General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. It is wonderful to be so popular on the other side of the House. Picture the scene. Picture the scene. Parnell resident—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The level of interjection is unreasonable. There are too many bits of paper unhelpfully being waved at the back of the Chamber, and that will cease. I invite the member to start again.

I am happy to start again, Mr Speaker. Picture the scene. Parnell resident and occasional visitor to the Helensville electorate John Key sits down in a room in his modest 15-bedroom electorate office to get an update on events in the area. He is surrounded by his closest advisers. He cannot remember any of their names and he does not know who they are. One of them looks like the Fletcher boy from high school, but he cannot be sure. He makes a note for Wayne Eagleson: “Ask Saunders Unsworth who my advisers are.” He seeks to get a briefing on what has been happening in the happy hamlet of Helensville: “Any major developments?”. A hush comes over the crowd, and a quiet voice whispers: “A German has moved into the mansion.” John Key is shocked. This is a development of considerable note—“A German in the mansion?”. First things first, John Key says: “Whatever you do, in no circumstances must anyone tell me the German’s name. It is a matter of national security. It is a matter of national security, and I am struggling to remember all of the things I have got to pretend to forget, so don’t tell me his name.”

Then arrives the figure of Steven Joyce, or, as we shall know him from now on, “Corporal Jones”. “Corporal Jones” appears, yelling: “Don’t panic. Don’t panic. The Germans are coming. Don’t panic.” John Key sits calmly and says: “I normally get my list of overseas migrants. Where are the Australians? Where are the Indians? Where are the Chinese? I am being told only about the Germans.”

In John Key’s Helensville it is Dad’s Army all over the place. Well, on this side of the House, we say: “Who are you kidding, Mr Key?”. He tells us he cannot remember a very large multimillionaire—

💬 Hon Members: Billionaire.

—multibillionaire—German arriving in his electorate. He says that he cannot remember the man who put on the biggest fireworks display in New Zealand’s history. But he does not know, because he is surrounded by his Dad’s Army of advisers. John Key is surrounded by Steven Joyce as Corporal Jones. “He doesn’t like it up ‘em.”, as he would say. “He doesn’t like it up ‘em.” That is what Corporal Jones would tell the House.

But, you see, what John Key tells us is that he has a mandate to govern. Well, it is certainly true that John Key has been on a hell of a lot of man dates. He went on a man date with John Banks, and he got a seat in Parliament. He went on a man date with Ian Fletcher, and he got a job running the Government Communications Security Bureau. He went on a man date with the Skycity chief executives, and they got a whole law for themselves. Man dates are what John Key does, but someone else always wins out of them other than New Zealanders.

People who are associating themselves with John Key have another problem. Those who go on man dates with John Key have a major problem: “PTD”, or politically transmitted diseases—politically transmitted diseases. Every time anyone goes near him, there is trouble. John Banks cannot even remember what day it is. He does not even know where he is. He cannot remember $50,000 worth of donations from the German in the mansion. Peter Dunne has completely lost his way—totally discredited. And the Māori Party appears to have three leaders, or it might have two, and certainly after the next election it will have one or none at all. So politically transmitted diseases are the order of the day for anyone who comes into contact with John Key.

But on a serious note, tomorrow this House will debate the Skycity law—the “Casino Bill”—and there is nothing that is more of an emblem of this Government than that bill. It is a convention centre built off the back of problem gamblers; a convention centre that will add 8,000 additional problem gamblers; a convention centre built with a dodgy process, where the Prime Minister intervened; a convention centre built by selling off the laws of this country; and a convention centre that typifies a Government that works for vested interests and not in the interests of New Zealanders. This Government is a crony capitalist Government.

Well, we know what Grant Robertson was doing last night. In between his desperate denials on Twitter, he was watching the JONES! channel. That was the inspiration for his speech today. It was his JONES! channel. The only thing is that he should have been Sergeant Schultz today, because he is the one running around saying “I see nothing. I know nothing. There’s nobody challenging for the leadership of the Labour Party. I know nothing at all.”, when the reality is that there is a Jones channel, and the Jones channel is the channel by which the leadership challenge of the Labour Party is being conducted.

It has been a fascinating 24 hours in the identity politics of the Labour Party. First, we had the man ban, then we had the ban of the man ban, and then, very nearly, we had the demise of the man who banned the man ban. That is where it nearly got to last night, and it is where it is heading again today. Despite the denials—the many, many denials—the reality is that there are three of the men who were going to be banned in the man ban who have decided to take their opportunity and step forward. I say stand up those men who are against the man ban—Shane Jones, Andrew Little, and Clayton Cosgrove—the red meat men of the Labour Party, who are, as we speak, either circulating or not circulating, or denying they are circulating, a letter of no confidence in the leadership of the Labour Party. That is what is going on right now. The red meat division has decided that this is its chance to get its own back.

But those members did not quite succeed. All they succeeded in doing yesterday was causing a massive Twitter explosion last night. There was a massive explosion on Twitter, where nearly all the Labour Party caucus, except Shane Jones, except Andrew Little, except Clayton Cosgrove, and except a bunch of other Labour Party members, were on Twitter last night saying “No, there’s nothing happening here.”, and Annette King was even on the radio this morning saying: “No, there’s nothing happening here.” Well, you know what you say about denials. “De Niles” is a river in Egypt, and the reality of the situation is that the Labour Party is heading towards a leadership revolt.

