General Debate

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

This is a Government that is setting up our health system to succeed. After years of underfunding; after years of neglecting it; after years of seeing the health workforce being underpaid, their pay rates going backwards; we now have a Government that is focused on having a health system that will meet the needs of all New Zealanders.

I was very proud last night when the House passed the third reading of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill, because that legislation will now set ourselves up to have a health system that will be the envy of the world. We’ll have a health system now that focuses on health need, a health system that can be coordinated, managed, and run coherently across the country to meet all the health needs of our communities—a health system that will be focused on equity. Because the reality is, we have populations in this country that have been denied access to health services. Māori—to whom we have a commitment under the Treaty of Waitangi to treat equally and fairly, and they have not got that in our health services. They have seven years less in terms of life expectancy and longevity compared to the rest of the population. That tells you all you need to know about what is happening and about that inequity of access to our health services. We are on the road to now a health system that will be the best for New Zealand.

When you look at what the legislation sets up, you see Health New Zealand, the Māori Health Authority, and a public health agency now focused on public health. If there’s one thing we’ve learnt over the last two years it’s the importance of public health and public health measures that support a country and a population, and we now have that. Supported by the national public health service, we bring together all those incredibly talented people out there in our communities already, and give them a nationwide leadership that can actually deliver the public health services that are needed on the ground. And we can move them around as there are outbreaks, pandemics, water treatment disasters in parts of the country. We can move talented people around the country where the need is, as opposed to having to negotiate with 20 different—or 12 different—public health service providers.

We will have a revamped Ministry of Health that will focus on leading the system. It will bring its incredible intellectual firepower to bear. It will draw on the data that we’ll be generating from the new systems—the new platforms that we’re in the process of developing, because we’ve invested in technology as well—and give us the best insights and profile of our health needs and our population needs to deliver a health system that will be the envy of everybody.

Finally, we will have a Pharmac that is now well integrated into the rest of the health administration—Pharmac making decisions about therapeutic treatments that draws on the best from the ministry, from Health New Zealand, from the Māori Health Authority, and from all dimensions of our health system. Because this is a Government that backs health, this is a Government that backs our health workforce, and this is a Government that wants the best health for every New Zealander in the country.

You can contrast that to the members opposite. The Leader of the Opposition was on the radio this morning, and when he was asked, “Are you going to put more cash into health?”, what did he say? “No—no. They don’t need it.” So here it comes again. The good old National Party softening New Zealand up to say, “We don’t actually need a decent health system; we can carry on underfunding it if we ever get the opportunity to again. We don’t have to back our health workforce—we’ll just pay them peanuts and hope we get the best out of it.” That’s what National does when they’re in Government, because they’re obsessed about two things—they’re obsessed about two things: tax cuts for the wealthy; and the people who pay for that are the people who depend on public services like our public health service, like our other public services as well. That’s what the recipe is that National offers the rest of New Zealand: tax cuts for the wealthy, and everybody else can pay for it through miserable services—services that don’t meet the needs that we’ve got for our population—and they’ll continue to underpay our health workforce.

Well, this Government is determined to turn that around, and ever since we took office—ever since we took office—we have given priority to this most fundamental of social services—keeping people healthy, keeping people well, providing the services, supporting the health workforce, and supporting our doctors. And now we have a piece of legislation that every Government will be held to account to. We’ll have Government policy statements. We’ll have strategies for those populations that have so often missed out: Māori, Pacific, women, the disabled community, and rural communities that missed out so much under their mismanagement of health. We will have a health system because this Government, this party on this side, is the party of high-quality public health.

This is a Government that hates the term “soft on crime”. But the reality of it is that it’s not just us that’s calling them soft on crime; it’s 68 percent of people polled in the country that call them soft on crime. It’s not just those 68 percent; it’s 54 percent of Labour voters that call them soft on crime. There’s been a 40 percent increase in gang numbers; a 21 percent increase in violent crime; a 31 percent increase in violent retail crime; and a tsunami of ram raids, youth, and juvenile offending. This Government’s record in the last four or five years has been nothing but soft on crime.

Let me give you some examples. Let’s put it on the record. Let’s have a look at this bill that was introduced by Chris Bishop. Chris Bishop brought this bill to the House on 3 May 2018, four years ago. It was the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill. What this bill did was it provided new powers for police to search persons, vehicles, and premises of specified serious and violent gang members for firearms at any time—four years ago. What happened to it? It was voted down by Labour. Soft on crime—soft on crime.

Let’s have a look, what’s the next bill here? Simeon Brown’s bill, introduced on 13 February 2020, was voted down by Labour. It was the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2). The purpose of the bill: to prevent the most dangerous gang members from accessing firearms. Second strike—voted down by Labour. What are Labour? Soft on crime.

Here’s one from me, Mark Mitchell, introduced on 17 May 2018. It was the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill. Guess what this bill did! It created a new offence for injuring a first responder or prison officer, with intent, which was a mandatory minimum sentence of six months imprisonment. It included emergency and health and fire service staff in the offence of assault on police, prison, or traffic officers currently provided for on the Summary Offences Act.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Great bill. What happened to it?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: We put this in place—what happened to it? Tell me what you think happened to it, Mr Brownlee.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Labour voted it down.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: They voted it down—Labour voted it down. Soft on crime.

