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

on behalf of the Minister for Economic Growth: I present legislative statements on the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): 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 second time.

These bills are omnibus bills introduced with the agreement of the Business Committee to make changes to legislation administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—MBIE. These bills are about good regulatory practice, keeping legislation up to date.

Continuously reviewing and amending legislation is an important contributor to having well-designed regulatory settings that provide the foundation for economic growth. Each change made by these bills is small by itself, but collectively the changes will reduce compliance burden and red tape, fix known problems with legislation, clarify unclear provisions and remove redundant provisions, allow legislation to adapt to changing information and technology, and ensure that people are getting their intended entitlements and regulatory protection. Because the bills have similar purposes, the Business Committee also agreed that they can be considered together by this House.

MBIE is one of the largest regulatory agencies, being responsible for around 140 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 Some of this legislation is very old and may have been amended many times, which can mean that aspects are out of date or that it has become difficult to understand and administer.

Between them, these bills amend 31 Acts and associated regulations administered by MBIE. The economic development bill amends 24 Acts and associated regulations across five portfolios: commerce and consumer affairs; science, innovation and technology; media and communications; justice; and energy. The immigration and workforce bill amends seven Acts, and amends and revokes associated regulations across three portfolios: immigration, workplace relations and safety, and energy.

In keeping with the broad range of MBIE responsibilities, the amendments in the bills do several things. They tidy up unclear definitions and ambiguous language. They make it easier for registrars to correct inaccurate information on the registers they administer. They facilitate the use of electronic means to provide information to regulators, and for regulators to provide notifications and maintain registers. They also provide for certain types of deeds to be signed electronically. 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.

They facilitate the implementation of international mutual recognition schemes that allow managed funds based in one 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 and contracts relating to financial services or products.

They ensure that people get their intended entitlements to paid parental leave in certain circumstances. They also allow ACC to issue a single invoice to cover ACC and health and safety at work levies, which will reduce the health and safety at work levy, on average, by $20 per year for the ACC clients it applies to. They allow the ministry for energy to approve dedicated electricity and gas safety instruments to keep technical regulatory requirements up to date. And, finally, they strengthen aspects of the regulation of immigration advisers. Being represented by an unqualified or an unscrupulous immigration adviser can impose significant costs on a visa applicant.

The economic development bill has been considered by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, and the immigration workforce bill has been considered by the Education and Workforce Committee. I’d like to thank the submitters who took time to make written and oral submissions on the bills and to thank the committees for their careful consideration of the bills. The committees have recommended that the bills be passed with a few amendments, which I agree with.

I want to draw attention to some of the committees’ recommendations. The Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee has recommended some additional amendments to the Telecommunications Act 2001, proposed by the Minister for Media and Communications. These amendments address the expiry of rights of access to shared property for low- and medium-impact fibre installations. The rights that expired on 1 January 2025 will be reinstated for three years while a review is carried out that considers the long-term future of the issue. This will continue to support New Zealanders getting access to high-speed broadband.

The committee has recommended some amendments to electricity regulations. These amendments are a consequence of changes in the bill, relating to regulation of specified persons.

The committee also recommended removing a proposed requirement that a building society must have 70 percent of its depositories by number and value of deposits living in New Zealand. This requirement is not necessary because other amendments to the Building Societies Act 1965 will ensure that building societies have a substantive New Zealand presence to be registered here. The committee has agreed with submitters that there should be a transition period of six months to allow organisations affected by the proposed changes to the Financial Reporting Act 2013 to adjust to the new requirements.

The Education and Workforce Committee has recommended several changes to the provisions that amend the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act. These changes make the provisions for complaints about immigration advisers more accessible to complainants, clearly convey that those subject to a tribunal order can seek to have that order lifted or varied, clarify that the tribunal or the Registrar of Immigration Advisers can determine whether specified conditions have been met, and clarify that certain information may no longer be required for the purpose of the register of immigration advisers.

These bills are an increasingly important tool for regulatory agencies to keep the legislation they administer up to date. Collectively, the amendments in these bills will make a difference to the people regulated by, and who benefit from, the amended Acts. The amendments will also allow the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to operate more efficiently and effectively. I commend these bills to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker, and thank you for this opportunity to speak on this legislation. It’s interesting—this Parliament moves in mysterious ways. This legislation came into the House under the guidance of the Hon Melissa Lee and it comes back into the House under the guidance of the Hon Nicola Willis, and so, yes, a lot changes in a select committee stage that moves things forward.

I’m going to speak because, obviously, the way this has been put together there is the economic development side, and then there’s employment and the side around immigration, so let me just gather my thoughts. We do support this—

💬 Dan Bidois: Well, that’s good news.

—as it continues on, and it is good news because it’s simple, it’s pragmatic, and back in 2012, I believe, some changes were made to allow this sort of tidy-up and fix-up of Acts of Parliament to modernise and to ensure that they meet their current requirements and purposes; simple things like electronic and online use, etc.

