General Debate

Would some honourable member care to move that the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Dr Duncan Webb: Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: I call—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I thought it was me?

SPEAKER: —Dr Duncan Webb.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I have so called.

SPEAKER: Too late; I’ve given it to Duncan Webb.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: He didn’t call. I so call.

SPEAKER: He did so.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: He said, “Mr Speaker.”

SPEAKER: I called him.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Oh, it’s you—sorry, it is you.

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

What an outstanding Minister of Finance we have. I am proud to be part of a Government that is absolutely on top of its game. Today, we—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: No, you’ve been promoted, Duncan!

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you, Minister. I am so proud of the childcare support package that we have announced because we know that childcare is one of the biggest barriers to participating in the workforce, not only for women generally but particularly for Māori and Pasifika women. This is a package that has been put together by the Minister, with a great deal of thought, and it will open up the workforce to many, many more people.

What’s more is that this is part of the Minister for Social Development and Employment’s fantastic programme working towards moving more and more people off main benefits. We have absolutely made unbelievable progress in this—progress that that lot on the other side of the House went backwards on. We are a Government of progress. We have taken steps and have moved the needle on every social indicator in respect of every measure of child poverty.

What happened on that side of the House? Absolutely nothing. What did they do about housing? Worse than nothing: they sold off our State houses. This is a Government which at last has built State houses when we need it.

Whilst we’re here, we accept that there are cost of living challenges. This is a Government which is stepping up and addressing the cost of living challenges. We are taking steps to alleviate that not only through things like the winter energy payment, the cost of living payment, half-price bus fares, and much more, but also by a long-term approach that sees a strong and resilient economy—an economy which keeps people in work. When people have jobs, we can sustain and ride out these difficult times, because people are in employment with rising wages. In fact, despite the naysaying on that side of the House, wages are rising faster than inflation, and have been for the past five years, whereas under that lot, wages went backwards.

What’s more, along with this, we are lifting the wages of workers not only through lifting the minimum wage but also by the fantastic fair pay agreement legislation that’s been put through that will see our lowest-paid workers being able to deal on equal footing with employers. That is a huge leap forward.

This Government—every member on this side of the House—is committed to seeing a highly employed, well-paid workforce, and one where people who haven’t got jobs, who can’t get into the workforce, are looked after properly and with dignity. Every Minister in this House is working towards an equitable New Zealand and one where everybody is looked after.

So whilst childcare might address one part of the workforce, it’s an important part of the workforce.

Barbara Edmonds: That’s right. It gives choices.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Once again—that’s right, Barbara Edmonds. We’re giving choices to women: the choice to work if they want to, the choice to be a caregiver if they want to, the choice to contribute to a stronger, more equal, and fairer society in the way that’s right for them and right for their whānau. This is a Government which will remain committed to it and it will go to the public and go to the nation, and say here’s what their choice is: a choice that wants to give you a flourishing life, or a choice which wants to give your rich mates more tax breaks—and that’s not going to happen on this side of the House.

We are committed to an absolutely equitable system of tax and an equitable system of employment, as well. So I’m very proud, particularly, of the Minister of Social Development and Employment, who has worked tirelessly to make sure that things like illegitimate sanctions are taken away and to make sure that abatement rates are appropriate and help people into work.

This is a Government that’s going to go to the nation very soon—a real Government and a real offer—and that lot over there have nothing to offer, other than to say, “We’re going to roll back the advances that this Government has made.”

Order! Slow clapping is out of order. Counting down, as I’ve said a number of times, is also out of order. Let’s not do that again.

If that contribution is Labour’s answer to New Zealand’s problems right now, then I’ve got to say they missed the question, because the question that New Zealanders are asking is “How are we going to get through this?”, because New Zealanders are going backwards. They keep on saying to me, “We can’t go on like this. The cost of living is biting us, and as we look to the future, we don’t see hope. We see interest rates rising, we see our mortgages becoming less affordable, and we see prices continuing to rise.”, and do you know what New Zealanders are doing about it? They’re voting with their feet.

In the last year, more than 60,000 New Zealanders left this country for good. We’re now at a position where we had 10,000 more people leave than arrive, and that’s people’s indictment on this Government. You know, it’s actually very sad, because the people who write to me now about rising prices and what it means for their family are using words like “scared”, “worn out”, “anxious”, and “worried”. They’re worried because they’re having to choose on a weekly basis which items they take out of their supermarket trolleys. They’re having to decide which child is going to get their holey shoes repaired and which one will miss out.

These dilemmas are because there is a severe cost of living crisis that the Government doesn’t seem to have woken up to, because if it had woken up to it, would these be its priorities? Would it be prioritising a merger of Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand? If it was really worried about the cost of living crisis, would it be pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into that project? If it was worried about New Zealanders’ ability to pay their bills, would it be focused on new hate-speech legislation to regulate what New Zealanders can say and when they can say it? If it really cared about the cost of living crisis, then would it be focusing all its efforts on a mega-merger of water infrastructure in the three waters reforms?

You know, the sad thing is I do think that at the weekend, at the Labour Party conference, they got a memo. I think the memo said, “Wise up: the Government should be focused on the cost of living crisis.” So we’ve seen a new playbook.

