Address in Reply

I support the motion put forward by the Prime Minister and I reject, of course, the amendment from David Shearer. This amendment, of course, was from the party that thought that throwing money at beneficiaries would win it the latest election. Labour members thought that more money was the answer, and they are now having to look at themselves and travel up and down this country to find out what an absolutely poor idea it was. But they underestimated beneficiaries, and those beneficiaries did not vote for Labour, because they could see the nonsense in the proposal that had been put through.

Labour members accuse me of beneficiary bashing on a regular basis, and I would say to them quite simply that I think that to belittle people and believe that all they are worth is a lifetime of welfare with no support or opportunities is in itself the true definition of beneficiary bashing. Keeping people down and believing that they should be on intergenerational welfare—like we currently see—without the policies and the actual attention that need to be put in place to make a fundamental difference to their lives, I think, is negligent at its best. That is where it is.

💬 Sue Moroney: Nobody has said that or believes it, so that’s just ridiculous.

Well, it is. We hear the yells from the other side. I understand that they do not particularly like me, but let us be honest: they do not particularly like any woman who gets ahead and who actually stands up for herself and makes a difference. Those members will give you lip service that they do, but actually once those women start getting ahead and getting up there, it turns personal, it turns nasty, and it is about how they can knock them down as quickly as possible.

This side of the House is going to build them up. We will fundamentally believe in people’s ability to have a lifetime and be worth more than what they get on welfare and what they get on benefit. We will make the hard decisions to actually help them and help them move ahead. We will believe that they are worth something. That means putting policies in place that are quite clear about expectations and obligations, while also wrapping the right support round them.

We hear a lot about youth. We hear a lot of lip service about what could be and should be done and that they are disengaged and are lost. Well, here you have the most substantial policy in that area that this country has seen for the longest time: taking 14,000 young people and actually getting service providers that are in the communities and that know them, making sure we give them the information that they need so that they can work with these young people in their totality. We are making sure that we actually change the law so that schools report in real time where that young person is, how they have been lost, what their track record is, and what their family history is.

Mix that with what the Ministry of Social Development already knows—and we know a lot; the reality is, as much as we do not like to admit it, that we know a lot—about whether they have been in Housing New Zealand Corporation houses and whether or not there has been intergenerational welfare dependency, and you will have a much clearer picture of who is at high risk of that train wreck of going straight on to a benefit at 18. If you go on to a benefit at 18, your likelihood of still being there in 10 years is higher than for any other group in this country.

Once we know more about them, what do we do with them? That is the key question. We give them more support. We wrap that service provider in the community round them. We do not give them just the access to the training—which, without being rude, is actually the easy part—we wrap round them that support that gets them there every day. We look at drug and alcohol issues. We look at family history. We help with the housing needs. We look at their budgeting. Yes, we then reward them. I looked at the difference it could make for young people to have the budgeting skills to go forward in life, and to actually be in education and training. How do you sort of create those good choices? Most times you look at it, you are punitive. What do we sanction? What do we take away? We have actually turned that round for the first time in years and asked how we can reward and where the incentives are. An extra $10 a week for each of those makes a huge difference.

At the moment we have girls as young as 16 turning up at Work and Income, going on a benefit, and getting literally $500 or $600 a week. Do you know what we do with them?

💬 Chris Auchinvole: What do we do?

Absolutely nothing—absolutely nothing. It should be a disgrace to us that we turn them round, put that level of money in their pockets, and do not then give them the support that they so desperately need and deserve.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who cut the TIA? A guilty woman.

These girls are not even in school. You may not recognise them, Trevor Mallard, but they have not even completed school. They are most likely to have more children while they are on benefit.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Guilty woman. Ripped off Housing New Zealand, took the benefit, cut it for everyone else—that’s Bennett.

Do the hard stuff, Trevor Mallard. Stand up for these beneficiaries, who actually deserve a life of opportunity in this country. Stand up and make a difference, instead of adding to sickness beneficiaries, adding to those on the invalids benefit, and turning a blind eye to the hard decisions that need to be made in this country to move us ahead and see opportunity in front of those people for real. Instead, just give your little yells out! Make it personal—make it personal! That is just not the way that will make a difference to these people who need us the most.

We currently have 16-year-olds who are on benefit and getting absolutely no support. They have not been supported by family and they are most certainly not being supported by Government, and that is going to change. We are going to wrap the right kind of support round them and see them have opportunities and have a future that is equal to anybody in this House. They deserve nothing less—nothing less—from us. So they will see a service provider that takes them and works out their budget with them, works with them over time, and recognises that their own education is so important.

Do you know what the actual difference is when you look at the future attainment of a child? Well, you might like to learn this. Actually, do you know what the real key indicators are of how well a child will do in the future? It is how well the mother is doing. So if you base it on her educational achievement, her work experience, and the age at which she has that baby and future babies, then you are fundamentally making a difference to those children. You know, I had Dame Lesley Max say to me that if you are serious about working with vulnerable children, look at the pipeline of the production of vulnerable children. That is a bit controversial. That is not always comfortable for people to go into. But I personally desperately worry about those young women who are having multiple children while on benefit. I do not for one moment underestimate how hard it is to live on the benefit. It is jolly hard, and at times it can feel pretty much impossible. To continue to have children—to continue to see that in an intergenerational and systemic way is simply not something that we will sit back and say is OK in New Zealand. We will stand up. Where is the evidence that a working parent is doing bad by their young children, which is what we constantly hear from the Opposition? Actually we see literally thousands of women and men with young children in this country who go to work and have a better life for themselves and those children.

We need to make some differences. We need to look differently at how we do it. What we have also announced in this first tranche is bringing in widows and women alone. I have been looking at that for the last 3 years, because if you are modernising a system—if you are a modernising a whole system—you do that. In 1911 the widows benefit was introduced, and for all the right reasons—for all the right reasons. I really acknowledge its introduction. I acknowledge the actual introduction in the 1930s of the welfare system. I certainly look at the 1960s and recognise the Act, as it was then. But we are in 2012. The system simply needs to be modernised for a modern New Zealand. We have technology; we have social norms that are no longer the same as those of times that are well gone. We need to look quite seriously at what it looks like now, and what it will look like into the future.

So yes, we can do better for women who are on welfare long term. We can support them better; we can put more money in. We hear the bleats from the other side, but I will tell you that a minimum of $130 million a year will be spent on these changes—$130 million. This is not about cost cutting. This is not about short cuts. This is actually putting the support and the services up front, when they are needed most, and making the hard decisions. I am proud to be a Minister in this John Key - led Government and I believe that the motion that he has put forward, the difference we will make, and the announcements that we have made this week in welfare will fundamentally change people’s lives for the better.

After that lecture from the Minister for Social Development I rise to give my strong support to the amendment in the name of David Shearer, and I say I really resent being lectured to by that Minister. It is that Minister who had all the benefits and support when she found herself in trouble, and now she stands in this House and tells everybody what they should be doing, when she pulled up the ladder after her.

This Government campaigned on building a brighter future. We were promised a bright future in 2008, but we are still waiting, and the question on everyone’s lips now is whether we will ever get there—whether we will ever get there. I have to say that the people of New Zealand are extremely generous. During the election campaign they took into account the terrible couple of years that we have had, the awful tragedies the country has suffered in Christchurch, and the tragedy at Pike River mine. They have given the Government another chance, but the Government seems intent on squandering the goodwill of New Zealanders and testing people to their limits, particularly when it comes to asset sales.

