Parliament Bill, Parliament (Repeals and Amendments) Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Parliament Bill and the Parliament (Repeals and Amendments) Bill.

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

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I move, That the Parliament Bill and the Parliament (Repeals and Amendments) Bill be now read a third time.

These two bills were divided from the Parliament Bill that the House considered yesterday, and I’m pleased to bring them to the House for their third reading. This does represent a constitutional moment—not one that Parliament often engages in in our largely unwritten constitution. People who are rude would say we tend to make it up as we go along, and that would be a way of looking at it. Others would say that we have a flexible and—

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Adaptable.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: —adaptable; thank you very much, the Hon Deborah Russell—adaptable constitution centred on the notions of parliamentary sovereignty, and this bill is in keeping with that.

Its genesis actually goes all the way back to the Hon Christopher Finlayson’s time as Attorney-General, and I remember being a young whippersnapper in the Parliament—well, I don’t know if I’ve ever been a whippersnapper, but I was certainly a younger MP than I am now. I remember him expounding at length in the caucus one day about how one of his great ambitions was to create a Parliament Act that brought together all of the statutes and the rules around Parliament, which, as he rightly noted in his adroit way, were scattered throughout things like the Parliamentary Privilege Act and the Clerk of the House of Representatives Act and the Act that governs how we’re paid, and all of these things.

I remember sitting in caucus and thinking, “I’m not sure that’s going to catch on as an election-winning strategy”, but that was never his forte, Mr Finlayson. I have great respect for the man, but retail politics he was not an aficionado of. All of which is fine—Parliament is made up of people with many different experiences and skills. Anyway, it started back then; the work was carried on under the last Government; and I became Leader of the House almost two years ago now and got passage of this bill, took it through the Cabinet, and here we are. I do, just at this juncture, want to thank all parties in the House for the very constructive way we’ve worked on this. I think it’s going to pass through the House unanimously, which is excellent. I also want to acknowledge and thank the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe for his very good and collegial chairmanship of the special select committee that the House thought fit to establish to consider this bill.

It is an important bill. It brings together, as I say, a range of different statutes and incorporates them into what will become the Parliament Act, and it also repeals some legislation, including the Legislative Council Abolition Act. As I noted in the committee of the whole House stage last night, I’m always keen to repeal things that are no longer needed on the statute book. We canvassed quite a lot of the issues in the bill in the committee of the whole House stage last night. A couple of notable things just to put on the record: a new funding model for the Office of the Clerk and Parliamentary Service brings the House and Parliament into line with the offices of Parliament and enables greater independence from the executive when it comes to funding. That’s important constitutionally. A statutory basis for parliamentary security—again, very important—brings the regime into line with the similar regime for court security officers as well.

In general, this is a modernisation of the statutes that govern the Parliament. There’s also a modernisation and clarification of the systems for members’ remuneration, funding, and services, and travel services for family members. This was noted in the committee of the whole House stage as well. Members of Parliament have a variety of living circumstances, and the bill is intended to enable better support for members to balance parliamentary duties with family commitments. For example, the bill gives greater flexibility for travel services so a caregiver can accompany a member’s dependent family members to Wellington, which is a bit of an oversight in the current regime that’s been brought to Parliament’s attention. It also includes a new definition of “adult dependent” for any member’s family member who is over 18 but, by reason of disability, is dependent on the member. There’s also a change that attracted the attention of Celia Wade-Brown, who proudly told the House yesterday that she was responsible for the first citizens-initiated referendum in New Zealand history, which I didn’t know, and now I do. The bill makes the change so that the responsibility for the counting and the administration is no longer with the Clerk of the House, but it is actually the Electoral Commission who is the expert body to deal with this.

I don’t want to take up any more of the House’s time. I just want to say thank you to everybody who has been involved in the bill’s genesis—there have been a large number of people. I also want to thank the Office of the Clerk for the support that they’ve provided on this quite long journey, actually, as we enact the Parliament Bill. I thank the Clerk of the House and his team in the Office of the Clerk for all the support as we go through this, and I thank all members, as I said at the start, for their support as we enact this very important piece of legislation. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m not sure I’m happy about sharing a moment with Chris Bishop—but a constitutional moment, I will have. We get a lot of criticism in this House for going hammer and tongs at each other, and it’s right that we do in some cases, but this is a really good example. This won’t be on the front page of The Post tomorrow, but it’s a really good example of a really important piece of legislation where we’ve put our heads down and worked through some important questions and tried to get this place to work more effectively.