And by the way, the real crime of this is that I met with our ambulance staff, our incredible St John Ambulance paramedics, two weeks ago. Something that’s really disturbing that they’re having to deal with now is young female officers being assaulted—and some of them sexually assaulted on the job. They asked me specifically why this bill wasn’t passed in this Parliament. Do you know why it wasn’t passed in this Parliament? Soft on crime. Look at them all, with their heads down.

Another very good Simeon Brown bill, introduced 14 February 2018, was the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. Guess who voted this down! Labour. Soft on crime.

Let’s have a look at this one from Erica Stanford.

Hon Member: Not another one!

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Another one. Erica Stanford introduced a very good bill on 25 March 2021. This was the Crimes (Robbery) Amendment Bill. The reason why she brought this into the House was because the police asked for it. Quite simply, what it did is it dealt with a vehicle that’s taken by force—the offender may commit other offences which are relatively minor. There needs to be a stronger remedy for when a car is taken by force. That’s why she brought this bill to the House. Guess who voted it down! Labour.

Maureen Pugh: “Soft on crime Labour”.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Soft on crime; well done, Maureen Pugh.

On 23 September 2021, Simeon Brown introduced the Public Finance—get a load of this one—(Prohibition on Providing Public Funds to Gangs) Amendment Bill. The sum of $2.7 million went to Harry Tam and his stooges up in the Hawke’s Bay to run some sort of weird meth programme that never had any results. I met with the police up there a month ago. They were disgusted by what happened. Terrible use of taxpayers’ funds. These guys are still defending it. Guess what they did with that bill! They voted it down. Soft on crime.

There’s too many of these. I’m not going to have time to get through all of these. Nicole McKee introduced the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) (Definition of Significant Criminal Activity) Amendment Bill. This is the one that was just brought into the House a couple of weeks ago. It actually went after the gangs and it meant that if there was a firearm found, they could seize some additional assets, as well. It was a good bill. Even the Prime Minister came out and said, “Oh yeah, that sounds like a good bill.” Why did you vote it down? Labour voted it down two weeks ago. What are they? Soft on crime.

Here comes the Ginzu knives, right—if you had any doubts at all. Kris Faafoi, the Minister of Justice, and what is their priority? Repeal the three-strikes legislation, the only bit of decent legislation that actually puts some rigour around sentencing. The three-strikes law was intended to deter repeat offenders with the threat of progressively longer mandatory prison terms and to incapacitate those who continue to reoffend despite the additional penalties. Guess what this Government is doing! They’re repealing this; about the only tough piece of legislation we’ve got in our books.

Quite simply, this is a Government that is soft on crime.

This Government is securing our economic future through Budget 2022 as we recover from COVID-19. While we know that our economy has outperformed many other countries and that unemployment is at a record low rate of 3.2, we still know it’s been a tough couple of years for many New Zealanders.

The pandemic has caused huge disruption in our daily lives, and our workplaces and our families are feeling the pressure. There are the impacts of rising inflation and supply chain disruptions and pressure from oil prices because of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, and these are being felt at the petrol pump and at the supermarket. That’s why Budget 2022 includes more support for families. We’re delivering a short-term cost of living payment for about 2.1 million Kiwis to help with the impact of rising prices—$350 in three monthly instalments starting on 1 August. That’s worth about $27 per week for three months. It comes on top of a package of income support measures that came into force in 1 April this year, which I know the seniors community in particular greatly appreciated. It includes a significant lift in main benefit rates, student allowances, the family tax credit, and childcare allowances as well as superannuation.

Budget 2022 tackles the cost of transport by extending the 25c fuel excise tax cut and keeping public transport half price for a further two months—another measure very popular among seniors, and we are also making half-price public transport cuts permanent for community services card holders.

We’re addressing the root cause of higher grocery bills by introducing urgent legislation to stop supermarkets from blocking competition, from accessing land to open new stores. These are meaningful steps that will help Kiwi families face the cost of living pressures right now. At the same time, we’re investing in infrastructure, combating climate change, and investing in the critical services that people need. I’m pleased to follow my colleague Mr Little in noting that Budget 2022 made the largest ever investment in health for more nurses, more medicines, to get the health system sorted, to better focus on services.

Kiwis will be able to get emergency care when they need it, with funding for more paramedics, new ambulances, and emergency helicopters around the country. Dental grants for low-income Kiwis have more than tripled from $300 to $1,000 and no longer have to be for emergency work only.

Budget 2022 also delivers the largest police force ever and includes an extra $94 million specifically to target gangs and organised crime. These initiatives and many more that are in the Budget are only possible because we continue to manage such a strong growing economy. GDP is up 5.6 from a year ago and our economic activity is higher than it was before COVID-19. Unemployment is at a low of 3.2 percent, against expectations that when COVID hit it could be as high as 10 percent. Wages have outpaced inflation up until this recent inflation spike and we forecast a rise against inflation for every year after 2022. Many households are better off under Labour.

Our debt is set to peak at about half of Australia’s, around a third of that of the UK’s, a fifth of that of the US, and measured consistently as a percentage of GDP according to the IMF’s forecast, and we will get the books back into surplus in 2024.