The bottom line is that New Zealanders do not want their assets sold, but the Government is not listening. Its whole economic programme for the next 3 years is based on flogging off assets. The reality is that the Government has no other plan, so it is stuck with it, and that is why the Government is not listening. The world has changed, but National’s answers have not. What we are seeing now is a Government that has circled the wagons and is into managing economic decline. How sad is that? It has given up. It is into dumbing down the expectations of Kiwis and blaming those who are hardest hit.

Kiwis are voting with their feet, and who can blame them? Over 113,000 Kiwis have left for Australia since John Key promised us all that our kids would be kept at home. In fact, last year was the highest ever recorded net migration of people to Australia: 36,900 people. Under this Government’s watch, unemployment has increased by 50 percent, leaving 157,000 New Zealanders out of work. The redundancies, the closures, and the lay-offs just keep coming. John Key promised to close the wage gap with Australia. The fact is that since he came to office the gap has massively increased, and nothing is happening on that front. The Department of Labour told us in the financial review the other day that it has done no work on that for the last 2 years. It has given up on it. I have to say that the paltry increase to the minimum wage announced a couple of weeks ago was a wasted opportunity. In real terms, that increase of 50c an hour, taking the minimum wage to $13.50, makes someone on the minimum wage just 20c an hour better off since National’s first minimum wage raise in April 2009.

On Thursday morning this week 1,500 caregivers who work for Oceania Group aged-care facilities across New Zealand—1,500 caregivers who look after our older relatives, the people we love and care for and whom we want to be cared for—will reluctantly take strike action. These are the caregivers, as I said, who do a wonderful job looking after our much-loved older family members, yet some are paid just 11c above the minimum wage. This says an awful lot about how this Government, and how we as a country, value older people, and a lot about the Government’s attitude to those who are most vulnerable.

The Government missed an opportunity with the minimum wage increase to address soaring income inequality and assist stretched families who are struggling to make ends meet. It could have increased the minimum wage—it should have increased the minimum wage—to $15 an hour. At a time when poverty and its impact on families and children in New Zealand is a major concern and we have the Government crying crocodile tears about it, it could have taken that step, and that would have been a significant step in addressing income inequality.

Family incomes under this Government have dropped 4.7 percent in real terms since 2009, with inflation outstripping income growth. Families now have to spend 7.4 percent more on rent alone compared with last year. Fifty-three percent of New Zealand families now say they are barely able or are unable to meet their basic needs as housing costs continue to rise and pay packets shrink. John Key’s 2010 tax cuts increased the difference in take-home pay between someone on $30,000 a year and someone on $150,000 a year by $135 a week, and that had an even worse effect when you take into account the GST increase. Chief executive officers in New Zealand in the top 48 listed companies and State-owned enterprises received an average pay increase of $202,000 in 2010 on an average income of $1.6 million a year. Something is deeply wrong in New Zealand, but we are seeing nothing from John Key’s National Government to address this huge problem—this growing problem—of poverty and inequality.

John Key has admitted he could not live on the minimum wage, but he expects others to. Of course, the Government will expect our young people—our 16 and 17-year-olds, and some 18 and 19-year-olds—to live on a lower minimum wage because it intends to drop it to 80 percent of the minimum wage. It calls it a starting-out wage. It will be $10.80 an hour. How can anyone live on that?

An immediate increase in the statutory minimum wage to $15 an hour would have been a first step in overcoming the rampant inequality of poverty that we are seeing. It is not a problem with beneficiary families; it is a problem with working families. Go to any Salvation Army and it will tell you that they are the people coming through the door. They cannot earn enough to feed their families. That is where the problem is. We have a vicious circle of low wages, and we have a circle of low productivity. The Government likes to talk about increasing productivity, but it is going to have to do an awful lot more if it is serious about that and if it is serious about what it says is its commitment to better jobs and higher wages.

I had to laugh at the Prime Minister’s cheeky answer this afternoon, when he started talking about Labour’s policy for 1970s industrial relations. Can I say that what we are seeing is the worst of industrial relations at the moment. We are seeing 1990s industrial relations—

💬 Chris Hipkins: 1920s industrial relations.

—1920s; that is right—with 750 meatworkers about to be locked out, absolutely brutally. It is brutal. They work in small towns. They work in small towns like Moerewa and Wairoa, and those communities absolutely rely on those meatworks to help the community feed its families. What they are seeing is a belief in this Government that somehow you can impose greater productivity from the top down. Let me tell you, you cannot just tell people they have to be more productive. What the Government is doing will deliver more of the same results: wages lagging, productivity falling behind, and people continuing to leave for better opportunities overseas.

As I have said, I think the National Government has given up. It brags about our low wages. It continues its search for more flexibility in the workplace, as outlined by the Prime Minister in his speech, despite it undermining job security, decent work, and decent wages. We have yet to see any sustainable improvement in our productivity levels, and the relative decline in living standards—particularly compared with Australia—has become a brutal reality for many Kiwis who work hard but just cannot get ahead. There is nothing on offer from the Government in this space, and there is even less for those hard-working people who are self-employed or contracted, who have to fill out the GST on the table at night. There is nothing for them. They are among some of the lowest paid, but this Government is ignoring them, as well. So no wonder the grass seems greener on the other side.

I would like to support the motion in respect of this debate and to strongly associate myself with the excellent, I thought, speech from the Minister for Social Development, the Hon Paula Bennett, this afternoon. It is clear from her own personal experience and her own determination that she is decided of the view that so much more could be done for those who are on welfare to assist them to a life of independence.

I thought the Prime Minister also touched on very important and pertinent facts this afternoon in question time when he talked about the creation of 62,000 new jobs and unemployment falling, which are very significant facts, especially in a time of remarkable international uncertainty. That international uncertainty really comes from what has been described as the cancer of debt and deficit in so many parts of the world. As the Minister of Finance said, you need only turn on the television every night to see the impact of that cancer of debt and deficit on communities all around the world. We are seeing problems in Greece, where there is rioting in the streets, services being cut back, and taxes having to be paid for the first time in generations, it would seem—real pressure in Greece. In Portugal, for example, there are huge financial pressures on the economy there as a result of the global financial crisis. The Government in Portugal is being forced to partially privatise a significant public asset at the behest of the European banks and the IMF. It is having to sell significant stakes in public assets because of dictate from outside interests.

If you look at Ireland, for example, you see it is now having to partially sell significant amounts of public assets over there—electricity companies, dams, shares in Aer Lingus, forestry assets—in order to get its debt under control. But unlike New Zealand, it has no choice about this; it is being required to do that by the IMF and the European banks. And this story is being repeated in countries like Spain, Italy, and France, where the former Minister of Education says tens of thousands of teachers in France are being made redundant because of the tough economic times.

