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

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

Those legislative statements are published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon MATT DOOCEY: I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’m pleased to stand here before the House today for the third reading of the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill.

Regulatory systems amendment bills are a relatively recent phenomenon. The first such bills were passed in 2016, and around a dozen such bills have been passed to date. These bills are the seventh and eighth bills amending legislation administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), one of our largest regulatory agencies.

The current bills have been a long time in the making. Many of the amendments were agreed by Cabinet in 2019, and some of the changes came out of policy reviews done a decade ago. It can be a challenge to get priority to make relatively small changes to legislation, but these changes are important if we are to keep our stock of legislation up to date and fit for purpose. In that context, I note that eight regulatory systems amendment bills have been before the House in the current parliamentary term. I want to thank the Education and Workforce Committee and the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for their thoughtful consideration of these bills, and submitters who suggested a number of improvements to the bills and raised issues for further consideration.

By their nature, regulatory systems amendment bills make minor changes that are non-contentious, so some of the important issues raised during consideration of these bills will require further policy work which may come back to the House in future. Between them, the two bills amend 31 Acts and associated regulations administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. In keeping with the broad span of MBIE’s responsibilities, the bills make a wide range of different changes. Some of the amendments will save businesses and other organisations time and money. Many of the amendments will allow MBIE, and other agencies, to operate more efficiently, ensuring greater value for money for the taxpayer. In the case of the change to the Health and Safety at Work levy provision, the ability for ACC to issue a single invoice will directly benefit certain levy payers by an average of $20 per year.

Many of the amendments will make legislation clearer and easier to navigate and more in keeping with the modern world. Several amendments will ensure that MBIE collects and publishes accurate information about people and organisations, and that MBIE is collecting the most relevant and useful information about people and organisations. Amendments to the Telecommunications Act 2001 will facilitate the continued uptake of fibre broadband services. Amendments to the Electricity Act 1992 and the Gas Act 1992 will make it easier to take account of technical standards that can be expected to change frequently.

Some amendments strengthen regulation where that is required to ensure that people are not unduly harmed by unscrupulous actors. For example, visa applicants can face significant costs when they are represented by unqualified and/or unscrupulous advisers, so tightening of a regulation here is warranted. In particular, the change is to the tighten up the regulation of immigration advisors. Other amendments to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007 will allow some people with a good knowledge of the immigration system to become immigration advisers or to administer the regulation of administration immigration advisers more easily, and will make it easier to make a complaint.

Some amendments clarify important legal protections, such as the requirement that an employer hold copies of employment agreements, intended agreements, and terms and conditions of employment, and that these are readily accessible. Other amendments clarify entitlements such as the right to a pre-term baby payment, additional to entitlements to parental leave and payments.

While few of these amendments are individually significant or exciting, it is important that regulatory agencies continue to identify such changes, and they are brought to the House for consideration. This will ensure that we give sufficient priority to maintaining and updating New Zealand’s large stock of legislation, which underpins economic activity and is an important contributor to economic growth. I commend the bills to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, thank you. We’re coming to the end of this beautiful journey that the House has been on with these two regulatory systems amendment bills—one on economic development and one on immigration and workforce. It’s been great spending time with the minutiae of legislative maintenance, which I think was first recommended by the Productivity Commission in 2014. They ran the ruler over this House’s legislation-making performance and concluded that there was a need, actually, to set aside a bit of time to review and tune up laws so that they could be properly and efficiently implemented. That’s what we’re doing here.

I wanted to reflect on the consensus that this bill has attracted as it’s gone through the House. It has widespread support, and there was a lot of consensus at select committee. Now, that’s characteristic of bills like this and, in this time, internationally, actually, when we see so much political polarisation in political systems, it’s important to note that there is substantive agreement across the House on quite a bit of the legislation that goes through this Parliament. Often the public don’t see that; they see the areas where conflict is at its sharpest. So, when you consider whole parts of the governmental agenda—I’m thinking security, for one; large parts of foreign policy—there is quite a lot of consensus. In trade policy, I think, there’s a lot of consensus. I think about my own area of responsibility, immigration policy; on the fundamentals of immigration policy, I think there’s a lot of agreement—I wouldn’t say across the whole Parliament; not all the governing parties are on board with those policy fundamentals, but certainly, I think most of the parties in the House—on immigration.

But I wanted to say that this bill, and the consensus that it has attracted—the support across the House—should not distract people or disguise the really fundamental political and ideological differences on many key issues in the political debate. When you think about it—between the Government and the Opposition; between the Labour Party, the National Party; between the left of politics and the right—there are some very, very stark differences at the moment. If you take, for example, jobs—and there’s a number of provisions in these two bills that we’re looking at here tonight that deal with employment policy and workforce—really, there is quite a big divide, policy divide and political divide, between the different sides of the House. This Government has, through a number of decisions it’s made, driven the country into a deep recession, far deeper than any of our major trading partners, and it’s only just beginning to emerge from that.

