General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the economy is growing 2.5 percent larger than it was this time last year and there are 57,000 more jobs in the New Zealand economy than 2 years ago. Household saving is positive for the first time in more than a decade, and total goods and services exports have increased dramatically over the last couple of years, and all without getting the printing presses out and trying to print money, like the desperate approach suggested by Mr Peters, who, incidentally, never came up with it in all the time he has been in various Governments over the 20,000-odd years he has been in Parliament. Nobody has come up with a proposal today that is a solution. The New Zealand economy is actually doing pretty well compared with most parts of the developed world—not as well as we would like. There are upsides and there are downsides. There are some people who are doing well and there are some people who are struggling—we understand that—because of the global financial crisis and what has been happening around the world and what has been happening in our own country in terms of the Christchurch earthquakes.

This week was a tough week down the West Coast, with the news that the Spring Creek Mine is losing money and is uneconomic to keep open at current coal prices. That is very difficult. But there could be an upside. Just up the coast there is another mining project that is ready to go, which is economic at current coal prices. There are private investors who want to invest in a new mine up the coast on the Denniston Plateau. They have consents, but they also have appeals against those consents. Roughly the same number of jobs could be created at this new project as are being lost in the uneconomic underground mine in Spring Creek. That is the opportunity.

So yesterday I called on the objectors to just once—just once, in a special case—withdraw their objections, to allow this mine to go ahead; to withdraw their objections and to assist. I suggested that the Labour Party, supposedly in favour of jobs, the Green Party, supposedly in favour of jobs—and it wants to have a select committee hearing on manufacturing, which is, of course, including coal—and the Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union join me in that call. There has been a deafening silence. The union popped its head up and said: “Oh, actually, we support the Bathurst Resources mining application.” It popped its head up. I went back to it and said does that mean it supports my call for the objections to be withdrawn, and there was a deafening silence from the union. It was not on the side of making the call to have those objections withdrawn.

Where was the local MP? Where was one Damien O’Connor? Damien O’Connor was nowhere. I asked, and there was no sign of any comment from Damien O’Connor about the importance of withdrawing the appeals and getting these jobs going on the Coast. And what about the leadership of the Labour Party, the members who were on the steps of Parliament yesterday—on the steps of Parliament talking to the miners—but who have been deafening in their silence on calling for the appeals to be withdrawn? They have not done it. And then there is the Green Party, which has cried crocodile tears about manufacturing jobs in the country. Where were Mr Hague and his colleagues when I suggested they talk to their mates in the environmental movement and suggest the appeals be withdrawn? They were absolutely nowhere. Their silence is deafening. It is absolutely appalling that on the one hand they say that they have got an interest in jobs, but on the other hand they will keep really quiet—really quiet—when it comes to actually supporting this. Then there is Annette King, who has absolutely no interest in it. So it is a very straightforward exercise. I would welcome the support of the Green Party and the Labour Party. The local MP, alongside the National Party—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the Minister. I will make sure he gets his time. This level of interjection is totally unacceptable. A robust debate is good, but this is over the top. Some of the most recent interjections from both sides of the House have been totally irrelevant, as far as I can make out. I just ask the House to settle down a little bit so that the public can hear the Minister.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know you are upset, Mr Speaker, but I think you would hardly rule that way when the Minister is complaining about silence from the Labour Party. He invited a response.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I accept that a level of robustness is in order, but the member’s own level of interjection was quite unreasonable. The member has quite an effective voice when it comes to volume on interjections, and the level is just too much. I ask the House to just come back to a little bit of order, and I will make sure that the Minister still has his remaining 35 seconds or thereabouts.

I would welcome the member taking a call and saying that he too calls on the appellants to withdraw their objections to the Bathurst Resources mine, and if he is prepared to do that, I would welcome that. That would be fantastic. But, basically, at the moment the Labour Party, the Greens, the Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, and, of course, the environmentalists are all very, very quiet about viable jobs on the West Coast. This Government is focused on building competitive opportunities for companies to grow, and once again we learnt this week that the Opposition is not.

The Spring Creek Mine should remain open. It is going, instead, to be mothballed. It is going to be mothballed because of this Government’s asset sales agenda. As the documents between these Ministers and the Solid Energy board clearly demonstrate, the board has been instructed to prepare the company for sale to maximise the share price. That is why Solid Energy is being denied the opportunity to exercise its normal functions of managing through price fluctuations.

The asset sales agenda of this Government is going to leave the Government accounts over $100 million a year worse off. It is going to increase electricity prices, it is going to lose strategic control of important New Zealand assets, and it is going to lose sovereignty for New Zealanders. It is going to cost the jobs and the livelihoods of all of those people who will lose their jobs and their families, and it is going to cause a terrific economic impact to my home community of Greymouth. For all those jobs that will be directly lost, there will be a knock-on effect, and probably there will be two jobs lost for every one directly lost. Those will be felt in ancillary industries, by contractors, by retailers, and in schools. The impact will be profound.

The profits from coalmining currently all leave the Coast. In Mr Joyce’s preferred option of Denniston and the Bathurst Resources mine, they will not only leave the Coast, they will leave the country. But the wages spent by those coalminers in our local economy are an important input into our local economy. The reality is that these miners, the miners who will lose their jobs as a result of the Government’s actions, will tomorrow or the day after, instead, be on a plane to Australia, some of whom having come to the West Coast—

💬 Simon O’Connor: They could be at the mine down the road.