Now, the first page in the playbook was played by Grant Robertson, and his page said, “Do some name-calling. Come up with some sort of schoolyard nicknames for the Opposition—that’ll help Kiwis who are struggling.” Well, actually, I don’t think that tool works, so they discarded that one. People didn’t like the name-calling—didn’t think it would really help them pay the bills.

So then they got to the second page in the new playbook, and the second page said, “Do some tough talk, because the Prime Minister’s really good at talking,”—not so great on the delivery—“so focus on the tough talk.” So what have we had? We’ve had tough talk. The banks: they need to be careful of their social licence. We’ve had the wringing of the hands—no action, mind you, but some tough talk.

Well, here’s a prediction: whether it’s next week or the week after that, we will see the Prime Minister at the podium of truth. She’ll be doing some tough talking, and she’ll say, “Inflation, you no longer have a social licence.”, and that’s how she intends to scare it away from our economy.

Then we had the third page in the playbook, and that was evasion. That was evasion and no accountability, because the truth is—and New Zealanders understand it—that when the Government goes on a massive spend-up, prints tens of billions of dollars, and borrows tens of billions of dollars, there is a price to pay, and we are paying it with high inflation. But has there been any accountability? No, there hasn’t. Well, I have some advice for the Labour members: you can’t spend and regulate your way out of a cost of living crisis.

Here’s what the members opposite could do that National would do. We would stop the wasteful spending. On our watch, we won’t take taxpayers’ money to spend $2.1 million on a swanky office in Freemans Bay to house 350 consultants to advise on a three waters reform no one voted for and no one wants. We will let New Zealanders keep more of what they earn, because we believe that when New Zealanders are doing it tough, they’re owed more than a Government obsessed with spending, addicted to spending, and unable to deliver.

There was a little bit of confusion before. I think I was a little bit unnerved by the very friendly event that we’d had earlier, where we were celebrating having 50 percent women in this Parliament. It’s a little bit unnerving when I’m standing next to Louise Upston and we’re kind of cuddling up and we’re actually happy to be in the same space together, and when you’ve got Elizabeth Kerekere sitting next to the deputy leader of the National Party, Nicola Willis. Elizabeth actually looks happy to be sitting there, but Nicola is still not smiling yet, though. So I was a little bit confused when I came into the House, but I’ve found my feet.

We had a lovely conference over the weekend. It was wonderful to be able to meet with our members in person, to be able to celebrate the many wins and the progress that has been made under this Government over the course of five years, and to look ahead to the next year and beyond with what we hope to be able to deliver for New Zealanders. I was very proud of the policy that the Prime Minister announced. It was a very smart policy; in fact, I haven’t even seen the National Opposition come out against it. I believe that the Leader of the Opposition said there was nothing wrong with it; that’s because there’s not. It responds to the cost of living for many whānau with children.

One of the biggest in-work expenses is childcare, and we know that that is the case. We know that back in 2010, the then National Government froze the threshold so it stopped going up. Effectively, we saw $57 million cut from childcare assistance, and that hit the pockets of whānau with children. It also impacted many people’s ability to be able to work, with many of them being women and many of them forgoing the opportunity to work because they would be no better off due to the cost of childcare. Now, with the introduction of that policy, not only do we give them back that opportunity but we’re hoping to respond to some of the work shortages out there when those—predominantly women—who have been forgoing that opportunity take up the opportunity to get out and work.

The one example I’ll share is the example of the couple working 40 hours a week each on $26 per hour, who are currently, under the current settings, not eligible for any subsidy and who will be eligible for about $252 per week towards their childcare assistance costs. That is good for those parents, that is good for those children, that is good for the economy and the workforce, and that is why I say that it’s a smart policy.

We heard from the deputy leader of the National Party, just before me, about the cost of living crisis. I can barely stand listening to it because it is so disingenuous. They talk about the cost of living as if that has ever been a priority for them with regards to the low to middle income earners of this country, when the reality is they didn’t support benefit increases, they’ve never supported minimum wage increases, they’ve certainly never supported the living wage, they didn’t support fair pay agreements—they have supported nothing that actually contributes additional dollars to the pockets of low to middle income New Zealand people. They need to stop contradicting themselves with regards to what they support or don’t support, and then what they go on to say in this House and to New Zealanders.

I believe New Zealanders will see through the National Party and see the insincerity that is seeping from their mouths every time they stand up to speak. On top of everything else, they know full well that the inflationary increases that we are experiencing here are part of global inflation increases. It is not just New Zealand that is experiencing an issue with the cost of living. The Government is not responsible for that. However, if they were in power, then they would be driving up inflation, because their light bulb idea is that you increase taxes for the most wealthy in the country—as if that will do anything for low to middle income New Zealanders—and that we will somehow be better off, when, in fact, that is the measure that would drive up the costs for everyday New Zealanders. They are insincere and out of touch.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, I want to speak about the really dire state of housing for disabled people in Aotearoa, stories that I don’t think are heard enough in this country, or understood by those of us who don’t experience those barriers, but are evidenced through research backed up by the UN and are the subject of years, if not decades—actually, just decades—of advocacy for change from disabled people. I want to start this contribution by saying that recently, the Greens have been having some online Zoom meetings, enabling space for disabled people to share their experiences of those barriers to housing. I want to share some of those stories, as well as some of the stories in the research, because I believe really passionately that more of us need to be aware of this and join them in the push for change, because what is happening is just unacceptable and we need to have urgent change.