We’ve got 5.1 percent unemployment at the moment in our communities. I see it on the streets of my communities in West Auckland and the damage that that level of unemployment does to people, to families. It undermines the wellbeing of our communities. This Government deliberately laid off 5,000 public servants and stopped dozens and dozens of construction and infrastructure projects. Then they wonder why demand collapsed in the economy and suddenly every tradie, every small business, is looking around, going, “Where’s the work? Can we actually make payroll this week?” For a party like the National Party that loves to talk about economic growth, they’ve done more than any Government in living memory to actually destroy economic growth in the first 18 months that they’ve been in office, and it’s our communities and it’s our people who pay the price for that.

Housing is another interesting example—and Megan Woods made some very, very perceptive comments, I thought, about housing. It’s quite interesting: there are some parts of the housing agenda where there is quite a bit of cross-party consensus, around the need to reform the zoning system to allow our cities to grow, to tackle the financing and funding of infrastructure that enables urban growth. But, actually, alongside that, there’s a massive debate and a clashing of the views about, for instance, the importance of public housing. With this Government, one of the most important things they’ve done in housing is take $1.5 billion out of the maintenance and construction budget of Kāinga Ora. In West Auckland, where I’m from, they have stopped several hundred houses from being built. There are vacant sections that were slated for new housing developments, and National deliberately decided to stop the construction of those projects.

At the same time as that, they have stopped—cut off—the provision of emergency housing, so that, right now, if you do not have a roof over your head, if you have nowhere to sleep tonight, and you turn up at a Government agency like Work and Income and you say, “I am homeless. I do not have shelter. My only option is to sleep outside or in my car.”, you are likely to get turned away or given a lecture and a flea in your ear by Work and Income New Zealand—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): And that relates to the regulatory systems bills?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, Madam Speaker, housing is one of the most important parts of our Government’s delivery, and I’m sure there are some aspects of, if not the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill, the other one, that relates to housing.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): We’ll get back to that, then, shall we?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I use it as an example of what a huge difference in approach there is between our two Governments, regardless of the fact that, on a bill like this, on the little things, we agree. But, actually, where it really matters, there’s a huge debate, and we are seeing rising levels of homelessness in our communities right now—people who simply don’t have anywhere to go and are sleeping in their cars because of decisions that that Government has made, because they think that actually reducing the waiting list is not something you do by building extra houses and putting a roof over people’s heads; it’s by telling them they’re no longer entitled.

I also wanted to say that, in relation to the Charitable Trusts Act, this is very important, because there are many organisations who do much of the front-line work in dealing with homelessness who are charitable trusts, and the kind of governance reforms that you see in the regulatory systems amendment bill in relation to charitable trusts will have a significant effect on these organisations, and we rely on them. I was visiting one of them last week in my electorate, who told me exactly what is going on with the emergency housing that they provide. They are having so many people who are coming directly to them, desperate to get a roof over their heads, and they’re being turned away because of Government policy, because the gatekeeper role that Work and Income New Zealand plays means that they are, essentially, disentitling people to the kind of assistance that, on this side of the House, we think is a fundamental human right. The other really striking example in this area is health—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Rather than examples, can I ask the member to come back to the bill?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes—OK. Let’s talk about the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill provisions in relation to the Employment Relations Act, which is, you know, a useful thing, but we’ve seen so many reforms in the area of employment relations—

Tom Rutherford: Oh my word!

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yeah, it’s fine to support this, but, actually, what about the destruction of fair pay agreements, which would have given low-paid workers in New Zealand, at last, the opportunity to bargain to get a decent wage and conditions at work? It’s very important that we remove ambiguity in the current wording of the Employment Relations Act—that’s a worthy thing—but, actually, at the same time, we saw members on that side of the House, only days ago, voting against a bill that criminalised theft by employers against their employees. And there are so many other examples in the employment relations area where people on the side of the House we’re looking at over there are so out of touch with what New Zealanders want and need. Regardless, we do support this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired. It was a great general debate speech—thank you, member.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So, yeah, this is the third and last call on behalf of the Greens—well, 10-minute call on behalf of the Greens; we’ve got a five-minute call coming up—on the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill that we’re looking at.

There is a reason why this has been relatively collegial and consensus-building. It is because the amendments here are relatively non-controversial. I do want to reflect before I go into the detail of the bill that there is a reason why we can’t agree on some of the fundamentals, like, for example, whether housing should be a human right, whether people should have level incomes, and that is because there are ideological divides in this House that prevent us from doing so. But at least we can come together for the maintenance of our legislation that we have in front of us.

What we’re looking at here were updates to a piece of legislation including the Electricity Act 1992, the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Gas Act 1992, the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, the Mines and Rescue Act 2013, and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987.

