General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Within the last 24 hours we have learnt of outrageous activity relating to the police investigation of the so-called teacup tape, recorded during the election campaign 2011. A cameraman left a tape recorder on a cafe table where John Key and John Banks sat. It was a media stunt, of course, in trying to organise a coalition Government. To prevent publication of the tape’s contents, John Key complained to the police. The police were under pressure to complete the investigation, and we understand that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff was kept “in the loop” during the investigation.

New Zealand First has learnt that the police recorded discussions to seize the telephone records of a private citizen so that they could lay charges against the cameraman. That citizen was me. That is right—my telephone records were going to be seized in an operation that was sparked by the Prime Minister’s office and monitored by the Prime Minister’s office.

This is not Zimbabwe; this is New Zealand. If there had been a security issue at stake, I would have handed over my cellphone records and any other records to the authorities immediately, but there was not.

There is information in a police file that says that police would have taken my phone records to lay charges and make a case against Bradley Ambrose. If Mr Eagleson, Mr Key’s chief of staff, was being kept “in the loop” during the investigation, it stands to reason that the boss, John Key, would also have been in the loop as well. That is perhaps the reason he backed off demanding a prosecution: he would have had to admit that his politically motivated use of the police led to a private citizen’s phone records being accessed illegally. And it is the reason why today, when asked that critical question, he refused to answer without advice.

I was nowhere near the cafe. I have far better things to do.

There is another element to this gross invasion of privacy—a rather sinister element. Why would a group of people in the Prime Minister’s office, funded by the taxpayers, be involved in a police investigation during an election campaign? This was not a leak from a State intelligence agency. This was not a matter of national security, or even a matter of life and death; it was about a petulant Prime Minister trying to save his face and his backside.

Now we have to ask: did he actually sign a warrant, or was he prepared to? Did the police look at my phone records anyway? How did they know that they had to seize them to carry out a successful prosecution? Why did the police zero in on me, for example?

After the recorder was found, a voice on the tape broadcast on YouTube pointed out that a guy in a New Zealand First T-shirt was present outside the cafe. That meant that New Zealand First was suspected at the outset, despite the fact that people wearing T-shirts with “New Zealand First” on them are legion all over the country, in their tens of thousands.

At the time I was a private citizen. This information is contained in briefing notes handed from the Wellington police to the Auckland police. The officer told his counterpart that whatever they decided to do, they were to brief Mr Eagleson. This is not Zimbabwe. Today I am asking the Prime Minister and the police to come clean and produce all the documents relating to my records and the teacup tape investigation. As we have found out, the Prime Minister’s office was donkey deep in violations of privacy, and guess what? The same Wayne Eagleson has his fingerprints and the Prime Minister’s DNA over all the files.

In my years in this House, under eight Prime Ministers, I have never experienced such a personal outrage and an absolute abuse of power by the executive. It had nothing to do with anything other than an election stunt. This was a humble, private citizen. This is corruption that goes to the core of this country’s activities under this Prime Minister, and every member of this House should be joining New Zealand First in condemning this in the strongest possible terms.

The contamination of whey protein concentrate is an issue that has been the key focus of mine and the Government’s over the last 6 or so days. Since it was notified on Friday, no other issue has been a priority for this Government. There is a wide range of Ministers who are involved, working across their respective areas. Right now the focus is squarely on the health and well-being of our children and families, both here in New Zealand and, of course, in those overseas markets. The Ministry for Primary Industries is continuing to work around the clock, seeking to clarify with certainty the extent of the potential contamination. Earlier this week the Ministry for Primary Industries sent staff into Fonterra’s data and distribution centres and Nutricia warehouses, with their permission, to verify the information and gain a complete picture. Ministry of Health officials are working with a range of organisations such as Plunket and Heathline, and, of course, information is regularly available on the Ministry for Primary Industries’ website. We want to ensure that the information is getting out there to the people who need it most.

Of course, everyone in this House will be aware that Nutricia has initiated a voluntary recall of Nutricia Karicare Stage 1 New Baby Infant Formula, for babies from birth, and Nutricia Karicare Gold+ Stage 2 Follow-on Formula, for babies from 6 months onwards. I acknowledge my ministerial colleagues Minister Ryall, Minister Goodhew, and, indeed, Minister Kaye as well, who are involved in doing a very good response in this area, working very closely across these Government departments to ensure that this information is flowing through to consumers here and, indeed, in other international markets. If parents or caregivers have any of the recalled product lines at home, they should return them to the shop that they have been bought from, or return to the place of purchase, and seek a refund.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is working with its embassies to provide information to international markets. This issue has the potential to affect children in other countries, and we want to do what we can to ensure their overall safety. I appreciate that information changed in the first few days, and that is now becoming a lot clearer. Although the information has not been completely clear at times, officials and the Government have been taking and will continue to take a very conservative, precautionary approach. I acknowledge Ministers Groser and McCully for providing that information through to those embassies on a regular and timely time frame. I understand that there are a lot of questions, and right now our focus is on ensuring the health and safety of consumers in New Zealand and across the world. I can assure everyone in the House and the New Zealand public that at the appropriate time I will ask those questions, as will the Government, to ensure that we get the answers that we all require.