Then you go across the Channel to Britain, where Britain’s debt in the last 5 or 6 years has grown from 30 percent of GDP, which is the peak of where we want to get to in New Zealand, to over 70 percent of GDP. It now has itself in the position where the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Osborne, says Britain cannot borrow any more money. It cannot get it. This is what happens: debt is 70 percent of GDP, it cannot borrow any money any more, and 700,000 public servants are expected to lose their jobs in the next year or so. This is what happens when debt gets out of control. Countries lose determination. They lose self-determination. New Zealand does not want to be in the position of countries like Portugal, Greece, and Ireland, where they are required to make decisions because of foreign lenders demanding them.

New Zealand needs to remain independent and we must keep our debt under control, and that is what this Government campaigned on in the last election. We have a plan to keep our debt under control and retain our own self-determination as a country—our own sovereignty separated from the demands of those who are our foreign lenders. That is why the Government has a plan in the mixed-ownership model, which will invite New Zealanders to be at the front of the queue to participate in ownership of up to 49 percent of those companies, with a 10 percent cap on any one shareholder. And that is part of our plan: to use those proceeds to help control our debt, and use that money as part of a Future Investment Fund to support the needed infrastructure in schools and hospitals that this country may have in the next 4 to 5 years. It is about controlling the debt, because if you do not control your debt, you lose your right to decide what your country does into the future. And that is no false claim. Just look at what is happening throughout Europe—it is all about the debt.

But even in these most difficult economic times, this Government, led by John Key, remains determined to protect and grow the New Zealand public health service. We have put significant amounts of money in: $1.5 billion of extra money over the last 3 years has gone into the health budget. It sees 800 new doctors, both junior and senior, working in our hospitals, and over 2,000 more nurses on the payroll working in our public hospitals today than there were 3 years ago. And, together with strong leadership from district health boards, we are achieving in the New Zealand public health service very considerable, positive results. They were published in your local newspaper today, Mr Deputy Speaker, as we reported to New Zealanders on what the district health boards had done in the six national health targets.

We are seeing more New Zealanders than ever getting elective surgery. Elective surgery is vital because it allows people to ease the pain and the suffering that they have been under, and to get back to work or to look after their families better than they were. We are not having a situation like under the previous Government, where the funding doubled and no more people got surgery. Under this Government we are delivering more and more and more operations for New Zealanders year after year after year, and improved productivity in our hospitals, much of it being led by nurses in the way that they manage the wards, etc. So there is more elective surgery.

In our hospitals’ emergency departments there is the best performance we have ever had: 92 percent of all patients who turned up were either treated, discharged, or admitted to a ward within 6 hours. That is very important. In Western Australia last month the first analysis of an Australasian emergency department target was published. Western Australia has a target of treating about 85 percent of patients within 4 hours—ours is 90 percent within 6 hours—and what its research has shown is that the introduction of an emergency department target in Western Australia, which has required the whole of the health service to change the way it works in order to improve the flow of patients, has saved, potentially, 250 lives. That is what its emergency department target did. It has created a whole of health system change, it means that people get dealt with sooner, and it says—it is not the Government in Western Australia that says it; it is independent, academic analysis—up to 250 lives have been saved. That is a quality performance unmatched by any other Government in this country. We are getting 92 percent of our patients through emergency departments into the wards, into their radiology tests, and into their specialist appointments faster than ever before.

Thirdly, I come to cancer treatment. No New Zealander had to wait more than 4 weeks to begin their radiation treatment when they were ready. No New Zealander has had to be sent to Australia since the end of 2008. That is a really significant achievement for New Zealand. And in the middle of this year we are going to add another pledge to cancer patients: no one needing chemotherapy should have to wait more than 4 weeks to get their treatment.

But we are also making huge progress in preventative health measures and dealing with infectious diseases. Is it not just ironic cant from the party opposite to complain about infectious diseases in New Zealand when it left 30 percent of 2-year-olds unimmunised when it was last in Government? Thirty percent of 2-year-olds were not immunised. That is what it left. The number of Māori kids who at 2 years old were immunised under that crowd was about 53 percent. [Interruption] I think they did care, I just do not think they did anything about it. But under this Government we have focused on that: we now have 92 percent of New Zealand 2-year-olds fully immunised. That is protection against infectious diseases, and for a party that spent 9 years talking about closing the gaps and did not do anything, I say that we have closed the gaps. There is no gap between Māori, Pacific, and Pākehā on 2-year-old immunisation in this country.

On rheumatic fever, that crowd put out a strategy in 2001 that said they would halve rheumatic fever by 2005. Well, you know what? They put out the strategy and did nothing—they did nothing. Our rheumatic fever rates are now at Third World level. It took this Government, in coalition with the Māori Party, to invest significant amounts of money in dealing with rheumatic fever, and I reckon in 3 years’ time, when we are on the campaign trail, we will have a record in dealing with rheumatic fever that will be one of the greatest points of pride that this Government will have in the run-up to the next election, because we will deal with it. They had a strategy in 2001 and did nothing. They have got 63 health strategies and still could not achieve what we have done in 3 years.

We have also dealt with smoking. If we can get fewer people smoking in their homes with their kids, that will deal with respiratory disease. That party had a strategy in 2001 to deal with respiratory disease: it put the price of smokes up once, and never did it again. We have put the price of smokes up three times in a row, and academics say it is the single most—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am not sure the member heard the bell—it is a bit ill—but his time has expired.

And so has it expired for many smokers with the work that we are doing.

I just have to start where Tony Ryall left off. It is a bit rich hearing the National Party talking about tobacco-control initiatives when every step of the way, when Labour was in Government, National voted against every single measure that Labour introduced to curb tobacco smoking in New Zealand. Whether it was the Smoke-free Environments Act, whether it was the excise tax, or whatever Labour put up, National voted against it every single time. I can say I am pleased they have finally—finally—put their guns down. They have decided that the fight is not worth fighting, and they are going to get on the winning team; they are going to join the team that is fighting the harm caused by tobacco. They are a bit late to the game, but we welcome them. But I have to say it is a bit rich hearing Tony Ryall talking about tobacco control and the initiatives the Government has introduced when he said himself that there was no evidence to support getting rid of tobacco displays. It was only thanks to the work of Tariana Turia and a number of people from the Opposition that finally got the Government to see sense on that one. But let us hope that that consensus will continue into the future.

It is a pleasure to speak in the Address in Reply debate. Sometimes, I have to say—and I have listened to quite a few of the contributions from members in this debate—you would forget that this was the Address in Reply debate. This is the debate—this is how it works—when the Government is supposed to get up and talk about their plan. The Government members, the National Party members, are supposed to get up and say what an excellent Speech from the Throne it was, and how that plan is going to take New Zealand forward. Then, of course, we in the Opposition, especially us Labour members, we will support the amendment put forward by our leader, David Shearer, to add the words: “and the National-led Government will sell New Zealand’s assets against the will of the public; the Government has no ideas to create jobs or a clean or innovative New Zealand; that the Government is widening the gap between the very rich and the rest and therefore this House has no confidence in the National-led government.”

That is the way it is supposed to work. But the vast majority of National MPs have talked about anything, anything else except for the Speech from the Throne, and anything else except for whatever plan it is that the Government has to get this economy moving again and to get New Zealanders back to work. They would talk about the Labour Party, they would talk about what the Labour Party did when we were last in Government, and they would talk about our new leader, David Shearer. He is a top bloke, and I am pleased to hear people talking about him, but I really think the National Party members ought to be focused on supporting their leader and their plan. But they want to avoid it at all costs, because we all know that there is no plan. There was no plan for the last 3 years, and there is no plan for the next 3 years from this Government. The National MPs have avoided talking about what they are going to do, like the plague.

