General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. As if the Skycity deal was not rotten enough—as if it was not rotten enough—we now have one of the most unethical bills ever to pass through this House’s history sneaked through on the votes of not one but two deeply conflicted Government MPs. When the Opposition is down one member due to the by-election, it is an abuse of democracy to pass the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill in such circumstances.

MPs are under huge pressure to vote against this deal. The pressure is coming from families, churches, and organisations that have been harmed by problem gambling or left to mop up its mess. Sam Lotu-Iiga knows all about this pressure. He represents a community guided by deeply held religious beliefs that is genuinely troubled by gambling. How convenient, then, that a supposed spokesperson for the Catholic Church should front up to a select committee with evidence that the Church thinks that the casino is really a pretty good place—in fact, a safer place to gamble. But that was not the Church’s view of the casino at all. The Church does not support this deal. The man who gave that evidence was none other than Sam Lotu-Iiga’s own electorate chairman, Seamus Donegan. When Mr Donegan gave the evidence, Sam Lotu-Iiga sat listening in silence. He never once revealed his relationship with the man, not even in the days afterwards, when the Church had to distance itself from Mr Donegan’s comments and set the public record straight. I say that Mr Lotu-Iiga’s silence over all these weeks speaks volumes. My only hope is that he is troubled enough by his conscience to allow it to be heard when the time comes to vote for this unethical, morally compromised bill.

John Banks is also deeply conflicted over this bill. John Banks has railed like a preacher against the evils of gambling in the past. He has called casino operators “wide boys”. He has accused them of having “sucked, hung, drawn, [and] quartered,” the people of New Zealand. But just $15,000 later, he has changed his tune. Asked by reporters how he could in all honesty support the deal, John Banks replied that he did not gamble and he did not drink, but he did not inflict his values on others. Well, then, why did he vote to raise the drinking age to 20? Of course he inflicts his values on others. He just disappears from his values when it suits him.

John Banks is a textbook case of conflict. When a member votes on a deal worth $400 million to a casino while at the same time the casino’s chief executive officer is in court giving evidence against him, there is a conflict of interest. It is a conflict of interest burden that is borne by Mr Banks. The rules around conflicts of interest exist in this Parliament for a reason. Even the perception of a conflict is enough to require standard management: declaration of the conflict and, in some cases, removing oneself from the decision making. It happens all the time and is the best way to manage the conflict or perceived conflict. The Skycity bill deserves to go down in a ball of flames as the perfect example of the Key Government’s crony capitalist values.

Regardless of the bill, the Green Party has produced proposals for making New Zealanders safer from problem gambling anyway. We will make pre-commitment on pokies compulsory, rather than voluntary, so gamblers will have to set a limit at the outset and will not be able to exceed it in the heat of the moment. This is effective in the same way that compulsory seatbelts are effective, whereas voluntary seatbelts are not. We will outlaw inducements by casinos to problem gamblers to encourage them to come back to gamble. We know that that happens because 67 percent of the pokie revenue at Skycity Casino comes from gamblers who are part of the loyalty programme. So it knows who they are, it knows where they live, it knows that that programme is supposed to be used to prevent harm, and yet that is used by Skycity to market to those problem gamblers. We will stop that across the board, including for Skycity. Yes, these ideas come about through our fight over the Skycity deal, but they exist on their own as reasonable, practical, and responsible ways to stop problem gambling. Thank you.

The member who has just resumed her seat, Metiria Turei, tried to imply that members in this House feel under some pressure to vote for the Skycity convention centre bill. Well, I can tell you, the only pressure the members in this party feel under is to turn round 9 years of complete economic sabotage and destruction that was wreaked on this country by a Labour-Green Government. The pressure I feel as a member of this House is the pressure to provide opportunities and jobs for New Zealanders. I would be surprised if there was anyone in this House who would stand up and tell New Zealand that they come here every day and block every single opportunity to create jobs in New Zealand. Yet what do we have? We have some parties who come to this House and they oppose agriculture, they oppose free trade, they oppose the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and all the benefits that brings, they oppose mining, they oppose every opportunity that would create jobs, and they support every bureaucratic, process-heavy, costly, long, drawn-out process that will suck the life out of the economic future of New Zealand.

