Meteorological Services (Acquisition and Policies) Legislation Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology: I present a legislative statement on the Meteorological Services (Acquisition and Policies) Legislation Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon CHRIS PENK: I move, That the Meteorological Services (Acquisition and Policies) Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill.

It’s a pleasure to bring this bill to the House on behalf of the Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. The purpose of the bill is to allow for MetService, a State-owned enterprise—or SOE—to be acquired by Earth Sciences New Zealand, a Crown research institute referred to in the bill by its legal name: the New Zealand Institute for Earth Science Limited. The bill also will require Earth Sciences New Zealand to publish its access policy for observational weather data.

The bill brings our two Crown-owned weather forecasting companies back together. It will provide more connected weather forecasting and investment for the wellbeing and safety of New Zealanders, protect our infrastructure, and support the growth of our economy. Weather forecasting provides many economic, social, environmental, and cultural benefits to New Zealanders. It’s an input to many of the goods and services we enjoy. Accurate and timely weather forecasting allows for safer travel and personal pursuits, more informed farming, and better decisions on how and where to build infrastructure.

For example, farmers rely on short- and long-term forecasts to plan irrigation and protect crops. Knowing when rain or severe weather is coming can mean the difference between a good harvest and safe animals on the one hand, or a costly loss. Further, airlines rely on accurate and timely weather forecasts for route selection and safer air travel. Weather forecasting is also relied upon heavily in the built environment—for example, in terms of building site selection, resilience and design, worker safety, build scheduling, and project budgeting. Of course, as cricket fans know, the reliable way to know if rain is forecast for a particular area is to check Cricinfo for an upcoming one-day international, T20, or test match.

Bringing the nation’s two weather forecasters together was a key recommendation in the weather forecasting review. I acknowledge our colleague and friend, the Hon Judith Collins, for some of her early work in that regard—of course, brought forward subsequently by our other colleague and friend in this space, the Hon Dr Shane Reti.

We expect to address a number of identified problems as a result of the review now leading to this legislation, including uncertainty during severe weather events due to inconsistent messaging from having two Crown-owned weather forecasters. This has created increased risks to public safety, infrastructure, property, and the economy; next, a lack of integration between climate science, forecasting, hydrology, and coastal hazards—resulting in fragmented weather forecasting advice; and, finally, inefficiencies within the weather forecasting system, as evidenced by duplicated effort and investment. [Maureen Pugh takes the Chair]

This change will provide a more connected weather forecasting system that brings climate science, forecasting, hydrology, and coastal hazards together to provide truly integrated advice. The change will deliver economic benefits by providing holistic weather forecasting that individuals and businesses can rely upon. It will also improve understanding of hazards, strengthening our ability to plan for and build resilience against severe weather events. Madam Speaker’s own electorate is all too familiar with the dangers associated with heavy and severe weather events such as flooding.

Put simply, we are creating a weather forecasting system that meets the needs of New Zealand now and into the future. Key features of the bill include that it is relatively short but technical. It’s designed to enable the acquisition of MetService and improve transparency around weather data policies. But I would like to take this opportunity to summarise some of its key features.

Specifically, the bill: (1) removes MetService from the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986, allowing it to be acquired by Earth Sciences New Zealand; (2) exempts the acquisition of MetService by Earth Sciences New Zealand from Part 3 of the Commerce Act 1986—a relief to us all, I’m sure—(3) requires Earth Sciences New Zealand to publish its access policy for observational weather data; and (4) includes standard provisions to make the transition smooth and protect existing agreements. For example, the acquisition won’t give anyone the right to cancel a lease, end a contract, or speed up obligations just because the ownership changes.

Following the acquisition, MetService will cease to be a State-owned enterprise and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Earth Sciences New Zealand. Bringing MetService and Earth Sciences New Zealand together is a broader part of the organisational changes we are making to our science, innovation, and technology system. These changes to the weather forecasting system are part of the biggest science system reforms in over 30 years, creating scale, efficiency, and alignment across our science organisations so that they deliver greater benefits for all of New Zealand.

This bill is about more than integrating organisations. It is about building a weather forecasting system that protects lives, strengthens our economy, and ensures that New Zealand is ready for the challenges of a clang—changing climate. And a changing final paragraph. I commend this bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, thank you. It’s a privilege to take a call on the Meteorological Services (Acquisition and Policies) Legislation Amendment Bill. I just would like to acknowledge, it being Movember, the member who has just taken his seat’s attempt at supporting Movember. It’s evident we’re under urgency, because I had hoped that it would have advanced since the last bill, but it remains more of a suggestion than a Selleck.