Sometimes a few members manage to offer a few platitudes about what it is the Government wants to do; they want to make New Zealand a better place to work and to raise our children; they want to get debt under control; and they want to build a brighter future—that old chestnut. That has been their campaign slogan for the last two elections: “Build a brighter future”. But it is always in the future; it is always some time further down the track. It is never now. The future will never get here under this Government, because they have no plan. They want to create more jobs, they want to back business, they want people to be successful, and they want New Zealanders to be entrepreneurial and innovative. They want to remove roadblocks and obstacles and encourage and develop all the opportunities New Zealand has to offer—don’t we all. But my question to the Government is: how? Where is the plan? How are you going to do that? It is wonderful to have all these platitudes; not a single member of this House would disagree with any of those statements from those National Party members, but what the Government does not have is a plan. That is what New Zealand needs to see—a real plan.

The nearest thing I have seen to a plan—the actual action that they want to undertake—is to sell it all; sell off all our assets, sell them off to foreign owners. Oh, yes, New Zealanders might be at the front of the queue, but we know what is going to happen to those shares, they are going to end up in foreign hands—we lose control. All that stuff about how we were going to keep 51 percent, but, do not worry, that will still mean that New Zealanders will still be in control, that the Government will still be in control, well, that has turned out to be untrue as well.

They reckon they have got a mandate. They reckon New Zealanders voted to sell off our assets. Well, here is the truth. There are 121 MPs in Parliament this term. Sixty of those MPs represent parties that went out and said “Yes, we want to sell those assets off.” But 60, the same number of MPs in this Parliament, went out and said “We don’t want to sell off those assets.” And then there is the one. Then there is that one guy, Peter Dunne—the one who goes whichever way the wind is blowing. Whoever wants to give him a ministerial portfolio, those are the people he will vote with. It is only because Peter Dunne cannot make up his mind and is prepared to sell his vote to the highest bidder that New Zealand and this Government will be selling off assets this term. The people did not vote for asset sales, they will not stand for asset sales, and I think the Government is going to see itself in a lot of trouble as this year rolls on and people realise that those asset sales are upon us and they start to revolt against what this Government is doing.

As I said, I listened to a lot of National Party members. I listened particularly to Jonathan Coleman, the Minister of Defence, because I wanted to hear what his plan is. I wanted to hear what his plan is to cut the $400 million that has to be cut from the annual budget of the defence forces by 2015, just so that they can stand still. The Government has said: “No new money for the defence forces. You have to find that money from within the defence forces’ budgets, and that means $400 million worth of cuts.” I wanted to know how that was going to happen. I wanted to know whether he thought that cutting the military bands was the answer. It is going to save less than $1 million—$1 million down, $399 million to go. Where is the rest of the plan, Minister Coleman? That is what I want to know. What about cutting down the territorials? Will that get us there?

There are a few things that the Government has decided it is going to do. The Defence Force and the defence ministry have been working their backsides off to try to find those cuts, and do you know what they have found so far? They have found $97.5 million worth of savings, and good on them. They have worked hard to meet the Minister’s expectations, but, do you know what, $97.5 million still leaves over $300 million to be saved. Where are the rest of those cuts going to come from? How much is going to have to be cut from the front-line forces? How is our deployable force overseas going to be affected by this? How many jobs are going to be lost as a result of those savings that have to be made? Where is the plan? It is just like everything with this Government—they have got their goals, they have got their platitudes, they have got their aspirations, but, as usual, there is absolutely no plan.

Jonathan Coleman did not talk about defence once in his contribution to the Address in Reply debate. I think it is because he is embarrassed about what is happening to the Defence Force under the National Government. I will tell you the big question he is going to have to deal with, and that is what to do about morale in the Defence Force. People are now lining up to leave the Defence Force because of the appalling way the Government has treated those personnel and the appalling job it has done of leading the Defence Force through this period of change. So not only are we losing the people that the Government has cut, but also we are losing the people that it wants to keep. They do not want to have a bar of staying in the Defence Force any more; they are out of here. We are losing those skills and we are losing those people, and there is no opportunity for people to get in there and develop their skills and grow the Defence Force. And I tell you what: as we see more and more jobs being cut, there are going to be more and more people put on the scrap heap and more and more people on the unemployment benefit, thanks to this Government. This Government has no plan. This Government wants to build a brighter future, but it is a future that will never come, because it cannot tell us how it is going to get there.

I support the motion moved by my new colleagues. But I want this afternoon to begin my contribution by paying tribute to George Tanner QC, who died last month. George was formerly Chief Parliamentary Counsel, and served Parliament with distinction for many, many years. At the time of his death he was a law commissioner. George was a great advocate of a plain English approach to drafting legislation. He knew that the law must be not only clear but accessible to the general public. As he once said, “A state in which people cannot plainly understand the laws may as well be a lawless State,”. I look forward to the passage of the Legislation Bill in the near future to bed in a lot of the changes that were started by George Tanner. He was a fine New Zealander, and I am sure all parties are very sorry that he has left us.

What, frankly, could be better than being a Minister in a Government led by this Prime Minister? During the 2011 election National put forward a clear and detailed policy programme. That programme resonated with the public, and we were returned to office with a greater share of the party vote than in 2008. It is a stunning result, pretty well unmatched in New Zealand’s political history, and it is something the Prime Minister should be very proud of. The public’s endorsement of this Government is illustrated no more clearly than in Rongotai. National was only narrowly beaten into second place in the party vote by Labour. The Labour Party’s majority dropped from over 4,000 in 2008 to under 500 in 2011.

💬 Chris Hipkins: How did the electorate vote go?

I am coming to that. It was a very good result. But in answer to Mr Hipkins, Mrs King must, of course, be congratulated on her emphatic personal win; I think I was the first person to congratulate her. As I said to her on election night, the result was testament to her excellent service as an electorate MP in Miramar, then Rongotai, for 18 years. I am certainly going to be following her political career in Wellington with great interest in the next few years.

In Rongotai, at least, Mrs King ensured that the Labour campaign was not political vaudeville. We had a very good campaign in Rongotai, with a number of feisty meetings across the electorate. I was disappointed that my billboards were defaced by Green activists, organised by someone called Jolyon. “Jolly-on”—it sounds as though he went to Christ’s! He is the social justice outreach coordinator of the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch. Not surprisingly, in response, Russel Norman invoked the Sergeant Schultz defence of “I know nothing.”—methinks the stuff of a Tui advert. Other than the behaviour of Green vandals, I think the battle for Rongotai was a fair and very good-natured campaign.