During the select committee stage—if I reflect back to that—we didn’t get a massive amount of submissions. But I think we particularly got submissions that we engaged—in these changes to the amendments to Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007. Before I go into reflecting on those, I wanted particularly to commend a former member of the committee—Camilla Belich—who while I was quite focused on the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, she was very focused on issues relating to the Employment Relations Act 2000, and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987.

I think, as I said in the second reading, what bills like this can help do as well is to bring a collective subject area expertise into bills, because, at the end of the day, as legislators, we have limited reach and knowledge. That’s just the reality of the human experience. But, actually, by working as a group you can actually put your heads together and focus individually on bits of this Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill that we each have a connection to.

When it came to the amendments to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, the bill itself looked at issues like whether we should have a 12-month stand-down period preventing former Immigration New Zealand officers from being licensed as immigration advisers in the two-year stand-down period—preventing them from being employed by the Immigration Advisers Authority. I wanted to touch on that because that was the subject of debate by submitters. I think there were some good debates being brought to us around the fact that the reality is that Immigration New Zealand officials—well, former immigration staffers—do hold knowledge around the internal processes of Immigration New Zealand that, say, an immigration adviser wouldn’t have, had they not worked in that space previously. It is acknowledged that gives them a competitive advantage.

But at the end of the day, there’s also the reality that when it comes to immigration advisers, their role, ultimately, is to help navigate people through quite complex immigration processes. In some ways, one could argue that, well, yes, people could have a competitive advantage if they came straight off working at Immigration New Zealand and then working as an immigration adviser, that that competitive advantage ultimately results in better outcomes for the people that they are meant to serve. So, for that reason, I think that was a quite a sensible change that was made.

There were also other issues that were being brought by submitters who hoped that we could also aspire to take a deeper look at the issue of offshore immigration advisers. This is an area that continues to be massively unregulated. As somebody who works with a lot of constituents who have been on the receiving end of really poor advice by immigration advisers onshore and offshore, what I can say is that submitters did want us to have a much deeper look at the reality that that area continues to be massively unregulated. The end result for everyday people who are receiving offshore advice is that they may end up paying a huge amount of money only to then realise that, actually, they were not supported to get the right visa, or they were promised, for example, false jobs that didn’t exist, and that has a real impact on people’s livelihoods.

My message on the third reading to the Government in relation to this part of the bill is that the Government does look—because even though, at the end of the day, it ended up considered to be outside of the scope of the bill, those contributions at the select committee stage, my message is that we do look and the Government looks at regulating offshore advisers to the benefit of our communities. Ultimately, it also benefits local communities too, because no one wins when we have people who are entering our country in debt or in hardship or with a wrong visa due to those professions overseas not being adequately regulated.

There are also other issues that were considered around that part of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act, such as clarifying that persons are prohibited from applying for a licence to be an adviser for the duration of an order preventing the person from reapplying for a licence made by the Immigration Advisers Complaints & Disciplinary Tribunal, and other issues such as expanding the person subject to restriction of being licensed to include a person convicted of an offence under the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act. This is important because, as I’ve mentioned earlier, we do have incidents where immigration advisers have not acted in good faith, or have acted negligently and, again, turned people’s lives upside down.

I worked with a Brazilian couple, for example, whose case ended up being in the media as we were trying to do a ministerial intervention. They were some of the people who had been done by an immigration adviser who acted negligently. I think to me, tightening the screws of ensuring that the people who are in that profession actually are held to really high standards is really, really important because the advice that they give can be life changing, and in some cases, if not given correctly, can be life ruining.

Then there are other issues in that area around clarifying that employees of a lawyer or law firm are exempt from the requirements to be licensed. The way I would see that is in relation to recognising that expertise; extending the circumstances in which the registerer must cancel the licence where an adviser is no longer fit to be licensed according to section 16 and 17 of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act; as well as modifying interim court orders which allow advisers to continue to provide immigration advice to act as a stay on the relevant order or decision being appealed.

There are other issues that have been brought forward which have to do more with the Immigration & Protection Tribunal. Those are really important as well because at the end—pardon?

Stuart Smith: You don’t have to.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: That’s OK. At least I’ll take a much more substantive contribution than I’m sure members on the other side will make on this. But at the end of the day, what we’ve got is tightening the screws on the processes that are available for people and for advisers to ensure that the profession is acting really, really well.

I do want to briefly comment on the other components of the bill—I think of other members of the Education and Workforce Committee who focus on areas in relation to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act. Obviously, as the committee report talks about, it creates amendments to clarify and update statutory provisions to give effect to the purpose of the Act and keep the regulatory systems up to date and relevant. That also sparked a conversation around what else it is that we need to do in relation to making parental leave equitable. I acknowledge that some of those contributions by submitters not just in the immigration space could have been deemed as being out of scope.