Mr Shearer, of course, is desperately trying to shore up his leadership, and today he has made a significant bid in that regard. He has decided that the vote for jobs and growth tomorrow will be a conscience vote for his caucus, and he welcomes people who want to vote for the New Zealand International Convention Centre to do so tomorrow.

💬 Hon David Parker: That was the Speaker’s ruling.

The Speaker has ruled—absolutely right—but go and check. There has been a statement released by your leader this afternoon, where he has said that if members of his caucus want to vote in favour of the convention centre tomorrow, they are welcome to do so. Of course, most of them will not be voting in favour, but it will be interesting to see who does, and I think it is yet another test of this man’s leadership.

On this side of the House it is pretty clear. On this side of the House we are in favour of jobs and growth for New Zealanders. Every day this Government proves that, and tomorrow is just another day when we prove that we are in favour of jobs and growth for New Zealanders. But not the modern Labour Party. It used to be like that. It actually supported a convention centre being built in a very similar arrangement 10 years ago, but not today—not today. Those members are caught up in identity politics and are focusing on the man ban. Well, tomorrow a few of them—the few middle-of-the-roaders left—have an opportunity to stand up and say: “Actually, no. We are in favour of jobs and growth, and we should go forward and say so.”

There are three or four of them who might do that. Obviously, they would then have to turn their backs on Grant Robertson and David Parker, and so on. But, for example, the “fab four” who attended the Eden Park discussion with Skycity in the corporate box—[Interruption]—or was it six, or was it eight—will have the opportunity to do so, and we will know whether there is anybody left in the Labour Party who supports jobs and growth or not. So tomorrow is a test of Labour Party caucus members. It is yet another day of a test of the Labour Party leadership—

💬 Grant Robertson: This is a very long 5 minutes, Mr Speaker.

—and I will finish by saying that I thought that in the audition for Mr Grant Robertson just now, he got more laughs in 5 minutes than his leader has had in 18 months.

I want to start off my contribution this afternoon by thanking you, Mr Speaker, for the decision to hold a conscience vote on the Skycity bill tomorrow. I am distressed to hear the way that the National member Steven Joyce has treated the issue of conscience votes. When it has been agreed that a conscience vote should be held, it is the right of each individual member to make the decision for themselves. It may well be that most members from a particular party decide to vote the way that their leader believes they ought to vote. There are lots of reasons why that may be the case. The nature of the vote and the fact of the vote are of less consequence than the right of each individual member to vote according to their conscience. That is the right that members have when the Speaker makes a decision as he has done.

This means that Auckland now has the ability to take real action on the Skycity deal as well. Auckland people who are opposed to this deal now have a genuine opportunity to speak to their local representative, from whichever party, and say to their local representative: “We believe that this deal should not proceed, and we would like you to represent our views when you vote tomorrow on this bill.” It is a genuine reflection of the democracy that allows the members of the public who are most affected by this issue—that is, those who live in Auckland—to talk with their MPs, their representatives, in a genuine way, to say: “We would like you to vote like this.” The Speaker has given those MPs the opportunity to reflect their constituents’ views—their constituents’ views. For that we are very grateful, and we would like to see this continue through the whole process of this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Actually, my contribution today was intended to be not so much on Skycity but on the issues of gender, because the National Party has such a poor level of representation of women in Parliament. [Interruption] I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is very difficult to continue my speech with the conversation that is being shouted across from one side of me to the other.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Would members cease the interjections, because it is distracting to the member who is speaking.

Thank you. Why is the National Party lagging so far behind when it comes to women’s representation? Last term, 29 percent of its caucus were women; this term it is 25 percent—one in four. It is lagging behind. Do you know what we heard from the National Government’s Minister of Women’s Affairs, Jo Goodhew? Do you know what she told Morning Report just this week—on Friday, actually? People should be selected on merit alone, said the Minister of Women’s Affairs. She said that New Zealand had a proud history of women succeeding on the basis of their competency. Is Minister Goodhew really saying that of all the women in the National Party, only 25 percent are competent enough to be MPs? Is that what she is really saying? Does her attitude explain why it is that the Government has this miserable target for the private sector boards of having only 10 percent of private sector boards being women? Is that because the National Government’s Minister of Women’s Affairs believes that only 10 percent of women who are in business are competent enough to be on these boards? In terms of partners in law firms, an area particularly special to my heart, only 16 percent of women lawyers are partners. Does Jo Goodhew believe that only 16 percent of women lawyers are competent to be partners in law firms?

The Green Party is very proud of its record of having a majority of women in our caucus represented in this Parliament, because we believe that representation of women is absolutely critical. We believe that women do have all the skills and capacity to be representatives in this House, for this House to be genuinely a representative democracy, and we make sure it is possible—we make sure it is possible—unlike the National Party, which is actively, obviously, excluding women from the opportunity to hold positions of authority in its party. There is no commitment in the National Party to any kind of representative democracy. It prefers a male-dominated elite to be making decisions and to be sucking resources to that male-dominated elite, and leaving women, leaving their children, and leaving all of those others who are entitled to be represented here out in the cold. Thank you.

