Public Works (Critical Infrastructure) Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to our final debate, which is clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on the title, commencement, and principal Act.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll just say briefly that I can’t imagine many contributions on the title that are not ironic. It’s very descriptive, being the critical infrastructure as defined within the Act itself. The commencement is on the first day after Royal assent because there’s no reason not to have that default setting, to have this important work in place as soon as reasonably possible, and reflecting the admirable promptness with which the House and more particularly the Transport and Infrastructure Committee has acted in the matter.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I always enjoy the debate on the title and commencement. This is an important part of the House’s scrutiny. This is the opportunity for the Opposition to consider the bill as a whole. It is a longstanding Standing Order that this is an important debate, and, in fact, if it is voted down, the bill itself is defeated, so we must spend time clearly understanding what it is that we are agreeing to here and making sure that the title is true and correct.

I begin with that point because it’s relevant that constitutionally what we are doing here is we are elected by our electorates—most of us are seat holders here. We are elected by a particular community to advocate for that community. Every sitting electorate MP will have an example in their electorate where they have gone to a public meeting, where they have arranged a street corner meeting, where they have been to a constituent’s home where they are affected by the Public Works Act. And you all know that they hate it. They hate it when big Government comes to town and says, “We are removing some of your lawn, we are taking away your home, we are removing your car parks of your dairy,”—

Andy Foster: They also hate it when we can’t build anything.

ARENA WILLIAMS: —“we are taking away the things that are important to you.”—you do this. All of you do this. We say to them, “I get where you’re coming from, but this is so important. This is so important because it enables our community to have the infrastructure we need. We need bus lanes, we need new roads, we need new rail connections. This is really important to the country’s progress. This is important to our growth. We have low productivity rates in New Zealand. We need to get our cities and our regions moving. That is why.”

We front that—we front that in our communities—and we do that because we believe in it when our constituents are asking us to stick up for them. What this bill does, and what it should be called, is the “Public Works (Paying Our Hand-picked Landowners Whatever We Want) Amendment Bill”. This is a bill about choosing projects with no rationale that go on a schedule somewhere to pay them more. It even reaches back to those project owners where the landowners have been told that they will be paid X and now they will be paid Y. This is a bill about making sure that National’s commitment to the landowners who they think they will be paying more for their land will get that land.

When I put it to the Minister of Housing—at the time he was the Minister of Transport in the House when fast track was going through—he said, “No, we won’t be paying Winton Land Company more.” Is that right when we come to this bill? Is it right that the Winton Land Company will not be paid more under this bill? No, they will be paid more than they would have otherwise been paid under any other legislative process, which both sides of the House have always agreed to in the past.

This is a bill which makes particular considerations for particular hand-picked landowners. I want every electorate MP in this House to understand that next time you front a public meeting and you tell people who are losing their homes, who are losing their front yards, and businesses that are losing their car parks, that this is important, you are also representing to them that on the National Party benches they voted for a piece of legislation which did not include them, which did not include those small-business owners, which did not include those farmers, which did not include those people in the electorate who rely on us to represent their interests.

When the Minister for Land Information in the committee stage said that he cannot make decisions about his electorate, we all are put here constitutionally—this is the way we have arranged ourselves in this Parliament—to represent those people; to represent the little guy who put us here, to make sure that they’re getting a fair deal, and we ask them every day to have faith in the process. This is an extra process. This is an add on. This is something which enables particular scheduled works, which during the committee stage it was very clear had no set of criteria, had nothing they could put their faith on; it was simply because they were there that made them critical. We should be clear about what this means: this is not critical infrastructure; these are hand-picked landowners that the Government has chosen to make this clear.

The Labour Party supports the building of critical infrastructure. We want these projects to happen, but we also want a process which is fair and makes sense for people, so that when we come to this House, we can tell the people who are losing their homes, who are losing their lands, that there is a point to it all, and that there is a process that we can point to that they can have faith in and come to us and work through it and make sure that their interests are represented alongside the interests of the wider community.