This incident also affects our international reputation. It will have an effect, but it is hard to measure—very hard to quantify at this stage. The fortnightly global trade online auction last night was of some comfort to some exporters. There was a mild dip back by about 2.4 percent in the auction prices. To me, this result indicates that the market has taken a measured response on the current situation. There was strong interest from around 200 bidders and a rise in that, in the last auction, and although whole-milk powder was back by 1.6 percent and skim-milk powder was back by 3 percent, it was very similar, when you weigh up that, overall, the online auction has been moving around quite a bit.

As you know, Mr Speaker, and as the House knows, there has been a lot of disappointment about what has happened, but New Zealand has a strong history as an exporting food nation for over 100 years. We need to maintain our integrity on the world stage. Something has gone wrong. We need to rectify what has gone wrong and maintain our integrity, and our integrity will be measured on how we respond. This is an important issue and I want to conclude by saying that the Government is doing all it can to provide information to New Zealand consumers and international markets.

Today I want to talk about jobs, but before I do I want to say that the allegations that have been raised by Winston Peters in the House today about the accessing of his cellphone records is an extremely serious allegation. It sits alongside the behaviour that we have seen from this Government and from John Key and his office, in particular, that shows no respect whatsoever for the privacy of New Zealand citizens. Be it a journalist in the form of Andrea Vance, be it a politician, or be it the Government Communications Security Bureau and all New Zealanders, the respect for the rule of law and privacy from this Government is seriously in question today. The fact that the Prime Minister’s office thinks that it can direct Parliamentary Service adds to that. This Government does not respect the privacy of New Zealand citizens, and it does not respect the separation between the executive and other parts of the parliamentary complex.

The Labour Party was formed on the basis that the value and contribution of workers to the economy need to be recognised. Our guiding beliefs are about the value of work: a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. But, more than that, Labour recognises that in work lie things that are of great significance to New Zealanders, to their self-esteem, to their ability to provide for their families and care for their families, and to their contribution to society. Work and jobs—good, safe jobs—are at the heart of Labour’s vision for the society we want to live in. Jobs and work are at the heart of our policy, which is why it gives Labour and me no comfort whatsoever to learn today that 153,000 New Zealanders are out of work—unemployed. We have no pleasure that in the last 3 months 5,000 jobs have been lost. These are not just statistics; these are real people with families to look after and mortgages to pay who are losing their jobs.

From Dunedin to Dannevirke, from Nelson to Napier, jobs are being lost and families’ lives are being put at risk. And these real stories range right across the age groups, from the young graduate who came to see me 8 months after graduating, who after 100 applications for jobs but no job does not know what to do with his future, to the gentleman from Christchurch whom I found sticking his CV under the door of my electorate office, having also applied for nearly 100 jobs since leaving Christchurch to come to Wellington. Those jobs are not there for those people.

New Zealanders have given the National Party the benefit of the doubt—the global financial crisis, the Christchurch earthquakes—but now is the time when New Zealanders should be seeing some hope from this Government that things will get better on the job front. Instead, all there is is fear that they will lose their jobs. In actual fact, it is the earthquake, or rather the recovery from the earthquake, that is now propping up the job market. It is no longer possible for this Government to use the excuse of the earthquake. The Government is meant to be helping with the recovery.

It is no longer right for this Government to continue to blame the global financial crisis nearly 5 years after it took office. It promised New Zealanders 170,000 new jobs. It will fall woefully short of that mark. In the last 2 years only 17,000 jobs have been created. That is across 2 whole years. That is simply not enough from this Government. Imagine just how much worse it would be if 200,000 Kiwis had not taken flight to Australia. Unemployment would be well over 8 percent.

So what does a proper jobs policy look like? Well, from Labour, what it will mean is giving exporters a fair go, getting research and development going, making sure that training of workers is a priority, giving Kiwi companies a proper go at Government contracts, and real regional development policies that focus on industries where there is growth—in manufacturing, in information and communications technology—not the National Party’s approach of the search for a silver bullet that simply cannot be found. It is only with Labour that that change to a real jobs policy will happen.