I want to talk a little bit about one issue that we are hearing a lot about just recently, and that is the issue of mineral exploration. I want to talk about mineral exploration because I find it absolutely unbelievable that we have parties in this House with the barefaced cheek to come in here and talk about the risks of oil and gas drilling, when they not only spent 9 years in Government with zero protection for the environment—zero protection for the environment—and zero rules around how we look after our offshore resources when we do these things but also voted against environmental protection when the National Government put it up. It was the National Government that, for the first time, instituted a system of environmental consenting for our offshore exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. And do you know what happened, of course? Labour voted against it and the Greens voted against it.

What I want to do is tell you a little bit about what the process was under a Labour-Green Government. This was the environmental protection. This was the very technically competent, inclusive, publicly involved process under Labour and that the Greens had. Step one: the Minister of Energy and Resources signs a permit. That is it. That was the whole of the process. So where was the environmental protection? Where was Greenpeace with its models? Where was the public involvement? [Interruption] And now we see the outrage—the outrage—that pours off them in waves.

But do you know what I think it is? I think we can take a little bit of a lesson on this from what is happening now with the Skycity bill. We have got Labour saying publicly “What an outrage!” and saying privately “Don’t worry, boys. We’ll look after you. We’ll be fine if it’s in.” So you can imagine what Labour is telling the oil and gas industry behind the scenes: “Don’t worry, we’ll be out there, charging about saying how outrageous it is, but we’ll see you right. Don’t worry.” You could not figure out what the Labour position was on this issue if you tried. You know that whatever the members tell you is unlikely to be correct. We have had David Cunliffe telling Taranaki that people are leaving in droves, and yet what were the numbers that came out? No, it was growth in Taranaki.

💬 Jonathan Young: 5,500.

In fact, with a successful blend of oil and gas, agriculture, and tourism—Mr Jonathan Young will know—it is one of the most successful economies in the country.

💬 Dr David Clark: Where are the jobs?

The jobs, Mr Clark, come from mineral extraction. They come from agriculture. They come from the roll-out of infrastructure like the ultra-fast broadband network. If New Zealand is not already wise enough to know how much damage the Labour-Green Government did in its 9 years, the fact that those members oppose more jobs in agriculture, oppose more jobs in the oil and gas sector, oppose more jobs across the provinces, and oppose the roll-out of infrastructure—you do have to wonder. But I can tell them. Perhaps I can help them. Perhaps we can help the Green Party cut out some hundreds of thousands of dollars with its spin doctors that, frankly, the oil and gas sector, through its taxes, probably paid for. We can tell it already what its slogan should be in 2014: “The Green Party. We’re for New Zealand—closed for business. Last man out, blow out the candle.”

If the member Amy Adams wants to talk about jobs, then we can talk about jobs. Let us be absolutely clear. This election will be won and lost on the economy and jobs. This Government’s failure is to act in the face of massive job losses in this country. All that the Government members are interested in doing is preserving their relationships through dodgy deals with organisations like Skycity.

One such example, which I raised in this House yesterday, is the crisis that is going on in the screen industry in New Zealand. I do not use the word “crisis” lightly, but that is absolutely what we are facing. There are literally hundreds, up to thousands, of jobs and livelihoods being lost as we speak. The crime of it all is that it is entirely preventable, but this out-of-touch Government is sitting on the sidelines while this absolutely critical industry is decimated. Of course, we have had this industry for a number of years. But in 2004, when the incentives regime came in under the then Labour Government, it undeniably gave a boost to the industry. The industry met the new demand. It built up skills. It built up talent. It built up capital. Now we have got to a point where if a production comes into New Zealand, we can meet the needs of that production, with up to 90 percent internally in New Zealand, with the skill base and with the capital that we have.

But since then, things have changed dramatically. We have the people, but the work is disappearing and it is disappearing fast. Why? Well, first of all, undeniably the Kiwi dollar is high and it is having an impact. Since the incentive regime has come in, the Kiwi dollar has gone up in strength against the American dollar by 25 percent. That has virtually decimated the drawcard that our rebate regime once was. The fact that our regime has remained static while other countries—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: “Moaning Myrtle”—what’s the answer?