In addition, Budget 2022 included measures to accelerate our economic recovery. This includes supporting a flexible business environment that promotes innovation, lays strong foundations for future growth and opportunities. We know part of this is increasing the climate resilience of our economy. That’s why we are making the transition to a low-emissions economy. That’s why you’ll see the Climate Emergency Response Fund package was such an important part of Budget 2022 and related announcements.

We are also delivering on our commitment to position the economy for the future through the establishment of industry transformation plans (ITPs). You’ll see there is funding to make progress across the ITP programme, including for the construction sector accord, advanced manufacturing ITP, an agritech industry transformation plan, a digital transformation plan, and plans in the primary industries. Budget 2022 is squarely focused on the needs of New Zealanders, the need for our economic security as we recover from COVID-19, the need to support our families, and the need to invest in the critical services that they expect and deserve.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I know our towns and cities can be places where our kids are safe and free to walk and cycle to school again. This is something that all of us in every party could get behind. It’s good for our kids to have the ability to be independent and to make their own way, and, as a double benefit, it also protects our climate. It means the air is cleaner.

Today is World Oceans Day. I wanted to go jump in the harbour, but because of the run-off of insufficient infrastructure—horrible pollution going into the water—it was actually unsafe for swimming everywhere around here, and part of that is because of our transport system and the wide expanse of tarmac everywhere. Our urban areas are totally, entirely, designed around cars and trucks, and that is completely understandable. But, unfortunately, while cars can be very practical for some trips, they are not practical for every person trying to get around a crowded urban area at the same time, and that’s why we have congestion. No matter where we live in a city, no matter what our circumstances are, all people should be able to move easily around and to get where they need to go in ways that are good for their health and protect our planet. That is what the Green Party is working for.

As a transport planner, I saw that there was heaps and heaps of evidence around delivering a balanced transport system and how that could benefit everyone, including those who are using motor vehicles. By simply making it safe and easy and convenient to take public transport or to use a bike or a scooter or a mobility scooter instead of a car, we actually help those people who are using motor vehicles, and yet, as a transport planner, having all the evidence was not sufficient to get this to happen. So I joined the Green Party because we needed political leadership on the big issues of our time: climate change and creating climate-friendly towns and cities and communities.

But this morning, I put my six-month-old baby in the baby capsule on the front of my cargo bike and my three-year-old son climbed in and sat there with her, and they were absolutely happy on my commute through the city to get to the day care here, yet we were totally unsafe for half of that commute because there’s no safe, separated infrastructure for people to use bikes. Why not? Why is it so hard to deliver this infrastructure?

In fact, the city council first started consulting on the Newtown Connections project in June 2018. That was before my nearly four-year-old son was born, and almost no progress has been made. Thousands of people have been involved. They consulted the businesses over the last 3½ years, and they were about to roll out a temporary trial for a separated cycleway that would have meant that my baby would be completely safe and I wouldn’t have to fear for her life every day when I got on my bike to take her to day care—and my toddler—and yet the work on this project has been stopped. It’s been delayed by a judicial review of the process by six businesses, four of whom are directly related to the car industry.

Ironically, Gazley Motors, the BMW—I’m sure I want to say no ill of Gazley Motors. Next time I want to buy an expensive BMW, I’ll go to him. But they have used the court process to delay and slow down safe, life-changing infrastructure that would mean that those who want to use a bike can do so without being threatened by cars and trucks. Ironically, Gazley Motors regularly has a big car-transporter truck parked in the traffic lane on Cambridge Terrace, northbound, so that they can unload vehicles and move them across the roadway into where the cars are being sold.

This is madness. People should be able to use a bike to get around. I have to ask those who use cars: do you really want me to get on a bike and create more congestion in the centre of Wellington? No, you don’t. Those using bikes are helping everyone in the community and have a right to safe, separated infrastructure.

The Green Party will keep fighting for a sensible transport policy that shares our public space fairly, that looks after our children and means that they can have clean air, that they can have clean water, that they can have independence, and that they can have a safe climate for their future, and the best thing about it all is it actually helps those who need to use cars.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. The Labour Party’s approach to COVID means New Zealand’s economy is recovering faster than almost anywhere in the world. Economic forecasts released with the Budget saw a return to surplus in 2024-25, almost a year earlier—well, it will be a year earlier—than National did after the global financial crisis.

We’ve received two world-leading triple A credit ratings, something very few countries in the world could claim. GDP up 5.6 percent. Unemployment is at a record low of 3.2 percent. Wages have outpaced inflation under this Government up until the recent inflation spike, and are projected to increase again ahead of inflation after 2022. Our debt is set to peak at around half of Australia’s, around a third of that in the UK, and around a fifth of that of the US. Our strong economic management—and credit to our Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Grant Robertson—means we can invest in critical services and help ensure Kiwis who need it are supported while we keep a lid on debt.

I want to speak a little bit about supermarkets. They are something that I am spending a lot of time thinking about right now, and this Government is taking action to ensure that Kiwis get a fairer deal at the checkout. We put supermarkets on notice and the message is clear: change at pace to increase competition and be prepared for regulation.