People have to believe in this. People have to believe in us. People have to believe in the legislative process here. The commencement date should actually be when the Fast-track Approvals Act came in, because this bill reaches back in time and drags new rights and interests into the mix that weren’t there before. We should be clear that this is also backwards looking and is taking us backwards as a country.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Every local member in this Chamber knows that the problem that people have with the Public Works Act regime at the moment is that it’s not generous enough and they get mucked around for years. We are being more generous, and we are providing certainty quicker. It is faster and fairer, and for the member to pretend that she and others don’t think that’s a better regime is bizarre and ridiculous, particularly when her point seems to be that we’re improving the system but those who are under the previous regime don’t get the benefit of it.

Well, six years ago, the Government members who are now on that side could have done something about it. The fact that they didn’t is on them, not us. If the performance of that member is anything to go by, while they continue not to understand what’s important to New Zealanders, which includes the building of the infrastructure in the first place—as my colleagues and friends from New Zealand First pointed out—as well as treating landowners in a more fast and fair fashion to compensate them more generously and to give them more certainty, then they will remain on that side for as long as they wish.

Last night, I listened to the debate and there were a number of questions raised, particularly concerning the way in which Māori are thinking and feeling about this particular piece of legislation. It won’t surprise anybody in this House, I hope, that the whole public works—just that frame and those two words together bring a horror and trauma back. You will all know and you must never forget those things that were true then in the legislation, and the horror that that raises is still true, however polite or seemingly reasonable it might sound.

The question, I guess, for me is around trust and confidence. If I can just use an example, at Marsden Point, for instance—which I used to work at, by the way, for a couple of years when it was called MRC—there were all these same ideas. “Yep, we need to get this infrastructure. We need to stand up this new system.” We had Beldotti and Badger and Chiyoda and all of these names come to town and they did a lot of work there, and I was there for about a year and a half.

If I flick through to right now, I see that in Bream Bay, for instance, Bream Bay sand mining, those are also the other difficulties that are running in that same community. My question therefore is about trust and confidence. Can you assure people that the proper and real and enduring conversations are being held with all in that whole community, not just the chosen few? It impacts on everyone in that very tiny community of Marsden Point, Bream Bay, Ruakākā, and along that whole strip. It’s a relatively small piece of dirt, but when you go to Marsden Point, where I used to work, it’s like the pipes are filled with concrete, you’ve got logs loaded up, and so the point is that trust and confidence is near to death or dead in those communities when it comes to what this particular Government is driving.

Just to refer back to the list of stakeholders, I’m just wondering in that context as well how much serious and genuine discussion was sought from the stakeholders—Māori, hapū, and iwi stakeholders, Minister. I’d be keen to know that, because otherwise the name of this will end up as the “Public Works (Here We Go Again, Sorry You Māoris) Bill”. If you could respond. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Thinking about the title and the helpful conversation and dialogue we’ve had last night and this morning, because what has become clear is that critical infrastructure is not really what we’re talking about here—unless everything is critical infrastructure, as the Minister has alluded to.

We have here a bill that’s called the Public Works (Critical Infrastructure) Amendment Bill. That doesn’t really say what it is. We’ve had a to and fro that’s been helpful because the Minister has, essentially, said, “We are ensuring that fast track is going to be delivered through fast-tracked projects.” That’s OK—we know that that’s the Government’s agenda, and we also know that there’s a whole lot of pushback on fast track. I wonder whether the title is actually trying to hide the intention of this bill—whether it’s trying to sort of sweep it under the carpet and say that this is just critical infrastructure, “Don’t worry about it”, when, in fact, it is fast-track projects that are listed in this schedule.

This is something that we’ve discussed, and it’s been quite open in the House. If we all acknowledge that—if we acknowledge that this is where it’s going—why shouldn’t the title say it like it is? Call it the “Public Works (Fast Track) Amendment Bill”, because that would really simplify things. It would show people exactly what is being intended here, which is fast-track projects—they’re all listed in the bill—

Stuart Smith: And they are critical infrastructure.

SCOTT WILLIS: They’re not what I would consider critical infrastructure—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Pet projects.

SCOTT WILLIS: They are certainly not lifeline infrastructure—well, a couple of them are. They are—exactly—pet projects that have been listed in this schedule. We’ve acknowledged how this works. We know that; we’ve discussed it at length. Let’s call it what it is, Minister. Would you be open to changing that chunk, because, really, we do need some clarity here? I’ve just got to say, to call it “critical infrastructure” seems to be hiding exactly what that list tells us it’s there for, Minister.