But I actually think the contributions that we receive from members of the public when we have a bill that looks at such broad pieces of legislation should, I think, still be taken into account by Government when they look at what other reforms they need to do. I think, to me, just using language like “non-controversial” and “to modernise pieces of legislation” misses an opportunity to actually capture important feedback from members of the public and legal experts on what else the Government needs to put on their agenda. So I really hope that the Minister in charge of this bill—the Minister for Economic Growth—and other Ministers that would be overseeing the other relevant bills affected by this take the feedback from the submitters and put that in the legislative work programme where it is suitable so that we cannot just do these kind of non-controversial amendments but genuinely improve legislation to serve the needs of our communities.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT to support these two bills which are being debated together: the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill.

As we know, these two bills are omnibus bills, and it was through the agreement of the Business Committee that we decided to debate both these bills together. These bills make small fixes, but these fixes are important fixes. As time goes on, as technology advances, as we change our ways of doing things, there are many, many provisions, on an ongoing basis, in legislation that we have to change, and that is what these two omnibus bills do.

Listening to the previous speaker, Ricardo Menéndez March, one would think that these bills are just about immigration, but, actually, these two bills amend 31 Acts between them, and all these Acts are actually administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. We know that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has a huge portfolio and they implement close to 150 pieces of legislation. So 31 Acts; we are talking about close to one-fifth of the 150 pieces of legislation that we are improving, because, with time, we know that some regulations or some provisions may become irrelevant, so they need to be removed. There might be some provisions that need updating—that needs to be done. We want to make sure that legislation is clear and that people—those who are interpreting it, those who are implementing it—have good understanding, and because the provisions are clear, we are not causing any unnecessary cost to businesses or regulators. So those kind of things need to be kept in mind, and these kind of changes need to be made.

In my second reading speech, I talked about the changes that we made in the select committee and the feedback and the submissions that we received from submitters, so I won’t repeat that. One thing that is really good is that I am on both committees that considered these two bills. I chair the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, which considered the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill, and I’m—

Dan Bidois: A hard-working committee.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR: That is a very hard-working committee, thank you, Dan Bidois. I’m a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, which considered the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill.

As I mentioned before, these two bills are not just about immigration. If we just look at the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill, it amends 24 Acts, and these Acts are across five portfolios: commerce and consumer affairs; science, innovation and technology; media and communications; justice; and energy. The Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill amends seven Acts across three portfolios: immigration, workplace relations and safety, and energy. We want to see that these changes are implemented as soon as possible, so I won’t take too much of the House’s time. The ACT Party supports these bills. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. I was on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee with Parmjeet Parmar, and it was a very efficient select committee. One thing I would like to also do is thank all of the staff, actually, who assisted us in understanding a lot of the technical changes in these bills. Now, they are small changes, across these two bills. However, collectively it does make very important, big change. It creates more clarity, cuts red tape, and streamlines processes that are identified over time. There isn’t much more to add. I would just simply like to commend the bill, on behalf of New Zealand First—both bills. Thank you.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pika, otirā tēnā rā tātou, e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mō te Pāti Māori i te pō nei. Ka reo Māori katoa tōku nei kōrero, i tōku nei kauhau hoki. Koinei tōku wā tuatoru kua kōrerotia ki tēnei o ngā pire. Hākoa te moroiti o tēnei pire, kua panoni i ētahi wāhanga i roto i tēnei kāwana, waihoki i ngā pire tae atu ki ngā rautau tahi mano iwa rau. Nō reira e tautoko ana mātou Te Pāti Māori i tēnei pire. Ko ētehi o ngā pire ka whai i roto i te ohu pakihi, waihoki i roto i te MBIE i raro i te wāhanga tekau mā rua o te Public Service Act 2020. He moroiti tēnei pire ki a au nei. Tētehi o ngā wāhanga e kaha taunaki i tēnei o ngā pire, ngēnei pire e rua, aroha mai, ko tā mātou pakihi Māori i roto i te ahumahi tāpoi. Waihoki, ko tā rātou mahi ka whai pēhitanga pai ki roto i te taiōhanga i roto i tēnei o ngā, arā koirā te kupu mō te economy. Nō reira ko ā mātou pakihi Māori e kaha tutuki ana i ngā wawata o te wā, hākoa ngā āwangawanga o te ōhanga o tēnei rā tonu.

Nā reira e mihi ana ki ngā pakihi, e mihi ana ki te ohu o MBIE, e mihi ana ki te Minita, a Matt Doocey, e kōrero ana ki tēnei o ngā pire. E tautoko ana tō mātou pāti. Tēnā rā koutou.