—from halfway round the world in order to take up jobs only recently offered to them by Solid Energy. It does not have to be that way—the Government is quite right. It could reverse its decision. It could reverse its agenda of asset sales. It could hold out the hand and assist the miners of Spring Creek and the local mine management, who came up with a totally viable plan to, in fact, keep the mine open. But the Government has chosen not to do that. The Green Party’s policy is, indeed, for no new coalmines, but our policy is to have existing mines continue to be open. That is because there needs to be time for transition—transition for industries to be able to move to new technologies that do not require coal, and also transition in local economies so that there are jobs to replace these ones that will be lost.

Minister Joyce has, I believe, interfered in proper judicial process by calling on those who have a legitimate case before the courts to withdraw it. I believe that is inappropriate. But Mr Joyce’s red herring is particularly objectionable, because it is a bit galling to be lectured on job creation by someone who has presided over the loss of almost 40,000 manufacturing jobs in this country. His suggestion of moving these jobs to Denniston actually misunderstands the nature of coalmining. These are specialist skills, and most of the jobs are not readily transferable between one and the other. But, also, rather than being just up the Coast, Denniston is not in our community at all; it is 150 kilometres away. So he is expecting that these miners will uproot their families again and move on to Westport. Then, after that one is exhausted, maybe it will mean moving on to the next one, and that might be Canvastown.

His expectation is that this labour force will follow the booms and the asset bubbles throughout the country. That reminds me of the 19th century economy of this country and of the West Coast. The really galling thing is this: we have a Minister for Economic Development whose entire vision for economic development appears to be more of old 19th century industries, and who has no grasp whatsoever of the need to transition the West Coast economy and, indeed, the New Zealand economy to a new one that actually creates high value, quality jobs.

I just want to start today by talking a little bit about the fact that this is Children of Prisoners Week. PILLARS, which is a charity that supports prisoners’ families, has released the results of a 2-year study into children of prisoners, which show that 23,000 New Zealand children have a parent who is in prison—23,000. They are seven times more likely, those children, to end up in prison. The National Government has set a target of reducing reoffending by 25 percent by 2017. That includes addressing addiction and increasing education and skills training. The most important thing for those children, though, is facilitating the employment of that parent back into their communities. That is what is going to make the biggest difference for those 23,000 children. Work is happening around New Zealand, but I want to particularly emphasise that huge work is being done around skills and employment in Christchurch so that the prisoners can help with the rebuilding of Christchurch.

I note in a New Zealand Herald article today that the New Zealand Herald has actually gone out and had a look at the Mt Eden Corrections Facility, to look at its groundbreaking family visiting rooms, with their brightly coloured play areas and kiddie packs of food that parents can buy. These new ideas are all in place in a prison that is run by private enterprise. It is run by Serco. The Opposition parties are against Serco, and they are against having new and innovative ideas brought into our prison service throughout New Zealand.

But we want to talk about jobs here today. On that same note, I want to make the point that for the new prison that is to be built at Wiri the first sod was turned last week. We have got a consortium called Secure Future, which is a public-private partnership. It is going to build, maintain, and run that prison, Wiri Prison, in South Auckland, and save New Zealand taxpayers $170 million. That contract with Secure Future will save New Zealand taxpayers $170 million. Do you think the Opposition supports it? No. The Opposition is against it. It is quite happy for New Zealand taxpayers to pay another $170 million to build the prison, because it does not support private enterprise getting involved.

This project in Wiri will create a thousand construction jobs over—

💬 Dr Cam Calder: How many?

—the next 2 years—a thousand construction jobs. Do you think the Opposition parties are supporting that? No, of course they are not. Of course they are not. Labour is opposing it and the Greens are opposing it. In fact, the Green member who just resumed his seat, Kevin Hague, has railed against building a prison in Wiri and having a thousand construction jobs in South Auckland. At the height of this project, this company, Fletcher Building, will be spending $25 million a month—$25 million a month. Do you think the Opposition is supporting that? Oh, of course it is not. It is against this too. When it is constructed, the new Wiri Prison will have almost 300 permanent jobs.

💬 Dr Cam Calder: How many is that?

300 permanent jobs. Do you think the Opposition is supporting that? No, of course not. Anything that this Government puts up to create jobs, the Opposition is against. When I was up there last week I heard that a local contractor is providing catering on site for the thousand workers. They are talking between 30 and 50 jobs from the local community providing the on-site catering. Do you think the Opposition parties are in favour of this?

💬 Dr Cam Calder: Let’s have a guess.

Have a guess. Do you think they are in favour of this project? No, they are against this project from beginning to end.

This National Government is focused, first of all, on making sure the prisoners get a good education, get rid of their addiction, and get back into our communities and working. Secondly, we are about creating a brighter future—a brighter future. Do you think the Opposition parties are supporting that? Absolutely not.

Well, there we have it, the Government’s new economic growth agenda: a prison on every corner. That is the answer from Anne Tolley. If we just built a prison on every corner in New Zealand, we would solve the problems. It is another great economic growth strategy from the Government.

