General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. We have been sitting here today—actually, over the last 2 days—listening to the Government desperately trying to defend its record on poverty in New Zealand. It is trying to defend its record against three reports—three reports, not just one. Those are The Netherlands Study, the Ministry of Social Development’s report Household incomes in New Zealand, and the Children’s Commissioner’s report, all of which are saying exactly the same thing: that poverty has gone up in New Zealand. More than 250,000 children are now living in poverty. We now have the highest level of poverty that we have seen in the last 20 years. Not since the 1990s—the early 1990s—have we seen such record levels of poverty. And hardship, material hardship for young people and children, has gone up from 16 percent to 21 percent of children in this country.

That is a disgrace. It is a bloody disgrace that our country is in that situation where children are in such conditions. We are seeing in the hospitals rheumatic fever, skin diseases, and respiratory diseases—all of these sorts of diseases that you would see not in a place like New Zealand but in a place like the Third World. These are places that I have seen and worked in before, and here we are, seeing them in this country. It is a disgrace.

What we hear from the other side of the House is that all we need to do is make sure that everybody is in full employment. Well, I agree that full employment is a wonderful thing, and under the Labour Government that is exactly what we had—3.5 percent unemployment. But I can tell you that the biggest problem here is that 40 percent of those kids who are in poverty—40 percent—are actually from families where there is employment. There is employment in those families. What does that tell you? It tells you, very simply, that we are not paying enough.

This Government, John Key’s Government, is actually aiming for the bottom. It is aiming for a low-wage economy rather than a high-wage economy. What that means is that one in five people who go to the Salvation Army to get food parcels come from families who are in poverty and are working. When this Government says that all we need to do is to put people into work, it overlooks the fact that the rates of pay are so low for many of these families that they will not be able to avoid going into poverty. They will not be able to avoid bringing up their children without the benefits that they need in order to thrive.

The other big question about going for full employment is the absolutely obvious one. Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs that are meant to be supplied to those people who need to move into employment? They are not there. John Key gave a number of statements, a number of promises, over the last few months. He said: “I am prepared to commit Government resources to try to lift children out of poverty.” We have failed. He said: “I am deeply concerned about every child in New Zealand who is in poverty.” So is Labour, but what has happened? Nothing. He also said: “We will bring a special focus to improving the results of public services for vulnerable children.” The only problem is that we are going backwards, not forwards. A string of empty phrases and empty promises does not actually help.

The Ministerial Committee on Poverty is a joke. It has met four times. It cannot even come up with a measurement on poverty. There is a really good reason for that, because if you come up with a measurement, you actually have to be measured against it. If this Government is measured against a poverty measure, it will be found to be wanting. It will be found to have failed. So we have this Ministerial Committee on Poverty that keeps on just meeting, month after month after month, and nothing is coming out of it. We actually offered—

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this general debate. I listened to the last 5 minutes of the member who has resumed his seat, Mr David Shearer, the current leader—apparently—of the Labour Party, and I looked for, heard, and waited for one solution. There was not one. There, I think, is the essence of what is going on in this Parliament. We have in Government a Government that makes decisions. We have in the Opposition one that does nothing but whinge. Every single thing that this Government proposes for economic growth, the Opposition is against. We can be guaranteed of one thing: whatever it is, the Opposition is against it. The Leader of the Opposition has said that it is against poverty. Fine, so where are his solutions? Is he for growth? No. Is he for mining? Well, possibly this week but maybe not next. Is he for cutting down regulation? Well, no, probably not, because something else might happen. He just wants wages to grow, and yet he does not think about the consequences. He does not think about people actually losing their jobs. He does not think about where we trade, because he is against trade these days. We have now got a Labour Party that is nothing except opposition; it is pro-nothing, except itself.

We have had, in fact, over the last 2 years 60,000 new jobs created in this economy, despite the fact that we have been in one of the toughest financial situations of the world since the 1930s. That is what we have seen. We now have three-quarters of all income earners paying a tax rate of no more than 17.5 percent.

They are incentivised to work. They are incentivised to take on overtime. They are incentivised to get ahead. One of the biggest efforts from this Government—one of the biggest results of the work that we have done in Government—is what we have seen in terms of interest rates. For most New Zealanders who want to own their own home, or do own their own home, a rise in interest rates is one of the toughest things that they will face. What we have now seen are interest rates for our home owners and our borrowers in business down to the lowest rates in 45 years. This means that for someone who has a $200,000 loan, they are saving $200 per week, every week, and it has been going like that pretty much since this Government has been in office. That is all to do with the fact that this Government is keeping its costs down, making sure that all of the money we spend, we spend wisely.