—have become more competitive has meant that we are in an entirely preventable perfect storm. And there are answers, Tau Henare. There are things that this Government could be doing. Labour has said that the Government should be intervening on monetary policy. That is what we would do. If it is unwilling to act in that regard, if it is unwilling to do that, then it should at least look at the relative competitiveness of the rebate regime—and it is a rebate. Essentially, it is money in before money goes out. You have to pay taxes and you have to have economic spin-offs before anything happens in that regard.

Why is the Government not doing anything? Well, firstly, it claims that the rebate at the moment is somehow at a break-even point. Well, I ask one question. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment should go and look at why the UK, Australia, Hungary, Ireland, the USA, and Canada are doing things differently. That is one simple question I ask of those members. Secondly, the Government claims that our skills base will naturally attract people, but our skills are just one part of the mix. If the rest of the mix does not attract production, it does not matter whether we have good people here. In fact, the Government tried to argue that one of the reasons that the rebate regime was cost-neutral was that if all those skilled people did not have work in screen production, they would just go somewhere else.

I have met good people, talented people at the top of their game, who have been unemployed for months. They will leave this country, leave these shores, and we will not have the talent base for those production companies when they come back into this country. The fact the Government does not acknowledge that shows that it is completely out of touch and does not understand this industry. It is not just talent; it is capital. I challenge Steven Joyce to go and visit the companies that invested in the rigging, the kit, and the props. Those props are going to landfills because the companies cannot afford to store them any more. It is kit that they can no longer afford to keep and are selling off. It is not just about the big projects. The big projects prop up the little projects, the New Zealand projects that help us tell stories about ourselves.

This Government is standing on the sidelines while an important, skilled industry is being decimated and jobs are being lost. Let that be on those members’ heads if they continue to stand on the sidelines and do nothing while we lose this critical industry.

That speech from Jacinda Ardern was almost as angry as my little speech on John Campbell’s show last week. But I will tell you this much—at least Jacinda Ardern and I did not give a nasty little speech like Metiria Turei did in the House not long ago.

Speaking of John Campbell, Greenpeace, Gareth Hughes, and Moana Mackey have all been very excited in the last few days about oil and gas, and there is a lot to be excited about with oil and gas. We in this country have a proud history in this area. We have a great presence today, and we have a very strong future. Today the average wage in oil and gas mining is $105,000—what is not to like? That is over double the New Zealand average. Actually, if you take just jobs in petroleum, it is probably more than that, if you get rid of other mining on the side. They are very high-paying jobs—the highest in this country. The people working in that industry are the kind whom members on the other side of this House say they represent but actually do not—they do not. Those workers have come to our side of this House because they know that we are the ones delivering the future for them.

I said we have got a proud history in this area. It is actually on our coat of arms. We have had an extractive economy for a very long time, since Moturoa in 1865. Actually, as I understand it, that was the second oil rig in the world, after one that I think was in Pennsylvania. So we have been doing this for a very long time. Since the 1960s over 1,000 wells have been drilled safely in New Zealand without a major incident—200 offshore, and eight deep offshore, in over 300 metres. So we have a very proud history in this area.

Today there are numbers that are not to be sniffed at by the Greens. I am talking about $2.5 billion to $3 billion per annum, and $800 million in royalties, which pay for the schools, the hospitals, and the other infrastructure that everyone in this House agrees with. Our fourth-highest commodity is crude oil to Australia. It is our biggest export. It is literally an industry that feeds and clothes children in this country. It delivers taxes and royalties, and, as I have said, in terms of the dollars going into households, it delivers more than anything else.

Then we talk about the future, and what a great future it is. We should be excited about the biggest exploration season ever, probably, on most measures, this coming season and about what that means for this country down the track in terms of jobs. The truth is that we are under-explored. We have one basin, Taranaki, that gives us $2.5 billion or thereabouts in revenue. One more, as I have said before in this House, would be a game changer for this country. It would mean more people employed in high-income jobs.

I think Statistics New Zealand said that 130,000 Māori are working in Australia, thousands of them in oil and gas mining. Well, let me tell you that they would like to work in this country if they had the opportunity, and that is what this Government is about. It is about real jobs for the real people whom the left likes to talk about—but whom we are actually doing something for. And what a great speech that was from Amy Adams, where we heard about the environmental protections that we have put in place. It was a very layered set of protections that mean that up front we are preventing the kinds of harms that the scaremongers in the Greens like to go on about.