I think there’s only two main things I want to say, because we can dive into the detail, which is what we did in the committee stage, around security issues and so on and when you can use force and what you do with somebody you’ve detained, and all those sorts of things—and that’s all well and good at the committee stage—but I think it’s really good to stand back and say, “Well, what is that about?” Those security measures are entirely appropriate, and it’s good to see them clearly articulated and put within a proper statutory framework that sits alongside other statutory frameworks. But it’s actually about striking the right balance between the orderly conduct of this House, the protection of members of the House and members of the public, but also doing what, here in New Zealand, I think, we do as well or better than anywhere else in the world, and that is making this House everybody’s House. It is absolutely important that people can come and sit in the gallery, can come and sit on the front lawn and have their voices heard. We have an incredibly accessible Parliament, and that is partly because of the way in which our rules have worked to date and also the excellent work that the people who are in the office, Parliamentary Service, and the security section—the way in which they navigate it as well. But it’s good to see that we, now, have a set of rules which clearly delineate when it is appropriate for someone to intervene, what the limits of those powers are, and how they will be recorded, and so on and so forth.

So I think, in terms of making sure that that balance is struck right, we haven’t got iron bars on the gate, we haven’t got perspex shields in this House, and may that long continue on the basis that we in this House have put our heads together and said, “Here is the right way to approach the issue of security of this place and of us, these members.”

The second step forward is just that financing—and, again, it might seem arcane, but how this place is paid for is actually of critical importance. Whilst we have managed to get this far on the basis that the Minister of Finance has not unduly chipped away at what is needed—and I know that some people might think otherwise—to run this place, the fact of the matter is that when times are tight and budgets are being scrutinised, this, arguably, should be the last place, because it’s the most important place. The place in which laws are made and Government is scrutinised should not have its ability to do that undermined because the Government of the day feels it’s short of cash. So we have now, not entirely, but, at least, in part, said that those decisions are now going to be made by Parliament. So Parliament will have a say over its own funding—will, in fact, have the determinative say over its own funding.

Of course, the difficulty is that in our democracy, the Government dominates Parliament. So it’s not perfect. The Government of the day could abuse its position, but we do have a long and strong tradition in this House of those particular committees, those committees that deal with things like Officers of Parliament and the way Parliament operates, acting in a cross-party manner and cooperatively. So this is certainly a step in the right direction. I’m hopeful that that convention will, in fact, be strengthened and that the liaison that goes on between Parliament and Treasury won’t become a channel for the Minister of Finance to refuse funding, but rather that it will be a good-faith and open and transparent process, because funding this place—and I’m not talking about MP salaries; they’re a different thing—funding the Office of the Clerk, funding the Parliamentary Library, funding Parliamentary Service, funding security, funding electorate offices is all part of building a strong democracy. Making sure that that isn’t subject to the whims of Government is of critical importance. That’s actually what this legislation seeks to do as best as it can, given the way that this Parliament works.

So, like Minister Chris Bishop, I want to kind of just round that off by saying that the committee that I sat on did work well. There were a lot of things that were thrown up, not all were accepted, but they weren’t thrown up in some sort of political game-playing sense; they were thrown up as good ideas—sometimes very good ideas—that either did or didn’t fit and would or wouldn’t work, and they found their way in the bill if they did. Also, of course, it’s unusual in the sense that this didn’t come out of a Government department, but the assistance of the Office of the Clerk was really, really useful.