By goodness, when I think about wise spending, none of it has been so wise, might I say to my colleagues, as in the justice sector. Some fantastic spending has gone on there, and some great results. This Government has not just done what Labour did—just build new prisons, which it did in the 2000s under Phil Goff and his leadership in this area. Four new prisons were built. Well, we did not have to do that. My colleague Anne Tolley is getting to close prisons these days. When Labour came into office we had 5,000 prisoners; when it left, it left us with 8,500 prisoners. We have now got the biggest sustainable drop in the prison population since the 1930s, all under a National Government. In all of that, what we have done is we have, in fact—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: So lucky with what she inherited from a Labour Government.

He says that I am so lucky. I inherited corrections from that member and I would like to tell him that it was a mess when I took it over, and it is a great portfolio now.

Let us look at some of the other things we are doing. We are cracking down—[Interruption] See? They are against that, too—against that. What we have got is the lowest crime rate in 30 years, down to 1982 levels. We are dealing with cyber-bullying, we are dealing with child pornography, we are dealing with public protection orders, we are reducing unnecessary parole hearings, we are preventing released offenders living next door to their victims under the changes to the Harassment Act, and we have changed the Crimes Act to make it an offence for someone to stay silent when they know children are being abused in the house where they are living, just like the Kāhui situation. We are dealing with that and we have cleaned up the finances around that. We have done some excellent work, and we have got more to come. That is just some of the work that we are working on.

But, actually, in addition to all of that, we have given renewed confidence to the Public Service to be able to get on to do the best job it can. With the police, we have a police force with public confidence at record highs, as far as I recall, at 84 percent—84 percent. They are even more trusted than family general practitioners. These are unbelievable rates compared with anywhere else in the world. I look around at other Governments in similar countries, in some of the jurisdictions in Australia and the UK and elsewhere. We are seeing police numbers drop in this country. Crime is not going up; it is going down. We have done an excellent job and there is even better to come.

This week there has been a lot of focus, particularly from the Opposition, on the issue of child poverty. It is very welcome. I understand from my communications with the community that people are very concerned about child poverty and very concerned about inequality, and they want this House and the parliamentary process to address this. They want the Government to provide solutions and to make the choices that will put our children first in all the decisions that are made. What I have heard most is this great disappointment at the dismissive and arrogant attitude of the Government in relation to this issue. The community wants to see much better quality leadership than the National Government is providing to the country on this important issue. It shows that the National Government does not put children as a priority and that it is not prepared to engage in a rational and sensible debate on what can be done to resolve child poverty in this country. Child poverty is not a given in New Zealand.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member speaking. I hate to interrupt a 5-minute speech, but members interjecting across the House and in front of the member speaking, it is so discourteous. I ask members to desist, please.

Child poverty is not a given in this country. It is not a natural condition and we do not need to tolerate any aspect of child poverty in this country. We can choose something different. We can choose to eliminate it by choosing where we put the resources of this country.

There have been a number of reports that have come out over the last few weeks. The Every Child Counts report on The Netherlands Study showed a very interesting comparison. In the Netherlands, if you take an investment approach to children when they are very young, you reap the rewards. New Zealand has a very low investment in New Zealand children, something like half of the OECD average that is spent for those under-sixes. But in other countries, where there has been significant investment in those little children and babies, there have been significant cost savings and social savings as a result. We know that the cost to New Zealand of child poverty is in the range of $6 billion to $8 billion a year. That is a cost this country cannot afford.

So why do we not, then, take some leadership and invest in the babies and the kids when they are very young? That is part of the sets of solutions that have been put forward by the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty, formed by the Children’s Commissioner. The Children’s Commissioner’s advisory group has produced a very comprehensive set of solutions that it is consulting with the communities on so that people can have an input into it, as they want to do. But we need the Government to be taking it seriously, and all we have heard since that report came out is constant derision at the solutions that are being proposed, and no engagement in the practical aspects of them.

One of the interesting questions is around universalism, and I have asked a number of questions today and yesterday about this issue, and will continue to do so. If we are prepared to say that older people are entitled to a life of dignity and a basic income to keep them out of poverty, why do we not say that about our youngest babies? Why are our babies allowed to languish in severe poverty? Twenty percent of New Zealand’s children are living in severe poverty in this country, and this Government chooses to allow that to happen. It chooses that, because it refuses to engage with a discussion on how we can support those babies when they need it the most and support those families when they need it the most.

The expert advisory group has suggested a universal provision until the children are aged 6—so investment in those little babies when they need it the most—and then targeted provision until those kids are 17. It is a rational, sensible, and modest approach to child investment. Yet this Government will not even engage in the discussion about where we choose to put our resources. New Zealanders make a contribution to this country every day through their taxes, through their hours of community service, and through all of the work that they do, and they deserve to have a rational response back to them. They deserve to have services that assist them when they need them. The solutions that are provided in this report, Solutions to Child Poverty in New Zealand, go a very long way to identifying those solutions and what can be done.