You know, it is interesting to see from the left a very schizophrenic approach to this, an approach that is all over the show. I agree with Shane Jones that the Greenpeace report today was “greenwash”. Actually, I think I almost agree with David Shearer. He seems to be moderating his position. He says that provided that we have world’s best standards—which we do, and which we have implemented through the Crown minerals regime this year—then that is OK. See—he is shaking his head, so he does not support it. He has gone back, so he is schizophrenic. He has gone back into the Moana Mackey - Maryan Street camp. He does not know where he is.

At least with the Greens, we know their position. They are totally opposed to progress in this country. What they do not understand is that it is not a zero-sum game. It is not an either/or. Actually, we can be proud that we have 75 percent renewables in this country—the third-highest in the world and going up—but not if Labour and the Greens get their way with the disincentive there will be for investment in renewables going forward.

It will not be long before it is 3 years since the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. It is now over 3 years since the September 2010 Greendale fault earthquake. Who would have thought that after that period of time there would still be people trying to settle insurance claims, let alone actually getting progress on the rebuilding of their homes?

Let it be recorded for posterity that the constant delays by insurers over Canterbury earthquake claims, the failures by insurers to honour their policies, the treatment by insurers of the people who placed their trust in their policies and those companies, and the full replacement insurance that has not actually meant what it said have all defined what is one of the most disgraceful episodes in New Zealand’s commercial history. Never has such utterly despicable behaviour been seen by commercial insurers on such a scale in this country. We are not talking about just a few cases; we are not talking about just a small minority of difficult cases, but literally hundreds of cases—in fact, a very significant percentage of the whole. It is a national disgrace that this should still be the case 3 years from the disaster. We are not talking about just a few of the insurers, but all of them—some are better than others.

The current situation is truly an indictment on the insurance industry in New Zealand as a whole. Among the worst is an entity known as Southern Response Earthquake Services. Is that not a great name? Well, it would be, if it were true. But “response” is exactly what it is not. This is the entity that took over a failed insurer, AMI Insurance. AMI was so inept that when the first major disaster came along, for which it was required to be prepared, it did not last 5 minutes and had to be taken over by the Government.

That should have solved the problem, should it not? Well, no, it did not. Anyone who saw the Campbell Live show recently would know for sure that Southern Response is just another one of the shonky insurers that we are all so disgusted with in Christchurch. It is just another failure. It is just another incompetent performer. It is just another delayer. It is just another arrogant and unhelpful obstacle for policyholders. In the meantime, people suffer. Health suffers, families suffer, and communities suffer.

Christchurch people have had enough of it. What on earth has the Government been doing about it? The Government was told years ago that it needed to intervene, just as the Australian Government intervened in past disasters there. That Government did not tolerate the incompetence of insurers; it legislated, it regulated, and it made sure that its people were not put through what ours have been put through.

After the first 2 years, all this National Government would do is provide some free advisers, not even advocates. The response from our Government since has been a long, deafening silence. So after the next election, when New Zealand First forms part of the next Government, it will seek to establish a new State insurance company to replace the one sold by Labour. We will get a new one—“KiwiSure”—to ensure that there is a reliable insurer that will give genuine replacement insurance and deal with disaster claims promptly and fairly. That is why this country needs New Zealand First, because it needs good governance and people need a fair go.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou. Mr O’Rourke talked about a lot of suffering. The four bills that came before this House this morning followed pretty much the same theme. We have been fortunate—or unfortunate—today to have traversed a lot of history for the people of Tūhoe, Ngāti Hauā, Ngāti Koroki Kahukura, and, of course, the descendants of Mokomoko. Their legacies are relived; their experiences arrived here in Parliament today. It is in the spirit of that sort of sorrow that I wanted to focus this contribution this afternoon, on our tamariki and our mokopuna and, indeed, the mokopuna of Tūhoe.