So some of the stories are of a woman whose leg was amputated and she managed to access ACC for 80 percent of the minimum wage. Rocketing housing prices meant she couldn’t afford a house any more, and she ended up in a tent in a campground. Her health was suffering, there was violence around her in that space, and she felt incredibly unsafe. Through winter, she was getting up and moving and walking through the night on an amputated leg because she was so worried about hypothermia. That is happening in our country.

Another: a 31-year-old woman with a spinal cord injury, who was placed in an old people’s home because that was the only space deemed appropriate for her to live. When she moved in there was no Wi-Fi. There are set meal times. There is her and the other youngest person was a 60-year-old—with organised activities in that space that are inappropriate to a 30-year-old.

A person who had spent their whole life working managed to have money to buy a house. A genetic disease kicked in and it meant that they had mobility issues where they couldn’t be in normal, standardised housing. They were lucky enough to have the resources to buy a home and access home ownership—really exciting opportunity. They got in there, but the processes were so set that the builders insisted on building an inaccessible house. They wouldn’t even agree to not putting in the inaccessible bathroom or kitchen that would enable this person to just modify it when they took over. So they had to wait until they’d finished, pull out the kitchen, pull out the bathroom, and wait three months before they could move in, and they paid for those costs on top of the cost of the house. That is how our system is set up at the moment.

We had people who have been—and this is such a common story—in emergency housing and unable to get into housing, because only 2 percent of our housing stock is accessible, and then they finally get into a Kāinga Ora house, because, basically, that’s all there is, and then it’s still not fully accessible. Eighteen months on, they’re waiting for the retrofitting to make it accessible.

People are having accidents and injuring themselves further because of the way that the system is set up. Huge numbers of these people are in mouldy, damp houses because that’s all there is. They have no choice about what suburb they live in or whether they are close to family, because we have such a scarcity of accessible homes, and that means that, let alone the precariousness of fearing that you’re going to lose this house that gives you shelter, you lose family, you lose friends, and you lose opportunity for work and connection.

People’s entire lives are being shaped by the fact that we have set up a system to work against their inclusion, and to isolate them and deny them their basic rights. The United Nations has called this country out to say that Kāinga Ora should be building 100 percent to universal design, as opposed to the 15 percent target—target—that they have now, and we need to be implementing the 2004 Act rather than just delaying it and delaying it, as has been happening. Disabled people have rights in law and we need legislation—an accessibility Act that will enforce those rights—and not continue—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There is a word for people that complain and complain and complain and never come up with an alternative idea, and that term is “whingers”. That is a perfect term to describe the National Party, and if you need an example, you only need to listen to their first contribution to this general debate, from their deputy leader, Nicola Willis: lots of whinging and very little ideas.

I did find it interesting that the one policy that the National Party have, she omitted to talk about, and I wonder why. I wonder if that’s because their policy of giving tax cuts to the highest earners, when they’re talking about the cost of living—I wonder if it’s because they’ve worked out that giving thousands of dollars a year to the highest earners and $2 a week to most of us isn’t going to make any difference to the cost of living. I wonder if that’s why they keep it quiet.

They are crying crocodile tears about the number of New Zealanders that are going overseas. They’re saying that New Zealand isn’t competitive, yet every time this Government has attempted to raise wages, they’ve voted against it. They have voted against minimum wage increases. They have voted against benefit increases. They voted against the winter energy payment. They know that when wages increase so too do the pensions that are paid to superannuitants, and yet they oppose it every single time. They opposed the Best Start payment. They opposed fair pay agreements, despite the fact that the countries that we are trying to be competitive with have fair pay agreements.

Every single step of the way, they have opposed attempts that have raised wages in this country, because they want to focus on the richest. They want to focus on cutting taxes so that Chris Luxon can get thousands of dollars a year while the people that have served us through COVID as essential workers get two bucks a week. That is not going to assist with a cost of living crisis. They are all talk, with no ideas.

It’s exactly the same with housing. They say the Government should do something. They ignore the fact that there are 10,000 more social housing places in the last five years. After nine years of that Government, when numbers went backwards, they say we should do something about houses. We said, “We agree. So what we’re going to do is extend the brightline test.” They said, “Oh no. No, no, we don’t like that.”—even though they introduced it in the first place.

We said that we were going to remove interest deductibility so that we don’t have landlords fighting against each other and driving up prices—driving investments in new builds instead. They said, “No, no. We don’t like that. Here’s an answer: we’re going to give them a tax cut, because that worked in the past.” That worked when they were in Government—yeah right, it did! We saw a massive housing crisis, which they refused to acknowledge, and then they have the gall to turn around when this Government is doing something about it and complain—with no ideas, complain. That’s all we’re hearing.