What has the Government done? It has effectively thrown it away. It has been dismissive and arrogant in its response. There is still the opportunity for the Government to choose differently. There is still the time for the Government to take a considered view of this report, to look at the solutions, and to engage with political parties and politicians across the board, with the community, and with the experts to look at what is possible. We ask the Government to take this report seriously—

Thank you for the opportunity to speak this afternoon. In regards to the previous speaker, Metiria Turei, look, everybody in this House, I think, will want to see children do well and children be successful. In fact, I think probably most of us are here to see the future of our children be enhanced and improved for the benefit of the whole country. The problem is the diagnosis of how to do that. The Greens, unfortunately, constantly talk about doing it, but then actually oppose ways in which we can get families to earn more income. They oppose job opportunities for families and oppose opportunities for growing businesses. In fact, right this afternoon there is an example. We had one of the members of the Greens getting up and criticising a worldwide agritechnology and biotechnology conference being held in New Zealand, and saying it should not be here because of some of the subjects that are being discussed—discussed, mind you, not implemented—and saying that that is something that should not happen in this country.

The Greens have no shortage of things that should not happen in this country, and most of the things they want to stop are the things that would give families incomes, and things that would help the economy grow and provide job opportunities and higher wages for New Zealanders. This Government is determined to put our children first by focusing on those opportunities for New Zealanders. We have got a comprehensive plan. One example, just this afternoon, is our investment in infrastructure. Mr Brownlee is going out and laying out the plan, which Labour and the Greens have opposed. They want to stop the plan. They want to invest more in transport that nobody uses, instead of the transport that people use, thereby reducing the competitiveness of the New Zealand economy.

We are also very focused on a natural resources agenda, which is also something opposed by most of the parties on the other side of the House. One thing we can all agree on, I think, is that we are focused on building innovation. We are spending massive amounts investing in that, and that is probably one thing they would agree on. Then, when it comes to capital markets, if you are going to build exports—one for Mr Peters opposite—that needs investment. That investment has to come from overseas, and that means not being paranoid about Chinese investment in this country. That means not being paranoid about Chinese investment. This Government is not being paranoid about that. So when you take infrastructure, our skills agenda, natural resources, innovation, export markets, capital markets, the competitive tax system, which Minister Collins referred to, and our approach to balancing the books and giving confidence to businesses and keeping interest rates low, this Government has a comprehensive agenda, which New Zealanders know and endorse.

The alternative is one of the flimsiest bits of paper that I have seen in many a day—David Parker’s midnight scribblings, Labour members’ so-called alternative. One hundred words in total. One page, 100 words in total, about what they would do if they were in Government. It is no wonder Labour is languishing at 30-odd percent in the polls. This is the most appalling piece of flimsy, lightweight information I think I have seen.

Here are a few examples of some of the initiatives that the Opposition is promoting. Changing gear—they would like to change gear. No idea what that means. There is no elaboration on what that means. There is a website, apparently, that you can go to if you want to change gear. So, there you go, that is the Labour Party’s approach—changing gear. Grow the heartland—well, we are all in favour of growing the heartland. How are they going to do it? High-value manufacturing—well, yes, we are all in favour. Hang on, what else is here? Warm puppies—they are positive about warm puppies. Motherhood—that is another. Apple pie is supported by the Labour Party. In fact, all of these things are simple platitudes. The party that accuses us of being lightweight is the most lightweight party on the planet.

Here is my favourite: saying that New Zealand should save more. Well, I have visions of David Parker being elected one day in the 22nd century, wearing a sandwich board, wandering around the country, exhorting New Zealanders “Save more. Save more.” Well, aside from the fact that, actually, they are saving more—and if they save more that would probably slow down the productive economy a little bit at this point, because they are already saving a lot—and aside from the stupid economics, it is the most appalling lack of any sort of initiatives. And they think that that is some sort of plan. That is not a plan; that is a series of sound bites that say absolutely nothing. They have the gall to get up and criticise the Government’s agenda, and then wander around with a flimsy piece of paper, with 100 words on it, that achieves absolutely nothing.

In the light of three hard-hitting reports in as many weeks, the best we can get from the Government is mockery. At least Minister Joyce has moved away from his laminated cards for one small moment to spend a little time talking about a party that actually has an economic plan. We have seen an absolute failure from that side of the House to adequately respond to the needs of New Zealand families, which have been highlighted in reports as diverse as the Ministry of Social Development’s own report on household incomes in New Zealand. The report has shown that material deprivation under that Government has moved from 15 to 21 percent. That is the inability of families to do basic things like going to the doctor, like filling prescriptions, and like keeping their homes warm.

But if the Government chooses to use another measure—and this is a controversial point for that side of the House, because measurement is not something they would like us to focus on—such as income, on a basic measure as to whether or not New Zealanders have enough income to survive, 25 percent of our children are now living in poverty. That is an absolute disgrace. Not only is it a disgrace, but it is costing us dearly. So as much as that Government claims that we do not have the money to address this issue, we actually cannot afford not to. Infometrics tells us that we are spending—

💬 Mike Sabin: A family on $50,000 income, parents with two children: tax neutral.