In this morning’s paper, under the heading “Child abuse is rising in NZ”, the Children’s Commissioner, Russell Wills, revealed that the public’s tolerance for violence against children still had a way to go. I got asked the question of how we as a nation can hold our heads high when our child abuse statistics are such an indictment on our reputation. Our focus as members of Parliament should rightly and properly be on what we are doing as agents of the State. As such, I would implore all members of this House to read the statement released just 3 days ago on Marae Investigates by a leading paediatric specialist, Professor Innes Asher. I referred to that in a speech this morning. Professor Asher—a clinician at the Starship hospital, a paediatrician for over 30 years, and the head of the paediatrics department at Auckland University—has spent her life investing in the well-being of children. So when she described the treatment of children during the Tūhoe raids 6 years ago as “one of the worst cases of child abuse by the State in recent years”, one would think that this House would listen.

Of course, it is not the first time that the children of Ruātoki have been raised in public attention. A mere 5 months ago a report from the Independent Police Conduct Authority recommended that changes to policy and practice needed to be introduced that would reflect better planning for children and vulnerable people. Aside from that, I am still waiting for the Human Rights Commission report to come out, and hopefully that will be soon.

At the time of this recent release the local schoolteacher Gaylene Collier reflected that her pupils had already been frightened when they were detained in their homes during the operation. Her conclusions were pretty clear: “It was tough on the families and it should never ever have happened.” I have relentlessly brought the issues of these families to this House, but we are still a far way away from seeing any resolution to the lasting trauma that Professor Asher speaks of. On public television on Sunday she told New Zealand that “if these children had been held by armed offenders in the same way, the state would have immediately rescued those children and given them some help and assistance. And the children would have been on the front page of the papers and on your lead news item,”. So why is it that we cannot face up to the wrongs done to the innocent children caught up in Operation Eight? Why are we so reluctant to admit that the events of that day represent, as Professor Asher states, the most profound abuse of power in our memory?

In a letter written to former Commissioner of Police Howard Broad, Peter Williams QC described the extent of the terror raids as being “a great show of force by the police who have been accompanied by military-type vehicles, helicopters, fire arms, dogs, and various other adjuncts. Most of these police officers were dressed in military battle uniform, consisting of black clothing, balaclavas, and carrying what appears to be loaded weapons—in particular, rifles and revolvers.” One of the interviewees said that he counted 43 police officers surrounding the house where he lived with his partner, his four young children, his father, and his father’s partner. All of these police had guns trained on this house. These prisoners, mainly women and children, were kept under armed guard and detained for varying periods between 3 and 6 hours. The children, particularly, were terrified, he said.

I do not understand how we can receive that sort of information and how we can hear the horrific experiences our State forced upon children and not feel motivated to change or to act. We could go to the Ruātoki valley. We could sit with the people of Tūhoe. We could share with the whānau our acknowledgment of what happened on 15 October 2007 and that it had truly traumatic effects on the children that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Our job as a Parliament is to represent the best interests of our people. This is beyond party politics. It is beyond bureaucracy. This is about our children.

Well, I would have thought that the Minister of Labour, Simon Bridges, may have had a word to say about the fact that it is Labour weekend this weekend. However—

💬 Sue Moroney: No, he didn’t say it at all.

—he did not say a word about Labour Day being this weekend. He will just be off having a holiday, forgetting that Labour Day is about remembering the struggle we had that began in 1840 for an 8-hour working day and forgetting that it has been celebrated in this country from 1900.

There was a time when each generation was proud to say that their kids would be better off at work than they were. We have all worked hard to ensure the rights won by our forebears have not been lost. But I cannot say that today. Working people are going backwards under this National-led Government. Our kids cannot get jobs, and even when they do they are highly precarious. Flexibility is about how easily they can be fired and how little responsibility an employer must bear. Competitiveness and productivity is about how low the wages can be and how much can be extracted from workers in an ever-diminishing pool of hours. The 8-hour day and 40-hour week are considered a joke. In fact they do not exist in legislation, and we have no working hours protection in New Zealand.

💬 Sue Moroney: Especially not in the forestry industry.

Especially not in the forestry industry. We subsidise low wages through Working for Families. We pay employers to take on young minimum-wage workers, whom they can sack after 90 days. Then we blame people when they struggle to make ends meet.

There are more and more people out looking for work now, for jobs that do not exist. When they cannot find them they get punished. We are on a punishment regime led by the Hon Paula Bennett.