The Government has instructed the Commerce Commission to go away and do research. It’s come back with findings that show that competition is not working, that shoppers aren’t getting a fair deal, and that we have a duopoly in New Zealand that needs to be sorted out. Their estimate is that that duopoly is getting excess profits that currently amount to over $1 million a day coming out of ordinary Kiwis’ pockets every single day, so we’re determined to act. People are, rightly, fed up at paying a premium for the basics, and Budget 2022, of course, delivered the cost of living payment to 2.1 million Kiwis to help with the impact of rising prices. Fixing our supermarkets is another action the Government can take to meet people with the challenges of the cost of living.

The commission itself made 14 recommendations. We’ve adopted 12 of them and have said that we reject two on the basis that we want to go further and faster. The two that we’re going further and faster on are around wholesale access—making sure there’s a mandatory backstop so that the pledges supermarkets have made to open up their wholesale arms to competition, to potential competitors in the market, is something that they can deliver on, and if they don’t deliver on it, we’ll help them with regulation to make sure that that happens. These issues can’t be kicked down the road.

We also think we need to go faster on a review to make sure that competition really is working. It’s not a three-yearly review, as recommended by the Commerce Commission, but an annual review, which will be conducted by the regulator, and we’re progressing work on the regulator as well. We think the underlying drivers of a lack of competition need to be addressed.

Now, supermarkets know they’re under the spotlight. We’ve already seen some gestures from the supermarkets, some price roll-backs. We want to make sure, though, that we’re addressing the longer-term issues here. Those price roll-backs are for a short period of time. We want to address the underlying structural issues and make sure there is competition in the market, so we will implement a wholesale access regime and develop a regulatory backstop, and if supermarkets don’t strike good-faith wholesale deals with their competitors, our regulatory measures will make it happen for them.

So, right now, that work is progressing. We’re also doing further work on retail divestment to see how that stacks up. We’re also progressing compulsory unit pricing. That is currently out for consultation and is something that we will see in place by February next year. A mandatory code of conduct is being progressed, and we’ll shortly be seeking views on that. That is being developed with suppliers and the major grocery retailers. Access to sites is being progressed through planning law reform.

The Commerce Commission will act as an interim regulator as we develop the permanent watchdog who will produce those reports on the state of competition, and, of course, Budget night legislation is already in play, driving through change in the area of covenants and leases where there have been restrictive prohibitions put on, with supermarkets trying to block their competitors from coming into town.

The momentum of change is already with us. We’re seeing the covenants rolling back—the supermarkets have signed up to that already. We’ve seen the mandatory code of conduct coming into effect. We’ve seen a regulator be accepted by the duopoly—something they’d never accepted before—and we’re already seeing them making gestures—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

People say that eventually pet owners become like their pets in how they act and even how they look. To that end, this Labour Government is looking more and more like their COVID response and, as I will demonstrate, this Government can be well described in terms of common COVID vocabulary consistent with other debilitating diseases.

I can confidently say that this Labour Government is a negative-pressure Government. They are a negative pressure in health, education, gangs, and the economy to name but a few. A negative pressure is also known as a vacuum—the principle behind vacuum cleaners. This is, of course, consistent with the DNA of the Labour Party, which is littered with names such as Street and Dyson. A vacuum sucks everything up and mixes it all equally in the rubbish bag. This negative-pressure Government hoovers up taxpayer money in the belief of socialist mixing. At the same time, however, Labour’s negative vacuum also hoovers up the dreams of New Zealanders and spits them out in the exhaust of life. This is a negative-pressure Government.

Managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) is another word describing this Government’s pantheon of failures, especially the lottery of misery that was the MIQ lottery. I think Labour also used the MIQ lottery as a policy creation forum—a focus group, if you like. I say this because when the Government was considering transport options across the Waitematā Harbour, including the doomed cycle bridge, the MIQ lotteries site put up a selection of nine images and asked the question, “Which is a bridge?” Clearly they didn’t even know what a bridge looks like; no wonder the cycle bridge failed.

The Government has spent more than $6 million on Ernst & Young consultants in Wellington to restructure a health system in the middle of a pandemic. I propose that Labour’s definition of PPE is not personal protective equipment but that PPE, in this Government’s hands, actually stands for the pension plan for Ernst & Young.

This Labour Government has further borrowed COVID terminology from rapid antigen tests (RATs). It is now actually used to select Labour candidates for 2023 and is known as the Labour re-election assessment tool. It works exactly the same way as a RAT test: they take a couple of drips, put them in a hole, and see if they turn red.

As the COVID response has languished, so the health system is languishing. When did we ever think that a person with typhoid fever would be recommended to sleep in their car in the carpark at Middlemore Hospital? When did we ever think that all nurses at Wellington Hospital would issue a provisional improvement notice because the nursing shortage puts them at risk of being unsafe? When did we ever think that nurses in aged residential care would be submitting almost daily section 31 notices to the Ministry of Health saying they are at risk of practising unsafely due to nursing shortages? And we got some of the numbers today: 3,000 nurses short—2,663 registered nurses, 310 midwives—a 23.8 percent vacancy rate.