So to a second term in Government. I have to say that of those to whom much is given—rightly raised by the Labour members—much is expected. So what I want to do is say something about the work going on in my portfolios. Mr Lees-Galloway repeated in a somewhat formulaic and repetitious manner: “Where’s the plan?”. Well, I want to say something about the plan going on in my various portfolios, which I am truly honoured to be able to work in. First, I come to Treaty negotiations. I want to say something about Treaty settlements, which are a very good-news story for all of us. Almost half of them have now been concluded. There have been challenging negotiations, and there will continue to be challenging negotiations, but I am very grateful for the support of my colleagues—in particular, the Minister of Māori Affairs and my chief Crown negotiators, led by Paul Swain—in getting settlements completed. This Government is committed to concluding just and durable Treaty settlements as quickly as possible. Indeed, as I told the House today, even the Human Rights Commission has praised our work in this area.

So I want to thank all members of the House, especially members of the Business Committee, for extending House sitting hours on Thursday, 16 February so that we could progress Treaty bills. The passage of these bills is very important because settlements cannot be finalised until the legislation is passed, and delays in legislating mean delays for iwi in sharing the benefits with their people and in putting the grievances behind them. So I think it is a very constructive approach; I hope we see more of it. Indeed, I had a very pleasant letter from the leader of Ngāti Manawa this afternoon thanking all of us for this approach and for progressing their settlement.

I am really honoured to be the Associate Minister of Māori Affairs, and I am very much enjoying working with my colleague the Minister of Māori Affairs, Dr Sharples. Delegations have just been finalised, and I have been given responsibility for reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, Māori land ratings and tax, and the Maori Trust Boards Act. There is a big issue here, which if we can do well will do a great deal to advance the economic cause of Māori in this country. How best to deal with Māori land has been a perennial issue in this country for a very long time. There are 1.4 million hectares, with over 2 million ownership interests, and 26,490 freehold titles. Sixty-one percent is held in titles less than 5 hectares, and 30 percent have no formal management structure. A significant amount of this land is unproductive, and it is increasingly held by absentee owners. I probably would see more of it than most MPs, as I go around the country as Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, and I see the potential. If we can address some of the issues requiring reform in Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, I believe that we can do great work here. There are also very significant rating issues, which need to be addressed, and I look forward to working with Dr Sharples on that issue.

So there are ways the potential of the Māori land estate can be realised, with significant economic benefits to individuals, and I am certainly going to be focused on these issues over the coming term. That is my plan as Associate Minister of Māori Affairs.

Let me look at the arts. We have so many plans in the arts, culture, and heritage portfolio that I could be accused, really, of almost doing too much. National, of course, is the party of the arts in New Zealand. We have always been very proud of that mantle. Two major projects this year are the Frankfurt Book Fair and the expansion of a very interesting programme called Sistema Aotearoa. This year New Zealand is the country of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair—I think, probably, the world’s oldest fair; it is about 500 years old. We are set to receive and are already receiving significant media exposure throughout Germany, which is the world’s fourth-largest economy. We have a year-long opportunity to take centre stage through a series of very high-profile events, and as the record shows in relation to other countries of honour, it has had significant benefits for them with tourism.

The second programme I am interested in growing is what I call Sistema Aotearoa, modelled on a Venezuelan programme started in 1979, which has now about 240,000 students. It is mainly aimed at helping underprivileged kids have the opportunity to be involved in playing a classical instrument and working in orchestras. It has been adapted throughout the world, from north-east Brazil to the Merseyside. I started a programme last year in Ōtara: 98 percent of those who are participating are Pasifika, and it has been an unqualified success. There is a concert, which members may be interested in attending, in Auckland on 10 March. So there is a huge amount of work being done in this area—no lack of plans there.

I think it is obvious just from my portfolios what a busy Government this Key administration is. As the Minister of Health said, look at each and every portfolio, and you will see busy Ministers working on any number of plans. Be it the ones I have outlined in my portfolios, be it addressing debt, be it improving public services or rebuilding infrastructure, we have a very ambitious agenda to improve this great country of ours, and, as I say, I am conscious of the responsibility on me in my areas, and I am looking forward to working on some of the issues that I have mentioned this afternoon, and on many other issues over the course of this Government.

In my strong support for the motion I want to explore in this call the issue of income inequality and its links to the welfare reforms campaigned on by the National Party and announced by the Government just yesterday. Some might argue that the issue of income inequality is one where Tories might fear to tread; indeed, we have heard both Darien Fenton and Iain Lees-Galloway, in their recent calls, talking about it. But I think it is really important to examine the thesis behind it, and to check whether it is really the root cause of so many of the social ills that do beset our society. I want to say right from the outset that living on low incomes must be extremely difficult, and the goal for any Government is to create a framework where all New Zealanders can get ahead under their own steam. But the whole notion of relative inequality creates a situation where automatically a certain group of Kiwis is going to be labelled “in poverty”. So it is important that if we use these labels of poverty, income inequality, and so on, they are analysed and either confirmed or refuted.

The Spirit Level, the book written by two British epidemiologists, seems to be the basis for the belief that societies are worse off when incomes are unequal, even if they are higher-earning countries. I just want to test that, because what it suggests is that it is better to live in Afghanistan or the Czech Republic because although their incomes are lower, their incomes are less unequal, and I think that is a nonsense. But just for the moment, let us assume there is merit in that argument. It is worth looking at some of the countries that have managed to reduce income inequality over the last 20 years. For that, I am grateful to the Child Poverty Action Group for a recent report that it had.

I do not tend to put much weight on an organisation that claims that the Government puts an overemphasis on paid work as the way out of poverty, as if there could be some other way, because that is rubbish. Paid work is the only way out of poverty, and anyone who says different is deluded. But it does provide a helpful analysis of the countries that have reduced income inequality over the last 20 years or so. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, nine countries have reduced income inequality, but only four or five by any material measure—and guess who is included amongst that five: Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. The so-called PIGS of the global financial crisis have all reduced income inequality, and I bet their citizens feel just cock-a-hoop about that. The simple fact is that income transfers and a Government borrowing ahead of its means to support the closing of an income gap are, in the medium to long term, completely futile. And those countries have found that out to their economic peril.

Very recently the Government announced an increase in the minimum wage, and in a press release entitled “Minimal pay increase a tragedy”, Dunedin Methodist Mission’s chief executive, Laura Black, breathlessly stated: “Thirty years ago, we were sending international aid to Singapore. Over those thirty years they have transformed their standard of living by aggressive increases in the minimum wage and high investment in research and development. New Zealand is doing neither of those things.” Only here is the problem with that: Singapore does not have a minimum wage. It is actually one of the most unequal countries in the world, yet it is nearly not mentioned in any of the references to income inequality in The Spirit Level. Nor is Hong Kong. And if I had a dollar for every time the Nordic countries were mentioned in comparison with New Zealand, I would be very well off, because they are held up as the Holy Grail by The Spirit Level. But Slovenia, South Korea, and the Czech Republic all enjoy Nordic levels of income equality but not Nordic levels of well-being. Those Nordic countries have very high rates of divorce, crime, alcoholism, mental illness, and suicide, but none of those variables are mentioned or even measured in The Spirit Level.

So for a publication that is meant to be based on science, this is pretty damning. If one has a hypothesis and empirically tests it, it is bad science—it is junk science—to ignore the variables that do not suit the researcher’s preferred outcome. So much evidence against the income inequality thesis exists.