JACINDA ARDERN:—Mr Sabin, $6 billion per annum on children getting a poor start in life. If that Government wants to save money for taxpayers, the best thing it could do is address under-investment in our most vulnerable children. And we are under-investing. We spend roughly half of what other OECD nations do on our smallest, most vulnerable children, and we pay the price of that, and we pay it poorly. Not only do other OECD nations pay just a little bit more than us, they get much better outcomes.

So what is my challenge to that Government? Do not ignore the facts. That Government stands up and says that simply by moving people into work, problem solved. Well, let us look at how it has done that: welfare reforms that actually will not, even on the best estimate, get welfare numbers down to the level that Labour, when in Government, left them in. Labour left welfare in a better state than that Government is even aspiring to: 17,000 people on an unemployment benefit versus 50,000 now. Its own targets are not even aspirational enough to get it back there. First, welfare reforms alone are not going to solve it. Second, is being in work is enough? Not according to the statistics, because two out of five children in poverty are already in the homes of the working poor. That means that that Government’s focus on getting people into work is not even enough for people to survive these days, even with two members of the family in work. Wages are disgracefully low in this country, and that Government claims that job creation and its economic growth strategy is helping working New Zealand families.

💬 Mike Sabin: How many initiatives has that member opposed to grow the economy? Oh, that’s right, all of them.

Do you know how it helped, Mr Sabin? In the past 3 years, poverty went static, the middle went backwards, and those on high incomes went up. That was not the global financial crisis, Mr Sabin. That was an economic policy that was focused on two things: trickle-down and tax cuts for those who did not need them. That was your economic plan, and our children are paying for that, Mr Sabin.

What else has the Government proposed? It has proposed immunisation, insulation, and, at best, maybe it might consider lunches in schools. These are short-term solutions to long-term problems. That Government does not want to acknowledge that rheumatic fever will not be fixed by swabbing.

💬 Mike Sabin: Lots of talk, no walk.

It will be fixed by decent warm houses, and you are doing nothing on that, Mr Sabin. That immunisation is actually just moving the ambulance around at the bottom of the cliff. We have got to get to the root cause of the issue, and that is something that this Government does not want to do.

This Labour Party in the last election put forward a comprehensive policy on children. We proposed many of the things that the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty has proposed, and we are not afraid to continue promoting them on behalf of those most vulnerable in New Zealand. We will start with a target to reduce child poverty. We are ambitious. We have unfinished business, and we will see it completed under a Labour Government.

It is a privilege to take a call in this general debate. It is interesting to note that when the last speaker, Jacinda Ardern, came into Parliament, she came at the end of her party’s term in Government and faced her first term being in Opposition. She has, conveniently, been able to pull the door behind her and forget what Labour did not do when it was in Government for 9 years. A lot of the policies that Labour members are now espousing to promote and enhance, they never took anywhere near those people they now want to extend them to.

If we want to talk about Working for Families, we heard the Green Party talk about this earlier on. It is interesting to note that the Labour Party has recently been talking a lot about the Green Party and the sanctimonious way that its members are addressing the issues of today, given that they were there, supporting Labour in Government, but they never encouraged Labour down that track—for instance, to extend Working for Families to the unemployed. That is something that Labour is now wanting to do. Now that Labour is in Opposition, it is promoting something that it never went anywhere near when it was in Government and had the opportunity to do it.

When Labour left office in November 2008 we know that inflation was sitting at 5.1 percent.

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: How much?

It was 5.1 percent, and now it is at about 1 percent. But apparently that does not mean anything, because the only thing, apparently, that people on this side of the House are interested in is business and tax cuts for our rich mates. I would put it to members opposite that the only thing they are interested in is keeping poor people poor, because as long as they are poor, they are poor and dejected, they are interested only in voting against things that take a community anywhere, and they are interested only in voting for Labour, because Labour will never hold them to account for the decisions they make in their day-to-day lives. Labour was in Government for 9 years, but never—never—made a measure for measuring poverty. Now it wants to put in place a measure—the mean income.

Well, as incomes go up, what do you know? With a measure like that, you will have more people, supposedly, by Labour’s measure, living in poverty. I reject totally the idea of relative poverty. There are not many of us with wrinkles round our eyeballs, like Maryan Street, Annette King, me, and Rajen Prasad, who did not grow up in a lot less comfort than people live in today. If we went by Labour’s measure, we would have been where? We would have been in poverty. We would have been in poverty, if it happened that our most frequently worn clothes that we were wearing used to belong to our cousin or the neighbour next door, or if the groceries that we bought from the supermarket were a hell of a lot fewer, with a lot less of a range, because we did not have the money to spend. The veges that you got, you went and got from the garden.