The Government’s handling of the Kim Dotcom case and the involvement of the Government Communications Security Bureau in that is a circus. We are forced in this House to endure the statement that we have to believe that our spy agency is so incompetent that it could not even use Google and google “Kim Dotcom residency”. If it did, it would come up with 6 million hits. There are 6 million pages on Kim Dotcom’s residency, but the Government Communications Security Bureau, we are told, was not even able to identify that he was a resident. This is on the back of an operation that has been so badly botched. There were illegal search warrants. We now know there was illegal surveillance. It has been described as Keystone Kops, but if we are to believe just how incompetent these people are, it actually should be called “John Key’s stoned cops”, because that is how badly it is doing it.

The ringmaster of this circus is John Key. Once upon a time, the casual, relaxed John Key was who the public wanted to see, but when it comes to having oversight of our security agencies it is not a place for the casual, relaxed John Key. Mr Key is the sole democratic check on how these security agencies operate. He is the person charged on our behalf as New Zealanders with oversight of these security agencies, and he has failed. Along with his deputy leader, Bill English, he has failed to uphold acceptable standards of oversight over organisations that have extraordinary powers.

Many New Zealanders will accept that we need in our society the ability to ensure that we monitor those who would act against our country. I think it is highly questionable in this case whether it meets that test, but people in New Zealand will accept that. They will accept that, on the basis that there is some kind of oversight—that there is somebody in Government who is making sure that these agencies are acting appropriately. That is the job of the Prime Minister, and he has failed to do that. He should be held to account for the actions of this agency. He cannot keep coming down to this House and saying he is not responsible. He is the Minister responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau, and he is responsible for the actions of this agency that has behaved so incompetently in this situation.

The Prime Minister claims that he has had 15 meetings with the Government Communications Security Bureau this year—15 meetings. He says that Kim Dotcom did not come up in any of those meetings. I find it incredible that a situation like this has not been raised with the Prime Minister in that role or in the many other roles that he has. He could not even tell us today whether or not his own department had been involved. That defies belief, and it speaks of a Prime Minister whose once casual, relaxed attitude is now seeing him missing in action on critical issues for this country.

The National Government is now so totally distracted and embroiled in its own scandals—scandals of its own making—with John Banks and the Kim Dotcom affair that it is neglecting the core job that it has, and that is to help New Zealanders stay in work. Time after time in this House we get the excuses from Steven Joyce and others, but the reality is that hundreds and, in fact, thousands of New Zealanders are losing their jobs every day as this Government stands by and says that it can do nothing. In the last year, 54,000 people went to Australia, and this Government stands by and says it can do nothing.

Once upon a time, this Government gave some hope to New Zealanders. It said there would be a brighter future. Mr Key said there would be higher standards of Ministers. There is no brighter future. There is no brighter future for the families of the hundreds of people who are losing their jobs at the Spring Creek Mine and in Kawerau and right around New Zealand. There is no hope for those people. This Government has let New Zealanders down. It promised big. It said that it would build a brighter future for New Zealanders. The only brighter future New Zealanders are finding is in Australia at the moment. This Government is missing in action, and totally distracted in its own scandals. It has no idea how to create jobs. It has no idea how to grow the economy, and it should go.

There is something slightly ironic and cynical about the Labour Party and the Green Party railing against people going to Australia. Incidentally, they are going to Australia to work in the mining and the oil and gas industries, and all the while the Labour Party and the Green Party are stopping mining and oil and gas exploration in New Zealand. But there is something more ironic and cynical than that, and that is that, apparently, the Labour Party and the Green Party think it is OK for miners to work at the Spring Creek Mine getting coal out of the ground, but they oppose miners going up the road a few kilometres and mining on the Denniston Plateau.

So what I want to ask Damien O’Connor, who is the member of Parliament for the West Coast, is this: is he for mining on the West Coast, or is he against mining on the West Coast? He seems to support mining at the Spring Creek Mine, but not mining on the Denniston Plateau.

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave of the House to answer that question raised by the member.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Is the member seeking leave to make a personal explanation?

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: I am. I am seeking leave to make a personal explanation.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to make a personal explanation. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: Let me be very clear here. I have always supported mining on the West Coast, and I will, but it must be done in an environmentally responsible way, and it must follow due process. This National Government has—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is nothing to do with a personal explanation, and I caution the member. The House grants members leave to make personal explanations because members feel deeply about certain issues. It should not be abused.

So here is the thing. The Labour Party and the Green Party support mining in some areas of the West Coast, such as the Spring Creek Mine, but, apparently, oppose mining in other parts of the West Coast, such as the Denniston Plateau. In fact, what they do is they get out a little map of New Zealand and they draw lines where they want to support mining and where they want to oppose it, and it all depends where the votes are. There is nothing principled about it—nothing principled about it at all.

But what is cynical—and ironic, really—is that it points to the bigger picture, which is that they wax lyrical in this House week after week, and up and down the country, about New Zealanders going over to Australia. In fact, I get it in the electorate that I represent, in Whangarei, and Mike Sabin gets it in Northland. Many Northlanders have put up their hands and they have said “Look, we are going to Australia to work in the oil and gas and mining industry. We are going to get excellent salaries, and, by the way, we are not going to be actually mining. We’re builders, and we’re plumbers, and we’re electricians, and we’re cooks, and we’re truck drivers, but because of the mining and oil and gas industry over in Perth, in Australia, it is happening there and we will go over there and get jobs.”