What a joy to follow the lecture that we have just received from that member, Metiria Turei. Oh, for goodness’ sake! Honestly, I was so, so enthralled with her lecture that I almost forgot that last night she was so busy lecturing us that she forgot to vote against the legal assistance legislation that she had railed against from one end of the country to the other. It was wonderful to have her support in the final moments, so that, in fact, the bills went through unanimously. So well done, Ms Turei, well done—you are finally seeing some sense.

But I have to say that that presentation on merit and how bad it is was pretty amazing. To say that over here the women are—what? We are dominated by the men? I think that is a bit of a joke. Unfortunately, what I can see, though, is that in the Labour Party, of course, it is, in fact, all about the man ban. Why is it that with the three different factions in the Labour Party all vying to take the leadership, not one of the leaders or deputy leaders in contention is a woman? Why is that? Of course, the reason is that they are always chosen on merit. That is why it is; it is clearly on merit.

I thought Ms Moroney did brilliantly on The Nation last weekend. I am looking forward to her coming on again next weekend, and probably Q+A, as well. It was so much fun, I even taped it. It was fantastic. I played it again just in case some people missed it—and they really should see it. I have no idea why she is not allowed to turn up in the media more often. It must be because she is a woman! That is what it is in the Labour Party. That must be the reason.

But, of course, David—what is his name? David Shearer yesterday—[Interruption]—well, that is what they asked on Morning Report yesterday on Radio New Zealand National. They said: “Where is David Shearer?”, because for the first time in living memory, I think since the 1930s, when the Labour Party was first set up, a Labour Party leader refused to go on Morning Report. How does that happen? How does that happen? He refused to go on because he did not want to talk about Ms Moroney’s very good attempt to bring in the man ban. It is so clearly needed because Labour has only two women on its front bench, and, of course, we have got three. Of course, our three are equal to about six of them when it comes to merit. But having said that, why is it?

All the last week we have watched as the Labour Party has imploded and it has talked about the things that nobody cares about—in other words, getting rid of men, not letting them compete equally against women, and turning them into an endangered species, if they were not already within the Labour Party.

But, of course, what have we been doing? Well, we have had a bit of fun, I have to say, amongst all the work, and most of that fun has been at the expense of Labour members. But we have also been getting on with the job of government, thinking about what it is that the people of New Zealand want. They want jobs. There is the convention centre deal, which I am sure those people in the Labour Party probably will end up voting for. I am sure that Phil Goff, Clayton Cosgrove, David Shearer—and who else—Annette King, and Kris Faafoi will want to vote for the convention centre legislation. They were very happy to take the hospitality of Skycity the other week—why was that—after they had been bagging them day in, day out in the media. Of course, what they did was stay there all night, just to tell them off. It is amazing what those poor people endured.

We are also into bringing the crime rate down, and this last week we announced our Better Public Services targets. What can we say? Under Labour, prisons got full. Under National, crime is coming down. Youth crime has dropped 18 percent since June 2011—a fantastic rate. Total crime is down 11 percent. Reoffending is down 9 percent. Under Labour, what was happening? Violent crime was going up, and reoffending was going up. Labour made no progress. Poor Miss Moroney is still trying to get a question in the House. Why can that woman not get a question? Why is that? It is because she is not on merit—no, she is on merit.

💬 Hon Member: The woman has a name.

She has, and she deserves it, because she has helped us in Hamilton West to make it a safe National seat, and before that she did the same for Hamilton East. I think that is an outstanding record, and I am looking forward to her doing it again in Christchurch East, because apparently it is that member whom the hierarchy want to be there. That, of course, will be on merit—yes, absolutely. I see the Tui billboard coming on.

I am so proud to be a member of this National-led Government. It is working well and getting on with the business. It is talking about the stuff people want. What we are doing is we are getting the crime rate down, getting jobs for people, bringing the economy further up, and actually undoing some of the rot that Labour left us with.

That was an intriguing speech from Judith Collins, a woman who has a Twitter account that 99 percent of people assume is a parody because it is so bizarre and so random. I take offence at her lecturing Metiria Turei about the merits of women, after she tweeted last week: “What a vile, vulgar, ugly speech Metiria Turei gave, just like her jacket.”—just like her jacket. How is that being a role model for women in this House, when apparently the jacket that a woman wears is more important than the substance of the speeches that she gives in this House?

I want to inform the New Zealand public that that Twitter account is not a parody; it is real. That is how scary it is. She actually believes those things that she is saying on that account. I think that Ms Collins is on wafer-thin ice when she lectures anyone on this side of the House on the merits of women and respecting the role of women in Parliament.

It has been interesting to see the focus of the National Party. One of the issues we want to talk about on this side of the House is power prices. In 1 year disconnections have jumped by 10,000. Mr Simon Bridges, the Minister of Energy and Resources, said: “There’s no problem. Nothing to see here. That’s OK.” Power prices have continued to increase at double the rate of inflation, despite flattening demand, despite the surplus of supply, and despite a collapsed carbon price, and Minister Bridges says: “That’s OK. It’s all fine. Nothing to see here.”

