve worked with so many people who have had other people from the community put forward their immigration applications, it is really important that we do have robustness in place to ensure that those immigration applications actually are—if somebody’s going to support the applicant, that it is somebody who has received the adequate training. Because quite often we’re talking about people’s lives being on the balance when those immigration applications are made.

But, I think, more than anything, the key message for us is that it’s going to be really important that people and the public actually make submissions on this. I mean, we’re all in agreement that these changes do feel politically non-controversial, but we need the public backing to ensure that any nuance that we may have missed actually gets identified. So far, the Greens feel comfortable with what’s been presented here, and we do look forward to a constructive conversation about getting regulations right. When it comes to the nature of this bill, I hope that’s translated as well, and, more broadly, there’s a political agreement that actually regulations are particularly a good thing when the market in and of itself won’t regulate itself, or when there are, for example, professional areas that have not been shown to adequately support members of the communities. So the Green Party commends this legislation to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on these bills today. Firstly, I just wanted to congratulate the Minister for Economic Development, the Hon Melissa Lee, for bringing these bills to the House today. It’s very good work. This Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill is going to lift the quality of regulation in the immigration, workplace relations and safety, and energy portfolios. The bill will be improving four pieces of workplace relations and safety legislation that I’m responsible for: the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, the Mines Rescue Act 2013, and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987.

While these may not be the most exciting changes that this Government will make, cleaning up existing regulation is a necessary activity to ensure efficient regulatory systems. Collectively, the small changes in these bills will make it easier for Kiwis to understand the law and comply with Government requirements. The bills also fix problems with legislation, clarify unclear provisions, and ensure provisions are fit for purpose. There are quite a few amendments in the range of Acts in these bills today, so I’d like to touch on just a few and how they affect my portfolios and what effect they will have.

I’m very pleased that this legislation will improve parental leave provisions to allow people who are not biological parents leave provisions so that there is more flexibility when they stop work to care for a child and ensure that they remain eligible for parental leave payments. This change will help people who have taken on the care of a child unexpectedly, once long-term care is confirmed. Currently, under the law, it requires someone to stop work when they become a primary carer in order to access parental leave payments, but due to the legal obligations to their employer to work out their notice, if they continue working, they will not be eligible for parental leave payments. Section 7 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act sets out the definition of a primary carer for someone who is not the biological parent as “a person, other than the biological mother or her spouse or partner, who takes permanent primary responsibility for the care, development, and upbringing of a child who is under the age of 6 years”.

I’m aware of a number of cases where this change would have been beneficial. For example, a man and his partner were informally looking after a child when final parenting orders were made. He resigned from his job to look after this child and be the primary caregiver and he gave his employer six weeks’ notice. This man was then declined parental leave payments because he did not take parental leave or stop work from the date that he became the child’s primary carer. In the second case, a woman was given the care of her niece following a whānau hui, and she continued working. Later, when it became clear that she needed to stop working in order to care for this child, she applied for parental leave payments and her application was declined because she continued to work after the child had come into her care. In both cases, if these proposed amendments existed, the primary carers could be eligible for parental leave payments because they stopped work within a reasonable period of becoming the primary carer of the child, and I think that is a very good move that this legislation sets out.

The immigration and workforce bill will also make some other changes, too. It’s really important that employers and workers meet their legal workplace obligations, and that’s hard to do when the law is unclear. One area that does need clarifying is the Health and Safety at Work Act. New Zealanders expect and deserve their family members to return home safe and well. At the start and end of every work day, people should know that the law is there to keep them safe. As the Minister, I want to make sure that the law is clearer, which is why we will be doing a wide-ranging public consultation on health and safety law. But in the meantime, this bill will clear up some of the existing regulations in health and safety.

It will clarify that, in situations where safety-critical equipment or processes fail, they must be a notifiable incident, even if no one was directly imminently exposed to danger. The bill will minimise the risk of unjustified delays before parties receive notice and become able to file private prosecutions. It does this now by only requiring that the regulator make reasonable efforts to establish whether a relevant regulator or regulatory agency is taking action, or intends to act, regarding a situation, rather than having to contact over 100 entities, which it currently does, and it will assist in reducing the number of invoices for ACC CoverPlus Extra customers. I commend this legislation to the House.

On behalf of New Zealand First, I rise to support both of these bills. I’m on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, so we will be getting the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Bill to our committee.

Now, firstly, I wanted to speak very briefly on the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill and to follow on from what the Hon Brooke van Velden was saying about public health and safety and our need to create awareness of some of the issues that are in existence and some of the amendments that need to be made in order to ensure that people are safe in their workplace.

One of the things I did during the recess was I went and spoke to a few businesses and was made aware of an organisation that deals with asbestos and diseases that arise out of asbestos. I do feel that it’s important that—well, it was something that I didn’t know a lot of and about, and I do feel it’s important that by speaking about these bills, and there are so many that are being amended here, but by speaking about them, we’re creating awareness for the public of some of the issues that are going on that we may not even know about it. It was very difficult to listen to some of the stories that I was hearing of people who were suffering as a result of asbestos. So I just wanted to bring that one up.