Hone Harawira is crying that all his relatives, or at least half of them, are going to Australia to work in the mining industry, and he is crying that the other half of his relatives are staying in New Zealand and they are in the dole queue, but he will not support mining and oil and gas exploration in Northland. The Labour Party and the Green Party will not support oil and gas exploration and mining in New Zealand.

The funny thing about it is that in Taranaki—our only region where oil and gas production occurs—you have got about 4,500 jobs directly involved there, about another 1,500 jobs indirectly, and an average wage of about $80,000 a year, and it has happened for a hundred years. The other 15 or 16 regions of New Zealand over the last hundred years have never heard a problem come out of Taranaki. They have always understood that there is dairy farming, and tourism, and oil and gas exploration in Taranaki—never a problem.

But the minute that the National Party and all those in Taranaki who support oil and gas exploration—it has been so successful—say “Why don’t we extend this to some of the other regions in New Zealand? There are about 16 or 17 others. We have been successful in Taranaki for over 100 years. Why don’t we extend it to some other regions of New Zealand, such as off the Otago coast, the East Coast of the North Island, or Northland?”, apparently, according to the Labour Party, and the Green Party, and Hone Harawira, the sky is going to fall on our head.

So it has been successful in Taranaki for 100 years with never a whimper, alongside dairy farming and tourism, but somehow we cannot repeat it elsewhere in the country. So I question Damien O’Connor and the Labour Party, and ask why, when we have a formula that has been so successful in one of our most highly paid regions in New Zealand, Taranaki, we cannot repeat it elsewhere in the country.

The Labour Party position on mining has never been unclear, and it has always been consistent. Outside of schedule 4 areas like national parks, we have always said it ought to be done on a case by case basis. We approve of mining, but people have to get a consent under the Resource Management Act or the Crown Minerals Act. The law has not been changed by National in that regard in any great way, and our position has not changed since we were last in Government, when we spent $25 million of taxpayers’ money helping to get data to make it a little bit less risky for the oil and gas industry. So although we do not think mining is the whole answer to New Zealand’s economic problems, we admit that it is part of it, and we do not oppose it outside of schedule 4 areas. The National Party people should do a bit of research.

Why is it that those members are rattling on about it? It is because they do not want to talk about the economy, and they do not want to talk about jobs, because, in fact, all they do is focus on one political disaster after another. Let us list them this year. Well, we have had the Dotcom one recently. That has been addressed by Grant Robertson. I will not go into that any further. Go back a little while and we have the Government’s centrepiece of its Budget: improving student outcomes by increasing class sizes. What a nonsense that was, and the Government had to back down. It spent 2 months defending that ridiculous policy when it should have been doing things to save people’s jobs.

Go back a little bit further, like just a month before that, and we had Nick Smith falling on his sword because of the debacle at ACC, which saw not only the Minister resign but also the board resign. The chair was, effectively, asked to resign, and the board followed him because that was so mismanaged. That was another month when the Government was not managing the economy.

Go back a little bit further and you have the problems with the teapot tape and the Prime Minister’s scandals around that. We have got the Prime Minister’s scandals around his electorate chairperson being appointed to New Zealand On Air, called the Broadcasting Commission.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Talk about policy, not people.

What was that?

💬 Simon O’Connor: Stick to policy.

That is what the Government is embroiled in every day, and in the last month we have had John Banks. What should the Government be doing? It should be doing what it can do to help stop this shedding of jobs—160,000 people have gone to Australia since this Government was elected. That is more than the population of the city I come from. Dunedin has about 100,000 people—160,000 people have gone just to Australia. That is not the rest of the world; that is just Australia. They are record numbers every month because there are no job prospects here. Despite the fact that a lot of the unemployed have given up and gone to Australia, we have still got far higher unemployment now than when this Government came into office. The safety valve, as Bill English describes the Australian economy, has kept New Zealand’s unemployment lower than it would otherwise be, because those people have gone to get jobs in Australia.

What could the Government do? It could save some of these export jobs by doing what a responsible Government would do: back Winston’s bill to a select committee, and change the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act so that we do not give primacy to the targeting of inflation ahead of other aspects of economic management. The IMF says we should do that. Nobel Laureates like Joseph Stiglitz say we should do that. Most of the Governments around the world have moved on from—

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Joseph Stalin?

—giving inflation targeting primacy. Joseph Stalin. That is what we get: Joseph Stalin. That is just like Steven Joyce. If anyone comes out with an alternative economic policy, it is economic voodoo, it is snake oil remedy, or, from Mr Finlayson, it is Joseph Stalin when you talk about Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who is a free marketeer, to a certain extent. He is Joseph Stalin, according to the National Party. These guys are so out of touch that they have had more people go to Australia than live in Dunedin, and they say “Oh, we don’t need to change anything.” They do not need to change anything.

This Government is embroiled in its own controversies. It is not properly managing the economy. We are losing export jobs that will be very, very hard to get back, and, as a consequence, New Zealanders are disappointed. They have given up on waiting for the brighter future from the National Government, and they are voting with their feet and going to Australia instead.