But here is the issue: we do have a problem, one where pregnancy, drug addiction, crime, and many other social ills are caused by people who are on low incomes, and we have significant social problems to address. Here are the simple facts: 220,000 people are living on a benefit. Despite the wailing by the Child Poverty Action Group, the last thing they actually need is to become more benefit dependent. But that is exactly what the Child Poverty Action Group, Labour, and the Greens would do for them by making them more dependent on State assistance. Paid work and a reduction in the reliance on the State is the only pathway out of poverty, and the Government’s policies are designed to do just that.

Some have suggested those reforms are a form of beneficiary bashing. Well, here is what I think bashes beneficiaries: 16-year-olds who drop out of school and become invisible until 90 percent of them turn back up on the dole at the age of 18; ensuring vulnerable mothers are left to their own devices and at the mercy of drop kick boyfriends who are not the fathers of their dependent children; and telling those people on a sickness benefit that that is as good as it gets, so that instead of focusing on the things that they can do, people are worried more about what they cannot do. That is beneficiary bashing. It has got to be addressed, and under the reforms that this Government proposes, it will be.

We will not just hand over benefits and leave people to their own devices. Instead, we are going to take an active work-based approach, because we have greater aspirations for those people.

💬 Andrew Little: You like poverty.

My friend Mr Little says there is no plan, which is the classic Labour mantra: there is no plan, and where are the jobs? Well, there is a 120-point economic development plan, which that party, which was so worried about its own leadership and its own insular battles during the election campaign, did not know even know existed. Let us talk about jobs. There are thousands of jobs being filled by immigrants and seasonal workers.

💬 Hon Tim Groser: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that the member has only recently been in the House, but this is getting very close to a barrage of interjections, which does not meet very familiar tests set out in previous Speakers’ rulings.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will uphold the point of order. The member was being excessive. He is not, I think, sitting in his own seat, so it could be said that he has assumed a position to have advantage in interjection. That is also a Speakers’ ruling. So if he could just contain himself a little bit.

In the interest of time, I just want to wind up by saying this, which is something we need to be very clear about: the Government’s announcements should not be taken as punishment for people not finding a job. But should people be penalised for not bothering to look? I say yes. I strongly support the Government’s welfare reforms in that area.

We are into the tail end of this debate on the Address in Reply, and I rise to speak in favour of the amendment put forward by the leader of the Labour Party, David Shearer. I have listened to most of this debate—in fact, I listened to the speech itself—and it is a clear sign that the Government is in trouble when its members spend most of their time talking about the Opposition. And that is exactly what National has done during this debate. National members have spent most of their time talking about the Opposition. I guess that is not surprising, because actually if they were talking about themselves, it would not look all that flash. Because the rhetoric from the National Party has changed over the last 3 years, has it not? Just 3 years ago John Key promised New Zealanders a step change. In fact what he is delivering is a step back. He promised a step change: everything was going to be rosy under a National Government, and in fact he was going to be straight-up and give straight answers. Now, when he is asked a tricky question we are told we live in a dynamic environment. So the rhetoric is changing from the National Party. He was going to close the wage gap with Australia and stop everyone leaving. Do we remember John Key at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington talking about how many New Zealanders were leaving to go to Australia? Well, three times that many people have left to go to Australia since National took office. We could fill the Westpac Stadium three times over with the number of people who have permanently relocated to Australia since John Key became the Prime Minister.

Perhaps that could have something to do with the fact that unemployment is up by over 50 percent since the National Party took office—and counting. We have 157,000 New Zealanders out of work under this National Government. John Key promised an “aggressive recovery”—aggressive recovery—to the recession, and now we are “just muddling through”. Those are his words, all of them. First, there was an aggressive recovery; now we are just muddling through. Then John Key—

💬 Michael Woodhouse: Both accurate.

They are both accurate, according to Michael Woodhouse. It is an aggressive recovery we are going to muddle through! Well, I think most New Zealanders would see that for what it is: a Government that simply does not know what it is doing. It is simply muddling through. It is managing the decline rather than getting New Zealand back on track. Before the 2008 election John Key was “all about building assets”. Now he is “all about selling assets”. That is what John Key is all about these days; he is all about selling assets, managing our economic decline. In fact, the clearest indication of National’s management of our economic decline happened just before the election when we saw the first credit downgrade New Zealand has had in 13 years. It was not just one downgrade; it was a double downgrade. Do members know the last time we got a credit downgrade? It was the last time Bill English was in charge of the country’s finances. It was back when National was in Government in the 1990s that we last got a credit downgrade. The Labour Government did a good job of managing the economy, and by Bill English’s own admission in the House today, he has overseen the largest explosion in Government debt ever in New Zealand’s history. It is the largest explosion in Government debt ever in New Zealand’s history. That is the legacy that Bill English is going to be leaving future generations of New Zealanders. It is a massive explosion in Government debt, and in the meantime he is busy focusing on hocking off what is left of the family silverware.

The question we need to ask ourselves and the question that every New Zealander needs to ask themselves when they next vote in 3 years’ time, is whether after 6 years of a John Key National Government we are better off and what do we look like as a country. This Government has higher unemployment, more Government debt than ever before, and kids will be going to schools where there are more kids in front of every teacher in the classroom. Students will be paying more than ever before for their tertiary education. Families will be paying more than ever before when they go to the supermarket, because of the National Government’s increase in GST. They will be paying more than ever before, every month, when their power bills arrive. That problem will only be exacerbated when the National Government hocks off the energy companies.

What will New Zealand look like after 6 years of John Key’s Government? There will not be many assets left to be sold, because we know one thing about this Government: if they cannot sell it, they are going to cut it, and if they cannot cut it, they are going to contract it out. That is the mantra of this Government: leave nothing behind for future generations. New Zealanders, after 6 years of a National Government, will fast find themselves becoming tenants in their own land as National presides over the further sale of our land to overseas investors.

New Zealand will have been for 6 years dragging behind when it comes to leadership on environmental issues. Some of the first measures that this Government implemented back in 2008 within weeks of taking office was to wind back leading legislation on environmental protection, and turn the clock back. That is exactly what this Government is going to do, and has been doing for the last 3 years, and will do for the next 3 years. National’s agenda for public services has got New Zealanders rightly worried, because they were conned by the National Party, which promised that its cuts to public services would not affect front-line services. Remember that rhetoric: they were going to move resources from the back office to the front line. Well, have they actually lived up to that? In recent weeks we have seen examples of district health board after district health board cutting front-line services because of Tony Ryall’s funding cuts in the health service. For 3 years now we have seen a steady stream of older New Zealanders have their home help cut because of Tony Ryall’s cuts in the health service. Now the Government is promising to cut funding for teachers and to have bigger class sizes. Those are front-line services again on the chopping-block under a National Government. We have seen Department of Conservation rangers have their funding cut. The number of rangers has been cut. MAF Biosecurity staff—and such a vital role they play in New Zealand’s economy—had their numbers cut under the National Government.

In these last few weeks we look at what it is doing with the Housing New Zealand Corporation, and it is one of the clearest illustrations of the hoax that the National Party played on New Zealand when it said it was not going to cut front-line services. In Housing New Zealand Corporation it is closing local offices and replacing them with a call centre. It is replacing them with a call centre, and, what is more, there is no guarantee the call centre will even be in New Zealand, because John Key is talking about contracting out those types of back-office functions like call centres. So somebody in Taita, Pōmare, or Cannons Creek who has a problem with the Housing New Zealand Corporation could end up on a call to somebody in a call centre in Mumbai trying to deal with this problem where previously they had a local Housing New Zealand Corporation office that they could go to where they could get assistance, and this National Government is closing down those front-line services. This Government is far more interested in what it can do for its mates than it is in what it can do for ordinary, everyday New Zealanders. This is a Government that already is totally out of touch with the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders.