We’re hearing complaining about health. They wanted to keep the DHB structure. The DHB structure that did not serve rural New Zealand and that meant that those of us who live in rural and regional New Zealand were at the back of the queue for getting the treatment we deserve—they wanted to keep it. They said, “No, no, everything’s fine.”, despite the fact that when they were in Government, funding to DHBs went backwards in real terms, and then they turn around and complain that this Government is restructuring things to make it even work. They’re stuck in the past. They’ve got no ideas. All they’ve got is whinging.

What about education? They opposed free lunches in schools, then they have the gall to stand up and say attendance isn’t great after defunding truancy services. It’s like they assume that people have no memory.

They assume that if they’re going to whinge, then they won’t have to come up with any ideas. We still don’t know what they’re going to cut to pay for the $11 billion in tax cuts that they’re proposing, and we had to rely on someone else to work it out because they were refusing to work it out themselves. They’re trying to keep people in the dark. They hope that we get to the election and people will have forgotten that they have promised tax cuts but haven’t told us how they’re going to pay for it.

They have assumed that New Zealanders are do dumb that they’re going to believe their claims that they can cut taxes, increase spending, and reduce debt. It doesn’t add up, and people know it. They know that unless they give them the information, how can they be trusted?

They refuse to cost it. They refuse to tell us what’s being cut. The only example that Nicola Willis gave cost $2.1 million. There’s a fair bit of difference between $11 billion per annum and one $2.1 million piece of expenditure.

I wonder why they refuse to give examples. I wonder why they refuse to talk about it. How many ideas have they given? None. All they do is complain, and Kiwis will see through it.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Today, in Christchurch, there is a proposal to close down a mental health facility, with the reason being that that facility is only currently staffed by 50 percent of the staff it requires to operate. Today, on the North Shore, there are mental health patients being admitted to the emergency department who are waiting four days in windowless rooms in the emergency department before they get admitted to a ward. That is the reality of mental health under a Labour Government, and you will not find an issue more emblematic than mental health than five years of failure by this Government.

Remember when this Government came into power in 2017, promising to transform the mental health system? Yet only a Labour Government can spend $1.9 billion and no one knows where it’s gone. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, in its first, damning report, found that despite the $1.9 billion, there have been no material improvements. How can you spend $1.9 billion and not make a difference? A Labour Government can, and it’s soul-destroying for the thousands of New Zealanders who turned up to Labour’s mental health inquiry five years ago and told their heartfelt and often painful stories.

Do you hear about that inquiry’s recommendations today—the 58 recommendations? No, because they were quietly shelved and not talked about again.

The reality is, under a Labour Government, when you start the comparison after five years—under six years of the last National Government, access to child and adolescent mental health specialist services increased by 91 percent. That’s the reality, and what have we done under the Labour Government’s spending of $1.9 billion? Access has increased less than 2 percent. It was 91 percent under the last National Government versus 2 percent under the Labour Government. That is the difficulty, as many vulnerable New Zealanders can’t access the valuable services they need.

The issue we have got in New Zealand through their lack of leadership and their lack of a clear plan for mental health is now we have a mental health workforce crisis that sits solely on the lap of this Labour Government. In the last five years under this Labour Government, when they took office, mental health nurse vacancies have increased by 52 percent, psychiatrist vacancies have increased by 58 percent, and look at psychologist vacancies: they have blown out by 140 percent since Labour took office—$1.9 billion, yet massive blowouts in our vacancies, and the biggest obstacle to vulnerable New Zealanders accessing services today in New Zealand is there’s no workforce to see them. Five years, and the waiting times are ballooning, the costs are skyrocketing, and vulnerable New Zealanders can’t get access to the services that they were promised.

Then we find out the mental health facility in Christchurch is operating at 50 percent staff vacancies, and we wonder why we’ve got a high burnout rate in the mental health sector. Well, that’s because the already stretched staff are covering more vacancies. The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists has come out this week and said that if those beds are closed down, those beds will be lost. Under a Labour Government, we are losing mental health beds. Then we find on the North Shore, in their emergency department, vulnerable Kiwis are turning up to the emergency department and waiting four days in a windowless room to get to a mental health ward. That is the reality of mental health under Labour.

They promised so much. They said that they would transform the mental health system. They announced $1.9 billion, which they paraded around like a trophy. That $1.9 billion is now a millstone around their neck as five years of failure in mental health under Labour.

That last contribution was complete rubbish, In fact, if the last National Government had actually invested into mental health like they should have—if they’d actually invested into health infrastructure, full stop—and if they didn’t have a couple of years where they spent nothing on health infrastructure, we wouldn’t be standing here talking about the big hole that there was to fill in our health system. We wouldn’t be standing here talking about the fact that we don’t have a mental health system that’s responsive to the needs of New Zealanders, because they could have and they should have done something, but they didn’t. They didn’t—they sat on their hands. They’ve waited until we’ve come into Government.

We are the first Government to take mental health seriously in New Zealand, and, yes, we’ve spent a lot of money on it. But, actually, a lot of that money went into just filling the hole in the first place that had been left by the previous National Government. In Rotorua, we have turned the sod on the first mental health inpatient unit: $31 million has gone into that. There are lots of these initiatives all around the country that are slowly rolling out, but it’s going to take time.