Apparently, those poor people live in poverty. If they happen to live in a house that has all the opportunities to do the things that our parents did, like grow vegetables, then, apparently, they do not have the will to do that. Why? Because they live in poverty. Everybody on this planet knows that it is not what happens to you in life; it is how you respond to it. And the cards are not always dealt fairly, and people across the House, on all sides of the House, know that, because we are not stupid enough to put people into pigeonholes—

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: I think you are. I think the member is.

—like Mr Rajen Prasad would, to suggest that anyone who comes from this side of the House does not know what hardship is.

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: Oh, come on.

But I repeat that it is the way you respond to things. If Mr Prasad looks back at his history and at the way that his family responded to the circumstances they found themselves in, he will see the answer to the question why he does not live in poverty today. For instance, those people relying on the pension—people like my parents, and possibly people like the parents of members opposite—who survive on the pension as their sole income, all live in poverty. You go and ask those old-age pensioners today if they are living in poverty, and they will tell you that life is not easy, they will tell you that life has never been easy, and they will tell you that the whole of this game that we call life in Godzone is about the top 2 inches, and it is about how you respond to those things that are put in front of you. It is not about a bleeding heart and claiming that the Government needs to pay for everything. What we know, for instance, is that in the time that this Government has been in power, in the few short years that we have been here—

The Prime Minister has admitted that he could not live on the minimum wage. How does he expect anybody else to? How does he expect anybody else to live on the minimum wage? Forty percent of children in poverty are in homes where the parents or parent are employed, are in work. We are talking about the working poor as a developing group in our society, something that none of us ever thought we would see happen. Chester Borrows has just said that my generation did not live in anything like the poverty we are talking about today, but my parents believed that education was the way out of poverty—education was the way out of poverty. But I want to draw a couple of other things to Chester Borrows’ attention. I want to tell him that the highest income earners in this country have seen an increase in their incomes while, at the same time, middle-income earners have seen a drop in the value of their incomes, and the least well-paid have seen an even further drop.

Poverty is real. We have a report that reinforces some of the causes but also some of the effects of poverty that we know about. I want to make the link between health outcomes and poverty, because it is not sufficient now simply to say, like my parents did: “Go and get a good education, and you can drag yourselves up by the bootstraps.” Let us take one example in this report. Let us have a look at some of the connections between health and poverty. It says very clearly that children growing up in low-income households face multiple risks, so nobody starts from the same starting point. They say that these children have a 1.4 times higher risk of dying during childhood than a child from a high-income household. They are more likely to die of sudden unexplained death in infancy. They are three times more likely to be sick. Hospitalisation rates for these children are higher than for those from wealthier areas. They are at greater risk of contracting infectious diseases as these spread more easily, obviously, in houses that are overcrowded and inadequate. So these children start off way behind the starting blocks.

It is not sufficient for the Government to say that we need to grow the economy by making businesses more productive. If that were the answer, I wish it had done something about it already. But that is not happening, either. But even if it were, it would not be sufficient. There is an undercurrent of poverty in our society now that we have not seen for decades. We have certainly not seen it in my lifetime.

One of the things that I find really disturbing about this report is that we are famous for being a food-producing nation. It says that poor nutrition is a significant problem in New Zealand. Why is poor nutrition a significant problem in New Zealand? We know that poor nutrition in pregnancy can lead to premature births, low birth weights, and childhood learning and developmental difficulties. We know that. So they say we should have a child nutrition strategy. We did not have a complete child nutrition strategy when we were in Government, but we went a long way towards it. We introduced Fruit in Schools, axed by this Government. We introduced Healthy Eating - Healthy Action programmes. [Interruption] Yes, come on. Let us have the correction. Let us find out why it is that private companies are sponsoring Fruit in Schools. Private companies are sponsoring breakfasts in schools. They get really get advertising out of it, for sure. We instituted Fruit in Schools. We instituted Healthy Eating - Healthy Action programmes, which this Government has axed. We introduced tuck shop guidelines in school tuck shops, which made sure that school tuck shops offered only healthy options. What did this Government do? Cancel those.

One of the things that seems to be a challenge for Opposition members in this House is their inability to connect the dots. The dots go like this: economic growth leads to increased exports, which leads to increased jobs, which means higher wages for families, and for children, which means more children out of poverty. I am somewhat challenged that Opposition members do not seem to get the basics, which is connecting those fundamental dots.

We have heard quite a lot in this debate in the House about the challenges with children. As a mother and as a constituent MP it is always very challenging to deal with cases of families who are not doing well. But, particularly with the Green members, I find it incredibly frustrating when time after time after time on any of the opportunities that lead to jobs, that lead to higher wages, that lead to increased exports for this country, they say no. Well, I challenge the Greens in this House: if you are serious about lifting children out of poverty, just say yes. Just say yes. Even once would be a hallelujah moment in this House. Just say yes—

💬 Hon Member: Or even maybe.