I want to finish with an old saying, to try to give comfort to some people who are out there looking for work. They say that a recession is when someone you know loses their job, and a depression is when you lose your job. The recovery starts when John Key loses his.

The events that have unfurled in respect of potentially contaminated infant formula over the last, I do not know, 72 hours now pose some very, very significant challenges for New Zealand, pose significant challenges for the Government, both at the political level and the official level, and pose very significant challenges for Fonterra. They also raise some very serious issues, of course, for the other smaller dairy companies, and we must never overlook the fact that some of these so-called smaller companies are small only in relation to Fonterra; they are quite significant companies by normal New Zealand company standards. Also, these events pose significant challenges for our scientists and for the members of our community.

I think we realise that so many questions are being raised for which there are not adequate answers, but we have tried to follow what I call a very segmented and, I think, logical, approach to handling these issues. By doing so, I do want to emphasise that this does not mean that we do not understand the public clamour and the legitimate public need for answers to these questions—I would not use the term “second-tier” questions, because they are probably fundamentally important questions—but they are issues that we can come to later, when we have the luxury of time, after dealing with the immediate issue, which we simply cannot put aside.

We all know—I know that every member of this House would share this view—that the immediate issue is the safety not just of our infants but of infants in other countries. I think it is a very important thing to communicate beyond, because people are listening to what we are saying, very carefully. We are just as concerned about the infants of other countries who depend on the safety of the food we send them. I know that I am speaking on behalf of every single member of the House when I say that. That is a very important point because there will be misleading media reports that will play on this. I think it is very important that this House puts that firmly on the record. That has to be, frankly, the only real concern.

Of course, in terms of my own responsibilities, I have got other major economic concerns in the back of my head, but I do not think they are separate. I think that the way in which we handle what I call the immediate issue at hand, the first-order issue—which is to find out where potentially contaminated powders may be, remove them from the market place in all the countries concerned, and deal with any health consequences that may arise; and thank God nothing has happened so far—will determine some longer-term responses. Our ability to deal with the first-order issue will be a matter of substance. I have been saying on several occasions over the last few hours that this is not something that is going to be handled by slick public relations, photo opportunities, and such matters; this is something that is going to be handled by real substance and professionalism. I think it is very important that we have that firmly in mind.

In respect of the overseas responses, I have not received any information today. I have heard one story, which I am now told is incorrect, about Sri Lanka imposing measures. I am told that is not correct, and, obviously, I need to see this chapter and verse. There is still the potential for additional import restrictions, new testing measures, and so on and so forth, because the other regulatory authorities have got the same moral, legal, and political responsibilities to protect their people in a situation of uncertainty. We have to accept that we are not yet fully in a position—I think we are moving into this position—to give those regulatory authorities the assurances that they absolutely need. It may well happen that the web of restrictions increases, but so far it is only in China, and I think we have to recognise the incredible professionalism of the Chinese regulatory authorities in taking such a measured approach, which is focused just on the actual problem at hand.

I hope that the dairy farmers of New Zealand, their families, and the communities that depend so much on their livelihoods do appreciate what the Chinese regulatory authorities have done. I think we have a lot to be grateful for, frankly, in the way that regulatory authorities have responded. That may change, we accept that that may change, and we should accept that as reasonable if it does change, and then work away at resolving those issues with solid, professionally delivered information and data. Obviously, this will leave a series of other steps that we need to reflect on, and then develop policy responses. We clearly will need—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Your time has expired.

One of the ongoing sources of anger and frustration in my community about the management of the Pike River disaster is that it was the police who took the lead in managing the response to the disaster and who, along with Peter Whittall from the Pike River Coal company, had responsibility for communicating with the families and with the public. If it had been the Mines Rescue service in charge, telling the public that it was not safe to go back into the mine, then people would have believed it and would not be angry now, at least about that issue. People understand that Mines Rescue is expert in rescuing people from mines, and they do not expect police to be. People know that Mines Rescue has no conflict of interest, and they trust it.

So although I agree with much of what Tim Groser has just told the House about managing this latest issue about contamination of whey powder, when it comes to managing the health consequences of that issue—and, rather than the 72 hours that Tim Groser has just mentioned, actually it is 15 months—and giving parents the information and advice they desperately need, a Government that knew what it was doing would have the Ministry of Health leading a major public campaign akin to the one that the ministry ran on swine flu, for example. It is the chief medical adviser or the Director of Public Health who needs to be seen talking about this on our television screens every night and in leaflets on every supermarket shelf, not the acting Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries.

Various Ministers in the House yesterday and, indeed, today were obviously defensive about this issue, reassuring us that the Ministry of Health had been involved from the very start. Someone—and I do not recall which Minister it was—even mentioned that they remembered the director-general speaking at one of these meetings, as if that in itself were reassuring to us. With respect, that is not the point.