I’m not here to talk about that; I’m here to talk about the economy, because, actually, it’s about the economy, stupid. Actually, the economy is doing really well under a Labour Government, considering we’ve just come out of a pandemic and considering we’ve actually just had two years of incredibly traumatic events happen to our economy.

More specifically, I want to talk about the visitor economy, because back where I come from, in the geothermal paradise of Rotorua, we’ve got a festival going on right now. We’ve got the Crankworx festival going on. It is the Olympics of mountain biking, and we have visitors coming in from all around the world to come and travel around New Zealand as well. They don’t just stay in Rotorua; they travel all around the country, and they spend money.

The Crankworx festival has been given funding by the Major Events Fund here in—well, it was actually our Government that has given them $8.1 million over the next five years to be able to sustain their event, and it’s been a game-changer for them to be able to engage in some decent planning over the long term to be able to build this event, build it to be bigger than it’s ever been before, and it’s happening right now in Rotorua. So for those people that can get to Rotorua, I encourage you to. For those people that can’t get there, switch on the TVs because it’s being broadcast all around the world, to the USA, to Canada, to Germany, the UK, Italy, France, Indonesia, and Australia. This is an event that has a huge economic impact on the community and the country at large, but it’s been because of our Government’s investment into these events that this has been able to happen.

Let’s talk about the numbers. The numbers, heading into this summer, are looking strong. There were 145,000 overseas visitors who arrived in the four weeks to the start of November. Over 10,000 working holiday visa holders have now arrived in New Zealand. International card spend is at 88 percent of pre-COVID levels in the four weeks to the end of September. An economic boost is expected from cruise ships that are docking into all ports all around the country, and their expected spend is anything between $350 million to $510 million. That is huge, and we know that around 19 percent of total bed nights booked for 2022-23 are from international visitors.

Finally, to my beloved hospitality industry—the faces of our visitor economy—I’m pleased to see that wages and salaries across the hospitality sector continue to increase, despite businesses having to battle through the tough trading period that was COVID-19. The average hourly wage in hospitality is up $2, to $24.43. Both the minimum wage and the living wage, including the new living wage rate of $23.65—that kicked in from September.

The problem of staff shortages has been addressed with recent changes to immigration so that we can attract capable chefs into kitchens in our restaurants all across Aotearoa, and locally led initiatives like the one that we had in Rotorua, down on Eat Street, where we had businesses come together with our chamber of commerce and come together with the Ministry of Social Development to actually say, “We are open for business. If you need a job, come and sign up.”—actually, there was incredible success that we had from that local initiative.

It is going to be a good summer. Our visitor economy is looking strong and we’re seeing numbers in tourism and hospitality returning to the numbers that we had prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m looking forward to a really good summer on behalf of all of those people that will be staffing up and will be getting ready for a huge summer ahead, not least back home in Rotorua. I hope that over the term of the school holidays and over the time of our Christmas break, actually, our visitor economy does as well as it possibly could. Kia ora.

Firstly, can I just acknowledge the previous speaker Tāmati Coffey’s comments around the amazing mountain biking in Rotorua. As the secretary of the inaugural Rotorua Mountain Bike Club and having spent many, many hours building technical tracks to the Redwoods, I have to say that it is a world-class mountain biking Mecca. I want to acknowledge Tania Tapsell, who’s just become the new Mayor of Rotorua, and, of course, Todd McClay, and I’m looking forward to all of them working together to make Rotorua the world-class tourist destination that it has always been.

What a soup sandwich on the other side of the House today. We saw Duncan Webb get up. He redefined “possum in the headlights” —he didn’t know what was going on. Carmel Sepuloni was rushing round doing some sort of damage control over there—I’m not sure what—but then she got up and, I tell you what, I bet you anything you like, Megan Woods was straight on to her office after Carmel stood up in the House and she gave away their campaign strategy for next year. She said, “The campaign strategy for next year is that we hope that people see through National.” So the strategy is that they hope that people see through National.

I’ve got some bad news for them. Have they heard of the emperor and his clothes, because, I tell you what, I bet you it’s getting very chilly over that side at the moment. People are waking up to just how poor this Government is and how little they’ve actually been able to deliver.

Then we had Kieran McAnulty stand up—Kieran McAnulty. He started talking about Nicola Willis. He referred to her as “her” which, by the way, apparently, is gendered language, because in this House, when I referred to Poto Williams as “her”, I was pulled up by the Speaker—the then Speaker. Mr Speaker, we’re very happy and pleased to see you in the House. You have returned dignity to the Speaker’s seat; there is no doubt about that.

SPEAKER: Don’t bring me into the debate, thank you.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: But I was pulled up for using gendered language, for using the term “her”. But I just had Kieran McAnulty standing in here, the senior whip—oh no, sorry, he’s a Minister now; he’s an Hon—referring our deputy leader as “her”, which is gendered language, and then he finished his speech talking about Nicola Willis, as well. It sounds to me like Nicola Willis has got some rent-free space in Kieran McAnulty’s head.

Talking about rent-free space, what about Grant Robertson at their conference? Instead of standing up and celebrating their fantastic record, he was obsessed on our leader, Christopher Luxon. We lost count of the amount of times that he mentioned Chris Luxon. Chris Luxon appears to be getting rent-free space in Grant Robertson’s head as well.