So to Chris Finlayson, yet another feather in his cap. It is a good piece of legislation. It’s something which really does bring together the way this place operates not only in that genuinely operational way but it is a constitutional moment. We have, today, as this bill passes the House, made our democracy stronger and more transparent. Obviously that’s why we support it and we would expect everyone around the House to support it. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Democracy is held up by working people, and so I want to begin my speech by acknowledging the workers who, ultimately, this bill will be impacting, because this bill aims to seek to make changes in a constructive and progressive way, in my view, in how our bodies that help Parliament run are resourced. So I want to acknowledge, first of all, some of the teams that help our democracy run and support our elective members to do our work. That includes the library, the travel team, the cleaners, the security, the Copperfield’s staff—the people who, actually, day in and day out, provide support for us to do our mahi, who, ultimately, as has been canvassed in the media in relationship to this bill, have struggled to keep up with the reality of a growing population, more complex needs for our constituents, and, in my view, chronic under-resourcing.

I also want to acknowledge the Clerk and the team that holds them together, because, ultimately, no elected representative should be expected to come to Parliament having spent their lives and their working time knowing the ins and outs of the minutiae of how Parliament operates. That’s why we have teams that help us do exactly that, because Parliament should be a place that enables people from all sorts of backgrounds to come into this place to represent our communities.

The Parliament Bill, in my view, does move us forward to ensuring that how we resource those very same workers is done in a way that is held less by the executive and more by members of Parliament. Therefore, we don’t have an executive that seeks to control the resourcing of institutions that, ultimately, are supposed to hold the executive to account. This is why this bill is deeply, deeply important.

I hope that as we move forward, now that we’re on the third reading, we can work constructively to support those very same teams to do their job well, and the Officers of Parliament Committee can adequately look at the needs of those very same teams that hold our democracy together and support them—for example, to process the thousands of submissions that we have seen over the past 12 months on contentious bills, which have enabled the members of the public to participate, to have their voices heard—to be adequately resourced, and at a time where political tensions are rising, and I think people in our communities expect their voices to be heard at critical times.

This bill also contains other important modernisations when it comes to, for example, how we consider family when it comes to the support that members can access, and I think that’s really important. Members come into this place with diverse family arrangements. Often, they may have caregiving responsibilities—of disabled people, for example. And the provisions in this bill that seek to modernise these are a step in the right direction. People should not feel like their family and caring arrangements are barriers to participate in our democracy. So it is important that we move towards modernising these arrangements to make Parliament a place where more people can see themselves in.

The Green Party initially had some concerns around the safeguards in relationship to the greater powers that would be given to security. I want to thank members who participated in the Parliament Bill Committee that was formed to scrutinise this bill, for working constructively to address these issues. We feel confident that there are adequate safeguards so that the additional powers that security have are adequately scrutinised, but also so that we protect security officials themselves, who often have to work in really, really delicate environments, and who have to balance the tensions of enabling participation—for example, rallies outside of Parliament, bringing family members of members, as well as guests and members who may be sitting in the gallery as well—at the same time, keeping us safe. I think the provisions in this bill will be important, and the safeguards will be something that the Green Party will continue keeping an eye on to ensure that they are sufficient.

I also, in my closing remarks, want to acknowledge that, ultimately, it will take this continuous cross-party work for us to ensure that the mechanisms we have put in place—like moving the funding of these two bodies that help Parliament run, into the Offices of Parliament—actually work. Because no matter who is in Government, it benefits us all to have these institutions adequately resourced. For example, if we don’t have a library team that is adequately resourced, it makes it harder for members of Parliament to learn about specialised topics. And in the case of smaller parties, for example, the reality is that you won’t have a caucus of people who have the full level of expertise in every portfolio that exists in this place. Those teams are the ones that help fill the gaps, that make sure that we can adequately respond to constituents’ needs. When I think about the teams that work around us, I want to make sure that we centre the needs of our democracy in our communities when making decisions in the Officers of Parliament Committee.

I invite members across the House to work collaboratively and put aside party politics as we move forward, to ensure that these two bodies are adequately resourced because it benefits us all. No Government lasts for ever. Each party will find themselves on the other side eventually, and they will be using those very same resources that the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk often provide for us.