What is the plan for the health workforce? No one sees the plan and no one believes that this Government can actually make change. If we look at some of the proposed plans for nursing recruitment, the Kiwi Health Jobs plan springs to mind. It was announced in a vaunted way in November last year—$115,000 from district health boards, $300,000 from the ministry—to bring critical care nurses to New Zealand. It was actually launched in February—let’s work on that. Announced in November, launched in February—hard to explain. And by April, with three weeks to go, for $115,000, it had employed the grand total of three—three critical care nurses for the much vaunted Kiwi Health Jobs recruitment campaign.

Again, how did we find ourselves in this situation? I think we’ll look back, and we’ll look back at the failure to build ICU beds in that period between alpha and delta strain—that 15-month period will be a critical point in time. Because we didn’t have enough ICU beds, we had restrictions, social restrictions, and we cancelled surgery. That accounts for about 20,000 of those people waiting four months to see a specialist; the other 15,000 were there long before COVID arrived.

I come back to my opening statement: this is a negative-pressure Government, a vacuum, a suction that is sucking the lifeblood out of New Zealanders, splitting us apart and hoovering up all our dreams. Lifeless, bloodless—this Government needs to be put out of its misery. Time for a change—National has a plan.

Over a week and a bit ago, we were in that member Dr Shane Reti’s electorate as part of the Māori Ministers’ roadshow, talking about Budget 2022. Budget 2022 continues to secure Aotearoa’s economic recovery with people at the centre. We were in Whangārei, we were in Dunedin, we were in Whanganui, we were in Auckland, and we were in Hamilton and Tai Rāwhiti, and the biggest numbers that came out were from the area of the member who just took his seat, in Whangārei and in the Far North. I can report to this House that Māoridom both engaged with what was presented and understood when we spoke about Budget 2022 delivering to Māori through a targeted approach but delivering to all.

I am proud to be on this side. I’m proud to say what has been delivered to ensure the economic recovery with people at the centre, through these Government policies. Let me touch on a couple of them. We have the most employed amongst Māoridom. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in recorded history, whether our people are in employment—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yeah, the phone’s off the hook.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: —training, or learning. But, better still, an unprecedented number of homes are being built in partnership with iwi—try and beat that, Mr Brownlee. An unprecedented number of houses are being built in partnership, with Māori as partners, whether it’s Ngāti Toa, within Tai Rāwhiti, or in the Far North, houses are being built, and this Government is working in partnership. But hold on, we have also got our histories in schools, Matariki, and an investment in te reo, which will really reshape the way this nation sees itself as a Pacific nation. We should be proud of that heritage. These are the gifts that we’re talking about.

I want to touch on the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill, which Minister Little and this House passed last night, and the significance it will have for health services for all people and particularly for Māori people. The Māori Health Authority must be acknowledged, and I want to thank this Minister and, of course, our colleague the Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare.

But it’s the agriculture space and the high-wage, low-emissions economy that this Government is committed to, and in Budget 2022 we have outlaid a plan of investing with our farmers and our growers to design the tools and technologies to keep them commercially and productively producing but also to address the low-emissions goal. I want to take the time to acknowledge the partners of He Waka Eke Noa for the report they’ve released today, and I look forward to the Government engaging with that. That’s the industry taking cognisance that we have got to do better in the agriculture space, and it’s important that I acknowledge them here today.

As the Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries report tells us, last year, while everyone was locking down, it was primary industry that carried this country, and I can’t say enough to thank our farmers and growers. It was almost $50 billion last year, and very shortly we will have the soon to be announced situation outlook report around the primary industries, where it’s predicted to go up by 9 percent. So—like I do—let’s not underestimate the value or the significance of the agriculture sector, and Budget 2022 delivers almost $1 billion in funds to support our agriculture and our primary industry sector to keep the ambition of being a high-wage economy while reducing emissions. That is in Budget 2022, and I couldn’t be prouder.

But that lot over there—that lot over there—is going to get rid of everything. They’ll get rid of everything. They’ve gone on record: the Māori Health Authority will go. Māori-specific, women’s affairs, ethnic communities—gone, because we’re all going to be one people, according to them. It’s a very backward, very 1950s view, and what I’m hoping those members will do is get up and talk about Aotearoa New Zealand in 2021, which goes to my final point about co-governance: do not be afraid of co-governance.

To members in this House, especially the ACT members, do not be afraid of co-governance—do not. Co-governance is about partnership that delivers for all, and if you don’t take my word for it, go and talk to the Waikato River Authority, the agreement signed by that side of the House, and for 10 years—10 years—it’s been consensus decision-making. Not once has that authority had to go to a vote. So here you go: don’t listen to that side, but go and do your own fact-checking around the importance of co-governance. We need to move the dial. We need to come into the 21st century, and I’m proud to belong to a Government that is securing our economic recovery by people at the heart.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Finally, the day has arrived. Industry and industry partners have weighed in on He Waka Eke Noa and what it will ultimately mean for the rural sector as a primary industry family. The rural sector is asking itself how it will reconcile the hardest and most difficult piece of legislation the sector has faced in decades. Will it be a handbrake or will it be an opportunity? New Zealand farmers are the most emissions-friendly farmers in the world. How many farmers, I ask, will be financially viable with this proposal? After today’s announcement, will productivity fall? Will the proposals push productivity and exacerbate the potentiality for emissions leakage, potentially further exacerbating the problem of global change and effects to the environment. Ultimately, there is a risk it could make the New Zealand economy poorer.