Can I just take up the challenge of that member who has just sat down, David Parker, when he said that we do not want to talk about jobs, because I do want to talk about jobs because jobs matter. Businesses create jobs, and businesses need policy settings that encourage jobs and encourage growth—policy settings around jobs—policy settings that members opposite say no to. Why do they say no to it? Why is it that their policies over there on that side of the House are not about creating jobs or helping jobs or enhancing job growth? What they are about is cutting and reducing jobs.

Last week we celebrated Women’s Suffrage Day. It is a great day in the New Zealand calendar. We celebrated Women’s Suffrage Day, and what was the very first action that the Labour Party did on that day? It had the first reading of a bill that would have immediately cut the jobs—3,350 jobs—of women in New Zealand. It would have cut the jobs of 3,350 women in New Zealand. That is how much it thinks of jobs, and that is how much it thinks of women. By raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour in an unrealistic and unsustainable manner, that would have reduced jobs and cut jobs by 5,500. Why do those members say no? Why do they say no to any job-enhancing policy that we put up? They just say no.

💬 Dr David Clark: The Minister understands the minimum wage. She’s had the advice. It doesn’t cost that.

Mr Clark does not understand. His first big job in this Parliament was to introduce a bill that would have lost 3,350 jobs for women, and its first reading was on, symbolically, Women’s Suffrage Day. That is the shame of that member and that is the legacy of that member. On Women’s Suffrage Day 3,350 jobs would have been lost—lost, just like that, by a stroke of a pen.

We have the 90-day trial, which research has shown is responsible for the creation of 13,000 jobs—

💬 Dr Cam Calder: How many?

—13,000 jobs. That was when it related to only small and medium sized enterprises—i.e. businesses with under 20 people. It created 13,000 jobs. Since then it has been expanded to all businesses. Imagine how many jobs that will be responsible for. And what do those members say? They say no. They say no to a 90-day trial. It is part of their policy to repeal it—13,000 jobs, just like that, all gone. They say no, and they talk about jobs!

My colleague Minister Tolley spoke about prisoners helping the rebuild of Christchurch. Well, the 90-day trial is an ideal tool for businesses to have the confidence to actually employ those prisoners to help in that rebuild. What will the Labour Party do? It will say no.

That 90-day trial is encouraging businesses to take on more staff. It has been used by many businesses. It has shown that the majority of employers keep their staff once the trial is over, so that people who are on the fringes—they might be young, they might be older, they might be women, but David Clark does not like them, or they might be prisoners—are given the opportunity to get their feet on the employment ladder and get a job. It is a fantastic policy that, embarrassingly, Labour will repeal. It is a policy that is working really well in these tough economic times, and Labour will repeal it because it wants to say no to all job-enhancing policies. I think it is a shame.

Those members sit there smugly, thinking that they have got the answers. All they want to do is say no. They stop things. They would have had The Hobbit go overseas. The Hobbit haters would have had The Hobbit go overseas. Since then we have had Avatar over here—1,500 new jobs—and we are looking at a new sequel. Is that not fantastic for our movie market? More jobs—what do they say? They say no.

We have some great policy settings for creating jobs and for encouraging businesses to actually expand. Successful businesses, by expanding, will take on more staff, which means more jobs, and that must be good for our economy. We are about creating jobs; they have policies that say no.

I want to talk about a group of New Zealanders who have already been mentioned this afternoon by none other than our corrections Minister, Anne Tolley. This is a group of people who have variously been called the forgotten victims of crime, the orphans of justice, and the unseen victims of the prison boom. I want to talk about the 20,000-plus young New Zealanders who have one of their parents currently in prison. On any given day, we have over 20,000 young people in this situation, and we are doing very little to meet their current needs—their very severe, present-day needs—and we are doing arguably even less to try to secure for them a better and safer future, and to steer them away from following the line of that parent who may be incarcerated.

The Minister’s attention might have been brought to the New Zealand Herald article. I do not know whether before seeing that article she knew that this week is actually Children of Prisoners Week, and it is a good time to acknowledge the NGOs. There are groups like PILLARS—Ngā Pou Whakahou—that work constantly and very hard and very effectively to try to provide services to these neglected kids, and to try to mitigate some of the suffering of, and burdens on, those kids and their families.

Before I talk more about that, I must respond directly, though, to some of the comments the Minister made earlier. She was very thrilled to announce that she is saving $170 million on building this prison at Wiri. I am really fascinated by the arithmetic there. The Minister has told us that the total cost will be in the order of $840 million. Serco, the private contractor that will run the prison, has proudly announced to the British London Stock Exchange that it expects revenues of $30 million a year over 25 years. My arithmetic gives that a figure of $750 million of revenue, leaving about $90 million to construct that prison. We know that the average cost of a prison is around $400,000 per bed, allowing that by the scale of the prison you can reduce that cost. Are we seriously expected to believe that that prison is to be built for $90 million? We would love the Minister to table the contract. Show us the numbers. Be a little transparent about what is actually going on in Wiri and the real cost to New Zealand—not only the social but the financial cost.