Even if the chief medical adviser were giving exactly the same information and advice as the Ministry for Primary Industries has been giving, that would be more reassuring to the public. That is because when people need advice about a health issue, they want to hear it from health experts, not primary industry experts. It is also because the Ministry of Health will be trusted as a source of information and advice, whereas the public understands that both Fonterra, the company responsible for the situation, and the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Government agency responsible for regulating the industry and on whose watch this disaster occurred, have unavoidable conflicts of interest.

This mistaken response to the health consequences goes to the heart of a wider problem about this Government. As exemplified by the lead role that has been played by the “Minister for Obfuscation and Diversions”, Steven Joyce, this Government’s first instinct—as it has been with the series of scandals around the Government Communications Security Bureau and the Henry inquiry, for example—is to manage the political consequences through covering up and distractions. Managing the human consequences seems to be an afterthought.

So when John Key talks about an inquiry and getting to the bottom of things, I have no faith that that is actually his intent, and I cannot help but recall the Department of Labour’s failure to even investigate whether its own actions in respect of Pike River met the Government’s legal obligations. When this Government talks about a hands-off approach to regulating industry, the Green Party stands instead for regulation, for transparency, and for honest politics. We need the Ministry of Health on the front end of this issue, and even a white coat would help.

I follow on from the Hon Tim Groser and the Hon Nathan Guy in reflecting on the incident relating to the potential contamination of whey products. The first thing I would say and that all members would, I think, agree with is that we understand how serious this is. That is why from the moment the Government was informed we have swung into action. There have been many streams of work. The first has been around ensuring that the public is protected. What has been frustrating, as has been mentioned by a number of my colleagues, is that the information did change. But what I can tell the mums and dads of New Zealand is that we have put significant resource into supporting the company that did the recall, to ensure that the public information campaign is there. We have committed money to that, and we are doing that.

The second thing I want to reassure the public about is that the Director-General of Health and the rest of the response team, which covers the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry of Health, and a number of other Government agencies, have been working hard to try to resolve this incident. It has been hard because of the changing nature of that information, but what I want to assure people about is that today the director-general will be giving an update on the issues of traceability and verification, which, I believe, is really important to ensuring that people have that confidence. This is a time when the Government needs to operate on a few fundamental principles, and I believe that we have shown those principles. They are protecting the public, and they are transparency and openness, but also doing everything that we can, regardless of what has been presented to us, to ensure as much certainty as possible. So there is a process under way that the Ministry for Primary Industries is focused on.

The other important point that has been raised by the Prime Minister and a number of other Ministers is that we understand that for a country that for generations has been providing safe food, this is a serious incident because it does dent people’s confidence in us. That is why we are committed to asking those questions, at the appropriate point, and to putting a process in place to ensure that all New Zealanders, but also people across the world, have that same level of confidence in our food safety systems.

What I want to do is make this point. The first thing is that our food safety systems are made up of significant investment in terms of science, testing, and standards, but I do believe there are questions that need to be asked, and they will be asked at the appropriate time. What is important to me are a couple of things. One is ensuring that the parents in New Zealand and abroad get the best possible information, when we get it, to ensure that they can keep their families safe. That is why, whether it is through the social media campaign, the newspaper advertising that is planned, or radio advertising, we are doing everything we can to support that company to get that information out there. Also, obviously, the moment that this was informed to us, we began getting information to posts in other countries to ensure that their regulators could do what they could to protect the families abroad. I think that is a really important point.

It has been a difficult time. I am confident that we will rebound from this. I do believe that the Government has shown an incredible amount of fortitude in terms of the number of Ministers who have been involved and have worked really hard across the Government to do everything we can to mitigate this incident. I just want to reassure the people of New Zealand that not only do we take it seriously but we are focused on protecting the public. When the appropriate time happens, we will ensure that those questions are answered so that we can continue to retain our reputation as one of the most trusted nations in the world in terms of food. Thank you.

Kia orana. Based on what other parliamentarians have said this afternoon, I want to briefly follow up on what the Minister for Food Safety has just said. All parliamentarians in the House today and during the course of the week would endorse that the major focus at the moment ought to be on the families, the infants, and, obviously, the households that rely on the product that has developed a very bleak reputation over recent times. Most certainly, there are queries and questions about the institution, an institution that enjoys an extraordinary level of privilege in the commercial world of New Zealand and holds an inordinately important status as the largest trader of dairy products. These are questions that go to the heart of the economy and go to the heart of key regions around New Zealand. So, although the health and the well-being of the mokopunas and the families who rely on this product around the world eclipse everything else, at the appropriate time very searching questions will be put forward and answers will be demanded. I will just say that.