The bill at hand today: the purpose of this bill is to allow for the acquisition of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited—we know it as the MetService—by the New Zealand Institute for Earth Sciences Limited, or the NZIES, and to require the NZIES to publish its access policy for observational weather data. That’s what this bill sets out to do. MetService, as we’ve heard, is the designated provider of severe weather forecasts and warnings for New Zealand under the Meteorological Service Act 1990, and is currently a State-owned enterprise. Its purpose is to help us all stay safe; to help us all make informed decisions based on timely and accurate weather forecasts, including during severe weather events. We have seen—and even in the last bill talked about—some of the impacts those can have.

Now, it’s important up to make it clear that reform was required in this space, but cuts are cuts and I will continue to call them out when we see them. It’s important that we talk about what’s really going on across our science sector and across our science community, because whilst we can talk about alignment and whilst we can talk about “going for growth”, what we need to see in this sector is that that growth and that talk of alignment is actually matched in budget and is actually matched in investment, and is actually an investment into these important fields of work and expertise.

Instead, what we’re seeing at this point in time is a huge number of job losses. We’re seeing bigger investments in redundancies at Callaghan Innovation of $11 million than we are in some really important areas of our science sector and science community, so let’s not kid ourselves when we talk about “going for growth” and when we talk about investing in innovation and when we talk about investing in research and development. Let’s not kid ourselves that what we’re actually seeing here in real terms is cuts—cuts to the sector that drives discovery, that drives our science, that drives our innovation. Let’s not dress all of that up and disguise those very real cuts, those very real job losses in our science sector, that will mean that we continue to lose many of our best and brightest overseas, where the opportunities are.

This is not just me calling this out. This is a number of people across the sector, including the recipient of the Prime Minister’s Science Prize, who has had some fairly blunt things to say both about the Prime Minister and particularly about the science budget, or the lack thereof—the reprioritisation of funding into things like roads rather than into critical areas of science, where it could make a real difference for all New Zealanders. There’s a suspicion that this is a Government that wants to silence science rather than invest properly in it to see the kind of innovation that New Zealand needs and that New Zealand deserves.

What this bill also does—to come back to it—is it amends the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986 to remove the listing of MetService as a State enterprise. It also exempts the acquisition of MetService by NZIES from Part 3 of the Commerce Act. One of the other things that I think we need to keep a close eye on is that it amends the State-Owned Enterprises (Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited and Vehicle Testing New Zealand Limited) Amendment Act 1999 to repeal certain provisions in the Act that will become redundant when this bill is enacted. Now, I said that very quickly, so you may have missed that “Vehicle Testing New Zealand Limited” is in there too. For a Government that’s also started talking about wanting to sell some things off, I think we need to keep a very close eye on anything that starts to move the areas in which some of these State-owned assets sit—starts to move some of that legislation around. So we do support the bill, but not a Government that disrespects and underfunds science, and that is what we’ve got at the moment.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As we have heard, this reform is part of the biggest science system reforms in 30 years. The Green Party supports this bill, but we support it with concerns. We want to express some concerns, because of course we have seen a Government that is not favouring science, despite a reform that we heard and we understand is making some good progress in some areas. But as my colleague Reuben Davidson has just said, there are very real job losses in our science sector. We are experiencing a brain drain at the moment. The bigger picture is that these reforms are probably transgressing all of Vannevar Bush’s five fundamentals—that stability; we want stability in the science sector.

At the moment, we’ve got hyper-contestability—full cost funding, politicisation of science and priorities, and defunding. And that is a problem. That is a problem, because if we politicise science, we lose the true value of it for society. We also see that there’s a lack of expertise and experience because we are seeing a loss of capability because of the job losses, because of the defunding of our science sector. We are losing people. We are losing some of our youngest and brightest, but we’re also losing some of our most experienced, at this point in time.