I want to speak for a moment about the proposed amendments around the Building Societies Act 1965. That’s a classic example of how legislation in this House works. That was done long before I was born and, of course, the world has moved on and has changed and New Zealand society has moved on and has changed. Within the original bill—this is the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill—and then coming back to the House, we look at clause 26, which would insert new section 13(2)(b) to require that 70 percent by number and value of depositors to the building society be New Zealand residents. As a result of these requirements from the building societies and Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), we recommend that, actually, this be removed.

I was a bit concerned about that because I felt that, as we have moved forward as a society and as we become far more multicultural and international, the challenge for us as a society is obviously ensuring that building societies retain New Zealand ownership and a connection to us. It’s something that we can live with, and I know through the select committee process there was discussion, and the reason it was taken out was the fact that submitters made it clear that there was some fish-hooks and ongoing consequences of that. Therefore, again, seeing the parliamentary process at work, seeing that at work, where it comes into the House in a certain form, the select committee does the work that the select committee does, which is, of course, being informed by the voice of New Zealanders to move that on.

This bill, as I said, is technical. For some of us it might seem a little bit boring because it is just trying to deal and move through different parts of what has been. I want to also commend, in terms of the process that we go through, the staff at MBIE. Now, it is a huge organisation in terms of the portfolios and the work that is put on their plate, but the fact that we have such good officials and staff who actually look after MBIE—and in terms of this legislation, they are able to guide, inform the select committee. But also, obviously, that consultation, which is such a gift in New Zealand—even though we get frustrated and even though things don’t always go our way, and even though sometimes we wished and hoped that people would do what I say or what people say—means that, actually, in this situation, things can be talked through, can be sifted through, and we can find pragmatic solutions to the issues at hand in the select committee.

The Charitable Trusts Act 1957 is also something that this bill is looking at, and it’s around just, again, simplifying in terms of the fact that nowadays we have not only physical addresses but electronic addresses that need to be considered, and just those sorts of things are things that we need to move through quickly, just so that we can be in the 21st century; it’s very simple. This is non-controversial, I believe, in terms of where we stand; we will be supporting it. More of my colleagues will be speaking on the other elements of the bill as we go through the second reading, but from my perspective and from our perspective, we support this legislation.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On behalf of the Greens, we continue to support the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill, as well as the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill.

As others have noted, we’ve seen a change of Ministers who are shepherding this legislation, and I want to acknowledge the work of the select committees in charge of this legislation, particularly because, as the previous speaker, Glen Bennett, noted, it is technical legislation. It actually touches on a broad range of issues, so that requires some technical advice as well on behalf of the different public servants who were guiding us through these bills. I also want to thank the people who have submitted on this legislation. There weren’t many, but I think many of them added really valuable contributions.

I’ll start with the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. As members have noted, this one touches on, for example, the Electricity Act 1992, the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Gas Act 1992, the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, the Mines Rescue Act 2013, and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987.

I did want to talk on the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007 changes. We did have some submitters who were calling on us to look at the changes that were made in this particular space. If we look at what was changed, it touched on issues, for example, around whether Immigration New Zealand could decline or refuse to accept applications or requests from unlicensed immigration advisers where they have been automatically accepted by an electronic system in error. It also touched on issues like removing a 12month stand-down period preventing former Immigration New Zealand officers from being licensed as immigration advisers, and a two-year stand-down period preventing them from being employed by the Immigration Advisers Authority.

I think on that particular point there was a good discussion—and noted by submitters on considerations about, for example, whether somebody who had been working at Immigration New Zealand would have, I guess, a competitive advantage or privileged knowledge that would set them apart from their peers. I think there were some parallels being drawn to, for example, the conversations we’ve been having around whether former Ministers should be able to become lobbyists or whether there should be a grace period. I think there were some distinctions being drawn around the types of services that, for example, immigration advisers in this case would be providing to clients.

There were some contributions around the fact that, actually—and even from talking to people outside of this space around the benefits of actually having people who understood the ins and outs of Immigration New Zealand then being able to be equipped with the tools to then guide people through what is actually a really complicated process. There is a reason why the work of immigration advisers took a lot of the time at the select committee, and that is because we do have right now the reality where our immigration systems are so complicated to access, because we have built an immigration system that actually is disconnected in the sense of it being really hard to access by migrants when it comes to getting, for example, a real human face on the other side of the phone.

What we do have is a profession that is now needed more and more often. There are some challenging conversations we needed to have. One of those at the select committee that was brought forward by submitters was the opportunity to look at how unlicensed people were providing advice from offshore, so those like offshore agents, for example. That’s something that I do think needs more work. I can accept that perhaps it would have sat outside of the scope of what we were looking at in the bill, but I think when we were asked to look at this—and particularly the changes to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act—this is something that was encouraged to us to pay attention to, because there is that reality that no matter how much you resource a profession domestically, what you have inevitably is a range of people offshore who are providing often not robust advice.