Also, just some of the tweaking that is being done in these bills—it may not seem big, but, actually, they are. Just little words, like tweaking the definition of “notifiable incident”—you know, it may not be much but it could be a big difference in one particular case. So I just wanted to note that it’s important that these repairs and maintenance - type bills are put through.

And just very briefly on the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Bill, New Zealand First are very committed to cutting red tape and that is why we will always support any bill that removes these compliance burdens and other issues that stop growth. We want to stimulate growth in our economy once again.

One of the things about this bill is that it removes the requirement for Crown research institutes to deliver time-consuming and costly half-year reports. So we in New Zealand First believe, again, that we can remove some of this regulatory burden and it will be a more positive flow-on effect for businesses and the wider economy and, of course, everyday New Zealanders. I’m happy to commend both of these bills to the House.

I rise in support of both of these bills. I’m looking forward, in particular, to the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill—excuse the time it took to get that out of mouth—coming forward to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. As the Minister for Economic Development mentioned, there are 24 different amendments and changes to be made through this process. One of the ones that particularly caught my eye was the amendments to the Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act of 1978, mainly because that was the year that I was born. But what this does—

💬 Dan Bidois: You’ve let the cat out of the bag!

It’s on Wikipedia—it’s out of the way! So this is a very small amendment but very important, because what it does is it removes gender-specific pronouns and updates references to Customs and updates terminology relating to the presentation of reports to the House of Representatives. This is changing some of the assumptions about who is involved in heavy engineering in New Zealand. My son Duncan is currently at university studying engineering, and whilst he is in the majority of that class, there are more women coming through, and this is another way that we’re showing to the young women of New Zealand that, actually, science, technology, engineering, and medicine is something that they should get into.

I am looking forward to getting this process done, because these are sensible bills that should be well and truly agreed to across the House, and I commend the bills to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be able to take a call on this unusual situation where we’re reading two bills at the same time, as associated bills under the new Standing Orders. My colleague Glen Bennett spoke mainly to the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and I will be speaking mainly to the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill, which is, of course, the other half of this particular reading. It’s a really interesting system in the Standing Orders that allows us to talk to two bills at the same time when there are sufficient similarities in them.

I think it’s worth just noting the reason for these bills: updating legislation, a process that is gone through, led by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), to try and identify issues in existing law and remedy them through these types of omnibus bills. And as we’ve heard from previous speakers, these bills do touch on a number of different pieces of legislation and are quite detailed in the changes that they make. Although they are mainly minor details, it is our duty as a House to make sure we scrutinise all pieces of legislation that come through this House, and that’s our intention.

We will be supporting these bills through to select committee, but we do look forward to—in the bill that I’ll be speaking to—through the Education and Workforce Committee, going through with officials and looking at the reasoning why they have suggested to the Minister that these changes are necessary. I’ve had a brief look at the departmental disclosure statement and on first reading there seems that there’s quite a bit of analysis that is still to be done in terms of the effect of the bill. Just looking at page 5 there—no formal analysis was undertaken in a number of these different bills. So we’re supportive of the process. We do note that, in the previous Parliament, these were intended to be bipartisan bills supported through the House. Not on every occasion was that the case under the last Parliament, so I’ll just note that for the record. Of course, that does mean that if there are significant issues, we will be raising them and seeking to make sure that they are properly looked at.

There are a few particular areas in the immigration and workforce amendment bill that I wanted to highlight. One that is of particular concern to me is—it’s not a major change—it does allow the Minister to look at and decide—and I’m just looking at new section 169C(3) here, inserted by clause 7. It allows the Minister to be “satisfied that all persons and organisations that the Minister thinks is appropriate have been consulted” in regard to the subject matter. Now, this is on electricity safety instruments. I understand most of those will be delegated to MBIE. I don’t imagine the Minister Brooke van Velden will be doing a lot of that analysis herself, and it is appropriate that she delegates that type of decision.

However, we have had recent situations where the Minister has departed from the general bipartisan approach of talking to business associations, unions, the wider community—having open consultation. So if this is the way in which the Minister will proceed, then we would have concerns with that level of discretion being contained only within the Minister. So I just note that there is a little flag for discussion at select committee, and also for the Minister to note that it is important that all New Zealanders, no matter their political affiliation, their political beliefs, their ideology, have a voice within the New Zealand parliamentary system. It’s very much our desire that the conversations that have gone on between Governments in the past—led by the National Party, Governments led by the Labour Party—continue into the future, and that no New Zealander is left behind in terms of the important things that might affect them. So I just note that that is an important aspect of this bill that we’ll be looking at.

I don’t have a lot of time in this first reading, obviously, with these five-minute calls, to go through all of the different areas. But I note that one of the key areas for one of the Ministers responsible, or mainly the Minister responsible for the bill that I’m speaking to, is the changes in relation to pre-term birth payments and parental leave. Generally, having read through them, they appear to be good changes and reinforce what I understand was already believed to be the case: that if you have a pre-term labour, you would get those payments and then you would additionally be entitled to the regular amount of parental leave. That, to me, seems like a very positive change that will be welcomed—to see that there is that clarity within legislation.