We have got John Key talking about how important jobs were. That was his No. 1 priority when he became Prime Minister. He even had a Job Summit where he promised New Zealanders he was not there to talk about the economic recession. He was not there to blame the economic recession; he was there to do something. He was going to do something about growing unemployment. Well, what has the track record been there? It has been a 50 percent increase in unemployment under this National Government. We have seen 150,000 extra New Zealanders out of work under this National Government, and what does his Minister of Finance, Bill English, say about that? “Oh well, there’s not much the Government can do about that.” That is what Bill English says. So while John Key made it his No. 1 priority, when he first became Prime Minister, to deal with this rising tide of unemployment, Bill English says: “Oh, oh, not our fault. Can’t do anything about it; sorry, you’re on your own.” That is the message that Bill English is sending to New Zealanders who have found themselves out of work: they are on their own.

That is not good enough. That is not good enough. This Government has a responsibility: if it is going to pull the rug out from underneath New Zealanders, pull the safety nets out from under New Zealanders, it has a responsibility to make sure that it is creating jobs for them. Because it is all very to say to people “We’re going to cut your benefit unless you go and get a job.”—where is the job? I think it is actually very reasonable to say to New Zealanders that if they can work they should work, but where are the jobs? During the tenure of this Government 157,000 jobs have disappeared. Cutting benefits will not solve that problem; creating jobs will. This Government has no plans and no ideas about creating jobs.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Tēnā tātou te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of my colleagues here today. I would like to congratulate you, Mr Assistant Speaker, on your reappointment to the role. I would also like to welcome all members of the House to this the 50th Parliament of New Zealand. It is a privilege to be addressing you today as the Minister of Education. I have long been passionate about education, and as Minister I am keen to make a contribution.

New Zealand is a First World nation, it has First World aspirations, and we must have a First World economy in order to deliver on those aspirations, and education is a critical contributor to this, in two ways. It builds the social and cultural capital of our country and of our society, and it contributes to the economic growth and productivity of our economy. Education is the key, and that is why it is so important that we ensure that all learners in the New Zealand education system have the opportunity to do well, to the best of their potential and their ability. We know that we have a system that has many world-class features, we know that we have a system in which there are many world-class practices, and we know that we have a system within which we have many world-class practitioners. The challenge for us is to ensure that, rather than having the present situation where four out of five students are being well-served by our system—we are an aspirational Government; we want there to be brighter futures for all New Zealanders—we have five out of five students doing well. We want to have a system that supports them to do well, and allows them to realise their full potential, so that they are equipped for the 21st century with the skills, the education, and the learning that means they can navigate that with success for themselves and for their families.

I am pleased to say that our education system has been recognised internationally. One recent OECD report called the Programme for International Student Assessment, which we know as PISA, told us that New Zealand’s best students continue to compare favourably with all the best students in the rest of the world, and that is something we wish to maintain as a country. A second report that has recently been released by the OECD—as recently as last Friday, in fact—comments on the evaluation and assessments framework of 24 countries, and commends New Zealand for its coherent national agenda and for the way it has invested in evaluation and assessment all the way through our system. It talks about the successful work that we have done in embedding the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and the moderation within and between schools. It talks about the good work that the Education Review Office has done in its assessment of schools, and, yes, it talks about, and commends us for, the introduction of national standards, and encourages New Zealand to continue to implement this, because it will continue to provide information in plain language for both the schools and the parents of children in schools—and that is exactly what we intend to do. Why? Because we are committed to raising achievement by and for all students in our system.

We have a twofold challenge. In those parts of the system that are working—and those are significant parts—we have the challenge to continue to raise that as well, because we are not a Government that rests on its laurels. We want to see ever-greater improvement, and ever-greater achievement and attainment, because we want smarter, faster, more nimble New Zealanders to be capable of positioning New Zealand well in the international economy, and to be able to see and take the opportunities that their perspicacity will deliver to them. We must continue to raise achievement to that end. At the same time, in those parts of the system that have consistently under-served cohorts of our population—Māori, Pasifika, and children from low socio-economic backgrounds—we need to change the system in that regard so that it will perform better for them, and, in so doing, continue to raise the performance of the rest of the system.

So the overriding priority of this Government is to raise achievement, and we recognise that that begins at the earliest years of life. That is why we have committed to 98 percent of all 0 to 5-year-olds having early childhood education before they enrol at school. We know that across the country we have an average of 94 percent, but again for Māori and Pasifika students, and for those from low socio-economic homes, they do not have the same level of participation. We are dedicated to seeing that rise, because we know that children who have had quality early childhood education will enjoy a stronger educational trajectory as they transition into the compulsory sector, pass through that, and on into the tertiary sector. So we will continue to invest in early childhood education. As the Prime Minister said in the House earlier this afternoon, we have invested the most ever in this sector, at $1.4 billion, and we will continue to support the success there.

In primary schools, what national standards have done for us is allowed us to focus on how we can raise the quality of learning interaction between the teacher in the classroom and the student engaged in that learning experience. It is important for the student, it is important for the teacher, it is important for the school, and it is extremely important for their family and community to know how well their child is doing, what their child needs in terms of support, and how the school might provide that. But equally important is how the family and community can support that as well. We are very focused on those vulnerable times of transition between early childhood and primary school, and from primary school into secondary school, and we want those transitions to be made confidently and happily, so that the student will continue to learn. The way that that will occur is to have an unambiguous, unrelenting focus on the learner at the centre of the system, and I want to make it very clear that in my time as Minister of Education I will be unrelenting in the focus on the learner. I will champion the education sector, because I appreciate that it is populated by very committed, very talented teachers, and by other parts of the education profession. They deserve our thanks and support, but also they deserve our expectation that we will continue to raise achievement and attainment, not just for those who are already succeeding but also for those who are not well-served in the system.

We have focused a lot of effort, and my colleague will shortly speak with more authority and comprehensivity about the tertiary part of the education sector, but one of the bridging mechanisms that this Government has introduced is the Youth Guarantee, because we recognise that young people need to have available to them options, choices, and pathways that clearly guide them towards opportunities to enter the labour market, to be employed, to start their own businesses, and to be able to make good choices and have good life chances in terms of what it is that they can achieve, not only for their families but also in contributing back to this country. In that regard this Government has invested $1.5 billion in ultra-fast broadband. To date, we have invested a further $160 million so that schools can link up to the ultra-fast broadband, and we are about to invest a further $300 million to $400 million in the Network for Learning, because we recognise that our young people need to be able to navigate a digital environment. So we will be making available to them a 24/7 e-learning opportunity, and we will be supporting schools to ensure that they are able to take advantage of this technology.

We are working with whānau in the teaching workforce, and investing in professional learning and development, because we know that the quality of the teacher in the classroom makes the most difference to the learning experience of the student, and that is where we will put our investment and support—it is with the teacher.