The downfall of having that coming to the immigration advisers, I’m sure, is that you end up with people who’ve paid a lot of money and have been given the wrong advice, and that’s to the detriment of the profession locally and also the migrants here. If we look at Part 5 in terms of the amendments to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, that’s one of the—and I can see Mr Speaker is probably trawling through the papers to see which bits I’m referring to, but rest assured, I’ve got the paper in front of me—areas of particular interest to me, but also to our stakeholders and submitters. That’s one of the key areas.

I want to acknowledge Camilla Belich, who was also quite an active contributor at the select committee, particularly more on the issues to the other parts that are being changed on the Employment Relations Act. I think there was a bit of a tag team going on in terms of our areas of interest. I think this is particularly important in these regulatory systems bills because they do touch on such broad areas that it does require actually us putting our brains together and our areas of expertise into good use.

I will also note, like others said, that despite the sort of robust contributions they had from submitters, there weren’t issues that were massively controversial. Most of them that were part of the different amendments in this legislation were often about modernising our legislation and ensuring that it is up to date. We accept that, but at the same time, I think the Government should be ambitious that sometimes there are opportunities to modernise legislation and actually go beyond that.

As I mentioned earlier, when it came to immigration advisers, if we’re getting the feedback that there is more that we need to do that sits within this sort of like non-controversial space of regulatory systems, that energy should be put in to address these issues. I hope that the Government takes the contributions of submitters and doesn’t let them just kind of enter into a void where nothing else happens, but rather that those contributions are then taken to address other issues as well.

Finally, I’ll just touch on a reflection, which is that I remember when the previous Minister at the time came to present to the select committee on a public hearing, there was, I guess, a bit of journalistic attention to her presentation. I do want to reflect that as many of us struggle to grapple with the technicalities of this bill, I wouldn’t want to harshly judge the former Minister for her presentation at the time, even if I know that there were prying eyes on her when she was presenting. I think this is an opportunity for us to realise that, as many others have spoken, we MPs rely on the public sector to often also help inform us on how legislation will impact our communities.

This is why we need a well-resourced public sector so that we can get the best advice possible on, for example, technical bills such as these ones. I think bills like these also help continue sparking a conversation about whether the number of MPs that we have in this place is actually fit for purpose to then handle incredibly technical pieces of legislation when we have increasing demands to meet in terms of a growing population. With that, I’ll end my contribution and hope that this debate continues to be constructive for the remainder of the debate and its third reading.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT and ACT is supporting both the bills, which are being debated together. I think it’s a good idea to debate these bills together, because both bills are associated and are actually channelling towards economic development. When we talk about workforce, when we talk about immigration, that is all about economic development as well.

In the select committee process, we received submissions, and I would say that based on my experience of numbers of submissions that we receive on various bills and the contributions that were made by submitters during their oral presentation of their submission, these bills are definitely non-controversial bills, and it’s really good to see that other parties are supporting these two bills going forward as well.

It was really good to be on both select committees which considered these bills. As we have heard from members, those who contributed previously, the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill was referred to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, which I chair, and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill was referred to the Education and Workforce Committee, so it was good to see how the bills went through the select committee process. Based on those observations, I can say that this bill makes some minor and technical changes and even in the select committee process, the changes that we made to these two bills are quite minor and technical. There wasn’t anything that was controversial.

As Ricardo Menéndez March mentioned before, there were some contributions which were not in the scope of this legislation. For example, he mentioned the stand-down period for those who come from backgrounds like working in Immigration New Zealand, the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), or if somebody is a Minister of Immigration—the stand-down period for them to become a licensed immigration adviser. Those kinds of things came through, but they were not in the scope of this bill.

Now, going forward, as I’ve said, the changes that we made in the select committee to these bills—because these two bills overall are quite simple and technical kinds of changes just to make sure that our systems are working efficiently. Each bill is amending a large number of Acts. For example, the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill amends 24 Acts, and most of these Acts amended in both of these bills are administered by MBIE. Just to give an example to substantiate that the changes that the select committee made to these two bills were actually minor, I would pick the same field—that is, immigration, and the complaints against immigration advisers.

We know that immigration is an important area not only for those who come from overseas to contribute here and to have a new start for themselves as well but also for everybody who is here. We want to see that our immigration system is fair for everybody. The complaints system for immigration advisers is an important system, and section 44 of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007 sets out how complaints against immigration advisers are made. Clause 32 of the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill amends section 44 of the Act to update the requirements for written complaints. We wanted to make sure that the complaint process is fair for people, those who want to make a complaint, those who have concerns, and we wanted to see that if they do not recall a particular kind of detail, they are not obstructed from proceeding with their complaint process. This is one example.