Thousands of workers continue to lose their jobs through lay-offs. It has been a dreadful week this week. I want to just briefly send aroha out to the 1,000-odd New Zealand Post workers who are facing the job losses that have been announced today.

But what does this Government do? It goes back to its normal modus operandi of cutting workers’ rights. I guess that Simon Bridges should have been at the select committee to hear the stories of workers, the 14,000 workers who submitted against his Employment Relations Amendment Bill. However, because he was not there, I am going to tell some of their stories.

There is no story stronger than that of the cleaners who work in this Parliament, who have appealed to Simon Bridges to not make their lives worse by ditching the protections of Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act. I hope he has been listening like he said he would, and like he told this Parliament he would, but just in case here are some words from the cleaners: “You never see us. Every evening we catch the bus or the train from Wainuiomata or Porirua to clean your office. We vacuum the floors, scrub the toilets and tidy away your rubbish. We come in at midnight when you have all gone home, and the Parliament Buildings are empty.”

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Where are all the Pacific Island union organisers?

I know Tau Henare is a bit sensitive about this topic. “We come over to Parliament after we have worked all night cleaning the buildings on The Terrace and Lambton Quay. It’s a hard job, a dirty job, but we don’t mind being cleaners. We are proud to clean the most important house in the country. But we don’t love our pay ... On top of that as contracted workers, we face daily uncertainty at work. Spotless has the contract to clean Parliament but it could lose it so do not make it bad for cleaners or make it worse for cleaners, Mr Bridges. Part 6A is a fair rule. All the contractors should play by the same rules.” On their behalf I call on Simon Bridges to remove the changes he is planning to make to Part 6A.

In Christchurch he should have heard the stories too from workers who came along, who have already been traumatised by the earthquake, who said: “Why would a Government want to cut our pay? Why would they do that to us?” There was a worker called Julie Reason, who talked about her job as a home-care worker—a home-care worker working on assignment, job to job, working an hour then getting in the car, getting paid nothing, no tea breaks or anything. She said: “Why would this Government want to cut our pay?”

My message to New Zealand workers this Labour Day is that the Labour Party values the hard work of working New Zealanders and their contribution. We are on your side, and we have real plans to improve your working lives when this Government is thrown out.

Well, today on the front page of the Taranaki Daily News we saw Greenpeace’s estimation of the oil reserves off the North Taranaki coast—40,000 barrels a day. That is double the rate of flow of the Maari field, which is offshore from South Taranaki.

I have got to say that Greenpeace’s modelling is the best advertising I have seen of New Zealand’s prospectivity. That should get the attention of oil explorers all over the world. We are the new Mozambique, or the Texas or the Norway of the south. The royalties and tax revenues coming from these fields will make New Zealand one of the wealthiest countries in the southern hemisphere. There will be schools, hospitals, roads, operations, and continual New Zealand superannuation for 65-year-olds.

I want to look at the example of Norway and what it has done with the significant reserves it has been able to extract. Norway is so similar to New Zealand in many ways. It is the second-least densely populated country in Europe. It is a very long country—1,600 kilometres long. We are just a little bit longer, at 2,000 kilometres. The capital city Oslo is the largest in the nation, with a population of nearly 1 million people. Auckland, of course, has an urban population of 1.4 million people.

What has Norway done with its extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas and minerals, lumber, seafood, fresh water, and hydropower? That country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world. That is good news. On a per capita basis it is the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas outside the Middle East. Listen to this: “The country maintains a welfare model with universal health care, subsidised higher education, and a comprehensive social security system.” Why do they have such social advantages in Norway? Simply because of petroleum production. The OECD ranks Norway third in social mobility and fourth in its 2013 Better Life index. Forbes ranks Norway fourth in its list of the world’s richest countries, which compares countries by GDP.

This is the bizarre thing: all these social improvements in Norway have come through its oil and gas production. These are the same social improvements that the Green Party advocates for, except the Green Party does not want to pay for it. It does not want to see the source of this social change and social uplift being the work and the generation of an industry in oil and gas.