Thank you, Mr Chair. If it’s hiding, it’s hiding in plain sight. The projects are literally listed in the schedule. We’ve discussed those at length last night and this morning. The phrase “critical infrastructure” is used in the title precisely because it is a defined term in the bill, as discussed.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to come to this point that the Minister’s just engaged in with Scott Willis, and that is the importance of the schedule in this bill. Everything really revolves around the schedule, as we’ve heard in this committee stage. I wanted to talk about it in Part 1; I didn’t, really.

Hon Chris Penk: We talked about not talking about it.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Yeah, we talked about not talking about it. Of course, that is the way that bills work. Even though we debate them in parts, obviously there is an interaction between the parts, and that goes to this stage of the debate which, of course, is on the title.

I take the Minister’s point that critical infrastructure is defined, and it is defined in that schedule. I think it would be really helpful if, in fact, the title was the “Public Works (Critical Infrastructure”—what it is at the moment but with an addition— “as Specified in the Schedule) Amendment Bill”. That is what a lot of our debate has been about, as well, in terms of: if we’re trying to tell people what this bill is about, it’s to do with critical infrastructure, and that is all specified in the schedule. That critical infrastructure cannot change by a Minister making a decision; it has to come back through this House, and that is very important.

Whilst the listed projects in the schedule can be amended in terms of their exact location or their exact description, there are controls that make those amendments that Ministers can do by Order in Council. There are restrictions as to scope, so I’m not hugely concerned about that. What I was concerned about was related to what the past contribution was, as well: what is this relationship to the Fast-track Approvals Act?

The Fast-track Approvals Act, as it came through this House, also used a schedule, and that schedule was used for pet projects. We’ve heard from Arena Williams the concern that this bill is also all about pet projects. I acknowledge that there were 149 projects that came in via that schedule for the Fast-track Approvals Act, and it came in at the committee stage—on the day of the committee stage—and that is different from this list, which has gone through the select committee process. I want to commend this Minister for having the important meaty bits of the bill actually go through a select committee process. I think it’s been quite a fast select committee process, but it’s a specialist piece of legislation and well done on having that actually go to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

We know, and the select committee knows, what is on this schedule and that those projects are not all of the ones that are on the fast track because they do actually have to be public works. They do have to be Government work or local work. As it turns out, the Minister has been clear with us that there are no local works on that list that’s in the schedule.

It’s also interesting to note that there’s not very many works in the South Island, which, of course, doesn’t come as a surprise to us South Island MPs, who are just so disheartened at this Government’s decisions on the ferries which are critical to all of New Zealand’s economy.

Putting that to one side, I was interested in the Minister’s commentary that he wouldn’t be involved, as Minister, in projects in his own electorate. I’m not sure why that would be a problem, anyway—and he might want to expand on this—given that all the projects listed have gone through the parliamentary process and all the projects listed are Government projects. They shouldn’t be to the private benefit of anyone. The only private people who will be getting a benefit from this bill are those landowners where their land is taken, and they’ll be getting more under this bill—more money, more compensation—than they would be under the normal Public Works Act process. Surely the only room for any conflict would be if the Minister was a landowner where that land was going to be taken? That goes to Arena Williams’ point, as well, about who are these landowners that will benefit from this extra compensation?

My final suggestion is that it could be the “Public Works (Critical Infrastructure But We Really Haven’t Done the Analysis into How Much This Will Cost) Amendment Bill”, because I asked a number of questions of the Minister about that analysis and there was—it’s just an opportunity for these projects to go through that process.

Thank you for the suggestions of titles. Just to clarify, for the sake of the public record, I have no conflicts of interest in relation to any land interest that might be affected by the operation of this public works legislation. But, as a local MP, I want to vociferously advocate for the projects but also for any individual landowners who might be affected—for example, by the hardship early acquisition provisions that already exist in the Public Works Act. It would be wrong for me to write, in my capacity as local MP, to myself as the decision maker as land information Minister. To that extent, I’ve seen it appropriate to step aside from that decision-making role.

Thank you. If the Minister for Land Information can take some time to respond to this call—we’re talking about the conflict issue—how is it that he’s the decision maker regarding what goes into the schedule of listed critical infrastructure? The Minister is saying that he’s not that. The point that the Minister is making is that he doesn’t want to advocate once that goes into the process that this bill enables. Thank you for that.

I move, That debate on this question now close.