It is unfortunate that it has been left to Simon Bridges to deal with this issue, because he is the Justin Bieber of the National Cabinet. He does not take these issues seriously. What he has been saying consistently is that power prices are not too high. We said to him: “Well, then, what would be too high?”. He replied: “Oh, I don’t know—I don’t know.” That is not an appropriate answer from a Minister of Energy and Resources who is overseeing a jump in disconnections of 10,000. People cannot have power connected over winter because they cannot afford to pay the power bills, and the National Government has no plan to do anything about that.

I suspect that Minister Bridges would think that power prices were too high if he could not afford to pay the power bill. I suspect that that is the real answer to that question. National members will think power prices are too high when the massive tax cut they gave themselves is no longer enough to pay the power bill. But the unfortunate reality out there for most punters is that as winter kicks in and as power bills are landing in letterboxes, family budgets are being stressed, and the National Party is saying: “There is no problem. There is nothing to see here. Please look the other way, because that is certainly what we are doing.”

One of the most extraordinary statements from Minister Bridges was: “Well, we just haven’t given the Bradford reforms enough time to bed in.” Given that he was not even born when they first came in, I do not know how long he needs to show that they have utterly and completely failed to deliver the competition and the price reductions that were promised at that time. They have failed. They have not worked. They do not need time to bed in. They need to be reformed. They need to be changed. Tinkering will not help. A Labour Government is the only Government that is going to be prepared to do that.

Minister Bridges’ answer to this is always: “We have this fantastic What’s My Number campaign, so the fact that people are able to switch power companies and go and find out all the different options proves that there’s competition.” Firstly, if there is such great competition in the market, why do we need to throw millions of dollars at a What’s My Number campaign, in order to improve competition? But, more important, what does that programme do for the poorest families in this country?

💬 Hon Member: Nothing.

Nothing. Do you know why? Because the families that I am dealing with every single day at home, who cannot pay their power bills, are lucky if they can find one power company to pick them up. The idea that they could have a choice of power company—[Interruption] Anne Tolley, who has moved from Gisborne to Ōhope Beach and so is hardly ever in Gisborne now, does not realise, perhaps, just how hard people are doing it in Gisborne. The local fire service tells me that it is seeing an increase in house fires because of people using little gas stoves to cook on and candles to light their homes. Maybe she needs to spend a little bit more time in Gisborne, to get some idea of how hard people are doing it there.

The reality is that most families in that position cannot find one power company to take them on. So when they hear the National Party and Anne Tolley lecturing them, saying: “Well, just change power companies. You have a choice.”, they realise just how out of touch this National Government is. Those programmes do not help the poorest families. Simon Bridges, the Minister, does not care about those families—neither does this Government—and that is why the Labour-Greens NZ Power policy is the only policy that is going to deliver for the poorest families in New Zealand.

It is a complete joke for that member, Moana Mackey, to be lecturing the National Government on power prices, because the Government that she was a part of raised power prices from 1999 to 2008 by 72 percent. So if she is complaining about the price now, that is because power prices went up under her Government. Under this Government, power prices have gone up by only 16 percent. So when Labour members say that they have got the answer on power prices, they know that they are dead wrong. Quite frankly, there is a word for that beginning with “h” that would describe anything they say about electricity prices.

Those people over there are truly the unelectables. There is no question about that. When you look at the options once David Shearer goes, it is not a very pretty sight. Grant Robertson was doing his leadership audition here today, and I must say that it was not too bad, really, if you wanted a light comedy routine. But when you team him up with Andrew Little and Shane Jones, you have got three guys—two of whom cannot win an electorate seat and the other one is completely unelectable as the leader. So I reckon that although they might be happy individually, they are in a pretty bad space.

What I think is really disgraceful is the way that they are acting towards their leader. If that Twitter explosion from last night was not treachery at its worst—and if those denials do not actually signal that the coup is on—I do not know what is. Grant Robertson is pretty happy because he has convinced David Shearer that he is allowed to answer only one question each day. That is why, 37 times since he was elected leader, David Shearer has come into this House and said: “Prime Minister, do you stand by all your statements?” or “Does he stand by all his statements?”. That is the one question that David Shearer asks every day, and the rest of the time he is totally dazed and confused.

I think that the Labour research unit is pulling David Shearer’s chain. It is conning him completely, because, quite frankly, it is not giving him a fair go. Grant Robertson there is not supporting his leader. He cannot wait for David Shearer to go. David Cunliffe was up there today having a go. Who else was there? There was the other fellow—Shane Jones. Shane Jones is suddenly back in the game because he knows that the coup is coming and it is all going to be up for grabs. Even Darren Hughes’ landlady might fancy herself as making a bit of a comeback. It could be anyone. The good news is that they are all completely unelectable, so it is good times ahead.

The one man they do really want to ban is David Shearer. They want to get rid of this guy, but there is no one there with the steel and the political nerve to actually grasp the chalice. If Grant Robertson was up to it, he would never have let Shearer get that job in the first place. That is the fact of it. Grant cannot do the job. Old what’s-his-name Shane Jones is not up to it either. He had his chance. So, really, there is not the next Labour Prime Minister in Parliament at this stage, and that is a very big problem.

Tomorrow we are going to be voting on the Skycity Casino legislation. That is going to be a conscience vote, and I am looking forward to Phil Goff, Kris Faafoi, Clayton Cosgrove, and David Shearer all voting for it because they would not want to look like hypocrites.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Annette King.