So, once again, I mihi to the staffers of this place that help democracy run, and I look forward to this bill passing through its remaining stage.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yes, it was a fantastic opportunity. I felt very blessed to be part of this constitutional moment. Full credit to the Clerk’s team, you guys did an amazing job and it was impressive to watch. Also, to the Minister, and a shout-out particularly to the Hon Dr Duncan Webb for his enthusiastic input in the Parliament Bill Committee, which, I think, really got to some nitty parts of some issues.

To that point, I would also like to give my support to the idea that we are splitting this up to tidy up a bill into having a repeals bill and a piece of legislation that actually has a clean start—saying that is the whole point. It sounds like what Chris Finlayson tried to start back in that hallowed day, in that caucus room with the young Christopher Bishop watching along, and, no doubt, being inspired by the retail politics of it all!

The principles about public money use, the Clerk, the Office, Parliamentary Service, parliamentary security, matters of parliamentary privileges, allowances, expenses; it’s all fantastic to have it laid out in this way. I commend it to the House.

I’m pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to this bill very briefly. I have been encouraged to make it a short call. I said most of what I wanted to say in the second reading. It’s great that we’ve got to this point of completing this bill after its gestation across three terms of Parliament. It’s got cross-party support. I think this is about making our Parliament more accessible and more open. I commend this bill to the House.

I’ve had the privilege of working inside the development of this for a wee bit, so it’s a pleasure—I’m glad to stand and let the House know that we support this.

I’m just going to discuss why we support it. I guess the word “modernisation”, when it shows up, it gives a little bit of hope, I think, and an interest in how we bring modern thinking and modern ideas with the diversity and, might I even say, the growing tikanga in our House. I saw that expressed, particularly, yesterday, with the readings that came through with Ngāti Paoa and so on, and even today, and it gives me hope that as we modernise and grow the capability and the capacity of the House, then I think we’re doing a better job as we go. Mihi atu ana ki a tātou. Me mihi ki wō tātou kaikōrero kei mua i ahau, e tautoko ana au i ngā kōrero ka puta.

[I acknowledge us all. I should acknowledge the speakers before me; I support the statements that were made.]

So we supported it at the first reading, and we support it again today. When we come into this House, whether it’s members or whānau or kaimahi, manuhiri [staff, guests], we say to them, “This is your House”. Duncan Webb made a similar phrase: “It’s everybody’s House.” So if that is true, then safety in this House cannot be defined only by institutional comfort. It must reflect the realities and the values and the tikanga of all who enter. This bill grants parliamentary security officers significant statutory powers to search, to deny entry, to welcome, to seize, to detain—not only within precinct but also within community and electorate offices. And the irony of me speaking to this—referring to Chris Bishop’s discussion yesterday about “Keeping Up with the Kapa-Kingis”; so I’ll just make reference to that given this particular piece in my speech.

But it is a serious responsibility—and we get it—and one we must ensure is exercised with the utmost respect for tikanga, human rights, and equity. This bill’s commentary makes clear that these powers must be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. That assurance is welcome. But what remains missing, we would say, and that we continue to hope for, is explicit recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi. I was present as the committee considered including a Treaty clause but chose not to, suggesting it might alter constitutional arrangements. I’m sure that’s true. Yet Te Tiriti is the foundation of those arrangements. Its recognition would not undermine this House; it would strengthen it. Because no bill that governs how this House operates can truly serve all peoples that enter our House—and to acknowledge the very relationship that this House is based on and standing on.

Good legislative design is not just about clarity of language or efficiency of structure. It is also about Treaty-based design and decision making that honours both kāwanatanga and tino rangatiratanga. So while we support the intent of this bill, which is to consolidate, to clarify, to modernise, we also remind the House that clarity without conscience and consolidation, and without connection, will never deliver true safety for all.

Our challenge and our opportunity is simple: if this is our House, then let it be a House built on trust, on tikanga, and on Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Because only then will safety be not just promised but shared by everyone who calls this place home. So tautoko mārika Te Pāti Māori ki tēnei pire. Tēnā koe, tēnā tātou.