Then, funnily enough, this morning on the radio, on the Mike Hosking show, which I do on a Wednesday morning—sometimes with Megan Woods, sometimes with Chris Hipkins; it depends on who gets put up—Chris Hipkins, as the Minister of Police, said to me, “I’ve be going all around the country visiting police stations, and all the police officers are sick of you slagging them off to me.” Well, I’ll tell you what, I find it very unusual that the police Minister is going around all the police stations and wanting to talk about me. It appears that I’ve got some rent-free space in Chris Hipkins’ head, as well.

I have to say that I’ve been to every district in the country, visiting our police staff. We never talk about Chris Hipkins and we never talk about what this Government’s doing. For some reason, there’s no appetite for that. Quite simply, I check in on them and I want to know what they need and what they want from us, if we’re successful and we’re lucky enough to be able to return to Government next year.

Finally, I just want to highlight the question that was asked in the House to the Minister today about how many businesses in Hamilton have been helped with ram raids. Sadly, Hamilton would probably be the ram-raid capital of New Zealand at the moment. They’ve got this serious burden of ram raids and youth offending and juvenile offending. Do you know what the answer was from the Minister? After a big, long-winded “Oh, this business has been visited, that business”—two businesses don’t even qualify. Do you know what his answer was to how many businesses have been helped through their $6 million policy that was announced several months ago? The big red zero—none, zip, nada.

So, Mr Hipkins, instead of going round the country and talking to front-line police officers about me, how about you actually get on with your job, you recognise that we’ve got a massive problem in this country with increased violent crime, with youth and juvenile offending going through the roof, and you actually turn your mind to that. You actually turn your mind to what you need to do in terms of serving the people of New Zealand, because you don’t seem to want to get out there and actually speak to them and meet with them. You actually turn your mind to supporting a police service that is under enormous pressure—the thin blue line is stretched to breaking point—and actually looking at what you can do in Government to fix the atrocious policies that you have put in place to create this. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Our Public Service is world class. New Zealand is lucky to have thousands of talented people working on our behalf every day to make our lives better, safer, healthier, and more prosperous. From the members of the Supreme Court to the clerical assistants in a tiny remote office, these people serve us: the public. They are our trade negotiators, who are respected globally; they’re our diplomats, who do such brilliant job helping Kiwis abroad and representing interests of our small country on the world stage; they are customs officers and Ministry for Primary Industries personnel, who protect our borders and also protect our agricultural industry from threat; they are the labour inspectors, who protect our vulnerable from exploitation; our corrections staff, working so hard in prisons and in courts; our scientists; our food safety specialists; and the people who help us protect our natural environment.

Behind each one of these public servants is a great New Zealander. But these are normal people with normal lives—people who love cricket, surfing, reading, watching Netflix; people based in practically every community around the country, not just in Wellington—and through their work, they make Aotearoa one of the easiest places in the world to do business. They help implement our key policies to address the cost of living challenge like our short-term cost of living payment, the winter energy payment, the extension of our fuel tax cuts, our reduced road-user charges, our half-price public transport, and our recently announced policy to increase the family tax credit to make early childhood education more affordable and more accessible to families.

Our public servants deserve respect. They deserve better than the derogatory language used by the National Party to describe them. National’s deliberate use of the term “bureaucrat” is designed to divide. Just yesterday, I heard Chris Baillie from the ACT Party, Chris Penk from National, and Tim van de Molen use the word “bureaucrat” to describe our public servants, and then, today, in question time, the Leader of the Opposition used the word “bureaucrat” to describe our hard-working public servants. The Prime Minister said in reply to his question that she will not use the term “bureaucrat” to describe the Public Service, and neither will I.

The word “bureaucrat” has a long history. It started off as a translation that was neutral, but now, and quoting from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it has a distinctly negative connotation—a distinctly negative connotation. When the National Party are talking about bureaucrats instead of public servants, they are choosing to speak about them with a distinctly negative connotation, and the National Party know full well what they’re doing. Their words take away the agency and voice and expertise of the Public Service, and help to dim down the public perception of what they do. National has repeatedly used this term for months, and, let me tell you, words matter. Words can bring people together, but they can also divide us, and National has chosen to divide us.

We have seen this playbook before: dehumanise the Public Service, then run it down, and then, with their unfair, unfunded tax cuts for the wealthiest New Zealanders, they intend, if they are lucky enough to be elected into Government, and I certainly don’t think they will—and I hope that they won’t—they would take an axe to the Public Service. Underfunding meant when that Labour took power, we inherited a mess, but we have made progress on our big problems, not just on COVID, but on child poverty indicators, social housing, and climate change measures. We need a strong Public Service to achieve all of this.

So, on this side of the House, we believe that our public servants should be treated with respect. They are good people, who work hard every day to make New Zealand a better place, and it’s my view that they deserve better than what they’re getting from the Opposition.