Now let us talk about jobs. I heard the member from Northland, Mike Sabin, unwisely insult Winston Peters earlier today and say to him that he would not know about Northland because he never goes there. I have sort of found that for a first-term member, I am really disappointed that my fellow Northlander has turned on Winston like that. I have got no doubt that as time goes on more senior elements in his own party are going to say: “Oh, for goodness’ sake—don’t say that! We have a sort of different view about Winston.” Well, Winston has a clear view about them—it is Winston Peters whom I am referring to.

But let us talk about jobs. Northland’s job statistics are bleak. They are bleak because there is no specific set of policies designed to turn round the regions of New Zealand. Perversely enough, one of the areas that is going to suffer if we do not completely hop on top and solve the issues around the growth potential of our dairy industry is the regions. Why are the regions starving? Well, infrastructure has been starved in relation to regions. I am not saying that population concentrations are unimportant, but look at where much of the primary produce and look at where much of the export raw material comes from. It comes from the regions. So do not undercut KiwiRail for a relatively small amount of money. From Wairoa and Gisborne through to Heretaunga, reinvest in that particular portion of our rail infrastructure. Do not neglect those regions and treat those regions as though somehow they are less—that their status as New Zealanders is less important.

Secondly, a hobby horse of mine: forestry. Why is the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery not making it a priority and ensuring that all Crown projects in respect of the Christchurch rebuild have as a priority the utilisation of timber, the utilisation of wood, as Jim Anderton and Helen Clark did? That is not to say you exclude concrete, you exclude steel—although far be it from me to become a sudden authority on carbon footprints, etc. But the reality is that our forestry resource and the secondary and tertiary products from that resource have a great role to play in our own economy. Neglected by the current Minister—well, actually the forestry industry does not know who the current Minister is. It realises that Nathan Guy is the Minister for Primary Industries, but based on the body language of the front bench today he is not going to last long. Not only will there be losses of personnel—and I quite like him; I met him in the golden oldie Parliamentary Rugby Team—but I think Horowhenua is going to see a great deal more of him, unfortunately for Horowhenua.

I want to come back to the forestry resource. Why not promote wood so that it takes a place of pride in the $40 billion rebuild, and ensure that all major designs and major architecture work have as a model how timber, wood, and associated industries can be utilised in the Christchurch rebuild to enrich the forestry sector? It is not necessarily going to cost an inordinate amount of dough, but it is actually reintroducing something that was there prior to Steven Joyce indiscriminately going through a whole host of policies that Mr Anderton had left for him to advance on. But with Steven Joyce being the narrow-minded, partisan know-all that he is, Mr Anderton’s contributions were soon forgotten about. The final point that I would make—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you have run out of time, unfortunately. You will get it next week.

On the Ministry for Primary Industries receiving notification from Fonterra about a potential contamination issue relating to whey protein concentrate that had tested positive for food poisoning bacteria that could cause botulism, officials immediately swung into action. We in the Government established a ministerial response team, and a number of briefings, meetings, and teleconferences have been held over the past couple of days since the issue first came to the regulator’s attention and was brought to the Government’s attention. The Ministry for Primary Industries had staff at Fonterra’s Hautapu plant, which is the site of the contamination, conducting testing, and also in Nutricia’s offices, assisting with the tracking of infant formula that may contain the contaminated whey protein. The ministry has also put officials into Fonterra’s data centres, with its agreement and full cooperation, to assist in getting absolute clarity on the situation as it has unfolded. The situation continues to remain fluid. Ministers in this debate and speaking previously have outlined their response and reaction. The information changed a number of times. That is why officials and the Government have been taking and will continue to take a conservative, precautionary approach until we can get absolute clarity over this situation.

Prices dipped overnight at Fonterra’s international dairy auction, the first to be held since the dairy giant’s milk formula contamination scare—the first time since it became public—but economists have noted that there should be no cause for alarm. Prices dipped a modest 2.4 percent, compared with the previous sale 2 weeks ago. The total volume of products sold at auction did increase, however, to a record 60,587 tonnes, and that was up slightly. So the results confirmed that there has not been a material market impact on Fonterra’s prices from the contamination issue, and that international demand for our dairy products remains strong. That does not let us off the hook in any way, but it does remind us of the importance of the agricultural sector to the New Zealand economy.

I will be unashamedly parochial in my next few comments, because the lower South Island—in particular, the Waitaki electorate—is one of the major contributors to New Zealand’s economy based on the agricultural sector. The ongoing economic impact of farming activities in South Canterbury, North Otago, and Central Otago, which are all areas within my electorate, is significant. Close to home, if I think about my house, it looks down on the Fonterra milk transfer station. When the milk season is under way, there is a continual stream of milk tankers from the south and from the north converging on this milk transfer station in Ōāmaru. That continual stream of milk tankers is running day and night, 24 hours, transferring the milk to the various milk treatment stations.