[So Te Pāti Māori absolutely supports this bill. Thank you, thanks to us all.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to also support the Parliament Bill, and I want to just touch on a few things. I think it cannot be overstated just exactly how important a bill like this is in terms of the democracy of Aotearoa New Zealand. Particularly from the fact that if you are looking at it from a values and principles perspective, our role and the way that we look at democracy here in Aotearoa is based on the ability of the three branches of Government to be able to hold each other to account and to be able to provide those checks and balances, but it’s hard to do that when one branch of the Government is in control of the budget of the other two branches. This bill, particularly in bringing that ability for Parliament to bid for its own budget, is incredibly valuable for the democracy of Aotearoa.

I think also, in terms of that, what we are seeing, as well, is the kind of ability for Parliament to make certain decisions—as many people have mentioned—in order to modernise. Now, I just want to reflect on the fact that our Parliament is one of the most diverse parliaments in the world, but it hasn’t always been like that. It wasn’t until 1993 that we had our first ever queer MP here in Parliament, in Chris Carter. It wasn’t until 1996—well over a hundred years after the first arrival of Chinese people in Aotearoa—that we had the first Asian MP, in the form of Pansy Wong.

So when we are looking at the way that Parliament is being representative, we are a much smaller—a fishbowl—version of the representation here in Aotearoa. Being able to have something like this, and being able to know that anyone here in Aotearoa can come into Parliament and be well-supported and know that they are able to have the kind of resource and the kind of ability to fully participate in the democratic system here, is incredibly important and it’s incredibly valuable, and that just really makes me want to also reflect on some of the things we’ve heard lately in terms of the number of bills that have been going through, where people talk about times in the past when we haven’t actually seen the ability for people like myself to be able to fully participate. So I think that having something like this, and also having the additional services and the understanding and having that curiosity to know the needs of our members and the needs of our legislature—the needs of Aotearoa New Zealand—is important.

I want to particularly draw on a couple of examples in terms of some of the services that we have already seen that have been provided and some of the services that are being adjusted here. For example, previously, we would have allowed only a spouse or a partner to be able to support a particular member back in an age when, maybe, there was a traditional sense of the household, but, again, we’re seeing the modernisation of that in the sense of the kind of support that members are able to receive. We are seeing the ability to upgrade our buildings and the ability to have our buildings made accessible for disabled communities, and that is something that we are hoping to be able to inventorise more and more with this bill.

Most recently, I had the very good fortune to travel to the Welsh Parliament—the Welsh Senedd—and to see the amazing work they’re doing as part of their Welsh revitalisation. The kind of support that the Welsh Senedd is able to offer its members in the form of just a free and ongoing and enduring Welsh language learning programme is something like what I would love to see us have a way of manifesting through this particular bill.

Finally, I want to echo what everyone else has said and just, once again, thank the Parliamentary Service and thank the Office of the Clerk for all of the support they give to every single one of us. Again, whether it’s Copperfields, whether it’s IT, or whether it’s the library, all of the people that are supporting us have made our jobs more enjoyable and more informative, and, most importantly, they allow Parliament to do what Parliament does, which is create the laws of Aotearoa.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to commence my contribution to this third reading debate on the Parliament Bill by acknowledging the very capable chairman of the special select committee that was formed to consider this bill, the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe. I had the privilege of sitting on the select committee, and I think it’s worthwhile recording for the record that the recommendations of the special select committee were unanimous, and I think that stands this piece of legislation in good stead.

As New Zealanders, we are privileged to live as citizens in a fully participatory, functioning democracy, one that has an unbroken tradition going back more than 150 years. Now, there are literally only a handful of countries in the world that can share that kind of democratic record. Over those 150 years, of course, society has changed, expectations have changed, technology’s changed, the way we live our lives has changed, and so, too, it must be that our Parliament, as an institution and the way it operates and is administered, must also change.

I had an opportunity a week or so ago to visit our cousins in Australia. Of course, they have a completely different parliamentary system to ours. We don’t have a federal system, we don’t have states, and we don’t have an Upper House. We have a unicameral, one-Parliament system and it’s very precious to us and we need to protect it, maintain it, and keep it in good order, and this piece of legislation seeks to do that.