Oh, and Annette King. You would look like a bit of a hypocrite if you went to the Skycity box, if you drank all night, and if you ate all night, and you came in here and voted against the legislation—

💬 Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was in the Chamber last night when the Chairman of the Committee ruled against the use of the word “hypocrite”. I am surprised that you did not pull the member up, particularly as I could have thrown that back at him as a member who went to a corporate box with a tobacco company—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member is quite right. The word should not have been used, and I ask the Minister to stand and withdraw the use of that word.

I withdraw, but I think you get the gist of what is going on. So, anyway, those guys over there—

💬 Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. He cannot then comment on your ruling.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: That is true. Would the member, now that he has withdrawn that comment, just continue his speech.

I withdraw. But, as I was saying, those four Labour members were at the Skycity box, so, of course, morally, they are compelled to vote for the legislation tomorrow, because Annette King is for jobs and growth, and Phil Goff is for jobs and growth. Grant Robertson is not, and he is the only option Labour has got as the leader for the future. The more it gets bogged down in things like the man ban, the less it is able to connect with the people of New Zealand.

I can tell you a story. A lady I know in Auckland, a friend of my family, had a couple of plumbers around last week, and they said: “Well, I guess it’s the last you’ll be seeing of us.” She said: “Why?”. They said: “Well, the way it’s going, if Labour ever gets into Government, we’ll have to send only female plumbers here.” The point of this story is that once the plumbers and the blokes driving the white vans are getting the message that the guys over there are against the “blokey tradies”, as Shane Jones calls them, those guys have lost. So I think that with the man ban thing, Labour has conscribed itself to the wilderness for a decade, I would say. It is looking pretty bad for Labour.

Meanwhile, over here, we are focusing on the economy—the best economic growth in the OECD bar Australia—the jobless rate being down, inflation being down, and good economic times. We are looking very good. Those guys there are absolutely hopeless.

Honourable members, today I want to talk about an issue of concern.

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: What’s that?

That issue is crime, Mr Foster-Bell. We are all very aware that some of our citizens fail to behave in accordance with the law. So New Zealand, like every society, has to live with a certain amount of illegal and dysfunctional behaviour. Human perfection is not likely to happen any time soon. Accordingly, our society must be able to marshal such levers as will influence people to abide by the law. These points need to be made because right now in New Zealand it is plain that many of those who break the law in a serious way are getting an uncertain message about how unacceptable their behaviour is to law-abiding society.

Let me mention a few recent examples. Darren Murphy Fidow, age 18, brutally attacked an 82-year-old woman. He was sentenced to only 11 months’ home detention. John Richard Cox received 6 months’ home detention and 150 hours’ community work for making incorrect tax claims for his clients without their knowledge, which amounted to a fraud of well over $400,000. Eru Michael Timoti, 27, a factory worker, had sex with an under-age girl for over a year, knowing that it was illegal. He was sentenced to 200 hours’ community work and 18 months’ intensive supervision.

It would be inappropriate for me to comment in detail on any specific criminal case, but what is apparent is a clear pattern of extremely serious crime resulting in sentences that would strike most New Zealanders as lenient—as lenient. Justice must be done, and it must be seen to be done. We place great trust in our judiciary—we do. Those appointed to the judiciary in New Zealand are people of the highest calibre—the highest calibre. But, ultimately, if people believe that sentences do not reflect the harm that individuals in society have suffered, confidence in the whole judicial process will suffer.

Has the Government directed judges to avoid prison sentences because of the cost and serious overcrowding? That is a good question for the Minister of Justice to answer. The public are rightly concerned about what appear to be lenient sentences, and they are questioning the validity of our court system. The public can be forgiven for their scepticism. They can be forgiven. Is something going on here? What are we not being told? Is lenient sentencing a covert way of saving money? Is leniency an undeclared way of keeping prison populations down? Is it? What we do know is that the public take crime very, very seriously. New Zealand First takes crime very, very seriously. In relation to crime, we must all stand together—we must.

Earlier this week we watched in horror a chase on television. The chase started in Ōpōtiki and went all the way up to North Auckland. That chase took over 3 hours and shut down the motorway for 14 hours.

💬 Hon John Banks: How many?

14 hours, Mr Banks. Do you remember something now? New Zealand First wants to commend the New Zealand Police for its handling of the extremely dangerous situation. But it does raise yet more concerns—it does raise more concerns. Let me put it in plain language: it means that the Minister is asleep at the wheel—it does.

💬 Hon John Banks: Speak up.

I am speaking up for that, as you can hear. You cannot even remember half of the story, Mr Banks.

It means our police force is under-resourced. It means our community safety is hugely compromised. It means the Minister and the Government are turning a blind eye to the huge number of unreported incidents and unrecorded crimes. There are just not enough police—there are just not enough police—to cope with the demand. The Government should stop boasting about the crime rate coming down, because we have got prisons overflowing with prisoners. New Zealand still has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. How can our prisons be overflowing if the crime rate is coming down? How can you expect the prisons—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I apologise for interrupting the member. The member’s time has expired.

What a soul-destroying rant from the list member from the “New Zealand First, Winston Second Party”.

Why is the Leader of the Opposition not here this afternoon?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order!