If I go up the valley a little bit, the Waitaki Valley 30 years ago was a place of baron, dry, stony waste. With the introduction of the Upper Waitaki and Lower Waitaki irrigation companies’ activities, that landscape has now been transformed. It is green. There are still sheep. There are still deer. There is still cropping. There is an awful lot of dairying. With that dairying come things like houses up roads. Where there was one house, there are now 10 houses. With those houses come kids. Those kids go to school. Their parents go into town. They go to the supermarket. They go to the rural supply stores and the vet. The vet comes to them and they go to the vet. The economic activity that is associated with our dairying industry should not be underestimated.

If I look at the North Otago Irrigation Co.—10,000 hectares under irrigation—in 5 years, under irrigation, farm expenditure has increased 310 percent. There have been—

New Zealanders are an incredibly forgiving and hard-working people. They will forgive their Government many, many things. When I go out and talk to people in my electorate of Rimutaka, what they say to me is that what they want more than anything else is opportunity. They are willing to work for a better future for themselves and their families. They want the opportunity to do so. What they are disappointed in is this Government’s failure to deliver them that opportunity.

Every time we see unemployment statistics come out that show an upturn in unemployment, as we did today, New Zealanders have a right to feel disappointed in that. As of today there are 153,000 New Zealanders unemployed. That is not because they do not want to work. That is not because they are not willing to go and work. It is because the jobs are not there for them to go and do. They want to see this Government take action to ensure that they have the opportunities to work and to get ahead. That has to be the unrelenting focus of any Government, and it certainly will be of a future Labour Government.

We have already outlined a number of very sensible ideas that will ensure that we can get New Zealanders into work. One of them that I am very proud of is converting the unemployment benefit into a training subsidy for young people. It is far, far better for us to pay to have young New Zealanders in jobs and training, giving them meaningful skills that will lead to future productive and prosperous employment, than have them rotting away on an unemployment benefit. That is something that the Labour Party is committed to, and I am incredibly proud of that policy.

New Zealanders want to work hard so that they can have, and they can purchase, their own home. It is a big part of the Kiwi dream. Owning your own home is a big part of being a New Zealander, and Kiwis know that they need to work for that. They do not want to have it handed to them on a plate. They are willing to get out there and work hard for it, to save for it, but they want to get a foot on the ladder. They want to have a chance. At the moment they are seeing their hopes and their prospects crowded out by overseas speculators coming in and buying up all the available houses, and they are seeing a Government that is simply willing to turn a blind eye to those things.

We in the Labour Party are saying that we acknowledge that it is getting increasingly difficult, and has been for some time, for New Zealand families to purchase their first home, and that is something that we, as a future Government, are committed to addressing. There are many things that we will do. There is no silver bullet. It is not going to be a problem that can be fixed overnight. We are committed to building 100,000 affordable homes to give New Zealanders a chance to get into their first home. We will stop the overseas speculators from coming in and crowding New Zealand families out of the market, so that people can get on to the housing ladder.

We know that New Zealanders are willing to work for it. New Zealanders are willing to work hard, but when I go out into my electorate and I meet people who are working two jobs just to get ahead and they still cannot make ends meet, that means that something is wrong. They do not have a Government that is willing to back them. This Government talks about backing people into work, but it will not back them once they actually get there. There are people who go out there and do a hard day’s labour—and in many cases they are working evenings, too—but who are not getting a pay rate that adequately compensates them for that, and I do not think that that is right, either. Instead, what they have got under this Government is a Government that is committed to eroding their rights even further, to making life even more difficult for people who are going out there and working hard to try to get ahead.

New Zealanders will forgive their Government many, many things and they will give it the benefit of the doubt, but they want to know that the Government that they have put in place is responsibly exercising the power and the trust invested in it. They want a Government that cares about their welfare and their well-being. This Government has demonstrated in recent years that it will wield the power of the State in order to protect itself and for its own end. Government members will wield the power of the State to protect their own privacy. So when the privacy of the Prime Minister and Mr Banks was being threatened, they did not hesitate to send the police in to raid media outlets. They will wield the power of the State to protect the privacy of Mr Dunne, who is quite happy to protect his own personal communications whilst voting for a law that removes the right to privacy for many, many other New Zealanders. They will wield the power of the State to protect themselves and their own interests, but they are woefully inadequate—silent, in fact—when it comes to actually protecting the interests of everyday New Zealanders, who want to go out there, who want to work hard, and who want to create a better future for themselves and for their families.