The Minister was thrilled to note that her beloved private prison has been acknowledged as treating better the families and children who are visiting inmates. This Government has had within its power for 4 long years the ability to intervene in terms of the conditions facing visitors to prisons. Is it beyond its collective wit to realise that the application of some paint, some toy boxes, some colouring books and crayons for children could actually break some of the fear and some of the trauma these kids experience every time they walk into those very forbidding, very hostile places? I have visited the prisons, and I would encourage more members of the Government to do so. Visiting rooms have rows of plastic chairs bolted to the floor, with no privacy and no provision for children. There is no distraction for them while their parents endeavour to maintain a relationship with one imprisoned partner. We know that on average for a couple where one of them enters prison, typically the man, the relationship might survive for some 18 months. Anybody sentenced to more than that is likely to come out to find their relationship is gone. The children have lost their father—or, indeed, their mother—and the mother has lost her partner and an income earner. This is an intolerable situation and it is unacceptable that the NGOs are doing a great deal more than Government agencies to actually remedy the situation that is confronting these young people.

There are major differences in visiting policies from one prison to another. Why is it that a partner visiting a prisoner in one place has a very different experience from another? The very least we could do is improve the situation when these young people and their parents are visiting inmates. We do very little to protect the health and well-being of children of prisoners. We do very little to support their partners. We know that their educational outcomes will be way below optimal. We know that they will suffer serious health and psychological health traumas. We know through all the evidence that comes to us that these are some of the most disadvantaged young people in New Zealand. We are doing very little for them. It is shameful. We need to do more. Kia ora.

The Chinese have a curse expressing the hope that one may live in interesting times. These are interesting times not just in New Zealand but in every country in the developed and developing world. As the IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, said recently, the global economy is experiencing a widespread decline of confidence as problems mount in the eurozone and beyond. Ms Lagarde said further that policy makers everywhere must maintain a crisis management mode as risks increase. The IMF is pressing Governments around the world to step up their responses as both advanced and emerging economies show troubling slow-downs.

Here in New Zealand the Government is resolutely focused on guiding our economy through these troubled times. We are reducing our exposure to overseas debt markets as much as possible, while still continuing to cushion vulnerable New Zealanders from the harshest edges of the ongoing financial crisis. We have got lots to be happy about and thankful for. Our GDP grew 0.6 percent in the 3 months to 30 June. This took annual growth to 2.6 percent, the highest rate since 2007. The first half of this year has seen GDP growing at 1.6 percent. New Zealand’s economy is performing better than those of Japan, the US, the UK, France, and Germany, and growth in this last quarter is on a par with Australia’s. We cannot hope to influence the external events that impact upon our small country and relatively tiny economy. What we can do, what we must do, and what we will do is continue to concentrate on our wide-ranging economic programme. It is an economic programme that will increase New Zealand’s long-term competitiveness and give our businesses the best chance of succeeding.

We focus on growth that is sustainable and built on higher savings and earnings, rather than ever-increasing consumption and debt. New Zealand’s households and businesses are recognising that the cheap finance feeding frenzy facilitated under the supervised neglect regime of the last Labour Government is unsustainable, untenable, and, ultimately, a road to nowhere other than economic and social stagnation. The message is getting through. New Zealanders are saving more, with a positive household savings rate for the first time in a decade. The ANZ bank’s fancifully named truckometer, an index based on traffic volumes and selected roads around New Zealand, suggests increasingly robust growth in the fourth quarter of this year.

This Government understands that sustainable economic growth that creates permanent, worthwhile jobs is best achieved by building a competitive economy that allows businesses to trade successfully with the rest of the world. There are 60,000 more jobs in New Zealand than 2 years ago. New Zealand needs more jobs and higher-paying jobs. Why? Because jobs give people income to support their families. Jobs give people money to pay taxes to pay for public services. And more and more higher-paying jobs mean that more people will choose to live here.

Jobs depend on businesses—businesses that are competitive and businesses that sell something that people value, something unique, and something of better quality or at a lower price. This Government understands that businesses, in turn, depend on six key things, including ideas and innovation, to create the opportunity or perceive a niche market. It is interesting that New Zealand is now third in Asia and Oceania, after Singapore and Hong Kong, in the Global Innovation Index. Businesses depend on money to build the business—in other words, access to capital—and access to necessary raw materials and resources. Businesses depend on having skilled people to work in them; infrastructure such as reliable electricity, broadband, transport, and networks like that; and customers who want to buy the products. These are the foundation stones of New Zealand’s competitive business success.

The Opposition is constantly searching for quick fixes. Its latest stood out like a bishop at a naked billiards party, in terms of its inappropriateness. I refer to the Opposition’s calls for intervention on New Zealand’s currently high exchange rate. I ask you: surely the major test to intervention must be whether we can make a difference. As mentioned before, a lot of the drivers are international events such as the huge currency flows following quantitative easing, large countries’ exchange rate policies, as well as the continuing uncertainty and perceived risks around the eurozone. With the tsunami-like size of these external forces, any New Zealand intervention would be futile.

I hope you have a life jacket, Mr Speaker, because we are drowning in crocodile tears in this House today. The only thing the National Government has ever done for mining is stir up a hornets’ nest against the mining industry when it proposed, like idiots, to go and mine on schedule 4 land in national parks. John Key has said that the economy is not failing. Mr Joyce says that in the real world the economy is growing. Well, tell that to the Inland Revenue Department workers who have been made redundant. Tell that to the Department of Conservation workers in the regions up and down the country. Tell that to the roading industry contractors who are starved for funding because the Government is putting money into its “Holiday Highway” and little pet projects. Tell that to the over 350 people who have lost their jobs because the Government has refused to intervene and support Spring Creek Mine.