So there is a lot of good stuff in here, but I look forward to scrutinising it more at select committee and making sure that it’s a bill that we can all support moving forward.

It’s a pleasure to rise and join the chorus of support for the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. This is rats and mice legislation, which has been raised in the House from the other side, that amends 24 Acts and associated regulations. It’s a beautiful piece of legislation actually, really, when it comes down to it. When I look at some of the key changes across the 24 bills, a lot of the key phrases are around modernising, updating, clarifying, and removing. These are all good things that aim to—

Tim van de Molen: Prudent.

Yes—prudent changes that aim to improve the productive capacity of our country, and this side of the House is very, very supportive of that.

Now, I couldn’t find a bill that began in the year that I was born, like my colleague the member for Banks Peninsula, but there were some very good things that I could mention—for example, the Charitable Trusts Act and the change that we’re looking at making there to update the information requirements and modernise the registration process. I think there will be a lot of charities throughout New Zealand and in my rohe of Northcote who will welcome that small but impactful change as a result. Another change is around the Crown Research Institutes Act, removing the half-yearly reporting requirements. Not only is this going to save money for the taxpayer but it’s going to save time and associated resources as well.

So, look, that is the kaupapa of why we’re here—to streamline, to simplify, to clarify, to remove barriers so we can get economic growth moving. That’s what this side of the House is about, because it’s only through economic growth that we can afford the healthcare and social services and the education that we all want our kids and mokopuna to access. And it is on that basis that I commend this legislation to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise and speak to the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. Indeed, it’s the first time in my experience that we have considered two bills, as such, as one before the House. I think it’s an interesting exercise and a good use of the time within the House and within our parliamentary system to get a number of things done all at once in the best way that we possibly can. Can I also acknowledge the Minister for Economic Development, Hon Melissa Lee, for her work that she has done on this particular piece of legislation—the good work, should I say, Minister. In fact, it is omnibus legislation that contains amendments to legislation administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—MBIE.

I do acknowledge, I guess, the shift in tone from a couple of the last pieces of legislation in this House–the Māori wards legislation was a difficult one where we debated—to now actually having some sort of consensus. I think that that’s a good balance for our mental health within the day, and for our country for that matter. At the same time, I acknowledge the Minister’s points around the importance of growth and productivity in this country and our attempt in this legislation to address some of that, and, I guess, the little bit of ambition that I might see from this Government in this legislation to take Aotearoa New Zealand forward in some sense. I just wonder: is this as ambitious as we get from this Government?

What this legislation does, and my particular interest, is how it modernises technology, it looks at the systems that we have in place, the regulatory systems. In fact, it actually works across 24 pieces of legislation, and 24 is a large number, so it is a good use of our time in this House. Those Acts are: the Auctioneers Act, Auditor Regulation Act, Building Societies Act, Charitable Trusts Act, Contract and Commercial Law Act, Crown Research Institutes Act, Electricity Industry Act, Fair Trading Act, Financial Markets Conduct Act, Financial Reporting Act, financial services providers Act, Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act, Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act 1978, Industrial and Provident Societies Act, Motor Vehicle Sales Act, New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants Act, Partnership Law Act, Personal Properties Securities Act, Plant Variety Rights Act, Standards and Accreditation Act—here’s one that the Government loves—the Takeovers Act, Telecommunications Act, Trade Marks Act, and Weights and Measures Act. That is 24 Acts in this House that we are considering in these two pieces of legislation. It’s a good use of time.

We look forward to considering these across select committees, in particular the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. And, in due course, I commend this legislation to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I’m sure the House will forgive me; just a few seconds to acknowledge Roy Williams of Levin, quite possibly the first New Zealander to receive the British Nuclear Medal. He was presented it on Monday. There are only a few living survivors and veterans from that time, and a very special day for him and his family, and I’d just love to acknowledge Roy.

From those in their senior years of life to those just starting out, in the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. I want to particularly focus on changes to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987 and the work that this bill is doing to ensure paid parental leave policies are inclusive, considering the diverse range of family structures that we might have these days. In particular, I just want to highlight two important changes as I read through this. One, starting around clause 45, is the protections that were sort of touched on briefly before, for pre-term babies.

When a baby is born early and that extra leave is needed, that doesn’t impact the entitlement that the parents might otherwise have got to ensure that that baby gets the best start to life that it can, which is so important to us. Secondly, to those who might choose to stop work—a number of parents obviously want to return but some, shortly after birth, might choose to stop; but they don’t lose that entitlement, thanks to these changes, to still get that paid parental leave that they had earned by working leading up to that. I think that’s really important.

These bills going through are all about improving effectiveness and efficiency, and decreasing the administrative and bureaucratic burden that employers face so that we can let them get ahead and drive this economy, and so that we can support families and young parents in particular—as I focused on that one bill that’s impacted—to get the best start in life for their family; so important to us. I commend this legislation to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bills read a first time.

The question is, That the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill be considered by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

The question is, That the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.