[Greetings to the Speaker, and to everyone in the House. I stand to voice the sentiments of the Māori Party tonight. I will speak te reo Māori only at this time. This is the third time I have spoken about this bill. Although it is only a minor bill, it impacts this Government and other bills from the 1900s. Therefore, the Māori Party supports this bill. Some bills relate to the business sector, that is the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), under Section 12 of the Public Service Act 2020. This is only a minor bill, in my opinion. One group that fully supports these two bills are our Māori businesses in tourism. Furthermore, their task is to apply good pressure in the economy. Therefore, our Māori businesses are fully meeting the aspirations of the time, in spite of the economic worries of today.

Therefore, I thank the businesses, the people at MBIE, and I thank the Minister Matt Doocey, who speaks for this bill. Our party is in support. Thank you.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, as well, in support of these two bills: the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill. Now, first of all, I want to say that although during the committee stage there weren’t a lot of things that we felt needed to be discussed in depth—because, again, both of these two are really technical bills that provide quality of life within our legislative system—I was very heartened by one particular Minister’s response, saying that clearly us Opposition are not working hard enough by examining bills in detail during the committee stage. So I will be taking that advice to heart in every bill that we are seeing under urgency this week.

But to begin with, in terms of the immigration and workforce bill—and I kind of want to talk to both of them in turn. I think one of the areas—there are a lot of quality of life improvements, like I mentioned. It amends seven Acts and it went through the Education and Workforce Committee.

But one of the things that I really, really want to focus on, and I mentioned this during the committee stage as well, is the changes to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007. One of the things I pointed out specifically which I think should be in the scope of this bill is the inclusion of offshore advisers for student visa or other forms of temporary visa as part of the requirement to be registered with IAA—or the Immigration Advisers Authority. The reason for this is that as we’re seeing that post-pandemic and our borders opening, and me coming from a background of having worked in international education and having worked with educational agents, I know for a fact that when it comes to international students—who are incredibly vulnerable when they are applying to an overseas institution—the most exploitation that we do see of international students is with predominantly offshore educational agents.

Now, Australia has had a system in place for a long time now whereby immigration advisers offshore must also be registered and there must also be a compliance process for these immigration advisers that’s up to the standard, as required by the Australian regulatory system and legislation. We are not seeing the same thing here. With the concern that we want to see more international students as part of, I guess, our immigration reset or etc., we are also going to be, as a result, seeing more exploitation of international students because we have not offered that particular protection.

That is also really concerning and really problematic: when a student arrives onshore and they realise that their agent didn’t apply them to the right course or has given them misinformation, or the private training establishment that they are part of also didn’t give them the qualification or has other nefarious reputations or ulterior motives. It is really, really, really hard for us as a country to say, “Well, sorry, you’ve been scammed. There’s nothing we can do about it.” when, in fact, through the changes that we can see in such a regulatory systems bill, we could actually make those changes to give those kinds of reassurances but also accountability and quality assurance to offshore educational agents. So that’s the big part that I want to mention in terms of the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill.

But in terms of the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill, like one of the previous speakers mentioned, this bill does amend 24 Acts. It is something that is quite comprehensive and it covers a lot of different portfolios as well. Again, these are things that are incredibly necessary within our regulatory systems to be able to upgrade all of them to ensure consistency. But it’s interesting that this is sort of the bill that gets introduced in the House with reasonable frequency, but people kind of talk about it from the perspective of, like, “Oh, look, we need to cut red tape. We need to cut green tape. We need to cut all of the tapes.” But, at the same time, you can say all of that that you want, but these sorts of bills and the quality of life it provides are still really important. But if other people are politicking, I also think that it’s really, really important that we do have those sorts of regulations in place that are robust, that can give the people of Aotearoa the reassurance that they need in anything that we do in our day-to-day lives.

So, yes, as a matter of fact, in that case, regulations are incredibly important; regulatory systems are incredibly important. It’s something that we should be looking at where we just sort of hack and slash in that particular system, because the bottom line is they are important to our society. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and associated bills. These are sensible pieces of legislation that tidy up a lot of small changes, in many cases, to many different bills. I was on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee as we considered this legislation. There were many useful and interesting parts to it, and the advice that we had was excellent, so I thank very much the staff that were able to advise us, as well as the submitters on these bills. I commend these bills to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Once again, one of these types of bills deserves the kind of scrutiny that these particular bills and the previous bill, the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024-25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill, have had, not just in the House but through the select committee. I’m encouraged, as I read the legislative statements and a number of the comments from across the House, how well the committee worked together. You can see that in the legislative statements to the House this evening in its third reading, where recommended changes by the committee were considered and actually put in place and implemented. That doesn’t always happen that way, sadly, in our democracy, but we certainly try our best. I think that’s been fleshed out quite well on a number of matters because these are technical, these two particular bills—and I’m going to address each one separately.

It is important, though, that we don’t lose sight of that detail, and I want to start, first and foremost, by speaking to the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. We’re the Labour Party and there are some assertions on the other side of the House that they’re the party for the worker. Well, we laugh in the face of claims like that and can say that the Labour Party quite proudly stand by our record in supporting workers and workplace safety.