Well, after years and years of fumbling around and spending millions and millions of taxpayers’ dollars, Labour has, at long last—along with the Prime Minister—found a way in which they can sell their three waters reform, and they throw this line up wherever they can. They say that rates for Kiwis will skyrocket and that the only way to stop this is Labour’s three waters reforms, so over the next few minutes I’m going to give you a bit of an overview in terms of why this little bit of language is a cynical piece of political spin.

The statement first assumes that the Government’s three waters reforms—which include confiscation of community assets, the introduction of co-governance, and the mandatory centralisation into four mega-entities—is the only reform option on the table, but we know there are many alternative models that exist. Communities 4 Local Democracy, who represent 32 different councils, have tabled an independently reviewed alternative model; the three mayors, only a fortnight ago, have tabled alternative models; a number of councils during the select committee process have tabled alternative models; and we also know that in Hawke’s Bay, the four councils are already operating a council-controlled organisation which is delivering the services, but they are going to have to break that up. The model that they are operating allows them to spend the capital expenditure that this Government believe is required while keeping those assets in local hands, and without raising water prices or council debt limits.

Alongside this, the National Party is working on developing a three waters alternative model, which will achieve infrastructure outcomes without the costs and complexities of this Labour Government’s three waters reform, and yet, the Government continues to ignore it. “Alternative models don’t exist”, they say, which is simply not true. If we pretend for a minute that Labour is right that there aren’t any other options—which, of course, there are—will stopping three waters actually make rates increase? Well, firstly, it’s important to understand the two bottom lines of this Government’s reform process: co-governance and a mega-entity merger into four entities. Having fifty-fifty co-governance will bring more complexity to the governance models of these water entities, slowing down decision making and increasing costs. It is more bureaucracy and is taking away the local voice.

This is a bird’s nest of governance complexity and this will only actually increase the costs, so stopping co-governance will not increase rates. To further prove this, we heard today that $2.1 million was spent on a swanky Freemans Bay office building in Auckland, premium office space which will house consultants, bureaucrats, and advisers all trying to do three waters reform across this country before the second reading of this bill has even come back into the House.

So will stopping centralisation of water entities into four mega-entities actually make rates increase? Well, again, the answer is no. The cost benefits on which this reform are based upon are based on the Scottish water model, and that has been independently peer-reviewed to say that the assumptions that that model uses are materially misstated. Big is not always better, and New Zealand is not Scotland.

The reforms assume that the new mega-entities will be able to make a 62 percent saving in operational costs and a 50 percent saving in capital expenditure costs compared to the status quo. Independent assessment has said that the economies of scale from capital spend are not available as outlined in those assumptions in the New Zealand water services sector, except for minor changes, potentially, in procurement.

The benefits of centralisation assume no loss of headcount, which is normally the way in which you make savings through this type of reform. This Government have a track record of doing reform that doesn’t deliver benefits and increases bureaucracy, and just look at the polytech reform that we’ve all seen.

National will implement a model that will absolutely ensure that water assets stay in local ownership, that will have no co-governance, and that will leverage water quality and economic regulation. That will make the changes that will also support sustainable funding and financing. As we have outlined, the words from the Prime Minister and others say that this is political theatre designed to scare Kiwis into supporting these reforms. A National-led Government will do the right thing alongside our water assets.

Fa’afetai lava, Mr Speaker. I am so pleased with the recent announcement of a childcare support that will help alleviate some of the pressures on our whānau. The increases to the Working for Families tax credits will give almost 60 percent of New Zealand families that sort of buffer to help receive that and also to focus on other things, and that will definitely support the whānau. I also look at how we’re playing catch-up with how National froze in 2010 indexing the income threshold. So I’m very pleased that that has gone up as well to give that wage growth to over 10,000 additional children estimated to receive that support.

I just want to highlight some of the other measures that this Government has invested in in terms of the Budget, in providing for our health and social services providers for the work that they do on the ground. But before I do that, I just want to thank my medical colleagues whom I met last week who provide GP services across Tāmaki-makau-rau in terms of our Pacific peer group, who are also connected to the Pacific network across Aotearoa in providing COVID-19 support and also, post-COVID, the work that they’re doing and the lessons that they’ve learnt through that space. I just want to say a huge fa’afetai lava to those workers on the ground.

As the chair of the caucus committee for health, social services, and wellbeing, we travelled to Whangārei last week and met up with four providers supporting our whānau on the ground. I just want to say a huge acknowledgment to the local MP, Emily Henderson, for her connections and relationships with those providers in doing the work for our whānau.

We met up with Tokotoko Solutions, and I just want to say a shout-out to our Tokelauan brother Isopo Samu, who’s now a new Tupu Aotearoa provider. I also acknowledge Minister Aupito William Sio and the work of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples for doing that connection with Tokotoko and the work that they do with our youth and the way that they do it in the context in Northland. I’m so proud that they’re doing that work and also learning and getting the feedback in the way that we can improve our services on this end.

Whangarei Youth Space was another provider, and I just want to say a huge thankyou to Dauwie Morgan and their team. They provide that youth one-stop shop, and with the money that has gone in from this Government to support that kaupapa, 3,000 young people a year go through those doors, and 81 percent of rangatahi are Māori. I want to acknowledge the huge work that they do on behalf of their whānau.