OK, I will not, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition needs to get up in the House and take calls like this to defend his position. It seems to be that I have never seen a Labour Party in such disarray. In 10 Parliaments of being here, I have never seen a more dejected, reduced-to-nothing, hopelessly out-of-control, miserable specimen of an individual than the leader of the Labour Party. Why is it that his bench mate Grant Robertson, “The Toad from Toad Hall”, looks so happy? In the A A Milne book Toad of Toad Hall, Toad of Toad Hall looks so happy. He looks so happy because he is creative and he is devious, but he is self-centred to the point of sociopathy. He is self-centred. The “member for Vivian Street” is happy today because he wants to take over the mantle of the leadership—the remnants of the leadership—of the Labour Party. But he is completely lacking in common sense.

Toad of Toad Hall is known as someone who is always clever, devious, educated—over-educated—and over-competent, but lacking common sense. That over there is “The Toad from Toad Hall”, who would be the leader of the Labour Party if the poor joker—to use the vernacular, the Leader of the Opposition has just finished a long visit to the taxidermist. He is finished. It is all over. I have never seen anyone so dejected. I have never seen anyone so miserable. He sits there at question time, he eats peanuts, he chews his fingernails, he feels out of depth, and all he is saying is: “If only I were in New York with my secret bank account, it would be so much better than this place of purgatory.” But “The Toad from Toad Hall”, the grunter from Vivian Street, is there. He is ready to take over, and he would be an equal disaster.

In A A Milne’s book it says: “When the Toad came down the street howling, the streets were full of people jeering at the sight.” That is what will happen with that leader. So we get rid of the hapless Mr Shearer, and we get the “member for Vivian Street” in charge of the Labour Party. That is where Labour members belong—in Opposition for a long, long time. They can have their Moët champagne at Skycity; they can have their secret bank accounts in New York; they can have their hapless, hopeless, and useless leaders; and they can have their very earnest little chief Government whips. But what they cannot have is any constituency out there that represents common ground, common sense, investment, growth, or jobs. The Labour Party is in a bad way.

A day before I entered Parliament in 1981 there were four women members of Parliament. The day after I entered Parliament, 10 Parliaments ago, there were eight women members of Parliament. Today there are 44 women members of Parliament. What we need are high-quality women members of Parliament, like the two I am looking at now and the one who is behind me—the three on this side of the House—Mrs Tolley, Mrs Upston, and this lovely member over here.

💬 Grant Robertson: Tell us her name.

What is wrong with that? On their own, those three women would be an Opposition demolition team, and they would not need “The Toad from Toad Hall”, the “member for Vivian Street”.

Is it going to be Shearer, Robertson, Cunliffe, or Little? We on this side of the House do not care, as long as they stay where they are. As long as no one cares, because no one up and down the country cares, this Labour Party is in disarray from the grassroots up. Worse, by cuddling up to the Greens, Labour has become a party intent on destroying business, growth, and jobs, and more content on staying over there, and that is not all bad.

When Mr Banks gets back to his office, he can reflect on where he went wrong with that speech. He went wrong right at the point that he decided to introduce Parliament to the women on the National side of the House. He got two out of three, and he could not remember the name of the third one. At that point it went wrong for Mr Banks. We know that his memory is not particularly good.

John Banks could not remember being flown in Kim Dotcom’s personal helicopter to his mansion, where he met the giraffe and got given $50,000. The same man put on a fireworks display for Auckland, but John Banks could not remember. Kim Dotcom is the guy who put on the biggest fireworks display Auckland has ever seen. John Banks sent him a note to say thank you, and then claimed he could not remember. And he could not remember Melissa Lee’s name when he was speaking. That is the point at which his speech all started to go very, very wrong.

If I were John Banks, I would not be talking about secret bank accounts or Skycity. Bear in mind that John Banks is the man who pretended not to know that Skycity gave a massive contribution to his campaign. He said he did not know about it, even though they personally handed him the cheque. Well, I do not know about you, but if someone gives me a cheque for $15,000, I generally tend to remember that. That is not the sort of thing I would forget.

Who else have we had from National today? Well, we have had the great Mount Albert maestro, Jonathan Coleman. Jonathan Coleman—

💬 Grant Robertson: He wishes he could forget things.

He wishes he could forget things. He wishes he could forget the Mt Albert by-election. Jonathan Coleman decided to give us a lecture on corporate box etiquette. When Jonathan Young was the Opposition spokesperson on health, he took money from the tobacco industry and decided to blow smoke in their faces in their own corporate box. Who else did we have? Well, we had Judith Collins. “Cruella” herself decided to make a contribution. I want to know why Judith Collins had to speak after Steven Joyce. Has the deal already been done? Has the succession planning already been mapped out for the National Party?

The deal has been done. We know that John Key does not want to stick around after the next election, so has the deal been done? Yes, they have stitched it up. It is going to be “Corporate Jones”, Steven Joyce, and “Cruella”, with the Dalmatians lined up behind them. That is the deal. It is another deal that National has done behind closed doors, a lot like all of the other ones that John Key is so keen on doing.

John Key cannot sit down for a meal without whacking New Zealanders with another massive bill. Every time that man sits down for a meal, New Zealanders end up paying. He sits down with Warner Bros, and there is a law change that they pay for. He sits down with John Banks—another dodgy deal—with Peter Dunne, with Skycity. Every time John Key meets somebody, he does another dodgy deal.