Let us get a few things straight. In this document I am holding, a document called Design Pack from the Solid Energy chief executive officer, dated 29 August, we see the proposed new structure for Solid Energy. On page 8 it states quite clearly the drivers of the structure and that the three main priorities include to “maximise medium-term cash generation and value uplift consistent with our potential listing objectives from our shareholder—referred to as the ‘mixed ownership model’.” It goes on to say that it is also a priority to prepare “Solid Energy for a potential listing at some stage in one to three years”. That is what is driving the job lay-offs at Spring Creek and at Solid Energy. This Government is determined to push ahead with the asset sales programme.

In 2 short days a group of miners from Spring Creek sat down with local management and senior management, using information supplied by Solid Energy itself, and cut $60 million off the projected capital requirements for Spring Creek—$60 million. The chief executive officer said that those were aspirational figures. They were figures supplied by his company to those workers. That plan deserved proper consideration. They had an indication that in the middle of this week there would be some report on that plan. No, the National Government decided to intervene and on Monday announced that the jobs had gone. Well, Ministers—the same Ministers who say the economy is growing, who say that the economy is not failing—tell that to the families, tell that to the wives and the children, of the 350 people who are going to be directly affected because they have lost their jobs.

John Key made a promise—he has made a few of them, you know—that he would lift the wages of New Zealanders to match those of Australia. What he failed to say is that he would do it by sending everyone to Australia. He has done it quite consistently—50,000 per year—and he now expects the people from Spring Creek to go to Australia, or, as we have heard, in crocodile tears, to go up the road 140 kilometres to Westport to a mine there. Well, there is a proposal for a new mine, and the reason why there are objectors is that the National Government stirred up everyone who objected to mining to object to this one and delay the process. I do not think it is good. But the National Government was in large part responsible for that. There are objections, and there are proposals. I could stand in this House until I was blue in the face and say to withdraw your objections, but it is not going to happen. They are in there now, in big part because the National Government stirred up that hornets’ nest. If it goes ahead, the planning for that mine will require hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment. That money has been spent at Spring Creek. The coal they get will be sold into the same market place as the coal from Spring Creek. Yet we hear from Ministers that it is unviable when we have had the capital invested but it is viable up the road when the capital has yet to be spent. It is simply incomprehensible that those Ministers can say without twisting the truth that one is fine but that they will accept that Spring Creek can be closed down just because the price of coal has gone down. Well, this document says otherwise.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Before I start I want to acknowledge our Pukapuka community in the gallery. Kia ola koutou katotoa enunui matoa ya.

I rise to speak today in the general debate, but firstly I want to acknowledge—we have been talking about jobs this afternoon—that today is National Social Worker Day, a day of celebration to celebrate our social workers. Approximately 1,300 of them in Child, Youth and Family address 400 notifications of abuse and neglect in our country every day. Often as a Government we have been accused of not caring, yet in this regard the Government announced funding to increase the number of front-line social workers by 96 last year, and around half that number are now at work. There are about 149 full-time SWIS workers—that is, Social Workers in Schools—and, as was quoted by the Minister for Social Development this afternoon, Child, Youth and Family target achievements have increased. Non-notifications have increased, and we are now being able to address 97 percent of those targets, compared with 42 percent previously. So that is a great result. I do want to acknowledge that. I do have family members who are social workers and who are doing a great job. The Social Workers in Schools programme offers early, responsive social work and intervention, and we are increasing those opportunities of employment where it truly matters.

I want to talk about the welfare reforms that are coming up, because this becomes very important. The purpose clauses that are in the Social Security Act 1964 clearly indicate: “to help people find or retain paid employment;”. The principle and the duty of that Act says this: “work in paid employment offers the best opportunities for people to achieve social and economic well-being:”. That is why the reforms become important. That is why this Government is focusing where it should—on providing employment.

But wait for it—it will come. It is like Tourette’s. You will hear “Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs?”. It often gets spouted out so very quickly from either side of the House. No matter how many times we quote from TradeMe or from SEEK about the 60,000 jobs that have been produced by this Government and encouraged by this Government, you will still see that it is not enough. Can I say this: with this Government, not only are we increasing the opportunities for jobs but also there are about 1,000 people who have now come off the unemployment benefit. There are more than 5,600 people who have come off the unemployment benefit in the last year. Not only are we increasing opportunities but also we are trying to encourage our people into jobs.

💬 Dr David Clark: There are 1,000 people a week going to Australia.

So here it is for Mr Clark over there, across the way. I was in your home town, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, in an area of South Auckland, and here is the interesting thing. We were there with the Prime Minister in the heart of Māngere, and we met with some of the providers, businesses, and local trusts. This is what they said. From the Rise Up Trust, which works with families around education, which is very important to us, one of the members, the chief executive officer, stood up and said to the Prime Minister while we were there: “Prime Minister, we want to say thank you for national standards.” Thank you for national standards—that is right. And she said this: “The people of this community, the Pasifika and Māori people of this community do want to know how our schools are performing.” That is important to them. This is what they also said: “Not only thank you for national standards but also thank you for your Minister of Education, Hekia Parata.” The reasons why? They said: “Because she’s a woman who has a woman’s heart and sometimes we need to have that essence for us, for our young people, so that they go through an educational journey.”