Just very quickly—as we know, both bills are non-controversial and I don’t want to take too much of our House’s time, as this time is really important—another example is the Employment Relations Act 2000. Section 64 sets out an employer’s obligation to retain a copy of an individual employment agreement, individual terms and conditions, or intended agreement. In this, the change that we made in the select committee was basically to clarify that the copy should be held not only by the employee but employer as well, and it should be readily available.

These are the kinds of changes that we’ve made in the select committee, basically just wanting to make sure that the intention of the changes that these two bills are making are clearer and they are fairer for the sides that we are dealing with. There are always two sides to things when we are dealing with some legislation, and we want to make sure that the changes are fairer for both. With that, I would say that the ACT Party supports these two bills and commends these two bills to the House. Thank you.

Thank you. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of both the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. I was fortunate to be on the select committee of the economic development bill, and it was actually quite an experience, I must admit, because there was so much technical knowledge coming across our desk. We really did have to think. I’m very grateful that the submitters were very invested in this piece of legislation and they gave us very detailed pieces of work as far as the submissions go, and I’d like to share just a few of them.

Being an accountant in a past life, I was very interested to see some of the changes that were coming through in the audit and finance side of things. Back in my day when I was a young auditor, we had big suitcases of paper that we carried around. Now here we are doing legislation to amend electronic signatures, for example, which back in my day would never have happened. Things have changed; that is why we need this sort of legislation. It’s a bit like repairs and maintenance, you may say, of a whole group of legislation. It’s one way of doing it efficiently and effectively. I kind of liken it to me doing my clear-out of my pantry every couple of years. I find all of the things that have expired or that I no longer use and replace them or update everything. In a way, this is what we’re doing with these bills.

With regards to the economic development bill, we had 18 submitters—not a lot, but they all gave very detailed explanations of why and what they were doing. They were quite wide and varied. As an example, we had a lawyer who specialised in charities law who gave her opinion on definitions and wording. She was very technical and very detailed in the information that she gave on why, and she was very focused and wanted to ensure she came in and gave that orally—that particular submission.

We had a submission from a big legal firm. They, for example, made their comment on audit fees and why some big public companies, known as large companies, are forced to incur costs of up to $100,000 when they do audits. There were certain loopholes there that these firms that are very specialised came in to explain to us in detail. A financial services organisation came in and spoke of the importance of having the electronic signatures now. At times like during the COVID period, we couldn’t do things like that—they needed to be introduced temporarily—but now it is being introduced.

Look, New Zealand First believe in cutting red tape, doing things efficiently and effectively, and having that mix of common sense in every decision that we make. We feel that these bills will provide the clarity and streamline the processes, so we will commend both of these bills to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mō Te Pāti Māori i te pō nei. Ka kore au e toroa i taku kōrero i te pō nei, engari hei pānui ko te katoa o tōku kauwhau i te pō nei ka reo Māori, ā, nā runga anō i te mea mai i mea mai tētehi, i mea mai ki ahau, e rua wiki ki muri, kāti te pānui i ōku pepa, nā reira ehara au i te tangata tino matatau ki te reo Pākehā, nā reira ka reo Māori.

Āe, ko tēnei o ngā pire, ngēnei pire e rua, arā ko te Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill, ka tahi, ka rua ko te Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill.

Ko ngēnei pire e rua, ahakoa tā rāua moroiti he āhua ko ngā wahanga i tēnei ka panoni. Kāore i te mea ka panoni i te horopaki o ngā ture ka whai i roto i tēnei o ngā, i ngēnei o ngā pire.

Ko ētahi o ngā pire, o ngā ture, aroha mai, ka whai pēhitanga ki ngā, ki te tau pātata atu nei ki te 2013, tae atu ki te 1957, nā reira ko ngā rautau ki muri nei. Ko te tino pūtake o tēnei, o ngēnei pire e rua, ko te whakawhanake ake i ngēnei o ngā ture, ka nui ngā ture ka whai pēhitanga ngēnei o ngā pire e rua.

Nā reira, ko tana pūtake ko te whakawhanake ki te ao anamata, ki tēnei rangi tonu. Waihoki, hei tauira, hei tāpiri atu ki ngā panonitanga o te wā pēnei i te ao hangarau. Arā atu noa ngā horopaki o te ao hangarau ka pēhi ki a tātou i tēnei wā.

Nō reira e mihi kau ana ki te komiti whakahaere nā koutou anō i wherawhera, i āta wānanga i ngēnei o ngā pire e rua. Mā te ohu pakihi anō hoki e kōkiri whakamua, ka ono marama mā rātou e whai ki te wānanga, ki te āta wherawhera, waihoki ki te whai hāneaneatanga ki ngēnei pire e rua. Nā reira mā ngā ohu katoa ka whai pēhitanga ki ngēnei pire. Engari ka nui ngā ture ka whai pēhitanga, āe.

Nā reira ko ngēnei pire e rua, ahakoa tā rāua moroiti, panoni āhua, ko tāna pūtake ko te whakawhanake i ētehi o ngā ture. Nā reira, āe, e tautoko katoatia ana e Te Pāti Māori i ngēnei pire e rua. Kia ora.