I found it very ironic that Jonathan Coleman decided to ask why it was that David Shearer always asks John Key whether he stands by all of his statements. [Interruption] Well, I will answer that for Jonathan Coleman. It is because for the first time in New Zealand’s history we have a Prime Minister who has to think about it. He actually has to pause and think about it: “Oh my goodness, what did I say? What did I say?”. He has to think about it.

I found this comment from John Key very, very revealing, when he was talking about his relationship with the parliamentary press gallery. He said: “I’ve found in my time as Prime Minister I’ve had less engagement with the press gallery simply because I do not mislead people, so I have to answer the question if they ask me a question.” So his solution to dealing with the press gallery is that he does not want to mislead them, so he just does not talk to them. He just avoids the question in the first place because he does not want to get caught out not telling the truth, which has happened so many times before.

This is a Government that is simply intent on doing all of the dodgy deals that advantage its mates. It is not interested in the issues that hard-working New Zealand families care about. Power prices are going up all the time, and this Government says it does not have a problem with that. It thinks the power prices are right for the environment—that is what National says. Actually, New Zealanders are saying that they do not think that is right. This is a Government that wants to take hundreds of millions of dollars a year out of the electricity industry—out of Transpower, in particular—in dividends and force New Zealanders to overpay for their power. This is not a Government that is concerned about the issues affecting ordinary New Zealanders.

One would have to stand in the House this week and ask what the most important issues are for hard-working Kiwis. Well, according to the Labour Party, it is whether or not its caucus of—how many—33 has enough women, or, actually, whether there are too many men. That is the issue that it has been talking about day after day after day. And you know what? It could not even count. It could not even count the number of women it has now, so good luck with getting to your 45 or 50 percent—I hope you can count by then.

Let us actually quote from one of its own. Josie Pagani, who was a candidate for the Labour Party, says that Labour is “stuck talking about ‘man-bans’ and social engineering rather than jobs and social mobility. How have they let this happen again?”. I think that says it all. It just shows, actually, how the Labour Opposition is so disconnected. It is so out of touch. It is not listening to hard-working New Zealanders. This side of the House knows that John Key’s team is leading in the issues and getting results in the areas that matter to New Zealanders: having safer communities, having higher levels of education, having more of our youngsters in education in the first place, having more jobs, and having an economy that is growing.

This week the National Government actually reported on its Better Public Services targets. Not only do we talk about things; we deliver results. We deliver results in the areas that matter to hard-working New Zealanders. So last week, up and down New Zealand, Labour supporters were picking up their jaws off the floor when, instead, Labour was talking about man bans. It was quite interesting because, to quote one of the other commentators, Kerre McIvor said in the Herald on Sunday that policies count, ovaries do not. So, clearly, the Labour Party cannot find any policies, it cannot find anything that resonates with New Zealanders, so it is going around counting ovaries. Well, I do not think that matters to hard-working Kiwis.

On this side of the House—and I am proud to be a female member of the National caucus—we measure on merit and performance. Not only do we select on that basis; we then measure the results that our Ministers are achieving. I want to—[Interruption]

I was not going to go there, but let us do it. There is a bit of a competition in the National caucus, and that competition is who gets to stand against Sue Moroney in the next election, because in every single seat she has stood in our majorities go up—our majorities go up. So there is a competition—a demand competition—for who gets Sue. When it comes to the Christchurch East selection, which is coming up, I actually think that the Christchurch East selection has driven this man ban because Labour does not want Clayton Cosgrove as its candidate. It is kind of interesting if you look at who are the ones who have come out with the letter this week. If you look at some of the names involved and if you look at the list that Labour put up last time and how that 50 percent would have worked—surprise, surprise—David Parker, Shane Jones, and Andrew Little would not have made it based on a fifty-fifty list. So they are actually only covering their own butts.

I am really proud of the Better Public Services results that our Government is achieving. If you look at our line-up of strong women Cabinet Ministers, they are looking after the areas that count for New Zealanders: looking after justice, looking after police, looking after corrections, looking after education, looking after a whole range of issues like social development, looking after families, looking after children—those are the issues that matter to New Zealanders. That is why I am proud to be sitting on this side of the House delivering results, not focusing on petty things like whether we have got enough men or too many or what they have got between them.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Back to reality. There is a whakataukī in Aotearoa that says: “Whatungarongaro he tangata, toitū he whenua”. It means “People perish, but the land remains”. I want to talk today about the consensus amongst New Zealanders outside this House that looking after the environment for ourselves and for all living things is more important than destroying it. However, whether the land remains or not has become a dubious question under this Government, as more and more of the land is opened up to block tenders, applications, and exploration permits of all kinds. However, they are out of step, these people who are running our country, with what New Zealanders have built a consensus around for many years. Although we disagree on many things, and although we now face one of the most unequal societies that we have ever seen, there is still a core at the heart of our commitment to our environment. New Zealand citizens of all stripes know that without the environment, there is no economy, and without the economy, the people, and the environment together, we do not have a future.