Now, I’m sure everyone here is aware and accepts there as a cost of living crisis that we are all absolutely having to deal with. The Government and its industry partners announced a pricing structure for on-farm emissions—a new direction of travel, we as farmers are told. We’re going to be part of this emissions pricing scheme. And we are all aware, here on the right side of the House, that the Government was hell-bent on forcing farmers into some sort of emissions pricing structure. We were the first nation in the world to force its farmers to do so, and by virtue risk potentially jeopardising productivity. The proponents of the programme have always acknowledged that New Zealand emissions as generated as part of our primary sector had to be mitigated. And look, we as farmers are acutely aware of that, and it’s incumbent upon us to do the right thing. But when I am reconciling the numbers—and I hear it all the time, that we’re the highest emissions per capita of most countries in the world—it makes sense of the fact we feed 40 million people.

Now, to contextualise the problem that we’re all facing, the food and fibre sector accounts for 82 percent of our trade, 11.2 percent of our GDP. It’s absolutely monumental. ACT has always said we’ve got to have a process where technology is in front of a tax, that all considerations must be given to science—not this hyperbole that routinely we seem to be having to deal with. A Government and stakeholder and farmer engagement and reconciliation to the problems, we know we’re going to be faced with a farm levy. Arguably, it’s the lesser of two evils. Farmers often felt jilted in the process, and it was disappointing to hear that the Government was a co-author to the narrative and yet it was not vested in being a co-signatory to the outcome. Moreover, half the conversation was missing. I’m a farmer. I’m acutely aware that we’re having to have conversations about on-farm sequestration. What does it ultimately look like? Short-term, long-term carbon sequestration by soil. None of those conversations were being had with any degree of honesty.

When I challenged James Shaw in this House about what technology was available to help farmers, he wasn’t privy to the fact that $200 million hadn’t created anything in my world, in the world of farmers. And that was Bovaer had sat on the desk of the Environmental Protection Authority for 13 months. We need honest dialogue and it’s got to be genuine. What other technologies is this Government slow-walking in this process? ACT absolutely believes this is a technology before tax. The fundamental reality is that New Zealand farmers, and I am one, are the best bloody farmers in the world. We will absolutely find the technology to mitigate our emissions if we have the liberalisation of regulations to allow us to do it.

There are millions of hectares in New Zealand being farmed by the best farmers in the world. ACT is here, we will always be listening to rural New Zealand. We are the number one party that supports rural New Zealand and farming communities. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. Earlier, Minister Little and Minister Verrall spoke about this Government’s massive investment in rebuilding our health service. Let me provide a little case study. When you’re from Whangārei and you visit other places, you notice a few differences. The cars are definitely flasher, there’s fewer people wearing gumboots in the CBD, and there’s much less of a chance of people out on a winter’s day in their fluffy onesies.

Now, our fashion choices aside—and your loss, New Zealand—if a Whangaruvian takes a trip to another town’s hospital, we’ve also found there’s far less chance of enjoying the indoor rain feature that we call a ceiling, and much less chance of the added excitement of sewage joining the deluge, as happened earlier this year. In fact, less of a chance has generally summed up most chances in my home town. In Whangārei, while some people do well, just over 40 percent have an income of $50,000 or less, and one in three are in the most deprived quintile. Now, that inevitably means our health statistics are even less flash than our vehicles. We have some of the greatest health needs in the country, and meanwhile, as I was hinting earlier, one of the oldest and cruddiest hospitals in the country.

As my youngest brother famously told my mum when he finished last in the Whangārei Primary School swimming sports, “Mum, I came first at the wrong end.” Whangārei Hospital, the struggles of its excellent staff working in an Emergency Department half the size it needs to be, in theatres where windows have been known to fall out during surgery, is what years of under-investment in health services looks like, and, likewise, it’s just become a case study in how this Labour Government is securing the recovery of Whangārei and places like it across the country.

Whangārei’s hospital opened on Valentine’s Day in 1900. The Minister of Health was invited but failed to turn up. It turned out that that was going to be prophetic. By the time the hospital was in its second century, with its main buildings about 60 years old, it was well-known that it needed a massive upgrade, but still no one turned up.

Admittedly, we weren’t alone in being ignored at this point. In their nine years of Government, National put only $1 billion into hospital infrastructure. In two of those years, including two years when the current National health spokesperson was the Whangārei electorate MP, they didn’t put in a single cent. But in 2021, this Government and this Minister of Health did turn up. On 7 May last year, Minister Little turned up to open the cardio catheterisation lab that was part of this Government’s $48 million budget in 2020 for urgent works, on top of the $24 million we set aside in 2018 for our new paediatric facilities, about 50 new in-patient beds, and the endoscopy lab as well.

Then, this year, came the best news of all. The Government confirmed that it is committed to fully funding the first and most major stage of the total rebuild of our hospital. A fit for purpose hospital will be a huge benefit to Whangārei and Northland’s health. Only today, the Northland DHB posted, celebrating the impact of that cardio lab, saying it has resulted in breakthrough improvements in wait times, with 90 to 95 percent of our heart attack patients getting their treatment within 72 hours. That’s 20 percent higher than the 70 percent Ministry of Health target. Finally, Whangārei is coming first, at the right end of a pool.