Here is the last thing. You will like this. They said “Give us charter schools.” [Interruption] We were taken aback too, and the reason why they said “Give us charter schools.” is this. They wanted to know how they could bring greater opportunities for training and employment for their young people. Yes, they too are sick and tired of the lack of training and opportunities and the underachievement that is happening in their communities.

These communities are supposedly the heartland of Labour, and this has got to hurt. This has got to hurt, because in your Pasifika communities you did not listen to your spokesman on Pasifika, who said “Don’t do this because we’ll lose 30,000 votes.” Guess what! The Labour Party did not listen. Its spokesman for the Pasifika community said it was a betrayal, but it did not listen, and guess what happened. That community is beginning to change, and they are beginning to say this: “Maybe there’s another option. We have voted for Labour for so long; we haven’t seen all the results.” Guess what! They are coming to our meetings, they are standing up and speaking up, and they are saying “National provides another opportunity for us.” That is right. You can wave your head from side to side, Mr Robertson, but, guess what, the truth speaks louder than words.

I am pleased to take a call, but before I do I would just like to remind Damien O’Connor of Speaker’s ruling 135/2—in particular—

💬 Hon Annette King: No, that’s the Speaker’s job.

Well, I am very sure he did it extremely well. In a general debate it is a general custom not to interrupt a speaker, particularly with a personal explanation, until the end of it, and I am sure Mr O’Connor knows that. But it was even more interesting and more insightful to see exactly what he had to say—in fact, the half of a story that he wanted to say. He knows, and wants to say deep down, that he supports Bathurst Resources, and he supports its efforts to create hundreds of jobs on the Denniston Plateau. He did not want to say it. I find that a bit sad, really.

I want to go back to what Mr Parker said about the mining policies of Labour and the monetary policies of Labour. He said two things. He said that the Labour Party’s mining policy is very clear and that it has been unequivocal about it for years. Yet he spent 5 minutes confusing us all about what that policy might be. All Mr O’Connor and Mr Parker had to say was “We support Bathurst.”—three little words that say they support new jobs and growth in jobs on the West Coast—but, oh no, they could not bring themselves to say that. They are probably standing in line with the Greens, who want a $67 million subsidy to help out Solid Energy in these difficult times. We had a very clear explanation about why Bathurst can succeed where Solid Energy and Spring Creek Mine would struggle.

I want to turn now to the second part of Mr Parker’s speech, on the Monetary Policy Statement and on the monetary policy that Labour has not actually revealed yet. It has been 2 years since Labour said “No, we’re going to unhook ourselves from the monetary policy accord.” We have absolutely no idea what Labour’s policy is. However, we do know what Mr Parker thinks about inflation—that he thinks it is not the evil it used to be, and that we can perhaps somehow broaden our inflationary parameters. I want to explain that I worked for a bank, giving retail loans for mortgages in the 1980s, when the rates were 19.5 and 20.5 percent.

💬 Scott Simpson: I had one.

Do you remember those days? Do you know what the exchange rate was then?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

Does the member know what the exchange rate was?

💬 Scott Simpson: What was the exchange rate?

I have absolutely no idea, and nobody remembers, but they do remember what interest rates they were paying and what inflationary pressures created the spiral of higher interest rates, higher inflation, even higher interest rates, and on and on it went. Mr Peters believes that he can intervene in the exchange rate by taking an economic—

💬 Dr David Clark: The world changes—1980s policies of selling assets are no longer the answer.

The member says “1980s policies”. Who was in power in the 1980s?

💬 Scott Simpson: That member wasn’t born.

Well, he probably was, to a National family, I understand. How many of the fourth Labour Government’s policies did the Clark Government reverse?

💬 Scott Simpson: All of them?

None. Not a single one. It disowned the Labour Government of the 1984 to 1990 period but did not reverse a single one of the monetary, fiscal, and asset sales policies. In fact, it continued them by stealth, I suggest.

I want to go back to Mr Peters, who says that an economic crapshoot is possible and that all we have to do is invest in the New Zealand dollar. He referred to an example that was done in 2004 or 2005, I think—

💬 Dr Cam Calder: 2007.

—was it 2007—where $497 million was made. What are the chances that $497 million could have been lost? It is about fifty-fifty. It was an economic crapshoot that the Reserve Bank came out on top of and has not repeated, because it realised the folly of trying to do that in the face of the major economies that print money. Do you know which economies print money? The United States and Zimbabwe. The United States has a tanking dollar, and Zimbabwe has hyperinflation.

I suggest that any move from the very fair and tight monetary policy framework we have would damage not only our export growth but also jobs. And that is the purpose of Government: to create jobs and growth and to steer the economy through very challenging fiscal times. I think this Government is doing an excellent job. We hear a lot about the losses, and there will be losses even in the best of times. There will be changes in manufacturing, infrastructure, technology, and food production, but there will always be jobs gained. There are, I think, 57,000 jobs already created in the last couple of years, with more to come. I think the Government is very much on track in that regard.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.