—or even maybe. There are a number of things that we have done in terms of protecting children and in terms of supporting families in need. We are realistic about the times that we are in. It would be lovely if we did not have tough economic times. It would be great if we did not. But this side of the House is just getting on, dealing with the realities, dealing with the challenges, and dealing with the circumstances that we are facing. It is not an option, as the Government, to ignore those conditions.

But one thing that is very, very simple—and, yes, it was stated clearly in the report that those Opposition members like to refer to in this debate—is the strong focus on the benefits of work. Let me say that again. The poverty report states the benefits of work. We on this side of the House do not think that work is a dirty word. We actually see that work provides opportunities. Minister Paula Bennett has done just extraordinary work. She has tackled this whole area with complete gusto, with guts, and with courage, and she has got on and done the job.

There were announcements this week around the requirement for drug testing so that beneficiaries are work-ready. Do you know what? I have had so many constituents say to me that they thought that was already the case. They were absolutely stunned. I had a constituent in my office who said that she has to have a drug test to be in paid work. She has a younger brother whom she is so desperately trying to support. She is so desperately trying to support him to get into a job. He has been on and off the dole, and she is trying to support him to get a job, but one of the challenges is that he is smoking too much dope. She is desperately trying to support him, and she said: “Absolutely—yippee!” when the Minister announced that finally we will be doing drug testing to enable people to be ready for work, which is exactly what the welfare system is there for. It is to support people while they are out of work, and support them we must.

But the flip side of that is we cannot support people with a generous welfare system if our economy is not growing. I am going to go back to joining those dots. We cannot have a fantastic welfare system that supports the vulnerable, that supports those in need, unless we have an economy that is growing and exports that are growing.

Just in the last couple of weeks, in the Taupō electorate, one of the things that I have been really proud of is having the trade Minister, Tim Groser, in the electorate. What his connections provide, what he provides as our Minister of Trade, is the opportunity for our exports to grow. We have got targets—to make exports 30 to 40 percent of GDP by 2025. But what that actually requires is a solid plan. Underneath these targets there is a significant amount of work that has gone into then breaking those down to ask how we get from where we are now, in 2012, to achieving those targets in 2025. Being able to be involved in discussions with industry and businesses about growing is what it is all about.

I would like to start by paying tribute to the 40 or 50 young New Zealanders who are working away in this building, not far from here, in the EmpowerNZ conference, organised by the McGuinness Institute. They have set themselves the task of drafting a new constitution for New Zealand. I have had the honour of being the MP hosting them in this building. I am bound to say that I am not entirely convinced that we need a new constitution—in fact, I am not convinced at all. I am proud of the constitutional arrangements that we have in New Zealand at the moment. I think they have served us well. We have inherited them from centuries of tradition in the UK, and we have got a good balance of liberty and simplicity around our arrangements, without too many checks and balances. But I am very glad that these young kids are all there.

It is amazing, the enthusiasm that they are showing in getting into the job. They are a brilliant bunch—mainly law students, too many law students perhaps, but law students nevertheless—wrestling with those difficult issues that we have, and the conflicting rights, and trying to ask “Well, if we were to construct a constitution from the start, where would we begin?”. It is interesting that when they are dealing with questions of rights and how you balance economic rights, of course, there is no right to create money necessarily, and the right to live a life where you can enjoy all the things that life has to give does not give you the right to live off the work of somebody else. So there is all these balances that these young people are trying to work out at the moment. They have been at it for a day and a half, and tonight we are going to have a dinner where they are going to present the results of their efforts. So, anyway, good luck to them, congratulations to the McGuinness Institute for putting that on, and best wishes to those young people.

When we turn to this question that is relevant today, though, about poverty, I just want to quote from Hansard a speech from Metiria Turei in the adjournment debate just before Christmas, when she talked about the: “… National Government’s attacks on beneficiaries and to hear the Prime Minister in his address today restate the myth that work is a path out of poverty.” The myth—the myth—she said: “that work is a path out of poverty. The truth is that it is not.” I am quoting here from Hansard, Metiria Turei. It is true what I am saying here. She said that she did not like hearing the Prime Minister talk about “the myth that work is a path out of poverty. The truth is that it is not. For the two in every five children who live in poverty whose parents work, work is not the pathway out of poverty. Work is the trap, because work is not properly paid.” Heaven preserve this country if the Greens do get the opportunity to have control of the purse strings, and if Russel Norman is finance Minister and Metiria Turei is social welfare Minister, because that is the sort of attitude that drives them, that work is not the path out of poverty; it is a trap. I am mindful, though—on Saturday, I went along to a community lunch organised by the good people of the Remuera community lunch club, and one or two of them were pointing to an article from Anne Salmond a couple of weeks saying that parliamentarians were too combative and—

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: We should all hold hands.