It would be fair to say that the issue that we are confronted with as a nation of managing the contamination scare with the whey was too close for comfort for any person of this country, especially any primary producer. So how do we feel? As a rural MP myself and as a member on the Primary Production Committee, I must say that it was a breathtaking moment when we heard the story break. One can imagine how those people who have got millions of dollars invested in the primary industries in New Zealand would have felt when that crisis broke. They were all affected in the sense that market access is something that we do value incredibly highly.

So what was the potential of this breach, of this incursion? When you look at it, more often than not, what we have in our mind-set is an incursion by a biosecurity breach. But this was not the case. This was a case where potentially one of our own products was the problem, and we had to work our way through that. So it was wholly appropriate that the Government moved quickly, as it did, and credit must also go to the Ministry for Primary Industries. So well done.

What was the appropriate focus that the Government had? The focus and response of the Government was to protect families, especially the babies. As Minister Tim Groser made the point, it was not only for New Zealand families but especially for our overseas families. May I acknowledge at this particular stage the appropriate effort put in by the Prime Minister, John Key, ably supported by Ministers Joyce, Groser, Guy, Goodhew, Ryall, and Kaye. Also, the officials got alongside Fonterra’s Hautapu plant so that there was good information being given to the public. It is also nice to see presently that, as the story has unfolded and the facts are established, the process has been described, from the Government’s point of view, as a class act.

I venture to say that we in New Zealand need to examine our processes more thoroughly. I am confident that this scare and the resulting examination will result in standards of monitoring that will get better and better through the process, and we should welcome that and open ourselves up to such an examination. This reminds me of a very sage statement that we all in the House will remember: “It is the putting right that counts.” I believe that that statement is so very important and appropriate. Having identified the problem, having isolated the product, we have now got the job of rebuilding the confidence of our partners—the people whose countries we export to—realising that we are the largest cross-border exporter of milk products. We have really got to work at rebuilding that confidence—the putting right of things.

Churchill also made a very appropriate comment that “Bad news will travel around the world before good news even gets its pants on.” That is pretty appropriate when you consider that it is a matter that we have got to be very conscious of. Fortunately, the Government’s response has been to largely keep up with the developments of this issue as it has unfolded and, fortunately, New Zealanders have a natural way of doing business overseas as an export nation. Our officials are open and transparent, and they, along with other Government officials, will work really diligently and hard to make sure that that trust is rebuilt.

There is a need for inquiries. These inquiries will add robustness to our food safety systems, and it is very important that that is the case and that we restore the brand value to the New Zealand brand.

To conclude, I would just like to address the farmers of New Zealand in the sense that there have been times in the recent past when this Government has put in place necessary regulation and legislation that has made farmers a little bit irate. They feel that we are adding cost to their farming systems without adding value, and I am referring there to the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act. I would just encourage farmers to focus on the fact that this is very important for biosecurity and food safety. Thank you.

Kia orana, Mr Deputy Speaker. Nobody can deny the seriousness of the food safety situation that New Zealand finds itself in, and I do want to acknowledge that. I also want to acknowledge another very serious matter, a matter of vital concern to New Zealanders, and that is the need for decent jobs and decent incomes—something that this Government ignores. This is a Government that is out of touch and a Prime Minister who is deeply bogged down in covering his tracks again. This time it is on the Dunne email scandal and the Government Communications Security Bureau debacle, which is something that New Zealander of the Year Anne Salmond has been quite vocal about and has described as a massive breach of trust between Parliament and its citizens.

Today we have seen unemployment increase, up from 6.2 percent last quarter to 6.4 percent today—that is, 48,000 more people are unemployed now than when National took office in 2008. In total, 153,0000 New Zealanders—that is right, 153,000—are unemployed, and almost daily we hear of more job losses. There have been significant job losses all around New Zealand, but jobs and decent incomes are, in fact, the only way forward for New Zealanders. As others have said, New Zealanders are committed to the idea of working hard to get ahead for an opportunity for their family—a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. These are basic New Zealand principles. Jobs are the way that most New Zealanders sustain a decent standard of living for themselves and their family. They are a way for them to contribute their ideas and their labour to grow our economy and to participate in our community.

But our Prime Minister is more focused on denying responsibility for anything negative. He constantly is blaming somebody else—blaming Labour—

💬 Hon Member: That’s right.

—but, in fact, you have been in Government for 5 years, so take responsibility. The Prime Minister, and the Government as a whole, needs to take responsibility. No longer can you continue to blame the last Government or the global financial crisis. You need to take responsibility and focus on the real issues: the issues of jobs and incomes.