Now, this particular bill does make a number of changes in and around workplace safety that must be scrutinised to make sure that when people leave their house and kiss their whānau goodbye or get on with their day to go to work, that they come home safely. There are a number of things in this particular bill that will look to make some minor adjustments around the way that instruments can be used to measure certain aspects through the workplaces that are defined here—namely the electricity suppliers but also gas suppliers and others. It’s important to make sure that we scrutinise those correctly in order to make sure families who have loved ones go to work, come home in the evening.

Out of curiosity, over summer I read a book around the history of the goldmining boom in New Zealand—predominantly in the South Island, of course, but other places around New Zealand. One of the points that the historians made about the boom of the goldmining industry in New Zealand was part of it was replicated on some of what was done in Australia. One of those is what they call “tourism mines”—“tourism mines”. The reason they did that was sometimes to save costs: you bring tourists in, allow them to think that they’re out there and they’re prospecting for the opportunity to, as a tourist, discover gold or get their small nugget or their flakes of gold, and then be pleased with their outing. What that did for those who owned the permits—owned the titles for particular areas of the river and other places where they were mining for gold—was they would use that to then scale up their opportunity, in turn, from the tourism mining operation into a full-blown commercial mining operation. It was quite a tried and true method.

Why I reference that is there are the amendments in Part 4 in the Health and Safety at Work Act in this particular bill that specifically reference this, then clarifies the difference between a “tourism mine” and a fully commercial mine. We’re going to keep an eye on this because we know that mining is on a strong part of the agenda of this particular Government, and so we want to make sure that as we look towards safety and making sure that the very precious tourism industry—

Hon Mark Patterson: Where was the Labour Party founded?

Hon PEENI HENARE: —that we have in the country, as well as the priorities that this Government have already been quite clear on with mining—the lines aren’t blurred. I think that’s really important because we know and we’ve seen it in the past and the historians have said this, that it was very lucrative.

I hear “Where did the Labour Party start?” Of course, it was in Blackball and it was because of mining. So it’s only our duty to our heritage and our whakapapa that we continue to look at these matters.

Another particular one that I know the Labour Party—and other parties in Parliament—have worked hard on is the immigration licensing matter. All of us, as members of Parliament, have been approached by certain sectors in our community who continue to speak of their unfair treatment. Some have spoken of how they’ve put their trust into a particular person to manage their immigration applications and visa applications—and, in fact, paid their entire life savings to get those things done for either themselves or their family—and have only been ripped off. That’s certainly something that members in particular this evening have already made comment on, and they’re important as well.

I come now to economic development, so the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill. Having read through this particular bill, I can say that there are a number of things that were started under our final term in Government, and I’m really glad to see that some of them have been carried into this sort of omnibus bill, if you will. Some of them are quite sensible, but some of them will continue to leave a question on the table and certainly on the conversation tables in our community. Those are around the changes to the charitables Act and the Incorporated Societies Act.

Madam Speaker, you’ve been involved in matters like this in your community, but also in your experience in the House, here, where there have been attempts to make fundamental changes to the Charities Act and the Incorporated Societies Act. For whatever reason, some of those organisations will continue to ask the question, “Well, why weren’t those fundamental changes made?” I do think that is a question that will have to be answered at some point in time. But in this particular bill, they do make some sensible adjustments and some minor incremental steps, if you will, towards what could be a possible answer to those questions about incorporated societies and the Charities Act.

Another part in here which I found quite interesting was one of the very simple—well, seemingly simple—in Part 13, where it speaks to the amendments to the Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act, a rather old Act which is 1978. I can hand on heart say it was before I was born, but it is important. The reason I say this is because one of the things it does there—it says removes gender-specific pronouns. Gender-specific pronouns are very hot topic—a very hot topic—at this particular point in time. I’m wondering if this Government’s signalling to the House and indeed the New Zealand public whether or not they’ll be taking a ruler, line by line, across Acts old and new and recent about looking towards, “Well, what does this mean?” Because we’ve had some strong rhetoric from the Government; we’ve heard terms such as “woke” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and all these other things, but it seems pretty sensible here. But what does this signal to the community? That’s one of the points I want to make here for the House this evening.

Another one, as I looked across this and coming back to the incorporated societies, there was a recent omnibus bill that Minister Potaka had brought to the House that made some changes around the charities and the incorporated societies and how it related to, in particular, lands that were held under te ture whenua Māori. Now, our colleague Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, in her very good contribution this evening, made reference to the way Māori business operates and what does this mean with respect to the way post-settlement governance entities (PSGEs) have established themselves because not all of the land or asset base that they—in fact, very little of the asset base—control is governed by te ture whenua Māori. So it requires and behoves the House to look at these particular matters with keen interest.