That’s another concern. We don’t think that the Government should operate or direct the laboratories funded. What we’re seeing is an ongoing erosion of independent governance. There we see some institutional independence at risk, and we also must ensure that we’ve got accountability, but we’ve got, at the moment, overheads, lack of transparency, in what’s happening in our science system. So while this merging makes sense, we are seeing a whole range of other issues in the science sector, because the Government has decided, in its wisdom, that science is not a priority, that science does not need the funding despite the most radical reforms in 30 years—it’s got to find the money to do that from within the sector, and it’s got to try and retain stuff that have no job security, because they don’t know what the hell is going on.

This is where we see the disjuncture between what the Government wants to do—it wants to do the reform of the science system on the cheap. We are one of the countries that invests the least in our science system. We also know that investing in our science system gives us, for every dollar invested, between $8 and $20 back, boosting our economy. But in going for growth, this Government doesn’t value that, because when science disagrees with their desires, such as cutting the methane target, then it is ignored, and this is the real problem that we have.

While it’s nice to think that we might need to understand what the weather’s doing for cricket games, we also need to know what the cost of reducing our methane target is for our climate commitments, for our climate targets. We also need to know what impact importing dirty cars has for our climate commitments; this is evidence that we need as well.

This is a bill that we will support, but my concern is that this is part of the breakdown in our science system, the de-funding of our critical science system that is sending our youngest, our brightest, and our most capable scientists overseas at a time when we need them the most. That is my concern and that is the concern of the Green Party—that this Government only respects science when it does its bidding, and rejects it when it doesn’t. That is a concern. That’s the politicisation of science that we cannot afford in this country. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT to support the Meteorological Services (Acquisition and Policies) Legislation Amendment Bill. It was very interesting to hear that speech from the Green member Scott Willis. The member thinks that the weather forecast is important only for cricket matches, but the member forgets that our economy is reliant on agriculture and dairy and that the weather forecast is really important for these kinds of industries. That is why we are so focused on ensuring that our weather forecast system works the way it should.

The other point I want to highlight from that member’s speech is that the member thinks that the science should not be politicised. I fully agree with the member that science should not be politicised. It is this Government that has established the Science System Advisory Group, to see how we can align science to improve innovation in our country and to contribute to our economic growth.

Now, coming back to the bill, actually, this is a bill I would say is not anything that is debatable, in a sense, because it’s a really good move. We know that earlier this year, it was announced that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) was going to acquire MetService. It’s really good to bring these two entities together, our national service and our research institute. That gives a lot more credibility and authority to the weather systems we have in our country. I also want to highlight this: because of the Science System Advisory Group’s work, our CRIs, our Crown Research Institutes, are being merged into public research organisations. One of the newly formed public research organisations is Earth Sciences New Zealand, and now, because NIWA has become part of this, basically, that is NIWA’s new identity. Now this newly formed institute is going to acquire MetService.

We believe in improving efficiency and improving productivity, in the ACT team. We believe that by doing this, we will be avoiding duplication. We will be merging capabilities. We will be merging data, expertise, and technology. That is going to work really well for the safety of people and also for economic activity in our country. So the ACT Party is supporting this bill and commends this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, thank you. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to address the Meteorological Services (Acquisition and Policies) Legislation Amendment Bill. I’d like to sort of reflect a little bit on what some of the Opposition speakers have said to us—both from Labour and from the Greens—in support of this bill, because I don’t think it’s just simply a rationalisation.

Who remembers the surface pressure map? You know, the lined one on the—yeah? I used to go in my twenties and look at this thing, pick up the Herald, because that was the only place you could get it, so I could see what the tropical cyclones were going to do, hitting Fiji and providing waves for us. Well, they’re a little bit more sophisticated these days at the MetService. They’ve got great research and I really, really enjoy having discussions with them—maybe I’m a little bit of a nerd. But in terms of the sophisticated meteorological software and services they provide—and you start to combine that with what NIWA does; I’ve had some time to work with NIWA. NIWA have developed the land-based kingfish farming production at Bream Bay, and if you’ve ever been on the RV Tangaroa vessel and looked at the oceanographic capability that they have, you can say, “Wow, this is an amazing, amazing group of people adding to the value of our research and science in New Zealand.”

A lot of people, though, if you asked them, wouldn’t know the difference between MetService and NIWA. Isn’t NIWA the guy that comes up on the TV and gives us the weather every day on TVNZ, and that’s it? So why are they doing the weather and why is MetService doing the weather? A lot of people won’t understand these nuances. On top of that, we have Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited coming together to form this new institute, which is called the New Zealand Institute for Earth Sciences. Well, I think this is actually more a case not of rationalisation; this is a case of synthesis, synthesising these skills, recalibrating so that we can focus on some of the major issues confronting this country right now around hazards, around climate change, and all those sorts of things.