—that is right—we should hold hands and agree with everything, and we should not talk in slogans at each other and we should not be critical of each other; we should be focusing on the united path. So I do not want to be unduly critical of Metiria Turei and the Greens for their philosophy, but I am amazed that we still have such people spouting such a simplistic view of the world, as if working is not a good thing, and taking responsibility for yourself and your family is not something that is important to the community. So the question I ask them is—you know, we all agree across all sides of this House that poverty, and child poverty in particular, is a concern. Nobody wants to live in a society where there are children who are struggling—genuinely struggling—and we have spent a great percentage of the Government activity that we are a part of taking money off some people and giving it to other people in order to try and alleviate that problem. We have not been all that successful in the last 70 years that social welfare organisations in New Zealand have been redistributing a huge amount of money, and you ask yourself “Well, why hasn’t it been that successful? Why do we continue to have poverty in New Zealand?”. There are a whole lot of reasons for that, but part of it is about addressing those fundamentals of restating that important element of responsibility—people taking responsibility for their families and for their own lives. I suppose when you are in Government the question is what do you actually do about it? This Government, which I am proud to be part of, has done a number of things in that area.

I was not anticipating taking a call in this general debate, but I am pleased to have the opportunity because there are several contributions from the Government side that I would like the opportunity to respond to.

I want to start, maybe, on the comments made on the Prime Minister’s behalf in question time today in relation to the in-work tax credit. There is an interesting linkage there, is there not? Support for children is linked to whether or not their parents are in work. That seems to me, and to the Green Party, to be an inappropriate linkage. Actually, if children require support because of the poverty of their parents, they require support. Children ought not to be punished for the circumstances that their parents find themselves in. That is why we favour a process whereby the support for such families—for that 21 percent of children living in poverty in this country, a statistic that I am sure we are all embarrassed by and ashamed of—ought not to be related to the circumstances of their parents. It ought to be related simply to the need of their parents.

But the Prime Minister went on and talked about the importance, as indeed we have just heard from Mr Goldsmith, of the role that work has in lifting people out of poverty. I do not dispute the fact that work has an important role to play in lifting people out of poverty. Actually, education, arguably, plays a greater role, and also really great health circumstances, but the fact is that under this Government the number of jobs has not increased, so the work is not available for those parents to lift themselves out of poverty. The escape hatch from poverty for 21 percent of New Zealand children is not available to them.

On the Prime Minister’s behalf in question time there was comment about work readiness instead. Well, is it the Government’s intention to extend the in-work tax credit to all of those who are work-ready, or who are judged to be work-ready? Those people will have done what is required to make themselves available for work, so it will take into account the simple fact that the jobs are not available for those people.

Louise Upston, in her contribution, talked about the Greens. She said it was great, I think—I may be paraphrasing—that the Greens brought to the House’s attention the growing inequality in this country and talked about—

💬 Louise Upston: It wasn’t quite what I said.

—it may not have been quite what the member was saying—the importance of closing that gap between rich and poor and the importance of creating jobs. She suggested that the Greens said no to everything the Government suggested. Well, I think the member proposed that as a problem with the Greens’ approach, but I want to respectfully suggest that that is actually a problem with the Government’s approach. The problem, the reason that we say no to what it proposes, is that the only things it proposes are the unacceptable ones. It proposes mining—mining in national parks, for goodness’ sake! It proposes other extractive industries as the answer to our problems. All of those are non-sustainable, low-value, low-quality jobs, if they even create any.

💬 Louise Upston: What about roads that get our goods to export markets? What about roads to get our products to market?

What we propose, and we have again and again and again—the member talks about roads, and we have provided lots of evidence in this House that roads provide very, very few jobs. In fact, on the one area that does actually provide jobs in that space, which is the creation of cycle tracks, we are working with the Government. We are working with the Government on home insulation. We have provided many, many, many proposals to the Government, both directly and through this House, for ways in which many more jobs could be created, and the Government has been saying no to all of those. The Government has rejected all of the proposals that we have made that would be much better investment of the Crown’s dollar in creating jobs. What does that say? What it says is it is not the Green Party that always says no, but it is, in fact, the Government that says no. In the House today Gerry Brownlee, on behalf of the Prime Minister, was saying no to universalism, but also was saying no to targeting. It is the Government that says no, and it is wrong.

I think I would like to remind the members on the other side of the House that this country will not be a good place for us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. It has been 6 months since I gave my maiden speech on my aspirations as a new member of Parliament and the aspirations I have for this country. I believe it is incomprehensible that this Government, which boasts of having business and scientific minds at its disposal, is not willing or able to address not only the needs of those from my electorate in Manukau East but also the needs of all New Zealanders in general.

Members on the other side of the House need to be reminded of who they are. This is our country. Cherish our natural wonders, our natural resources, and our history and romance as a sacred heritage for our children and our children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance.