Ngāti Hine Health Trust and the mātuas that we met last week and the services and facilities that we witnessed, it was a huge privilege for us—beautiful facilities, and also the work they do with our whānau there. Being the largest Māori provider for Northland is huge, and I just want to say a huge thankyou to them, again, looking at where we placed the money and budget through to our providers, and then the feedback loop and how we can improve our services as well.

Our last provider that we met up with in Whangārei was Fale Pasifika, and, again, I acknowledge Johnny Kumitau and his team for providing services to our Pasifika aiga up in Northland and Te Tai Tokerau. The people that they see who come from the Islands may have language barriers, and the way that they connect with those aiga is huge for them as well. They also engage with youth using the science, technology, engineering, and maths funding from this Government, and I’d like to say that what we heard and the feedback we got from them was that it’s working and it’s providing a way that they can go into training, education, and further employment, just with that engagement with our Pasifika aiga up there.

I look at our Takanini community and the measures that this Government have put in place. We’ve already heard from colleagues about the short-term cost of living payments that have helped many of our whānau, the winter energy payment as well, also the fuel tax cut, and also the half-price public transport for our community services card holders. These are all the different measures that this Government has put in place to help our whānau, and I’m especially pleased because it gets to help our whānau in Takanini who are doing it tough in certain parts of our electorate. So I’m so thankful this Government is a Government for service and delivery, while the other side is only delivering tax cuts for the wealthy. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. To close up the general debate today, I’d like to shift the House’s attention to an issue that is front of people’s minds in Hamilton, and that is the out-of-control crime wave—especially youth crime and retail crime—that is ruining livelihoods and the reputation of the city. Mayor Paula Southgate has recently said that the situation is “beyond urgent”. Since Labour got into Government, we have seen a 400 percent increase in ram-raid occurrences around the country—an average of 10 a week.

In Waikato, there were 81 ram raids that were counted from May to October. Just a few weekends ago, there were seven businesses, as we would have seen in the media, targeted by ram-raiders in one night—seven in one night—and 29 retail burglaries occurred in the week leading up to it, and I thought I would just show one example of a shop in the Hamilton West electorate. [Holds up photograph] This is an upstanding citizen here who is waving a machete, and he’s smashed his way into the store, smashed through a whole lot of bottles—it’s a bottle shop, obviously—and then chased the retail worker that was there and swung it a few more times, and it, luckily, missed the retail worker. We’ve since learnt that that particular upstanding citizen was arrested in the Chartwell mall, but as to whether or not there are any consequences, we don’t know yet. We haven’t actually been able to find any of that information.

So there are businesses that have been repeatedly targeted by youth criminals. As I said, for one dairy owner in Te Rapa, it was 10 times in a week. It is absolutely out of control. A manager of a jewellery store I spoke with had just finished cleaning up after a smash-and-grab and went to her car in the evening in the car park, and was then the victim of an armed robbery—on the same day. The owner of a sports shop in Victoria Street, after his third ram raid, basically gave up and said, “I can’t do this anymore. We won’t be here next year. This is just too much.”, and I remember one sports shop in Hamilton West had had up to 10 smash-and-grabs.

In question time, I asked about the Retail Crime Prevention Programme. It actually astonished me how much of a fail that has been, and certainly that was the impression I got on the ground talking to business owners who have tried to go through this process. I did expect there to have been—I mean, I couldn’t find one, speaking to owners, but I thought, well, someone must have had something installed through this programme in Hamilton. But, evidently, the answer from the Minister today is it’s zero, which is astonishing. So of 18 stores visited, and that’s assessments done, 16 were determined to be eligible, and there are issues with their eligibility—you know, if you’ve got one business with multiple outlets, they can’t get any attention, because it doesn’t matter how much their revenue is or their profit, they’re considered a large business and, therefore, they won’t get any support.

The Minister, as he responded to my question in question time, said that they won’t consider reimbursing business owners, who have just had to bite the bullet—not literally, luckily—and go and get the funding themselves and go and sort it out privately and get bollards installed, and some have actually done a bit of number eight wire on that. So perhaps the Government wants to have a look at that.

In addition to the rise in thefts, burglaries, stolen vehicles, and ram raids that is destroying my city’s reputation, another issue at the top of everyone’s minds and central to this is: where are the consequences? Ram raids are being carried out by the same hardened group of young people, quite often, who face no consequences. Considered too young for prison, of course, they’re known to escape from youth justice facilities—assuming there’s even enough space for them—and often they are sent home to families where they have a lack of guidance and discipline.

Wraparound support is important, but I think that for repeat youth offenders, wraparound support should also include ankle bracelets, especially if they’re just going to be tagged and released into the community to terrorise business owners and retail staff. We would ask where is the escalation—where is the Government’s escalating response to these youth criminals?—because, at the end of the day, if they’re just going to get tagged and released, then one day they’re going to be 18 and will hit the adult justice system, and then things get real and people will ask why this wasn’t this dealt with and why wasn’t this sorted out.

Hamilton has, sadly, become a ram-raid gravy train that is facilitated by this Government. However, there’s a big opportunity in Hamilton West. It is a staging ground for what is to come next year for this Government, and I’m standing to represent local people and local issues and to be their representative to send their message to the Government. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.