We’re getting smart here, and this is the right way to work with our science institutes. It is focusing on the challenges of today—and interesting we used to focus on nuclear sciences; I’m not sure that’ll be part of the new challenge going forward. I think that this merger makes complete sense, and if we can get this recalibration, then we’re going to get our scientists focusing on the research domains and equipping us to meet those major challenges. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Meteorological Services (Acquisition and Policies) Legislation Amendment Bill. This is bringing together the organisations that make sense to come together under one organisation, which is the earth sciences, bringing together MetService into this. It brings all of our capabilities in the earth and atmospheric sciences together, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker—an opportunity to speak about something that will affect all New Zealanders. This is a bill that looks technical, it looks like a rationalisation, or, as New Zealand First has said, a synthesisation. This is about really important services that New Zealanders all need. Aucklanders were affected by the Auckland Anniversary floods—

Simon Court: Auckland Council ignored the warnings.

ARENA WILLIAMS: —and, later, Cyclone Gabrielle had a huge impact on our regions—on growers, on farmers, on people, and, ultimately, a loss of life and limb. It is incredibly important for councils around the country that responders have access to timely and useful data.

I hear Mr Simon Court on the other side saying councils had that accurate and up-to-date data. In fact, what we have learnt from the two reports into the response to those disasters, particularly the Auckland Anniversary floods, is that councils did not receive some of that important weather data in a timely fashion, and it would have changed the way that the response was dealt with. So to be able to rationalise our weather services like this is incredibly important for those locally elected representatives who need to respond quickly, and to all of us in this House who have responsibility for our regions and for making sure the people on the ground can ready themselves, ready their families, and respond to severe weather events that will happen more in future because of policies that we’re seeing that are supported by someone like Mr Court.

There’s broad support for this merger in the sector—largely our meteorological services in New Zealand have made supportive comments publicly, and that’s important when you consider a history over the years of a competitive environment for these services and a very limited ability to work together and to cooperate because of the way that these things have been structured. It’s important to acknowledge just how much it would have taken for many people in the sector to be able to come around this and get behind this, but that seems to be what has happened here, and that’s a really good thing. It should give all of us some comfort that the goodwill going forward is going to allow this merger to occur in a way that will be cooperative and collaborative. Things like joint unlimited access to the technology, to the super-computer, to both of these organisations’ assets that they are bringing into the merger is a really good thing, and we should see a result from that that will benefit all New Zealanders.

The only points that I wish to raise at this reading, before we consider this further, are that we do have concerns here, particularly around not only the funding of science but also in terms of how these amendments are being done to the State-Owned Enterprises Act. It is very simple in this Act, and it sets out here just how a Government that is so minded would be able to carve off State-owned assets from the protections of the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986, and simply take them out of a schedule and move them into another ownership structure. In this case, it is one where those are largely going to be enjoyed—publicly, they are going to have a public benefit. But it sets out very baldly, in what is a very short Act, just how quick and easy it would be to privatise assets like this that have enjoyed the protections of the State-Owned Enterprises Act since the late 1980s in New Zealand.

One thing that’s particularly striking is around the removal of the provisions of the Commerce Act from a merger like this. It’s very simple. It looks like, on page 11, at clause 29, a simple provision that allows Part 3 of the Commerce Act not to apply to an acquisition like this. What does that mean for New Zealanders? It means that these two entities can be merged without any thought of the impact on the downstream consumers or the people who buy their services. In this case, there is a strong rationale for that, but you can imagine an instance where the Government has taken ownership and retained ownership of the State-owned enterprise that is this critical to New Zealand’s ability to respond, in this case, to disasters and severe weather that could occur where you would simply need to take it out of any oversight of the Commerce Commission and to be able to roll this up.

It is very quick, it’s very painless, for a Government moving fast, and a reminder of Geoffrey Palmer’s comments that we have one of the fastest legislatures in the West to be able to do something like this to assets which have been built up over many generations of New Zealanders in their tax dollars. It is something that we must do soberly and we must consider very, very carefully. That is why Labour has expressed reservations about the support here. We’re keen to work this through and we’re keen to ensure that this is a robust process which makes sense for everyone who uses the services and for those responders who need this information into their weather events.