[Greetings to the Speaker, and indeed to us all in the House. I stand to convey the statements for Te Pāti Māori tonight. I won’t speak for long tonight but will read the entirety of my speech tonight in te reo Māori, and that is because someone said to me, two weeks ago, stop reading my papers, and so I’m not extremely competent in English; therefore, I will speak Māori.

Yes, these two bills, namely the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development Amendment) Bill, firstly, and secondly, the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. These two bills, despite being small, there are some aspects that the sections of these will change. It’s not as if they will change the context of the laws which are included in these bills.

Some of the bills, of the laws, sorry, have effect from the year close to 2013, and back to 1957, therefore previous centuries. The key reason for these two bills is to update these laws; many laws are impacted by these two bills. Therefore, its purpose is to update for the future world, to this very day. Furthermore, as an example, to add the changes over time such as modern technology. There are many technological contexts which currently affect us.

Therefore I acknowledge the select committee who opened up and carefully discussed these two bills. The business group will also carry it forward; they have six months to discuss, deliberate, and furthermore to become comfortable with these two bills. Therefore, all the groups will have an impact on these bills. Indeed there are many laws which will be affected.

Thus, these two bills, despite being small, and changing aspects, their purpose is to improve some of the laws. Therefore, yes, Te Pāti Māori fully supports these two bills. Thank you.]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party also in support of these two particular bills.

As many of the previous speakers have mentioned, both of these two regulatory systems bills are sort of technical fixes on a largely ever-changing system in order for us to be able to continue ensuring that the system works as intended and is updated both in terms of the latest technology and the latest understanding. Like many would understand and appreciate, the way that we construct primary legislation in this particular House requires this House to actually make those kinds of changes to the law, so the regulatory systems bills are an important element of our legislative infrastructure and process.

In saying that, these two bills—one of them the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill and the other one, the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill—were reviewed by two separate select committees, one by the Education and Workforce Committee and the other by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. Again, I want to echo the previous speakers in thanking those committee members for the work that they’ve done in order to get the bills through the select committee and to the House for second reading.

In terms of my comment, I think I would like to start first with the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill and part of that regulatory system. Granted, there are other important amendments here in terms of the amendments to the Electricity Act and also the Gas Act in terms of the updating of provisions and safety around equipment safety, particularly from a workplace health and safety perspective, but I think, like many, one of the things I would like to focus on is the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007. I think, as we heard from some of the speakers, although it’s really, really important that we have allowed us to have a much more, I guess, improved process for making complaints and also for requests from unlicensed immigration advisers, one of the things that we must address is in terms of what do we do in the context of unlicensed immigration advisers offshore.

Mr Speaker, as you would appreciate, when we are looking at immigration advisers, particularly those who are registered with the Immigration Advisers Authority—IAA—there are certain provisions that we need to put in place, but one of the things we are seeing to be a continuous loophole in this particular element is around the requirement for offshore advisers, particularly for student visas, to have a licence and registration, and also in terms of accountability to Aotearoa when it comes to supporting international students as part of their international education journey. This is something that we’ve seen in other countries like Australia that have addressed that particular loophole. Offshore advisers for student visas must be registered with an Australian authority, but it is, as far as my understanding, still not entirely the case here in Aotearoa, and I think that is something that we could potentially see improvements on further down the track when it comes to the accountability of immigration advisers overall.

In terms of the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill, I think one of the key focuses in this area—and, like I mentioned, there are many other things that have been mentioned, but I think one of the things that I echo in terms of the submission done by the Regulations Review Committee is around the ability for the Regulations Review Committee to actually be able to scrutinise as part of the bill as well. Again, Mr Speaker, as you would appreciate, when we’re looking at a regulatory systems bill, one of the key functions of that and one of the key sort of, I guess, ways that our primary and secondary legislation operate is that within this piece of primary legislation, it also touches on a lot of secondary legislation as well.

I think in particular when we’re looking at Amendment Papers to incorporate from the Minister for Media and Communications and amendments to the Telecommunications Act, one of the requests that was made—and I think this is continuously a reminder for us—is how we can incorporate the whole thing. But, with that, we support this bill.

Who are we mere mortals from the Finance and Expenditure Committee to argue with the decisions and the work done by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on this Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill. Can I just remind the House that that committee has reviewed the bill conscientiously, diligently, and has recommended it be passed with all amendments unanimously. For those tuning in to Parliament TV at the very exciting end of the night, this is an omnibus bill that amends 24 Acts.

💬 Dan Bidois: What’s that?

And, Mr Bidois, I am happy to read out those 24 Acts of statute—

💬 David MacLeod: No, no.

—but Mr MacLeod has said no, thank you. They are available on the parliamentary website.