But let us look more closely at what is happening to jobs and income, shall we? We have 153,000 people unemployed, a total of 245,400 people who are jobless, and another 63,000 people who are wanting extra hours of work, and it is a very tough time to be looking for work. Māori unemployment is at 12.8 percent, and, actually, that is a slight reduction, so that is good news. But Pasifika unemployment has increased to 16.3 percent. Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga was busy crowing earlier today about the number of jobs that are on job vacancy websites. Well, I do not think that is going to deal with the 16.3 percent of Pacific people who are unemployed. And what about wages? Well, wages are up by only 1.7 percent, and the median for those who actually got a pay increase—and this is the key—was 2.7 percent, which is the lowest increase since 2001. But in the last year 45 percent of employees received no pay increase at all. At the same time, prices were skyrocketing, power prices went up, accommodation prices went up, and 45 percent of workers got no pay increase.

So let us get a renewed focus on creating decent jobs for workers. It is no good saying that the economy is picking up if that benefit is not flowing through to wages and jobs. Our wages remain 34 percent lower than in Australia, and yet we have a Government introducing legislation that will drive wages down further. The Employment Relations Amendment Bill will drive wages down even further, so we need to do more. We need to do more to focus on growing the number of jobs. The Government needs to take responsibility, but we do not believe that it will. It is going to take a Labour Government to get a focus on jobs and on putting in place a really hands-on approach towards job creation, and to invest in lifelong learning and upskilling. Members opposite, your Government promised in 2011 that it would create 170,000 jobs by 2015—170,000 jobs by 2015. Well, so far that is 1,700, so you have got a long way to go—a long way to go.

I have an opportunity to stand here for the second time this week to support this Government’s efforts to ensure that our worldwide reputation does not suffer undue damage as a result of Fonterra’s potential whey contamination matter. I would say, just before I get into what I want to say, that I want to disappoint one of the previous speakers, Shane Jones. He will, for many years to come, have to put up with Minister Guy and Mike Sabin, whether he likes it or not, and I shall remind him of that in the future.

I think we can be pretty proud of the fact that Fonterra has been able, firstly, to identify the problem and, secondly, to trace it. I do not for a moment believe that every company in the world could have achieved this. I also want to commend our team of Ministers for a very competent response to a very serious situation for New Zealand and for New Zealanders. Having said that, I do not underestimate the seriousness of the situation for Fonterra as one of our top food producers, for the farmer-shareholders, for the country, and, most critically, for the international and national consumers—notably, the children and calves, who are the most likely consumers of these recalled products.

No other country in the world has the reliance on food quality, safety, and quantity that we have, and there is no place on earth where food safety is more important than here in New Zealand. We have traversed many miles in the past few years in respect of food safety, but it is clear from the occurrences of the last week that we still have some way to go. I want to spend some time talking about the miles we have travelled and some of the challenges we face as a nation.

In New Zealand we know where the calf I referred to earlier was born, where it travels to, and where it is processed, packed, shipped, and eaten. The challenge for our food industry—as with medicine, for example—is that the recipe contains so many ingredients. What we have to ensure is that all of those are safe and that the subsequent mixture—the chemistry, so to speak—is compatible. This was, of course, the challenge that Fonterra and the Ministry for Primary Industries faced with the whey protein product. It is used in many hundreds of mixtures throughout the world. It is manufactured in New Zealand but then travels all over the world. There is no doubt that this is a great challenge to New Zealand, because many of our other products are in exactly the same situation.

We heard Labour’s agriculture spokesman yesterday and its leader today talking about inadequate funding within the food safety division of the Ministry for Primary Industries. I want to counter this because I think it is irresponsible. As they both should know, issues of national significance will always be funded and always have been funded, and New Zealand will always be in a position to fund them. They should also know, if they have read their books properly, that the cuts to the ministry have not been made to the food safety division’s front-line operations. I would also add that I do not believe that a witch-hunt at this stage would serve any purpose, and the subsequent inquiries, which are necessary, will reveal all of the necessary information to allow us to move on and ensure that these types of food safety issues do not arise in the future.

My electorate of Rangitīkei is a farming electorate. We rely heavily on our producers of meat, milk, vegetables, fruit, even some fish—mostly eels, actually—and honey for our living. Animal welfare and food safety are critical to us in the Rangitīkei. We have three large meat plants, a venison processing plant, two milk plants—a Fonterra and a Goodman Fielder plant—and a number of highly technical, pharmaceutical-type manufacturers, including New Zealand Pharmaceuticals and the recently announced Proliant plant, which is moving to Feilding. We are doing well in this country at present, with more jobs and better systems, services, and household incomes. We must ensure that this continues. Food safety, animal welfare, and better productivity will be vital to our futures in New Zealand. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.