Excellent. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This bill brings together two Crown-owned weather forecasting companies—brings them back together. It will provide more connected weather-forecasting and investment for the wellbeing and safety of New Zealanders, protect our infrastructure, and support the growth of our economy. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. The Government’s objective is to bring meteorology, climate science, hydrology, and oceanography together to create a stronger, more connected—

Hon Member: Speak up—we can’t hear you!

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: —weather forecasting system to improve New Zealand’s resilience to severe weather events. I must make the point that the heckling coming from that side is so ironic, because it lasts longer than their speeches. If you want to have something to say, at least have the decency to make a decent contribution. Hoi anō rā [However], for now—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I assume that comment was not directed at me.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: OK. Well, I’m just happy to have made that point, Madam Speaker.

Hon Judith Collins: Point of order—point of order.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: It’s quite a disgrace to these bills, I think—

Hon Judith Collins: Point of order.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: —when people take more time to interrupt quality contributions—

Hon Judith Collins: Point of order.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: —than they do to make their own.

Hon Judith Collins: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I think—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Is that a point of order?

Hon Judith Collins: It is. Thank you, Madam Speaker. The fact you couldn’t hear me for five calls for a point of order shows that the member who is speaking—if she could just realise that the microphone is very live, and it’s very loud, and that’s why people are maybe saying, “Can you keep it down a wee bit?”

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Speaking to the point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): It’s not a point of order, and so there’s no need to speak to it.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL: Thank you, Madam Chair. Now, given the objectives I’ve just outlined, why would we not support it? In particular, why would I not support it when that’s exactly what a holistic Māori worldview has had mai rā anō [since the beginning]?

When I worked in the broadcasting industry, thankfully we didn’t have to say, “Here are the meteorological reports for the day.” It was as simple as saying, “anei ngā tohu a Tāwhirimātea me ngā tai a Tangaroa” [here are the cues of Tāwhirimātea and the tides of Tangaroa]; here is what’s happening to the wind; here is what’s happening with the tides. We know in te ao Māori, we’ve got Tamanuiterā; we’ve got Te Uira, the lightning; we’ve got Hinepūkohurangi, the mist. These are concepts that we have been living with for a long, long time. For millennia, our ancestors lived by the moon, the tides, the stars, and even behavioural patterns of the birds and animals: planting, harvesting, fishing, diving—my favourite—hunting, travel. Life was determined by these connections with the elements. Now, while there are still many who are still very proficient in our maramataka Māori, the majority of us simply grab our phones—those of us who are not familiar with isobar patterns—and check what the long-term MetService forecast is.

Therefore, as I said, I’m standing on behalf of the Labour Party to support this bill. This bill also presents an amazing opportunity to continue the work started by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, who worked with iwi, hapū, and whānau to establish Te Kūwaha: working together to integrate and embed mātauranga Māori with modern science, to ensure quality monitoring processes that fit with our country. Through internships also provided through that programme, they have built not only Māori capability but, vice versa, they’ve had access to mātauranga Māori to supplement the science.

As you know, Cyclone Gabrielle has obviously had a massive impact on Te Tairāwhiti, and I want to acknowledge all the emergency response people that we have out there. But that definitely emphasises the importance of quality monitoring.

While I support this, I do really think we can take considerations of the solutions that these might provide for weather-affected communities, particularly those in the area of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. There are a lot of dispossessed people but they want to stay on their whenua, so how can we utilise this science to support that, rather than just find reasons why people have to leave—how can we find reasons to support people and stay? This is also an opportunity to think about how this quality new organisation can support research that will help inform insurance companies in flood-prone areas so that they can not only stay there but also have better consideration to be insured. There are some communities within Ikaroa-Rāwhiti now deemed uninsurable, and I think that is a positive opportunity that this bill could support.

So, as I’ve said, I think this bill has the opportunity to absolutely complement mātauranga Māori, and I commend the bill to the House.

It’s a pleasure to be able to rise and speak on the first reading of this bill. You know, we focus on innovation and growing our economy. That is what this bill does. It helps to drive productivity, higher value jobs, and better living standards for New Zealand. I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Meteorological Services (Acquisition and Policies) Legislation 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.