So it is very sad to hear the Minister of Energy and Resources today unable to answer my questions in the House—and, indeed, last week—about the details of his portfolio, because we do need some leadership around protecting the environment for future generations, and it is not going to come from this Government. In 2010 there was a very, very strong expression of the values of our country when 30,000 people marched down Queen Street and 40,000 people wrote submissions against mining in conservation land, specifically schedule 4 land. That was an amazing expression of resistance to “sexy coal” and “sexy gold”. What it was was a statement that there are things that we value together that are more important than the narrow, extractive, 19th century vision of how to build a country. The Government had to change its strategy because it had such a clear message from the people of this country. I was proud to be one of the people at the front of that march. On that day I saw a huge diversity of people express the values that the Government has decided to ignore. The Government has done that in a really interesting way. Because it could not win up front, it has done it through the backyard. It has done it through the manipulation of the Crown Minerals Act and through incursions into schedule 4.

So I would just like to go through some of those interesting strategies of the Government after 2010. In its single economy plan, which is to facilitate the multinational mining industry, it had to find a way around the enormous public opposition to this plan. It had to find ways to undermine the public commitment that it had made and that it continues to say it makes to this area known as schedule 4. So what the Government did was change the Crown Minerals Act—that was one of the major tasks—in order to hoodwink New Zealanders into thinking that it was committed to no mining, but actually it created a law that facilitated joint ministerial decision-making over the Department of Conservation estate. It also gutted the Department of Conservation estate; that was easily done in the Budget. Then there were also other strategies such as paying for aerial surveys over the country to see where the minerals are, so that the Government can help the mining companies get hold of them, and, indeed, doing things like beefing up the Crown minerals section of ministries involved in energy and resources and putting out tenders for block offers, basically begging foreign, large-scale mining companies to come in and take advantage of the minerals, which it was determined to allow.

But it also had to do something to undermine schedule 4 without anyone noticing. I live in an area called the Coromandel, where we notice everything. Although the Minister of Energy and Resources was in short pants when I started working on mining—I have been doing this for 30 years—the people of my area, both younger and older, are very, very clear about what is happening to schedule 4. So, basically, how do we get around the fact that there is supposedly a mining ban, but we want to send a signal to the mining industry that mining is great? We do that by doing things like allowing drilling inside schedule 4 land. The Minister makes statements about the difference between exploratory drilling and drilling for mining because he does not understand the industry. Actually, drilling is drilling, and what they do is send a tube down into the earth. They find out what is there and then they decide whether it is worth mining or not. And the Minister has said they can do that in schedule 4 land, in the most precious part of Aotearoa, where there is the strongest biodiversity, where our endangered species live, where our iconic landscapes are, and which should be set aside for future generations, which it allegedly had done. But, no, they are drilling.

So drilling is fine, and drilling is the new normal in schedule 4 land. What we have now today is that mining—a dodgy mining permit, which allows all kinds of activities and which is supposedly just in an exit shaft but is, in fact, not—is allowed on schedule 4 land. Watch this space—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

There was something in Catherine Delahunty’s speech that I quite liked and I actually am going to use it. It was “back to reality”, because obviously Catherine Delahunty’s reality and my reality are actually quite different.

In a week while Labour has been suffering a leadership crisis, or, shall I say, an identity crisis over that whole disaster over the man ban stance, National has actually been getting on with managing the country’s finances and working hard to deliver a brighter future for all New Zealanders. In fact, during Labour’s leadership crisis—and we have heard from previous speakers all about the Twitter feed and all that sort of stuff—we have been putting through clear plans to support and grow our economy.

We have also been very, very carefully listening to Kiwis and what they want. One of these demands has been for better transport systems in Auckland. People have been demanding better transport systems in Auckland because we have such a congestion problem in Auckland as well. Just last week our Government kick-started the next generation of Auckland’s transport projects. These projects will cost in excess of $10 billion and will make a huge difference to the congestion on our Auckland roads.

One of the things that actually happened in Auckland last week while Labour was busy talking about the man ban and leadership challenges and all that sort of stuff—possibly with a letter going around their caucus—was I was wondering where the leader, Mr David Shearer, was on Saturday, because it was the reopening of the Mount Albert train station. He is, after all, the MP for Mt Albert. Being the list MP, I actually turned up to the blessing ceremony where the local iwi was blessing the new train station, making sure that people who travel on the train are safe, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Mr MP for Mt Albert”, David Shearer, was nowhere, and you could sort of wonder whether maybe he was at home watching Sue Moroney perform on The Nation to make sure that she said the right things about the man ban. Perhaps that is where he was. He was not actually present at the 10 o’clock opening ceremony and ribbon-cutting ceremony either. You sort of wonder how stressed Mr Shearer is, and my heart does, in fact, go out to him. He is actually under a lot of stress, worrying that there is this massive target on his back, that his caucus will actually stick him with a knife and actually turf him out, perhaps.

We have got a clear view over this side. This National-led Government has a clear view as to how to manage our economy and how to make sure that New Zealand has a brighter future. But, over there, Opposition members are into only that whole Mickey Mouse thing within their own caucus as to who is going to lead them. Perhaps they have to worry because, as previous speakers said, it has been a long time since the Labour Party has had a real leader. Perhaps that is the reason that Helen Clark keeps on tweeting them and texting them, to give them some ideas on what to do. Maybe then they might actually have a real leader very soon.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.