If I was to sum up the progress of the National Government up to now, it would be in one word and that word would be “betrayal”. But, hey, why not broaden it and include its coalition partners as well? Poverty is still here. It is still with us. It is not getting any better or brighter. Poverty has a huge negative impact on the general psyche and general well-being of our nation—even the bells and honking horns of sycophantic morning talkback hosts who bang on about their beloved John Key cannot mask that. As I look around my electorate the question keeps popping up: where are the houses promised, and where are the better schools, health services, and jobs? I believe they are still sitting with the committees, the talkback hosts, and the Government’s thinktank. The poor have been dispossessed of their housing to facilitate the few who do not pay tax. We are still talking about charter schools, which we know do not work. Health services have been thrown a few peppercorns through Whānau Ora to shut the natives up. I see that they are roping a few well-intentioned, smiley Pacific faces into Whānau Ora just to try to give it a bit of credibility. Pacific people know very well that this does not work and they are throwing good money down a very large public convenience.

Then there is the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. What Pacific Island affairs? If National does not seem to think it is an important portfolio, then what hope is there for the people in my community in Porirua, Ōtara, Glen Innes, Papatoetoe, and so on, of South Auckland? You would think that with high-end statistics on most fronts, the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs would be given a fair go. Can it not be trusted with enough responsibility to design its own realistic Pacific policies? We need to address the issues that our Pacific communities confront with urgency if we are to make any beneficial process or progress. Many of our poorest spend far too long sleeping on friends’ floors. This in turn creates relationship stresses with their spouses and fanau and aiga, who also are poor. They will often be angry and distressed. They will not be supervising their children well enough or caring for them because their capacity to do so is lowered by real options available to them. Many of our people are pouring money into casino gambling machines in the vain hope that they will hit a jackpot. In reality the jackpot for them is either scraping up airfares to Aussie, joining the dole queue, or receiving Salvation Army social services, who not only are doing God’s work but are now struggling with the ever-increasing evil of child poverty. These are the factors that contribute to a bleak future for our people, because their physical, mental, and educational development is restricted.

Knowing what is right does not mean much unless the Government does what is right. New Zealand First believes in creating wealth for our country, not just for the few. We hope our Government wakes up and finds real solutions—real solutions for all New Zealanders.

Fei chang hao. Xiexie. I am proud to be able to stand here today to say what a great job the National-led Government has done and is continuing to do in building a brighter future for New Zealanders. By getting on with the job of responsibly managing the Government’s finances, building a more competitive and productive economy, delivering better public services, and rebuilding Christchurch, National is delivering on making New Zealand the best place to live, raise children, and retire comfortably.

I know that members of the Opposition will always dispute what we have achieved since we became the Government in 2008. It goes without saying that despite having experienced a global financial crisis, which, unfortunately, is continuing in many parts of the world, New Zealand is well positioned to grow and prosper. National has worked extremely hard to help the less fortunate in our society, but, more important, National recognises that economic development is the key to giving people a better standard of living.

In Chinese philosophy the concept of yin and yang describes how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are linked and how they feed off each other to balance and benefit each other. I am not referring to National’s relationship with Labour or the Greens, but to our growing relationship with China, the second-largest economy in the world. As you know, New Zealand and China are so different in terms of land size, history, culture, language, and, in particular, population. There are over 1.3 billion in China, against New Zealand’s population of 4.4 million, yet we are moving closer together, which will benefit both countries.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between our two countries. I have been to numerous events to commemorate this auspicious year, and many of these events are organised by local Chinese communities in New Zealand who are proud of both their mother country and their adopted country. China’s continuous growth has benefited New Zealand as our trade with China has expanded enormously. In 1991 New Zealand’s exports to China were just $0.17 billion, or 1.1 percent of our total exports. In 2001 they were $1 billion, or 3.3 percent of our total exports. In 2008 we signed a free-trade agreement with China.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who signed? Who signed?

I will acknowledge the then Labour Government. Unfortunately, the current Labour Party no longer has strategic views, which are essential for economic growth. It is living in poverty—a poverty of ideas. For instance, it no longer supports our foreign investment. After that agreement was signed in 2008, two-way trade between New Zealand and China grew by 150 percent in 3 years. In 2011 the volume of bilateral trade reached $13.3 billion. In the year ended March 2012 New Zealand exports to China reached $5.9 billion, or 12.5 percent of our total exports. China is now our second-largest trading partner and may well be the largest before too long.

We are also benefiting from an upsurge in Chinese tourists. In the year ended June 2012 Chinese tourists numbered 175,000—a rise of about 43,000 over the previous year. Tourism supports nearly one job in 10 in New Zealand and directly or indirectly contributes almost 10 percent of New Zealand GDP. Already, ordinary New Zealanders are reaping the benefits of National’s economic plan, which invests in their future.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.