I don’t want to go on any further because others have spoken very eloquently about the provisions of this bill, but I would simply remind those listening and colleagues from around the House that although we are individual members of Parliament and we come to this place as members of Parliament, ultimately, we are all parliamentarians and we have a role to play as parliamentarians. I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. One of the things that most pleases me about this bill is that it actually addresses a number of issues that impact on many people who work in this precinct in service to this House, to the members of this House, and to our democracy, and who sometimes have to struggle with some of the processes or the lack of the tools that they require to do their job. The irony of that is that here, in this House, lies the answer to a lot of their problems, and I hope that, in passing this bill today, they will be pleased about having those concerns that they had—and I know they had them—addressed.

In my time as Speaker, I had a number of different occasions where staff asked about different things—why can’t we do this, why can’t we do that?—or they were kind enough to share with me the difficulties that they were having in performing their roles. I’m happy, for example, that our security officers will have the tools that they need to be effective because, on too many occasions in the recent history of this precinct, they have not had the tools that they need.

To balance that off, the Parliament Bill Committee actually strengthened the monitoring and reporting requirements. We strengthened the requirement for training for our staff. We looked very carefully at the submissions—and there are some really good ones. There were some that, as mentioned before, would not be workable, and we had to make our way through all of the different options that we had in front of us. While members have thanked me, I want to thank the members of this special committee—in particular the Hon Scott Simpson as the deputy chair. I say that because he wasn’t afraid to give me a bit of a nudge and say, “I think we should move on, Mr Chair.”

Hon Scott Simpson: Participatory democracy.

Rt Hon ADRIAN RURAWHE: I thought that was—well, good on you, and, yeah, you’re probably right. It was good to have that collegiality with the chair and deputy chair. I think we were pretty much on the same page most of the way through, Mr Simpson, so I appreciate that.

I feel like I want to thank probably too many people, but I will acknowledge Dr David Wilson and all of his staff—it would be too easy to start naming some that we had in front of us, but I fear I’m going to miss some important ones. The clerk of the committee, though, I will name—James Picker, who did an excellent job. I want to acknowledge Rafael Gonzalez-Montero, Chief Executive of the Parliamentary Service, and all of his staff. I felt they gave us really good information. I’ve been on a number of select committees, and I think that the quality of information that we had and, actually, that we started with—you could see that a lot of work had gone into it. I’m very thankful for that; it actually made our role a lot easier, I think.

I do want to speak about the new funding arrangements. One of the situations that I often encountered was “Why can’t we do this and that?”, and it usually came down to funding. I think it’s a model that can work really well in most circumstances—it’s not perfect. I remember having a conversation with the Hon Grant Robertson, who was the then Minister of Finance, and he didn’t like that at all. I can understand why a Minister of Finance might not like that sort of arrangement. However, despite that, Parliament should be independent of Government, and it should set its own pathway that we all have to actually live with. Given that a Government in that sort of situation and that sort of regime would have probably the numbers to do something or not do something, you’d have to have a pretty good reason not to fund it. The only other comment that I would make is that there’s probably some Standing Orders that may need to be looked at, and I’m thinking particularly around financial veto and whether that will still be in place for such a regime. I hope not, but that’s a matter for the Standing Orders Committee. I think I’ll leave it there. Thank you to everyone. I think we’ve done some good work here in this moment of our constitutional arrangements.

Can I acknowledge that everyone is very complimentary of the skills of you chairing the committee, so, on behalf of Parliament and from the Chair, I would like to acknowledge you as well.

I too wish to acknowledge the member Adrian Rurawhe’s efforts and chairmanship. He—the former member and former Speaker—is held in massively high regard, so thank you for bringing this bill through Parliament.

Look, everything has been said. I concur with all the main points, so to quote Shakespeare, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I really appreciate the opportunity to take five minutes to also add my support to this bill. I didn’t have the pleasure of sitting on the Parliament Bill Committee, but my thanks to the chairperson and the deputy chairperson; clearly a very collegial committee doing some really important work.

I’ve commented in previous readings of this bill that one of my favourite moments in Parliament is when we see some of the school students coming up to the gallery and their local MP often gives them a little wave. There’s a real sense of intimacy in this House, which I think makes us very fortunate as a country. It is something we protect, both inside this House but also on the grounds. Just this week we’ve seen, I think, early in the week, at least three separate rallies that were all gathered on Parliament precinct together. Again, I think that tells a special story about who New Zealand is. Dr Duncan Webb also spoke about what a unique place this Parliament is and what we protect.

I do think it’s a time to recognise that a choice was made. I’ve made this comment before as well. We faced a moment in the last Parliament where we could have gone one of two directions. We very much could have said, “No, we want to bring in the police here.”—as many other parliaments have—we want to just go purely down a security route and it’s time to do that. I think we’ve made the brave decision. I think we’ve made the correct decision for New Zealand. It is the thing that will continue allowing those students to come in and experience Parliament, as many of us have over the years. I think it will mean that we, as parliamentarians, feel more connected to the people whom we serve as well. So very grateful for that steer from across the House that that is who we want to be.

Ricardo Menéndez March thanked many of the people who work within these buildings, and it’s impossible to overstate the contribution of the staff in this place. It’s not something that New Zealanders get to see on a day-to-day basis as we do, but, certainly, we could not do our jobs, nor as well as we often can do them, but for the support of those staff.

I mentioned, of course, that other countries do enlist the police forces to come in and provide security in their parliaments. Again, I’m really glad we haven’t chosen to go down that route. It does mean that the approach we’ve taken is quite unique in many ways. There are many parliaments who don’t give security staff on precinct the powers that we have decided to. A point I made in the second reading was it is something I do think we should monitor, not only for the public, in terms of their access, but also for the safety of the staff who are in these buildings as well. No doubt it’s quite a significant change for them and this does feel like something that we should continue to monitor in an ongoing way.

I would really welcome the ongoing discussions around the Parliament Bill and how it could, and should, be updated. The security arrangements are certainly a part of that. There were a number of submitters who I thought made some very interesting submissions. There was one set regarding the Official Information Act and whether the parts of Parliament should be subject to the Act, and I understand that the Office of the Clerk is already, to a certain extent. But as we’re seeing a big shift in how information is shared and used, I do think this is an area that we should actively be monitoring. I know that there are several other parliaments, for example, who do allow more access by statute to information. We do have guidelines in this Parliament, but they don’t have statutory force. So I think that is a big question for us.

The other thing, which I’ve mentioned before, is accessibility. With a quarter of New Zealand’s population having a disability of some sort, I do think, while it may involve certain repercussions in terms of how we structure ourselves at Parliament, it’s an extremely important thing to do in terms of accessibility.

Lastly, just to add my thanks again to the team, I think this is superb work and, hopefully, many New Zealanders are watching and see that we can and do act collegially to ensure that this is a place that protects our democracy for us. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I don’t think there’s very much more to add. I agree with everything that the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe said, and my colleague Scott Simpson. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. With the greatest respect to the other contributors to this debate, I actually do think that there are things to say here in recognition of the significance of this bill, and I don’t think that a debate, even if we do agree, should be rushed when we consider the significance of this.

Now, when the Minister introduced this bill, he proclaimed that this was a significant constitutional moment. I take the view that, therefore, parliamentarians should take the time available to them to discuss it, because this bill is a long time in the making. The bill was developed under the previous Government and, as has been noted, it had been discussed by many others over many years, such as the Hon Chris Finlayson, and that work then moved in beyond the change of Government, and let’s be honest, not all bills did, but this one did, and there’s a very good reason for that. The way that Parliament works has a direct link to our democracy. The more accessible Parliament is and the more that it enables people to participate, the better our democracy is.

Now, that is not to say that even with what is proposed in this bill when it passes, that Parliament will be as good as it could be. In fact, I think if we’re all honest, we’d say that’s far from the truth, but it absolutely is a significant step forward and a significant improvement. Therefore, it is appropriate that contributors have acknowledged those that have played a part in this and also acknowledged those that enable this to happen through their contributions to Parliament.

Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk provide a crucial role in the business as usual and day-to-day running of this Parliament, not just to enable members of Parliament to do their job easier but also to enable members of the public to participate, to visit, to watch, and to observe. But also, as has been acknowledged, there are hundreds of people that have to work through their jobs to enable this to happen, and this bill helps them do that. It provides them certainty and it provides absolutely necessary clarity as to what they can and cannot do in their role.

We, as is always the case in a parliamentary term, are currently going through the process of considering submissions to the Standing Orders Committee. I hope that the process in the deliberations through that committee is conducted in the same fashion that this bill and the committee chaired by my friend the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe, because there are some serious changes that could be made to Standing Orders that would suitably complement what this bill does.

The way in which Parliament runs, I guess, at an official level, has to be complemented by the way that Parliament runs in here, and if we all take a moment to reflect on the way that Parliament and that legislation has passed and that debates are conducted and the levers that are available in practice to a Government—now, technically, we’re talking about Parliament here, but in reality, since MMP was brought in in this country, it is, essentially, up to the Government by way of the majority that it controls within Parliament.

Now, that is relevant here because, ultimately, this bill tries to address that, most notably through the funding provisions. It recognises that for Parliament to run in a way that it should, to properly complement our democracy, it shouldn’t have a theoretical threat of financial veto over its operations. Now, I say “theoretical” because in practice that hasn’t really happened now, on the whole, but it could, and that’s exactly the same with the provisions in the Standing Orders. If a Government wished to simply bypass proper process to avoid scrutiny, it can.

The reason I point that out is because Parliament has come together to debate this bill in, I think, a way that should make New Zealanders pleased and, hopefully, proud. We have heard concerns raised by other parties that weren’t shared by other parties about the provisions that were originally proposed for the security guards. Now, those concerns were respected and considered and the provisions in this bill were adjusted accordingly. That is exactly how things should go in a bill like this.

So when we consider the things that we rely on as parliamentarians, as members of Parliament, but also that the staff rely on, we’ve come together as a House and discussed it. We’ve all put our representatives forward on the committee, those that can contribute to those discussions, and we’ve come to a compromise that everyone is happy with. I hope that the consideration of the Standing Orders does the same. So often a party’s position on the Standing Orders depends on whether they’re in Government or whether they’re in Opposition, and of course, we know the cyclical nature of Parliament is that things that may be a hindrance to a party in Government are of great assistance when in Opposition. So in order to look beyond that, it requires longer-term thinking, the exact thing that has been put in place to determine this.

The thing that I want to touch on, in addition to those comments in particular, is around the security guards and the statutory powers that this then provides the security team here at Parliament. It also clarifies, for everyone’s awareness, essentially, what they can and cannot do. We are lucky in this country that we have an accessible democracy where people feel able to go up to their MP. If they see them at a public event, supermarket, or wherever, they can go up and say gidday and have a yarn. When that happens, we feel safe and I think that is becoming increasingly rare in democracies around the world and must be preserved, but we shouldn’t overlook the real and genuine threat that has emerged over recent years in the hope of preserving that. We must be vigilant and do what we can to preserve it, but not overlook the threats that do exist.

I don’t say this on behalf of the Labour Party; I’d like to think I say this on behalf of Parliament, because no party is immune to this. Every party in this House has members that have had threats made against them and, the deepest regret, threats made against their family members. If we can’t, even in this place or in the electorate and community offices, enable our security team to have the powers to do what they can, where appropriate, to keep members, their family, and their team safe, then we would have missed an opportunity.

I think that this bill does that, and it should give people confidence that we, as a Parliament, do care deeply about preserving the public’s access to here and to encourage the public’s participation, but also recognise that things are not like they once were, and if we get ahead of it, like we have in this bill, then we can do our utmost to preserve the things that we hold dear.

So I’m pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. How this Parliament works is important to all of us and I think that where we’ve landed on this bill is a credit to the process. I hope members recognise that, and I would just take this opportunity once again to encourage members to take the same approach to the consideration that’s currently under way with the Standing Orders.

One of the main provisions of this bill that I want to quickly talk about is that it gives our security officers the powers to do their job more efficiently and more effectively. I want to acknowledge and thank them all, especially today, for what they do. A special shout-out to Tuakana, who I met today, who is a new recruit to the parliamentary security team. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bills read a third time.