We are also interested to ensure that a world-class feature of our education system is the governance—the self-managing boards of schools—and that it is also fit for purpose in the 21st century. We are keen to continue the conversation I have begun about what further refinements we might want to look at in terms of boards.

Finally, I want to reiterate this Government’s commitment to Canterbury. Canterbury is a resilient, stoic community in which, in respect of education, almost every school has suffered some kind of damage or challenge, as well as every early childhood centre. We are working with Canterbury to identify what the opportunities are for not only recovering and restoring the education network in Canterbury but also taking advantage of the opportunities to see how we might position for the 21st century. Thank you for the opportunity to participate. I am honoured to be the Minister of Education, and I look forward to reporting to this House on continued achievement by all New Zealand learners. Kia ora tātou.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here this afternoon as the final speaker in the Address in Reply debate. I have listened to the debate with great interest—pretty much, all of it; every minute of it—and I have noticed, I have to say, quite a bit of what might be called more than moderate inconsistency on the other side of the House. It is more than moderate inconsistency. This is the other side of the House that demands, on the one hand, jobs, jobs, jobs, which is right, but then it says: “You cannot do anything that would create jobs. You cannot do that, they cannot build that there, you cannot explore for that, you cannot invest in property here, you cannot invest in this country.” Those are the things that the Opposition is saying. So on the one hand it is saying more jobs; on the other hand: “But don’t do anything. Whatever you do, don’t do anything at all.” Very quickly, if we follow that prescription, we would be limiting our options once more, pretty much as the previous Government did back in 2008 when it finally got down to only two things it could do to create jobs: subsidise them, and train people. That was the end of it—subsidise people and train people. That was all it could do. It had the whole economy down to two things because they were the only two things it was prepared to accept. Various elements of the Greens and Labour said: “No, you can’t do that. You can’t do that.”

The reality is you cannot build an economy if you—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I came down from my room after I counted “you” being addressed seven times. Since I have been in the House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No; the member will be seated. There has been a Speaker’s ruling made on that recently and the Speaker actually has the right to decide what happens.

The reality is—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Speaker’s rulings have been very clear. When people are addressing the Chair, they do not use the word “you”, because it involves the Speaker in debate. This Minister has now done it 11 times.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member will be seated. As I mentioned, there has been a new Speaker’s ruling and that decision is taken by the Speaker. It was made in 2008.

The reality is that it is impossible to build an economy—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I have made the ruling, Mr Mallard.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Well, that ruling has been subsequently overruled by Mr Speaker, Dr The Rt Hon Lockwood Smith, who has ruled that members should not use “you” because that refers to the Speaker. I have heard him do that this year.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): All I can say in that case then is that I ask the member to continue his speech and to try to keep within the Standing Orders.

No references to sheep of any kind, Mr Speaker, from here.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member must not comment on any Speaker’s ruling. The member is out of order.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think calling you a sheep is totally inappropriate.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Frivolous interjections designed to break up a speech lead to disorder.

The reality is that it is impossible to build an economy by lopping off both arms and both legs before one starts. We therefore need to stop the endless debate about which industry will save us and which industry we can no longer have in this country, and focus on all industries in which New Zealand has a natural advantage. Sadly, the problem is with the Opposition. When it says it wants jobs, it then goes on to oppose everything. Let us look at some of the list of things that have been opposed by various members of the other side of the House in just the last little while: making the most of our natural resources, improving transport linkages that people are prepared to pay for, building ultra-fast broadband, filming the Hobbit movies in New Zealand, having an efficient port sector in this country, having a mixed-ownership model to reduce debt, building an international convention centre at no cost to taxpayers, and accessing capital offshore. All of those things the Opposition—whether it is Labour, the Greens, or the Mana Party, which is the new friend of Labour—does not want to happen. We have been down this road before. It basically means slowing growth even further, and that is what this Opposition is in favour of.

The reality is New Zealand needs more and higher-paying jobs, and this Government is implementing a plan to do that. Jobs depend on businesses that are competitive, that sell things of value, that are unique or of better quality, and that is what this Government is encouraging with a whole range of policies that are encouraging businesses and innovation. There is an innovation policy with investing in science, and investing in the opportunities to grow innovative businesses. Sorting out the capital markets—this Government has done a huge amount in that space. We are providing reasonable access to the necessary raw materials for business. Investing in skilled people to work in businesses—this Government is very focused on that. The previous speaker, the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, listed a huge number of things that we are doing in that space. There are customers who want to buy our products, and we are putting a big effort into export markets. We are also investing hugely in public infrastructure—things like transport, ultra-fast broadband, and the Rural Broadband Initiative. Those are the things you do if we want more and better jobs for New Zealanders, and that is what is being done in this country.

So what does Labour propose? Well, so far, not very much. Prior to the election, its plan was to tax everything. It was going to have a complex capital gains tax. It was going to tax every business, every farm, and 1.8 million KiwiSaver accounts. It was going to have a new top tax rate. It was going to strengthen the emissions trading scheme. It was going to have a $15 an hour minimum wage. It was going to have all these extra costs on businesses, and yet it has the temerity now to claim it wants more jobs.

Actually, we are not sure what Labour members believe in right now. Nobody knows any more. Apparently, they have a new leader, but nobody knows what he thinks. He cannot land on a position. He has not been seen to offer an opinion. He is wandering around in an aimless daze. “Dreamy Dave”, they call him. No thoughts of his own, a back story with no front story—that is what they are saying about the new leader of the Labour Party, who is being desperately spun by his own staff as being a deliberate blank page—a deliberate blank page. Ah! A tricky plan. They search around for something for him to say, and they have come up something—I saw it in an article last weekend—“You don’t wear your guns on the outside.” That is the news from the Leader of the Opposition.

But he is only one of Labour’s grand strategists. It has other strategists. It has David Parker, or “Denying Dave”, who actually is desperately trying to pretend that the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes did not happen. He wanders down to the House most days and says: “Why is the Government not pumping up credit the way we did back in 2008 when I went tramping with Auntie Helen, and we did all those things?”. Well, his time has passed, and desperate “Denying Dave” has missed his chance and he has nothing of relevance to say in 2012.

Then there is “Dark Dave”. Then there is desperate “Dark Dave”, the “K-Rudd” of the New Zealand Labour Party, sitting there on the Opposition benches desperate to have another go. Actually, he exhibits the only signs of Labour’s growth agenda. It is true to say that David Cunliffe is the only member of the Opposition who is showing any signs of a growth agenda, and that is his lovely new beard. It is a little theatrical, there is not a lot of substance. It also lacks—

💬 Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! Points of order will be heard in silence. I call Chris Hipkins, but it had better be a point of order.

💬 Chris Hipkins: It is indeed. When the Minister started his speech at 18 minutes past, he was told he had 9½ minutes to go. His time should have finished about 30 seconds ago.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Speaker is the sole determinant of time. I have the time. The member has 21 seconds remaining.

I had so much more to say about “Desperate Dave” and his lovely facial hair. All I can say is I hope he hangs on to it because it is the only sign of an economic growth agenda that this Opposition has. The reality is you cannot yell for jobs, jobs, jobs, but then oppose every means by which growth can be achieved in the New Zealand economy. If you do that—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.