This is an omnibus bill amending 24 Acts of Parliament. It is part of our regulatory systems bill framework. It’s aimed at making technical and regulatory improvements across multiple sectors in a timely and cost-effective manner. If you’re still interested, it’s all on the parliamentary website. In the meantime, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Sparks are really flying in the House tonight! [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I know—I know! [Interruption] Calm down, everybody—calm down!

One of the more hotly contested bills we’ve had to consider! I serve on the Education and Workforce Committee. It’s my privilege to review bills like this very exciting omnibus legislation that the member who spoke before, Cameron Brewer, described. I wanted to just make, in my contribution, a couple of brief comments about the part of the bill that deals with amendments to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act. These bills are really just kind of legislative housekeeping, and in this case they allow a number of different regulatory Acts to be fine-tuned so that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the Government department that is responsible for administering this particular clutch of laws, has an easier job of administering and carrying out its task.

I wanted to first just say a little bit about the context around licensed immigration advisers and why it’s important that the regulatory framework actually works and can be administered. As Ricardo Menéndez March commented before, we’ve built an immigration system that is complex, and often, for migrants and people who are trying to navigate that immigration system, it’s a very tough ask. They’re often people who, in many cases, may not have English as their first language; they may not be schooled in the ways of New Zealand bureaucracy and actually working their way through the Immigration Act, and the whole system of immigration can be very challenging. They go looking for support; they go looking for advice from people who have experience and expertise to help them.

I’m one of those members in this House that does a lot of immigration advocacy in my work as a local MP and, having been an Associate Minister, I have a particular kind of interest in the way our immigration system works. Hardly a week would go by without someone coming to my office, seeking assistance and seeking immigration advice, who hasn’t fallen foul of an unlicensed immigration adviser who has given them bad advice, who’s often taken large amounts of money off them, and who might have their passport sitting in a cupboard with 300 other passports in their spare room. This is not uncommon. These, often rogue, unlicensed immigration advisers wreak havoc with some very vulnerable members of our community who are trying to make sense and do their best, for instance, to regularise their status or apply for a particular visa. It’s really important that the regulatory framework works; that it’s able to weed out, detect, and appropriately punish people who break the law, unlicensed advisers who give advice. There’s a really strong public interest that this works well. There are a number of classes of people who are exempt from these requirements. Members of Parliament happen to be one of them; lawyers are another.

The bill makes a number of amendments. Some of them are quite small. For example, it enables Immigration New Zealand to decline or refuse to accept applications from unlicensed immigration advisers where they’ve already been automatically accepted by an electronic system in error. There’s a list—and I won’t go through them—of very small nuances where the regulations are just having the kinks ironed out.

One of the more substantive discussions about this section of the bill that we had was the question of removing the 12-month stand-down period preventing former staff of Immigration New Zealand from being licensed as immigration advisers. A couple of colleagues have already made reference to this—when the Act was passed back in 2007, there was a view that people who’d worked for Immigration New Zealand might have been privy to inside information or have relationships, friendships with colleagues who were still working for the department that might give them an unfair advantage commercially if they’re working as an immigration adviser, or access to information that they shouldn’t, in normal circumstances, be privy to.

The strong advice of the officials, which I think influenced members on the committee, was that, in fact, the people that we’re trying to protect with this legislation—members of the public—actually had the most to gain from having access to advisers who might have very fresh experience and knowledge of the inner workings of Immigration New Zealand, having been working for the department, and that there are a number of codes of conduct, Public Service codes of conduct and others, that govern the treatment of privileged information and that they provide sufficient protection.

I’ll leave it there. Labour is supporting this bill and the committee was unanimous in recommending that the bill proceed. We made a number of pretty minor amendments and improvements, but Labour is happy to support the bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We do love a good omnibus bill, and as the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee said, this legislation covers 24 Acts. It’s like a big bus with 24 passengers on it. Not only are we into productivity and efficiency but we’re into public transport too! We like a good omnibus bill. Also, on the subject, happy birthday to the member for Ōtaki, Tim Costley, today.

I’d like to pick up the last comments of the previous member there, the Hon Phil Twyford, that this is about fine-tuning. When you’re trying to tune a radio and you’re a just a few clicks out, when you hear it, it’s that sweet sound, and if you’re in Hamilton or the mighty Waikato, you go to 97.8 or The Rock 93FM, or maybe ZB 97FM. But, hey, Mr Speaker, it’s about fine-tuning. We’ve got a lot more fine-tuning to do in the next 18 months, but, for now, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am a part of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, but I want to talk, first of all, about the impact of the work done by my colleague on the Education and Workforce Committee, because I was listening very carefully to what the Hon Phil Twyford just said, and it resonated in my own electorate.