An investment in our hospital isn’t just about health outcomes. It will help secure our economic recovery by supplying ongoing work for our construction sector to the extent that where we once, as a regional town, feared contraction, we are now looking at a boom. This is the health story we are seeing across New Zealand. In the last five years, Labour has put almost $7 billion into rebuilding our health infrastructure, and that’s about seven times the $1 billion our predecessors put in over nine years. That is what I call and what Whangārei calls securing our recovery.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, if only this Government responded to the cost of living crisis as quickly as they responded to a tanking poll last week. By 6 o’clock, with the prime-time news, with the poll going down, the attack ads were already out. That’s what happens with Labour; when the polls go south they get personal. They’re the nasty party—getting nasty, getting personal, because finally New Zealanders have woken up.

What they learnt in that last Budget—and who would have thought; after a Budget, to get a poll when the researchers were in the field, to actually go down? Normally a Government would get a Budget bump. This Labour Government went down. But, of course, New Zealanders are waking up because they’re realising this Government doesn’t care. They were dragged kicking and screaming into the cost of living crisis, and then they put up a $350 payment to New Zealanders. Of the army of officials available to a Government, you’d expect one boffin, one Minister’s adviser to say, “Well, if you put in this $350 payment, but the entitlement is only up to $70,000 a year when the average Kiwi wage is $73,000.” Who would know? Where did this come from? They couldn’t even get it right that an average Kiwi would get the cost of living payment.

Then we find out in the paperwork it was cobbled together on 4 May, a few weeks before the Budget, and that’s why it wasn’t even costed in the Government’s costings for the Budget. And in the paperwork, the lead agencies—the Treasury was saying, “No, IRD should be it.”, and IRD were saying, “No, Treasury should be it.” Absolute incompetence. As we saw with the road-user charge discount—yeah, good enough; hard-working commuters like where I represent, they’ll get three months of discounted road-user charges. But what about the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been siphoned out of the National Land Transport Fund under this Labour Government into Auckland to pay for their pet public transport projects? Hard-working people I represent in Waimakariri are watching their hard-earned funds being siphoned off for these pet projects in Auckland.

What did this Labour Government do when they took office in 2017? They cancelled the Woodend bypass. So not only do Waimakariri commuters have to watch their road-user charges being redirected to Auckland, they don’t even get the promised roading infrastructure under a Labour Government. And another kick in the guts was the costing of the Woodend bypass was $120 million at the time. This Government spent more money on consultants for the failed Auckland cycleway bridge and the doomed Auckland light rail. They’ll spend more on consultants than they’ll build on roads in regional New Zealand.

I brought Simeon Brown, National’s transport spokesperson—soon to be transport Minister—into Waimakariri last Friday to hear from the Woodend community. That road is State Highway 1 that runs through the middle of that town—since this Government cancelled that motorway, vehicle movements have increased by 25 percent. They’ve had safety consultation after safety consultation. And what does the New Zealand Transport Agency do? Well, it’s all very well having recommendations, but the Minister’s given us no money to actually implement the recommendations. What a farce. So what are they doing now in Waimakariri? Well, they’re reducing speed limits because the council’s not getting enough funding from this Government for road maintenance. So the cheaper option is to reduce the speed limits. That’s what Waimakariri gets from a Labour Government.

Then we have this week—another kick in the guts—the three waters reforms. In a survey in Waimakariri, 95 percent of ratepayers oppose three waters and want to opt out. Let’s be very clear: this is an asset grab. This is theft of ratepayers’ own water infrastructure that they’ve worked hard over generations to pay for. And what does this Labour Government come in? They run roughshod over local people’s views and that’s why the polls are going down. That’s why under a Labour Government the attack ads are out. Labour gets nasty.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be in a positive Government that is delivering for New Zealanders every day. We have heard some strange contributions from the other side today. Mr Reti in particular talked about some negative pressure. He literally sucked the oxygen out of this Chamber. It was that bad of a contribution. I think Mr Brownlee should offer him his sleep apnoea machine to actually drive some positive air pressure through Mr Reti because that was such a weak contribution—likewise Mr Doocey, able and strong member for Waimakariri. There is a solution in Woodend and the answer lies in Māori Reserve 873. Māori Reserve 873—Māori land that runs all the way in between Woodend and Tuahiwi, which has been denied development for over 150 years. That could be a solution, Mr Doocey, to the traffic issues of Woodend.

But what I want to talk about is Budget 2022 creating economic security for now and into the future. I want to focus on the future—what we’re doing as a Government for the future—and I want to use two examples. Yesterday I had the pleasure, in my under-secretary for oceans and fisheries role, to attend a workshop with Ngā Iwi I te Rohe o Te Waiariki—the iwi of the Eastern Bay of Plenty, and down into the Bay of Plenty and the central North Island. They are absolutely powering ahead with their plans for aquaculture in that most beautiful part of Te Moana-a-Toi. I was very proud to be able to be part of that, right from the initiation of that smart Māori aquaculture project. The Government has been right there supporting them, whether it’s through making settlement space available, under the aquaculture settlements, to those iwi, or whether it’s investments in aquaculture infrastructure such as the Whakatōhea Mussels processing, the Ōpōtiki harbour redevelopment, or the mussel hatchery in Te Kaha.