We say that also as it signals the intent of this House when we think of upcoming matters such as the Resource Management Act that will continue to cross across boundaries, if you will, on PSGEs and matters of incorporated societies and charitable trusts. So we’re keen to continue to look towards those particular changes and make sure that we can give it the due consideration that is required.

Once again, in this particular bill, there was clear goodwill and hard work in the committee to make sure that some reasonable and sensible select committee recommendations were taken on board, and I want to acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee for doing that. Some of them, once again, easy tidy-ups; others of them will make incremental steps which will ultimately have to be answered in a more fulsome way and fulsome question by either this Government or future Governments as they arise.

We do support these bills in their third reading and we look forward to continually working in that collegial way that we’ve seen across these two bills that I’ve mentioned this evening.

Excellent, thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a great honour that I rise to speak in this third reading of the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. A lot of these two bills has been traversed already this evening. Of course, we have a whole range of legislation here in New Zealand, and often some of these pieces of legislation need to be brought up to date. These bills make changes to 31 different Acts, including the oldest, from 1908, and I think the latest one is from 2002. They’re all really sensible changes, therefore I’m happy to commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, e te Māngai o te Whare, otirā tēnā tātou katoa i tēnei pō. E tū ana awau mō te Pāti Reipa ki te whakaae i tēnei pire, arā [Greetings to the Speaker of the House, and to everyone here tonight. I stand on behalf of the Labour Party tonight in support of this bill], the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill, Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill—geez, Madam Speaker, you’re probably going to ring the bell already after just reading that!

Hoi anō rā e te whānau, I am here on behalf of Labour to support this bill. As you all know, I am the proud MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and several times I’ve stood up to acknowledge that Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is the food bowl of Aotearoa and therefore heavily productive and heavily dependent on having a really good workforce. This legislation is quite broad, but amongst other areas, obviously one thing that stands out for me is migrant workers. As a member of the Primary Production Committee—which I leave, very sadly, hoi anō, to move on to other equally exciting committees and portfolios—I heard throughout the rohe from various industries, including the wool industry, about the value of migrant workers and ensuring that we create positive work environments for them. So my contribution is not just about supporting industry but, of course, supporting our kaimahi we bring to Aotearoa and ensuring that they have good experiences in return for the quality mahi they do, that naturally contributes to our economy.

Sadly, my colleague the Hon Peeni Henare alluded to some of the negative experiences some of our kaimahi have had, and as tangata whenua I think it is incumbent upon us to ensure that when they come here to work for our country, we provide excellent manaaki for them—furthermore, not just for the worker but for their communities and the whānau that they bring with them. That has been an issue experienced in Tairāwhiti, sadly, and throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and, of course, throughout Aotearoa.

One of the other positive aspects of this bill is perhaps the clarity it will provide for employers and agents who bring, effectively, these manuhiri who come to make Aotearoa their home and contribute to our economy. I’m not up here just scathingly talking about employers and agents. Perhaps some of them purely need clarity, and the amendments in this bill can provide that.

Furthermore, talking about economic growth, however, I think we have to think about the fact that I’ve said in this House before: growth starts at the roots. We are the roots of this country, and we need to think about how we develop our own workforces and our own communities’ capacity and skills throughout Aotearoa. So that’s why I want to bring up, once again, progressive procurement and how disappointing it is that the opportunity, I think, has been lost. We see firsthand the direct impact that progressive procurement made on the expansion of the Māori economy, and I think if one of the focuses here is on economic growth, that’s an opportunity lost and something that I think we should all reconsider.

Hoi anō rā, I am very happy to commend this legislation for the protections, supports, and positive impacts it will have on the economic development and growth of Aotearoa. So, on behalf of Te Pāti Reipa, tēnei anō te mihi atu ki a koutou. E tū ana awau ki te tautoko i tēnei pire.

[So, on behalf of the Labour Party, I thank you all. I stand here in support of this bill.]

I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and speak on the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill. I see harmony has broken out across the House and everybody is in agreement that these are very good changes. So, with that, I commend the bill to the House.

David, oh—Reuben Davidson.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Early in the evening.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: It’s my pleasure to stand up and take a call—lucky it’s a 10-minute call—on the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill. I am rising to speak in support of these bills. I did want to acknowledge the very sage words of one of my parliamentary colleagues, who called this a beautiful journey, earlier this evening, in his opening address to this bill. Part of that beautiful journey is because there is consensus in the House, and there was at our Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. But that consensus and that shared support isn’t always black and white. One of the issues with this bill and with the issues that this bill addresses is that the very people it serves are seeking, from bills like this, certainty. The risk, when these bills contradict what’s been promised or leave open opportunities for uncertainty—then that puts some members of our community and some people at a disadvantage.