Immigration is one of the things that is very important if you’re a local MP. You really do see people who are at sea; they are vulnerable. It is a really difficult thing to come in and work out who are the people you can trust in a new country, so this work is incredibly important. I totally take the point that the advisers made, and it has been turned into legislation, that a workforce that understands the intricacies of immigration—which has to be a careful system, because it’s a big-stakes thing for everyone. It is really important that that workforce can become our trusted advisers. It’s good for those people too, because it’s a career path, but it’s also the people who are most likely going to be able to do things efficiently and effectively for our migrants.

I do share the concern over unlicensed agents, and I have seen those cases where there has been far too much money spent on doing things, like applying, in a way which in fact somebody could have done without spending any money at all. I think most recently the bill I saw for that was $5,000, and it was something that, in fact, there was no need to have anyone involved in at all, and it was actually a misdirected application. It’s a really important thing, and I commend my colleagues for doing that work and putting it into this legislation.

I also wanted to talk about the employment changes here, the issue about copies of agreements and copies of terms and conditions being held but also being available—so held by an employer—as it’s not something that always happens. Again, I practised in that area, and quite often people didn’t have access to their employment agreement, and it’s very undermining when you need to really make sure that people are communicating well, that they know their rights, if in fact the agreement has not been kept or has not actually been given up. That’s another thing I think is a really practical change.

Finally, I don’t want to go through and list 24 Acts; I think that can be really unhelpful for the public. I do want to reassure the public that these bills are taken really seriously, and people do go through them in quite a lot of detail. It is really helpful when submitters come along who point things out. I take the point made by the New Zealand First speaker tonight that we had, in our committee, Sue Chetwin come along on the Charities Act. She’s a very renowned and expert person in that area. It was great to hear what she had to say, and we do absolutely listen.

I also wanted to make the point that I was interested in one of the amendments there, which was a cooperation between the Financial Markets Authority and the Commerce Commission (ComCom). This is an area I think that New Zealand’s going to have to get right. We’re improving it, and we need to do a lot more in the area of communication between our organisations, and synchronisation of what they’re doing. This is about the passing of information and the working together to deal with the situations which have arisen in what’s called a “standard contract”—an unfair term in a standard contract. There’s nothing short of exploitation going on in those situations, so it’s really important that our agencies, like the Financial Markets Authority and ComCom, work on those together, where both should be applicable. I’m pleased to see that.

Finally, I’ve got 30 seconds and I want to do a shout-out to Ricardo Menéndez March, because recently, in this House, we had an allegation or a kind of abuse about whether he was a migrant. The fact that he’s on a committee, listening to the stories and the law that changes if you’re a migrant, is really helpful. One of the wonderful things about this House is people come in from every walk of life, and they get to participate, and they get to bring their experience and their vulnerability here. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to also contribute to the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill.

I’ve counted: there are over 20 different changes to the Acts and a long list of amendments. This legislation is really about improving our regulatory framework, making laws in New Zealand more efficient, more up to date, more modernised, reducing the red tape, reducing administrative burdens—for who? Again, coming back to the topic, the core message in my debates tonight in this House on the last bill and also on this legislation is that we are lawmakers in New Zealand making laws for New Zealanders.

All we want to do is to make sure that the laws read efficient, are performing efficiently, because efficient regulation is good for economic growth, which is exactly what we do as the National-led Government—we promote growth, because growth means better wealth for the country, better wealth for our families, better wealth for all New Zealanders. Because of that, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to acknowledge at the start of my contribution today, the passing of a very close family friend Gabrielle Rikihana of Ngāti Raukawa, who passed away at 97 on Sunday. I just want to acknowledge her. Moe mai rā, e te whaea.

I was privileged to be able to participate in the select committee process around this particular bill. I think, as you would have seen from the contributions tonight, we took this process very seriously. Even though this particular reading is unusual in the sense that it’s the reading of two bills together, there’s been, I think, effective scrutiny on both of those bills and of the different components of those bills.

You would have heard my colleague Phil Twyford speak about the immigration aspects of the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill, and my colleague Glen Bennett speak about the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill. The part that I want to focus on is the workforce elements of the immigration and workforce regulatory systems amendment bill—and I haven’t read out the title exactly, but I think you understand what I mean, Mr Speaker.

The three aspects that I wanted to cover in this bill were, first of all, the changes in relation to employment agreements, and this was a change that is made by the bill that my colleague Helen White mentioned, which was an attempt to make sure that it wasn’t just the employer or the employee that had a copy of the employment agreement but it was, in fact, both parties. I think that’s an objective that is helpful for everyone because it means that everyone has a copy of the written agreements.

At the same time, we did scrutinise this quite intensively at select committee and we did make a few changes to this particular provision to make sure that this provision was fit for purpose. It also wasn’t clear in the original drafting of the bill that it wasn’t meant to be as if only the employer was to hold a copy of the agreement. I think it’s a point of fairness that both parties do have access to that as well, and just also to make sure that it was not only the individual employment agreement but also the terms and conditions as well.