These are significant investments that the Government is putting in, and I was proud to be part of a group with scientific collaboration, which is getting all the smarts that we have, whether it’s the Cawthron Institute, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd, all the smart scientific entities involved in this project, so we can move aquaculture forward for that region. We are going to continue to partner with that. I’m pleased to be working with Minister Parker as we put in place the plans for a management regime, as we can roll under a new resource management system, how we will be able to unleash this wonderful new industry for Aotearoa New Zealand. So it won’t be primarily dominated in the South Island, which I’m very attached to, but we will see aquaculture thriving in those regions up in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, where it is so desperately needed.

I also want to focus on just a quick example down at Te Tai Poutini, in the West Coast—what our Government is doing. A new visitor experience centre in Punakaiki, Dolomite Point—a short stop, a very popular tourism destination, and that whole area will be redeveloped. There’s going to be a partnership with Ngāti Waewae, the local hapū. My relations there will be running that experience centre and it’s just going to transform what is a somewhat tired offering that’s there currently. These are happening through the investments that we are making as a Government as we are unleashing our post-COVID recovery and our economic recovery for our regions especially, and for industries such as tourism.

But, to conclude my contribution today, I’m really looking forward to the bill, which is the local bill which is going to be following in today’s members’ day. I want to give a shout-out to all of the recipients of Queen’s honours under the Queen’s Birthday honours. In particular, I want to give a special mihi acknowledgment to Tā Tipene O’Regan, Order of New Zealand, ONZ.

He mihi mahana ki Tā Tīpene O’Regan mōna kua whiwhi i te tino tohu nui o Aotearoa. He tohu hirahira kua hoatu ki a Tā Tipene O’Regan nō Ngāi Tahu. E te matua, Tā Tīpene, tēnā koe.

[I offer my warm acknowledgment to Sir Tīpene O’Regan who has received New Zealand’s most senior honour. Sir Tīpene O’Regan, of Ngāi Tahu, has been awarded the Order of New Zealand. Congratulations, Sir Tīpene.]

That is a wonderful achievement for our rangatira, for the upoko rūnanga Te Pou Whakarae o Aotearoa. I know that he will be very proud of today—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tomorrow is a big day for this Government. Despite the objections of local communities, Labour will use their majority to ram through the three waters reform at first reading. This is the beginning of the end for them. They’ve had opportunity after opportunity to engage constructively and work with local government—not against them—and they have rejected that opportunity at every chance.

Yesterday in the House, I put a straightforward question to the Minister of Local Government: what councils have opposed this reform? There are too many for a five-minute call, because, together, they represent councils of over 3 million New Zealanders. It goes deeper than that. You cannot go into a town hall around this country where there aren’t voices opposing this Government’s three waters reforms. I can see the faces on the other side, of those MPs, because they know that local councillors and their local communities are up in arms while they sit silent. They know, as we do, that this bill of 134 pages is a severance letter to every single one of the entire Labour Party’s backbench from Nanaia Mahuta, and I don’t have any great hope for those MPs opposite who will come out tomorrow and should be backing their communities. That’s a terrible shame, because our communities are watching.

The greatest tragedy is that this was entirely avoidable and was caused by an endless chain of mishaps and bad-faith actions, all based on a core agenda of centralisation and control. We all accept that something needs to be done, and this is how and where the Government has failed. Although they decide what the solution is, it’s centralisation and a four-entity mega-model, and that’s all in by force, if necessary. They can give councils just eight weeks to submit on that—a laughably short amount of time—but they could have given them 80 weeks and it wouldn’t have made a difference, because Cabinet papers show that the decision to take water assets by force had already been made before the consultation had even begun. Then it became a blame game.

This Government has spent millions of dollars on marketing consultants, showing TV ads of sludge running out of taps, and laying the blame squarely with local government. Even the Minister now admits that this was a mistake. To the surprise of precisely nobody, that didn’t work, and every poll shows that Kiwis utterly reject this Government’s reforms. In the One News Kantar poll, only one in four Kiwis support these reforms. In the Curia poll, it was only one in five. Last week, a poll showed 76 percent of New Zealanders think water services should be directly accountable to voters, including 74 percent of Labour voters. New Zealanders reject these reforms.

Maybe marketing wasn’t the answer, so then they fell back on the classic Labour adage “Throw a few billion dollars at it, and then hope for the best”. The $2.5 billion support package, which councils can spend on pretty much anything, shows how desperate this Government is to buy support. The money is being borrowed against these water entities, putting them directly in debt before they even start operating, with the rest being taken out of the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis, who are out there without a single metre of water pipe being put in the ground.

Councils and communities still oppose it, though. Councils who know, know that they can find the solutions to these problems. They know that this can’t be dealt with through Wellington alone, and the answers to these problems are found on the ground, where the work is done.

The other side is not listening. They’ll do what their Minister does and turn a blind eye, and say that everything is OK. But National is listening. We hear your voices, and we’ve got your back. The National Party will repeal this legislation and replace the three waters reform.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.