So I want to come back, as one of the final speakers, to the summary of what this bill is. It is an omnibus bill that contains amendments to legislation administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The four points are: reducing unnecessary compliance burdens for businesses and implementation costs for regulatory agencies; clarifying and updating statutory provisions to give effect to the purposes of the principal Acts and their provisions; addressing regulatory duplication, gaps, errors, and inconsistencies within and between different pieces of legislation; and responding to the changing environment—for example, by ensuring that legislation responds to changing technology or is technology-neutral.

That’s really good, that that’s the aim: to provide what I’ve spoken of earlier—certainty—but it’s not necessarily the reality. That lack of certainty—and other members have spoken of this, too—is often what we see in our electorate offices around Aotearoa when people come to us with sometimes complex and sometimes what should be quite straightforward and quite simple immigration cases. Because of shifts and changes and because of contradictions, some of those very simple immigration cases can become very confusing, and, more importantly, they can become deeply painful for the people going through those processes. Every week, I have examples of that—obviously, I’m not going to go into people’s personal details about the complexities of the cases that come—but also about some of the promises that were made prior to the last election around some of the types of support for immigration and immigration visas that have not been kept in this term of Government. I think that the very human conversations you have with the people, on a weekly basis in our electorate offices—who are deeply and painfully affected by promises of action and, after the election, complete inaction in that space—are very, very sad to see. That, ultimately, comes down to the choices of what this Government is choosing to prioritise.

I want to read a passage from an article that was published on RNZ’s website—Radio New Zealand’s website—earlier in February, about thousands of overseas parents whose children have immigrated here who are waiting for news on applying for residence, and others are hoping for quick news on a long-term visitor visa to stay with their families: “More than 10,000 migrant families have submitted applications—on behalf of one or two parents—which are in a random ballot to be selected every three months. If they win a spot in the random ballot, they can apply for residence to settle here.” Now, the really tragic part of this is that the reporter goes on to detail that there are families who have been spoken to by RNZ who’ve had parents die while they’re waiting or become so frail that they cannot travel or they no longer qualify for that visa, on health grounds. I think that’s deeply disappointing, to see that the opportunity here in this bill was to go further and to move away from some of that grey uncertainty, and provide real clarity for those people and make good on promises that were made.

Now, another thing that I wanted to talk about here—and this is about immigration in the opposite direction—is about some of the other choices that this Government has made in this term around things like housing and around cuts to health and not being able to provide the basic services that all New Zealanders deserve. In one of my communities, deep cuts to the school lunch programme, which sees terrible, terrible meals being delivered to schools, if they even turn up in this community—we sat down to have a conversation around the table with one of those children in one of those schools. We talked to several children, and we asked them what they wanted to do when they left school. One of those children’s answers was to move to Australia. That is the aspiration. That is what happens when you don’t look after people and when you don’t provide the kind of support and services that all New Zealanders deserve.

Now, I want to get back to the point of certainty, which is what I think this legislation should be providing and what we’re not seeing—what the grey creates and what should be simply black and white. I want to reflect on what happened last week, which was that our Prime Minister took a trip to India. That was quite the contrast to the lack of certainty we see here. There were banquets, there was cricket, there was a handshake, there were promises of real-time free-trade agreements and direct flights. I have to say, I haven’t seen our Prime Minister looking so happy for quite a long time. One of the reasons that I thought—because on reflection, I thought, why is our Prime Minister all of a sudden looking so happy? I realised this is probably the furthest away he’s been from those unhappy voters who backed him in the election and now have buyer’s remorse. All of a sudden, he was having a holiday and he was getting some time away from those people, but no sooner had he returned, still—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Just like you’re going to return to the bill very shortly, aren’t you?

REUBEN DAVIDSON: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for your consideration. I’m coming back to the point of immigration here, because that was one of the key pillars of the regulatory systems immigration—I’ll read the full title, just to make sure for members on the other side of the House it’s not lost on them—the Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill. One of the key things that it deals with is immigration. That was one of the main topics of conversation, with regard to the free-trade agreement being discussed on the Prime Minister’s happy holiday.

No sooner than the Prime Minister returned to New Zealand: “New Zealand First’s Winston Peters,” it says here, “sees no need for a relaxation of New Zealand’s immigration settings in any trade talks with India.” If anyone wonders who this Mr Winston Peters is, he’s the man who claims he made Luxon Prime Minister. Yes, that man. On Morning Report, on the Monday after the Prime Minister returned from his free-trade agreement negotiations, Winston Peters said India “had the biggest population in the world now—1.4 billion people. Do you really think Immigration New Zealand is going to help? Get serious for goodness sake.” So the man who claims to have made the Prime Minister the Prime Minister doesn’t support the very thing that that man needs to have in place to be able to get his deal over the line. That’s why a bill like this needs to give people the certainty that in grey times, in changing times, there’s some black-and-white structure in place to give them the certainty they deserve.

That was a long 10 minutes—for a bill that is unanimous in the House. On this side of the House, we are really keen to drive productivity and growth and efficiency. With that, I commend these bills to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bills read a third time.