I think that was a beneficial discussion that we did have at select committee, and discussions around the fact that you can be an employee when you’re an intending employee, which is quite a technical point but one that I think was very elucidating for members of the committee to realise that when you do receive an employment offer, you do actually fit the definition of “employee” under the Employment Relations Act, even though you haven’t started a job. That was a helpful discussion that we had.

One point of disappointment that I do have is that, in the updated legislative statement, those very good changes are not reflected. There are the changes to the Electricity Act and the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act but not the changes to the Employment Relations Act, but we did, in fact, make them and I just wanted to note that for the record there as well.

The second area that I wanted to cover was the amendments to the Health and Safety at Work Act. These are, as other members have stated, pragmatic changes that will make the Health and Safety at Work Act work more effectively. The point I really want to make about this is not necessarily the individual provisions, which are helpful in terms of returning levies, are helpful in terms of mine operations, are helpful in terms of the distinction between a tourist mine and a working mine—all of these are sensible changes that have been scrutinised and are included in this bill.

Overall, a message to my colleagues over the other side of the House, especially those in the National Party: I think health and safety is an area that we really should be working on in a bipartisan manner. I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest that we have these very, very important fundamental rules about how people conduct business that change every time we have a change of Government. That has been what has happened to date. The National Party brought in the Health and Safety at Work Act. We, as the Labour Government, fundamentally supported that. There is now a review which is happening, led by the Minister, into this area of work.

My plea to you, really, is: let us not lose the benefits of a bipartisan approach to health and safety. Our objectives are the same. We don’t want people to be injured at work; we want people to come home safe from work. So, please, in this review, can we work together to make sure that these objectives are upheld. There’s a lot of agreement. Unions agree. Businesses agree. This is a really good example of how agreement can work in practice. If there are people on the other side of the House listening, that is my plea on behalf of, I think, New Zealanders—

💬 Todd Stephenson: I don’t think we’re on a health and safety bill.

—who would appreciate that as well. Hopefully, my ACT colleagues can pass that on to the Minister too.

The last part that I wanted to mention was the changes to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act. This is a really interesting part of the bill that we did scrutinise a lot, extensively at select committee, which is, essentially, something that people may not know about—and if they do know about it, it might be because they’ve gone through a very difficult time in their life—and that is the fact that New Zealanders are entitled to a pre-term baby payment, and that is when your baby is born prematurely before 37 weeks, you can have up to 13 weeks’ pre-term baby payment in addition to your paid parental leave. That is, really, to acknowledge the fact that people who have had a baby prematurely face additional challenges during an extremely stressful time—if not one of the most stressful times—for people in their lives, when they do have a baby arriving prematurely. These pre-term baby payments kick in at around 24 weeks. Anyone who has known anyone who’s had a baby that early will know it’s a very, very difficult time. The parental leave provisions that we have follow from the pre-term baby payment.

The effective purpose of this change in Part 7 of the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill is to make it really clear that those do follow on from one another, and the pre-term baby payment, for how many weeks you’re entitled to it, you will be entitled to that first, and then, after that, you will be entitled to parental leave around about the effective due date of your baby. This is a really important entitlement that New Zealanders have for support at a really difficult time, and a really important clarification as to how those rights work.

I really hope that people in this House, and people who are interested in the workings of this bill, do discuss and advertise the fact that that is the case, because it might be that people are unaware, and it’s an additional stress that you don’t need at the time of having a baby prematurely, to feel that you maybe won’t be entitled to payment for that period of time to parental leave - equivalent payment, or that because your baby has arrived early, perhaps your time that you’d planned to take off work will be significantly changed. These, essentially, clarify what should have been implemented, but there was sufficient doubt as to whether that was currently being correctly implemented, that advisers through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment told us that this would be a beneficial change to put in, and it’s one that I am very happy to see. That’s another example of, I think, a really good change that is in this particular bill.

Those are the three areas that I really wanted to highlight. As I said, colleagues have highlighted other aspects of these bills, in relation to immigration and economic development. Those, I think, in relation to workforce, as the spokesperson for workforce relations and safety, were what I really wanted to highlight. On behalf of myself and the party, I commend this bill to the House.

As the last speaker in this debate, it is my pleasure to round off this discussion we’re having on a riveting set of bills this evening. As a former member of the hard-working Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, it was my pleasure to help review the details of one of these bills. My colleague Cameron Brewer mentioned that the legislation before us is omnibus legislation; over 20 Acts are going to be changed, as a result of this.

As we know, not all change is, you know, sexy retail change that we go out and campaign on. A lot of it is around marginal tweaks to regulations that help improve people’s daily lives, and that is what these bills seek to do: to make very small tweaks to regulations so that people can go about their lives in a daily manner more efficiently, more effectively, without cumbersome regulations.

Without taking up much more time of the House—because I don’t think any of us will be rushing out the door to speak about this bill in particular—I do want to acknowledge the select committees for their work in this, the officials, and the Ministers responsible for bringing this bill to the House. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bills read a second time.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill.