Public Works (Critical Infrastructure) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Public Works (Critical Infrastructure) Amendment 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 PENK: I move, That the Public Works (Critical Infrastructure) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’m pleased to bring this bill back to the House today, and I’d like to start by acknowledging the previous debates we’ve had on the bill in the House, including in the committee of the whole House recently, and the engagement from other members of the committee, including across the aisle. I appreciate all the discussions and contributions—well, almost all of them—on this important piece of legislation.

As for the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, I do want to acknowledge in particular the chair of the select committee, Mr Andy Foster, and all relevant members, some of whom are in the House today, no doubt preparing to speak on this, the third reading. The careful consideration given to the issues through the select committee process, I think, has resulted in a bill that strikes the right balance between efficient delivery of critical infrastructure for public benefit and, at the same time, the rights of landowners. Thank you also to the users of the Public Works Act, industry experts, landowners, and the public for taking time to provide feedback on the bill.

The bill contains targeted amendments to the Public Works Act specifically focused on speeding up the delivery of specific critical infrastructure projects. These are the projects listed in the bill and are on Schedule 2 of the Fast-track Approvals Act, and the roads of national significance listed in the Government Policy Statement on land transport 2024.

Rather than detailing the bill’s provisions again, I intend to focus on why the bill is needed. I think that we can all agree in this House, even though reasonable minds can differ on the way that we achieve these aims, that New Zealand has an infrastructure deficit and that it should be the role of Government to seek ways to address that. There is a growing demand for critical infrastructure, including transportation networks, to be built at a faster pace to support economic growth and productivity. Passing this bill will speed up the delivery of critical infrastructure projects and make strides towards addressing New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit.

Enabling faster delivery of critical infrastructure, such as better transport networks, will also help to drive lower costs for businesses and households, enabling Kiwis to get home safe to their families at the end of the day much more readily and quickly, and to support the delivery of exports to overseas markets. Better infrastructure will also enable Kiwis to have the high-quality public services they deserve and will help grow the economy so that New Zealanders can get ahead.

The Public Works Act is a crucial tool for acquiring and managing land to support public infrastructure projects. There are often unnecessary and costly delays in the delivery of critical infrastructure, among other reasons due to the negotiations and objections to the compulsory acquisition of land with such litigation made to the Environment Court under the Public Works Act. These delays can extend construction time frames hugely, causing projects to incur additional costs, such as the escalating prices of materials and labour, in the meantime, as well as, of course, the significant legal costs incurred in that litigation. While objections to the acquisition of land are rare, a single objection has the potential to add significant project delays—years and years in some cases. Larger and more expensive critical infrastructure projects face greater risk as construction costs increase and compound over time—notwithstanding the excellent efforts of the Government, in many respects, to make sure that there is downward pressure on such construction cost increases—and at a much larger scale.

The holding-up of public infrastructure projects up and down the country over a number of years—this not being a new phenomenon—means that projects that would provide benefits for communities often end up stalled with a lot of time spent in courtrooms. Faster infrastructure delivery through streamlined processes and efficient decision-making can ensure that Kiwis benefit from these investments sooner with a lower financial burden. This is particularly crucial for large-scale, high-cost projects. This bill will streamline the process for objections, making the process faster. Landowner objections to the Environment Court are removed. Instead, landowners will be able to use a streamlined written process of submissions. Landowners will be compensated with incentive payments for reaching an agreement early and recognition payments for land acquired to help deliver critical infrastructure.

This bill is the start of changes to improve the Public Works Act. A further bill that I intend to introduce later this year will propose broader changes to the Public Works Act to improve its efficiency, effectiveness, and clarity on a broader range of projects, including improved landowner engagement and emergency provisions to assist and support the recovery from natural disasters.

In closing, I’d like to thank everyone again who has worked hard to bring this policy to fruition. I look forward to the positive impact that these changes will make for delivering critical infrastructure and the consequent benefits that they will provide to our fellow New Zealanders through additional growth and productivity. Accordingly, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Public Works (Critical Infrastructure) Amendment Bill. This is a bill which the Labour Party supports, and so we have taken our time to work carefully through the select committee process and also the committee of the whole House stage to make sure that these changes are things that will be enduring and that will give us a process to work through for the projects that are set out in the schedule. This is important, though, for any MP in this House who represents an electorate. Constitutionally, we are arranged so that we come from our community to represent their interests. Many of those who have represented those electorates have also represented them for many, many years and contested elections, and some of those people in the House have lost those communities’ support and have gained it back in further years.

There are many people in this House who know just how deeply unpopular takings from the Public Works Act are, and I made the point in the committee stage that all of those MPs who have ever dealt with constituents who are losing part of their lawn or their home or part of their business or the car parks outside their shop will know how difficult this is for people. They need to be able to see the Public Works Act process as a process they can put their faith in. It will not always benefit them, it will not always result in something which directly aligns with their interests, but they need to be able to put their faith in the process because the infrastructure that is enabled by that Act is something that is important and enduring for the whole country.

The Minister is right when he points to the desperate need for infrastructure to be built and built quickly in New Zealand. That is true. It is true that a long-term pipeline of infrastructure builds that have wide and enduring bipartisan support is necessary. That is true, but we need to make sure that the process that we are using to acquire people’s property—people’s land, people’s homes and businesses—is fair and has a way of people looking at it and saying, “Even if I don’t end up with the outcome that I want, I can be sure that this is something that benefits my community and has the full support of a Government that is acting in my interests—even if I don’t politically support them—and that it represents everyone.” That is why we have done that.

Now, I made it clear that we gave very careful consideration in our report to Māori rights and interests in this. That’s important to note, even at this stage, because there have been a number of questions which have arisen. A huge number of the submissions that were made on this bill were about that topic, and it is a topic that we should treat with gravity and respect, because there is a long and peppered history of Governments using the Public Works Act to take Māori land and then the disposals of it have not been fair. They have been far from fair. The giving of land for a school for a community and then the taking of that land in future years for other purposes is wrong, and we have recognised that again and again in Treaty settlements in this House and in our arrangements with iwi around the country. There have been public works takings of large swathes of land in some areas of the country in retribution for unrest or for refusals in some areas to be conscripted for war. There are public works takings which we all agree in this House were unfair and unjust, and so it’s right that we treat any Public Works Act changes that have an impact on Māori rights and on rights that have arisen in Treaty settlements very carefully. We’ve done that. We think this is fair, and we think this will be enduring, and it’s useful for us to have done that very carefully and given that the gravity it deserves.

We have other concerns with this, too. One of those concerns is that this is part of a suite of bigger changes to amend the Public Works Act but that it doesn’t do that all in one go. We have the regrettable situation here where there are some projects that have been outlined by the Minister in his schedule, which includes projects that we have concerns about and that will be on a separate track to those other projects that have been ordinarily notified as projects that take away someone’s property and that take away someone’s home and that are available to local government or that have been central government projects that have been consented over the years. Just the other day, I had a constituent get in touch with me. She was living on Puhinui Road, which is an area that has been notified under the Public Works Act for takings for, essentially, a road-widening project there. I went back to her, and I said I would carefully consider whether there was any effect on her property rights, but the answer is that there is not, because this is a bill which only deals with a few projects.

Every MP who has any public works taking place in their electorate will know that that will be a difficult conversation for them to have—there are some people out there, now, who have had property that has been notified—and more difficult in the next year or the year after that. There will be others who will receive notifications even after this is passed where they will not receive, or be entitled to, the higher level of compensation that this bill provides for. That is difficult for us as MPs, because we know that, when people put their faith in these processes that have existed for a long time, they expect to be treated fairly, and they expect to be on an even footing with others. There is some difficulty in this, but, ultimately, if this is what it takes to be part of a bipartisan process towards building more infrastructure, that is something that we can remain open-minded about.

It comes with a weight for this Government to make sure that it does deliver projects that are ultimately for the benefit of the communities they serve, that are ultimately taking into account all of those considerations which make good infrastructure, and that make popular infrastructure projects in the communities because they are good for those communities, not just road users, not just public transport users, and not just the people who see it every day or the people who drive past the community and aren’t impacted by the actual building. Everyone who is affected by these infrastructure projects needs to benefit from them. That is why there is social licence to do something like this, and it’s important that the Government treats its responsibility to govern for all New Zealanders very carefully when it’s implementing a kind of add-on to a process that is well understood and that is well established.

I won’t take much more time, except to say that that is a weighty responsibility—building infrastructure that many of us won’t see the benefit of—because it will have benefits for the next 30, 40, or 50 years. We need to make sure that we’re putting it in the right place, that it’s serving the right community, and that it’s in the interests of everyone, and we have that responsibility going into the future. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Everything about this bill is related to fast track and is related to the Government’s haste in locking in projects that it campaigned on but that, actually, are not the right projects to take us in the direction we know we need to go as a country.

We’ve known for over a quarter of a century that climate change is real, that our transport emissions are rising, and that we need to change the way we do things. The funny thing is that changing how we do transport, how we do buildings, how we do food production, how we look after our waterways, how we look after our native forests, and land use, generally—all of that—stands to benefit all of us, and I think New Zealanders know that. New Zealanders care about nature. New Zealanders care about their waterways. New Zealanders want trains, coastal shipping, public transport, and warm and dry, affordable homes. We could have all of that if we had a Government that was responsible and a Government that was caring about people and caring about the planet.

The changes to the Public Works Act in this bill are about making it easier for the Government to take land away from people in order to push through its priorities, and we can’t support it, because a number of the priorities in the schedule are simply the wrong projects. We know that, because they’re not on the Infrastructure Priorities Programme.

The Government has set up this independent body—you know, we’ve got the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission. They talk all the time about how great it is, but they’re not actually listening to their advice, because if we look at the Draft National Infrastructure Plan, does it say we have a deficit of roads? It sure as heck doesn’t. It says that New Zealand has been spending too much on roads for a really long time and getting really poor outcomes and that, by the way, we’ve got to use our existing infrastructure better by using levers like direct pricing. At least eight of the projects in this schedule are these just outrageous, incredibly expensive four-lane highways for the sake of it, and the Government MPs will get up and say that this is about economic productivity and growth, but it’s just not—it’s just not.

I know that they love heckling me about this, and they’re all just so wrong. It’s just sad to see. It’s sad because I naively believed, when I came to this place 14 years ago, that if we just had a rational conversation about transport and the outcomes that we all want and that we all say we want, then we could get political buy-in across the House for a better approach to transport investment, but the National Party and the ACT Party and the New Zealand First Party do not care about evidence. They do not care about cost-effectiveness. They don’t even care about property rights—they definitely don’t—because this bill is making it easier for the State to take your land.

It’s making it easier and faster so that people have less ability to object through the Environment Court and say, “Actually, no.” That’s what’s happening here, and it’s for a bunch of projects that were on some deranged campaign wish list of Simeon Brown that have no actual basis in reality. We all know that if you look at the New Zealand Transport Agency’s plan around spending, this plan for all these roads is completely unfunded. They have no idea where the money is going to come from to pay for these projects.

We got a briefing at the select committee from the Infrastructure Commission about what would be needed for roads to pay for themselves with tolls, and they have to cost less than $32 million per kilometre, have more than 40,000 vehicles per day, and have time savings of 15 minutes or more. I can tell you that there’s not a single road of national significance that passed that test. There’s not a single one that passed that test. They don’t have 40,000 vehicles a day, they’re way more than $32 million a kilometre, and they’re not going to save 15 minutes. So—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can we come back to this bill—can I ask the member to come back to this bill.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well, these projects are in Schedule 2 of the bill, Madam Speaker, and that’s why I’m talking about this. We would totally be open for a conversation about how to have a more efficient Public Works Act that meant we can build critical infrastructure projects, but the reality is that this bill isn’t about critical infrastructure projects. It’s about projects that the National Party promised, in a delusional campaign, that they don’t have money for and that they will never be able to raise money for, because they don’t have a revenue plan to pay for it and they don’t deliver the outcomes that are claimed. It’s like a matter of religious belief, on the part of that side of the House, that a road magically delivers economic productivity and growth. It does not—it does not. What if we could—

Cameron Brewer: Waikato, the fastest-growing city of Hamilton.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Do you know that Mr Brewer has claimed that Hamilton is the fastest growing. Actually, the GDP growth rate is higher in Northland than in Waikato over the last census. If we look at the regional GDP growth numbers, the thing is that none of you people over there—sorry, none of you people actually care about evidence or looking at the numbers. You just repeat your talking points and say, “I just think it’s the case. I just think, ‘Oh yeah, I’d build a road. She’ll be right—that’ll make us richer.’” It’s cargo cult economics. I’m sad. I’m sad for New Zealand that we have such a poverty of leadership and that the leaders in power don’t care about reality. They’re more interested in winning a debate and pretending to deliver the things they promised to deliver than in actually solving New Zealand’s problems.

That is extremely evident in the news today, because the economy is doing way worse than people even predicted it would, and that’s why the Reserve Bank has had to drop the interest rates, because that’s when you drop interest rates. Reserve banks drop interest rates when the economy is not doing well.

Let’s come back to the Public Works Act.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): That’d be nice.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: In my second reading speech, I shared a story about Patricia Grace, and I think that was very relevant to this bill. Patricia Grace and her rūnanga came to our select committee and submitted on this bill and said, back in 2011, 2012, or 2013, when National was first talking about Pūhoi to Wellsford—which they still haven’t delivered, and which will do nothing to help the problem with the Brynderwyns, by the way. National had proposed this Kāpiti Expressway, which had a benefit-to-cost ratio of 0.2, before we had to go back and resurface it again.

Cameron Brewer: Oh, reverse it.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: That means it costs significantly more than the economic benefits, Mr Brewer, and—

Cameron Brewer: Reverse it—campaign against it. Abolish it.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: It’s true. It’s publicly available, Mr Brewer, that the benefit-cost ratio was 0.2.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Excuse me, can we please address the Chair and not have this conversation across the House. It’s not helpful, guys.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: It’s all publicly available for anyone who wants to look it up, though I know none of them will. The road, of course, was planned to go through this land that was not protected Māori land but was the land of Patricia Grace’s ancestors, and a big part of what we have campaigned for within the Public Works Act is stopping the compulsory taking of Māori land by the State, because too much has been taken and it’s time to stop.

If anyone actually believed in property rights on that side, they would be talking about #LandBack—we would love to hear it—because there was a heck of a lot of land theft. This whole country—basically, the colonial project of New Zealand; white New Zealanders coming here to speculate on land. They justified wars in the Waikato—land wars—so that they could steal the land and then sell it off to make a quick buck, and I swear that’s still what’s running this country, pretty much.

Tangata whenua actually care about the long-term interests of this place. They’ve been here longer, and they have a relationship with the land, and they understand how important that relationship with the land is. Patricia Grace was able to appeal to the Environment Court, and the Environment Court found in her favour, and, now, there is a permanent reserve where there would have been a road. It’s a permanent reserve for the descendants to enjoy for ever, and that’s great. That’s a great outcome.

We’d like to see it possible when there are genuinely projects of public interest, and, right now, one of the number one things that is in the public interest is reducing greenhouse gas emissions and making it possible for people to move and for goods to move around this country at lower cost and with lower carbon. If that’s what this public works amendment bill was about and there was the ability to prioritise projects on the basis of their contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions—which, by the way, would also reduce cost of living for New Zealanders—then maybe we could talk about supporting it, if it was appropriately protecting all Māori land and having enough safeguards in place. The Green Party will not support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I stand here and speak for the sibling of the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024, which is the Public Works (Critical Infrastructure) Amendment Bill—allowing projects to get under way. We need to get New Zealand in a state of productivity, with a growing economy and a changing and improving state of living for all New Zealanders. This bill is going to do some important things. It’s going to incentivise early settlement so people can agree to having the Public Works Act take effect on their land, and to provide infrastructure for the good of all New Zealand. It’s going to recognise that with early payments. It’s going to protect Māori land, which cannot be acquired under this legislation. Protected Māori land is exempt from this bill. This is going to inform and give time. Thank you.

I rise to support this bill on behalf of New Zealand First. This bill accompanies the Fast-track Approvals Act. Basically, what it’s about is speeding up the acquisition process for land that is required for public works under the fast-track Act and roads of national significance under the Government policy statement. There’s a very specific set of projects that we have defined as critical infrastructure projects.

There are a few key elements. First of all, it removes access to the Environment Court. It speeds the process up for everything except for protected Māori land. We heard a bit of angst about today, but that’s excluded from this. They still have access to the Environment Court. It changes from a sequential process where you had to get the consent or the designation done first. Now you can do it at the same time as the acquisition under the Public Works Act. It’s a parallel process rather than a sequential one. Then also, as we’ve heard, it allows for financial incentives for early settlement.

Taking people’s land—it doesn’t matter whose land it is; Māori land is very, very important. For many people, land is very, very significant. It’s a place of memories; a place of blood, sweat, and tears; a place that you have great commitment to. Taking that land is very, very significant. We heard through the select committee process a lot of angst about that process, and we actually responded to some of those things.

We did suggest a number of different things that, maybe, ought to be thought about—who the decision maker might be or whether that should be an idea like a panel, like the fast-track approach, with the ability to be able to face people face to face and talk about the land acquisition process. We heard a lot about the process—Land Information New Zealand told us a lot about the process—and how it needs to be done properly so that you identify whether you’ve actually gone through all the options before you actually say it is this piece of land that we want to take. We had some considerable assurance given to us about that and also about how the compulsory acquisition process that is already there—[Interruption]—I’m going to take longer if you do that—under section 18 and section 23 of the Public Works Act still applies.

What I want to say is we did increase, as changes were made, the length of time for feedback. We gave people a little bit more time to be able to respond to that knock on the door that says, “We want your land.” Secondly, we also said that there is an obligation—and this is now in the legislation that we’re about to pass—to provide comprehensive information and to provide that information promptly to the people whose land is proposed to be taken so that they are able to respond to that. That’s a really important improvement, I think, to the bill.

What I wanted to end on is to say we need to grow our economy. That is absolutely essential. If we don’t do that, with all the grand aspirations and all the desires that we’ve got on both sides of the House to improve public services, we’re not going to be able to afford those or to be able to pay for all the things that we want for delivering a quality lifestyle for New Zealanders and quality living standards for New Zealanders. We are not going to be able to afford to do those things.

The Fast-track Approvals Act, the accompaniment of this bill here, and the Public Works Act are about trying to make the boat go faster and trying to improve the productivity of “New Zealand Inc.”. One of the things that we’ve heard talked about is an infrastructure deficit. We are in the top 10 percent of countries in the OECD in terms of investment in infrastructure. Well, we’re in the bottom 10 percent in terms of what we get for that investment. That is something we have to fix.

The Fast-track Approvals Act and this legislation, the Public Works Act amendment bill, are part of doing that. If we don’t do these things, we will continue to languish. We will become a poorer and poorer country. People will continue to leave this country, and that is not the country that we want to be. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I’m going to start with a quote from Patricia Grace, actually: “Tangata whenua in this country have given enough.” This is a quote from Patricia Grace, who, in 2014, defeated the Government in two court cases after they attempted to confiscate her whānau land to build the Kāpiti Expressway. The land in question is in Waikanae, and it belonged to her great-great-grandfather Te Kākākura, also known as Wi Parata. Without the generosity of Wi Parata, neither the township of Waikanae nor the railway line to Manawatū would exist. Because Wi Parata graciously donated this land to the Crown to establish Waikanae and connect it to the rest of the country, all he asked for in return was for a kura to be built and for the small parcel of land he left behind for his descendants to remain untouched. The Crown did not honour either of these commitments.

In 2013, the Minister for Land Information and the New Zealand Transport Agency came for that land under the Public Works Act. The taking of land needs to meet the standard of being fair, sound, and reasonably necessary. The Environment Court ruled that the Government’s proposal was not fair, sound, and reasonably necessary. Patricia Grace’s whānau then took the Government on in the court, where they successfully transferred the status of her land to a Māori reservation for the benefit of the descendants of Wiremu Parata, Te Kākākura. As a reservation, this land has now been afforded the protection of being inalienable to the Crown.

Had the Grace whānau not had the resources or public profile to successfully fight the Government in two court cases, their land, their urupā, and the historical significance of this site to our entire nation would have been erased. The whakapapa and livelihoods of future generations would be lost and condemned to instability and poverty. This is the reality for the majority of Māori, and I open my contribution in this way as a real and actual story and just to acknowledge Julie Anne Genter’s contribution, which referred to that particular whānau and the battle that they had to take on.

The thing at the moment is that “public works” is a dirty word; it has been for some time. That story expresses that, and that’s coupled with the current reality of—I’m not sure what the number is—particular bills that have been rammed through in the last little while that are impacting directly on Māori lives, on hapū Māori, and on iwi Māori. The thing that has completely vanished down the toilet—if it was ever out of the toilet, in this particular regard—is the relationship and trust that Māori individuals, Māori hapū, and iwi do not have. The audacity to bring this up and use the same “public works”—those words—is a foolish and dumb thing, and you’re not going to get the response from Māori that you think you deserve.

Can I now just relate this, in my final bit, to what’s going on in Bream Bay. Marsden Point is on the list, and I did discuss this in the committee of the whole House piece. With Marsden Point on the list of projects, right in that same strip of road and river and shopping, and central to Marsden Point, is Bream Bay, where they want to mine the sand. They want to mine sand because they think they can, and they’re just going to bowl in and do that. Now, when you run that scenario up against Marsden Point on the same list, the foolish thing about this is that the community there already distrusts what’s going on, and that’s driven by what the Government is doing at the moment.

We don’t support this in any possible way—I think you might have gathered by the way that I’ve been talking—but the thing that is failing and has failed for many, many Māori—hapū and individuals—is the lack of trust in this particular Government and in the regime of bills that have been rammed through that impact negatively against our families. We would ask, if anyone is listening, to please, think again—please, think again. We cannot support this in any possible way. Kia ora.

I rise on behalf of Te Rōpū Kākāriki to firmly oppose this legislation. The Public Works Act has been used as a patu on te iwi Māori for generations. We have lost large tracts of land for the purposes of public good. Public good has imposed State highways, taken huge tracts of land for railways, has put a whole heap of whānau off their lands—just like Hīhīaua, in the middle of Whangārei, taken through the Public Works Act, where Hori Rewi was removed from that whenua so you could put the CBD right on top of the whenua of Te Uriroroi and Te Parawhau.

This is lived experience, and it’s actually happening now. As I’ve already heard in the House from my colleague from Te Pāti Māori, in Bream Bay it is proposed to have the Marsden rail spur, in the Kopuawaiwaha Block. That ahu whenua trust that’s left on that side of town has been fighting to retain their whenua out of the public works takings process, and they’ve been negotiating their way out of that for years. Yes, they’re out of it now, but why cause all of this stress to whenua Māori landowners, who actually are volunteers in this space? They’re barely making a dollar to give an education grant to their whānau, and yet they have to go through a process of many years of negotiating, of engaging lawyers, and of trying to plead their case so that their whenua isn’t taken for the rail spur to Marsden.

That’s the lived reality of many landowners, Māori and Pākehā. In giving up our land for the public good, for these roads of national significance, that’s whānau land, that is personal property rights, that is whenua tūpuna tuku iho. Many of those who will lose their lands are tauiwi, are Pākehā whānau, too, and you are stripping their ability to go to the Environment Court. It is unheard of that the whānau who are going to be victims of this bill will have to go and ask the Minister for Land Information as to whether they will give a reprieve for that family who could lose their land for a rail spur or who could lose their land for a State highway. What on earth is that about? That’s too much ministerial power. Why should they not have the ability to go to the Environment Court? Don’t dangle some incentive payments to them. Don’t dangle and expect them to give up their property rights for the benefit of all New Zealand.

This isn’t just about Māori; it’s about all of our whānau and community. If you’ve got a connection to the whenua—you’ve been farming it, and you’ve had your kāinga there—why should you have to give it up for a State highway or any other public works public good for the betterment of all New Zealand? Māori have already suffered enough, and, now, we’re seeing it happen because this is going to be an overreach of ministerial power. This will let us see the way that the Minister will come down, and they will have the decision as to who will, ultimately, keep their land or lose their land.

You’re removing the right for the everyday New Zealander to be able to have their time in front of the Environment Court. Then you say, “Oh, well, the Māoris get to go to the Environment Court.” I’ve already said this in the House: it’s too expensive. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to the Environment Court. Do the members of the House ever go to the Environment Court? Do you know how much it costs? For hapū who don’t have a dollar and whenua Māori landowners, we can’t afford it. Sorry about that. Not all New Zealanders are benefiting in this current environment—not at all. We have lived experience right now trying to fight developers who are trying to take whenua Māori and who are trying to destroy the taiao, and you’re arguing here that, somehow, public works takings, these public works, are going to be good for all New Zealand.

We here, as members of the House, need to really think about the ripple effect of dislocation for families, the ripple effect as you remove land out from underneath whānau—tauiwi mai and Māori mai. What will happen? People leave the community; people will have to move and shift away because the roads of national significance are coming right through. We’ve got that in Waiōmio right now: the road of national significance, aka State Highway 1, goes right through and separates the marae from the wāhi tapu. We have to put signs up and cones in the middle of the road when we go to bury our dead. That’s the reality of what we do when we give to the public good.

Kia tūpato tātou mā. All of us who support this bill, all of you who support this, be careful, because there will be ripples for future generations. How do we turn around and say, “Oh, aroha mai, moko. Yeah, we supported it because we thought a road would be good for New Zealand.”?

This is a great bill. It’s going to allow us to get stuff built in this country so that all New Zealanders can benefit from those projects—infrastructure. I think it strikes the right balance. I’d like to say a very special thankyou to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and the Minister for Land Information and officials, including those from Land Information New Zealand, for working expeditiously to get this bill to this stage. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

You can always rely on Dan Bidois to do a short contribution on a bill that he proclaims is very important. It’s his skill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I look forward to your fulsome contribution.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Thank you very much. Nine minutes and 48 seconds to go.

The thing with infrastructure is that, for too long in this country, there has been a short-sighted approach that has led to the politicisation of infrastructure. That has led to a stop-start approach. That is the case across successive Governments. What is really clear from the sector is that they cannot get ahead if that is allowed to continue. The role of the Opposition in that is to provide as much certainty as possible, not just to those that work in the sector, recognising that they have been significantly impacted over the last 18 months to two years. I’m thinking of the construction sector, for example, which has lost 18,000 jobs, and the civil contracting sector, which is seeing record levels of liquidations. We acknowledge the impact that those have on the families involved and, of course, the communities in which they live. They can’t afford for things to be uncertain any more.

It’s not just them, though; it’s the prospect of attracting investment into this country. They are less likely to invest in New Zealand if there is a fear that when there is a change of Government—there may well be one soon; who knows?—those investments won’t be fulfilled or continued and honoured by any Government that follows this one. The role that we see for us in Opposition is to take whatever opportunity we can to provide certainty. That is why we have committed to honouring any contract that is signed and any work that is under way by this Government when we come in and to working with those in the sector to reassure them that we are working with the Government, wherever possible, to provide that certainty. I see this bill as an opportunity to provide that.

The fact of the matter is that the Public Works Act, whilst controversial when it impacts on communities, is essential if we are going to get the infrastructure that we need moving forward. It is also important to provide certainty to the communities that are impacted as to how that’s going to go about.

I was thinking, as I’ve been listening to the contributions, of the new Manawatū Tararua Highway. Now, that was, essentially, a six- or seven-year project. At the time, it was the largest earthworks project in the country. It was funded and commenced by the Labour Government, and it was recently opened. Now, a big chunk of that time was going through the process of securing land for it to be able to go through. Of course, a very, very brief history was that there was the Manawatū Gorge, but then it had to be closed. I think Simon Bridges was the Minister at the time. He, essentially, closed it because the number of landslides was too frequent for it to remain open. There had to be an alternative. It couldn’t go where the old gorge was. It had to go on the other side of the Manawatū River. But, of course, in doing so, it required the Government, essentially, to acquire private land. That’s not easy. Some of those families had been farming on that land for generations. For them to give that all up, even if they agreed with the road, which they all did, it was a big ask. It did take time, but I want to acknowledge the way in which the New Zealand Transport Agency, the local community, and the local iwi worked with those landowners to make it work, and it did. It’s a marvellous piece of infrastructure. It’s one that we are very proud of, and we’re very pleased that this Government’s proposal to put a toll on that was quashed after massive community push-back. That would have been a devastating outcome for the community.

The point, though, is that that process could have been made smoother and that there could have been a bit more certainty given to everybody involved. My colleague Arena Williams outlined the areas in which we had concerns about this bill. I think it’s fair to acknowledge the work that she and Rachel Brooking and Tangi Utikere and Damien O’Connor have put into actually trying to work with the Government to make this work. That’s how these sorts of bills should be done. We need to try and find those compromises because then, if compromises are made, things are less likely to be changed by future Governments and then people can have more confidence that this is how things are going to operate moving forward. It’s not to say that we agree with absolutely everything in the bill, but if you’re willing to make a compromise, you’re never going to agree with everything.

The Labour Party does support this bill, and we’re happy to see it progress, and we would very much like the Government to continue to work with us. We have offered them an ongoing offer to work with us on the Resource Management Act reform so that we can give everyone confidence that what is settled on will last the test of time, and we genuinely hope that that will continue. There are other areas around infrastructure and planning laws where everyone wins if we try and find that middle ground that will stand the test of time. I commend it to the House.

New Zealanders have voiced frustration about outdated infrastructure and slow delivery. The stormwater issues we face in Mount Roskill are a clear example of why faster and more efficient infrastructure delivery is urgently needed. This bill modernises the Public Works Act to speed up nationally significant projects. This is a balanced reform that delivers urgency with compensation rights. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise with some pride to hear the name of my whanaunga Patricia Grace mentioned twice today in the House. I’m related to her on her Pākehā side. I have to mihi also to my sister, who, I think, inherited the English language writing gene and aced her School Certificate with 90-something percent and does a lot of writing. I mihi to both of my whanaunga there.

I’ve been listening to this debate, and I just really want to acknowledge the seriousness of what we are proposing here and the really fine balance that is needed to be struck. I can hear the mamae from our Māori colleagues, in particular, across the aisles over in the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, talking about what happens when land that has been theirs for generations—or, really, for ever—is deemed to be taken in the public benefit. Also, I heard the Hon Kieran McAnulty talking about the farmlands and those intergenerational farmers—some of them might have century farms, for example—who feel the hurt and feel it very personally, if it is deemed that there is a public benefit that requires works to be done. It is a very fine balance.

I know that my colleagues who sat on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee gave it an incredible amount of thought. I feel comfortable that we have landed on the right side due to the strengthening, actually, that occurred in that committee phase.

When I think about the type of situation that we would need this public benefit for, I can look immediately to my own electorate in Taieri and the flooding situation in South Dunedin, where having something like these provisions of the Public Works Act to provide more certainty but also more facility to be able to get stretches of land or strategic parts of the electorate that would help to ameliorate flooding is incredibly important. I acknowledge the Dunedin City Council for doing just that when the Forbury racecourse came up for sale, and they took what I think is quite a visionary course of action, which was to purchase that land and hold it without an immediate plan, knowing that it is strategically incredibly important for the future of South Dunedin in how we handle the flood risk and the water table and the rising tides that are happening there. I can imagine that, in future, there will be other flood-prone parts of Aotearoa New Zealand that are going to need this type of legislation.

When I look at the bill, I can see that there has been strengthening done around not only certainty but also around extensions to enable communities and landowners who do have a legitimate claim to debate and to really test out whether the public interest should prevail. Those have been strengthened, and I am grateful for that.

I do take a little bit of issue with some of the Government members saying that this is about growing the economy. Actually, for me, it’s about critical infrastructure. The “growing the economy” line that I hear them say is so much about trickle-down economics. I’d just like to say that, on our side of the House, when we talk about growing the economy, we’re talking about investing in people, we’re talking about feeding our kids in schools and making sure that they’ve got school teachers who are properly paid, that they can get healthcare when they need it, and that there are hospital staff available. We see that as an investment. It is about investing in people. This particular bill is about investing in the infrastructure that will support people. I don’t subscribe to the trickle-down economic theory that we have heard from the Government.

Nevertheless , I do agree that the infrastructure is a very important piece in investing in our people, making sure that they can travel around, that they do have access to the places they need to go and the things they need to do, and that we can attract foreign investment, as the Hon Kieran McAnulty has said. For that reason, we do need to have the certainty and we do need to have agreement on these enabling pieces of legislation, because if we’re talking about cross-party support for infrastructure, which I have heard around the walls of this Chamber, then we need to start with agreement and cross-party collaboration on the very enabling legislation that enables that to happen. I think, what we have seen with this bill is a very good example of that, in the select committee stage and in some of the very thoughtful speeches that have been given.

I do want to, again, acknowledge that this has not been done lightly and that it has not been done frivolously. It has been done with a great deal of care and thought from Labour members. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

Can I just acknowledge Oliver Crotty, who’s here from Palmerston North Boys’ High School and, like everyone that drives through the Levin-Horowhenua area, will be as eager as Suze Redmayne and I are to see that new road start construction imminently. That’s why we need this legislation. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would just like to reiterate that for something that often gets talked about or mentioned as incredibly important, I would have expected the members of the Government to make a little bit more or add a little bit more information to their contributions and maybe even to try and flesh out some of the reasons as to why this is important or to provide us with a little bit more confidence in the fact that this is something that they’re absolutely 100 percent committed to, given the enormity of it, really, and all of the factors involved with something that is, fundamentally, acquisition, and what that means not only to individuals but also to families and to legacies and to generations.

As has been said, this bill has not been taken lightly. There are several aspects to it that I know the Transport and Infrastructure Committee worked through in so far as, on the surface, it might have seemed like a straightforward thing, but then once some information was added to it, there were complexities and there were considerations to be made to ensure that something could be fair and reasonable. Ultimately, this is about getting those key infrastructure projects done and completed and the confidence and the forward-looking nature of that pipeline, so we do support this bill. We support the Government’s efforts to aid the construction of that critical infrastructure and also their retention of the right to appeal to the Environment Court in the case of Māori land, which is something that the select committee grappled with. I think it’s one of those things that came out of select committee, in terms of some sort of compromise and being able to take a step in the right direction while still providing additional payment incentives under that standard process for this land.

There was a lot of talk at select committee, and I do remember subbing in, or being there, for part of that. I didn’t get the opportunity to have a proper overview of everything, but there was a lot of talk about appropriate incentives and making sure that whenever you’re talking about incentives or any kind of carrot-and-stick operation, there is a fine balance. At this opportunity, at this juncture in the process, it is worth spending the time to make sure that that’s been well-thought-out.

We believe the intention of this bill is to streamline the process of land acquisition. Four things are part of that critical infrastructure—remembering those are things that are listed in that schedule as worthy—but that’s notwithstanding the fact that, as my colleague Ingrid Leary pointed out, we do have some concerns and some things that we will be mindful of.

The bill, I think, it’s fair to say, consolidates a reasonable amount of powers with the Minister, in this case the Minister for Land Information , and it does—objectively, it does—remove some checks and balances from the system. That is not something that’s done lightly. The bill is potentially confusing for landowners, and certainly for some landowners, it creates a set of rules for some acquisitions, and it keeps existing rules for others. That is something to be to be mindful of as well. These are issues that the Government, I think, will need to make sure that they do consider carefully moving forward.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make an assumption that, inevitably, there will be people that see this as an undermining of property rights. The bill changes the process, and it changes the process specifically for those infrastructure projects that are new in Schedule 2A of this bill. These projects are public works that are specifically listed in the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 and in the roads of national significance. Under this bill, the right of a landowner or person of interest to object to land acquisition in the Environment Court is also being replaced by a written submission process with which there is no opportunity for oral hearings. I think that that is also something that is important to highlight. The judicial process obviously can still be used for a review of those procedural issues, and these written submissions will be sent to the relevant authority. Those are things that have changed. On this side of the House, certainly, the contributors from Labour who sat on that select committee were mindful of that, and the House should take some sort of satisfaction in the process and in the fact that there were plenty of discussions along those lines. The Minister must regard every submission when making those decisions. We can take some sort of solace in that and consider the same matters as considering the Environment Court, if it was going through that process. This bill does not change the Public Works Act itself in respect to projects that are not on that Schedule 2A; and I think that that is a point worth making and being very explicit about as well.

Māori landowners will still be able to appeal to the Environment Court. The bill will be reviewed after three years of enactment, and I think that that is something that is absolutely worthwhile. When we talk about critical infrastructure—it’s a phrase that kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?—the word “critical” is important to evaluate in so far as making sure that it is critical and that it is hefty enough to be worthy of the acquisition powers that come with it. Therefore, reviewing the bill in three years, I think, is the right thing to do. We will be supporting this bill.