The Green Party, along with its red friends, says no to just about everything. Unless, of course, you are David Cunliffe—then you say no to the TV cameras and yes to big business behind the public’s back. Do you doubt that? Not one little bit. David Cunliffe promised the world to his union supporters at the Council of Trade Unions. He promised a living wage and extended parental leave, but then he backtracked when talking to the media immediately afterwards, saying “We don’t know when.” and “We need to be fiscally responsible.” Labour members get all angsty about oil exploration on the East Coast, but turn up in droves in Taranaki, licking the boots of the oil barons. That is what they do.

Labour is a two-faced party with no clear and distinct policy. Its members are still divided and still incoherent. They have shallow one-liners, but no depth and consistency in their policy. This is not the time—in fact, it is never the time—for that sort of fractured group to be anywhere near the Treasury benches.

Do we want the same progress, wealth, and social infrastructure that Norway has? Yes, indeed. Taranaki stands out as an example of that. Statistics New Zealand released the first official analysis of regional gross domestic product. That study covers the period from 2007 to 2010, and on a regional basis Taranaki recorded the highest growth in GDP due to the expansion of its oil and gas industry during this period. Taranaki’s economy increased by 46.9 percent in size over the 4 years, the largest increase of any region, due to expansion in oil and gas production. The region boasts the highest GDP per person, beyond any other region in the country. Taranaki’s strength—just as I close—in mining and agriculture gave us the highest gross domestic product per person of $73,200 against a national average of $43,700. That is 67 percent higher. Thank you.

Well, I want to follow my colleague Darien Fenton and talk about what is happening to women in the paid workforce. Certainly, women are going backwards under this National Government. Women are not experiencing the brighter future that National promised. National’s rich corporate mates, on the other hand, of course, are getting lots of attention and lots of opportunities, but not women seeking to get ahead financially—not women trying to manage paid and unpaid work responsibilities.

As others have noted, the job situation is dire, unemployment remains high, and yet National promised 170,000 new jobs over 4 years in 2011, and in 2012 managed to muster just 8,000.

Of course, over recent days we have seen workers losing their jobs from a fellmongery in Shannon, New Zealand Post workers are hearing today that they will be losing their jobs, and the mill workers in Rotorua heard on Monday that they will be losing their jobs—many, many workers. I want to convey my concern to those workers and I know just how difficult that will be.

It is not only unemployment that is a problem, though; underemployment also remains a problem. Over 100,000 people want more work. I am sure that the majority of those workers would be women seeking more hours than they currently have. Women are low paid. Women are overrepresented amongst those in low-paid work—certainly, at least 60 percent of those on the minimum wage. Of course, the Government fails to make any meaningful shift in the minimum wage, and fails to commit to a living wage. And who does that affect? Who does that affect? Well, of course it affects those women workers, but it also affects their families. It has an impact on their lifetime earnings. It means that with an ageing population where women tend to live longer, women are more likely to be living in poverty in their old age.

What is the Government’s response to low pay? Well, John Key thinks it is a great idea, actually. He is quoted as saying that driving wages down is a good thing. In the Employment Relations Act changes, the attacks on workers’ rights will make the situation worse by undermining collective bargaining. Certainly, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the international UN committee concerned about women, has said that we need to look at the gendered impact of this legislation. What has the Government said? “No action to be taken.”

What about pay equity? This is not something that the Government is committed to. The Government says that greater economic independence for women is meant to be a priority, but it says that will be done by moving women out of low-paid work, rather than by valuing and paying for that work. Well, who is going to do the work in aged care, for example? When are we going to see that properly valued? There is barely any mention of pay equity on the Ministry of Women’s Affairs website. Certainly, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women again refers to that, and, again, there is no action to be taken.

Recently, a very brave women, Kristine Bartlett, won a case against her employer, TerraNova Homes and Care, an aged-care employer. She earns $14.46 an hour after 20 years’ service in aged care. What is the Government saying? Well, the Minister of Women’s Affairs is not interested. She has not briefed the Minister of Labour. She has not even had a conversation with the Minister of Labour about this important issue. The Minister of Labour, when questioned in the House, just makes jokes. So, clearly, pay equity is not something that the Government is concerned about.

Paid parental leave would help families manage their income when they have a new child. Of course, my colleague here, Sue Moroney, is actively promoting an extension to 26 weeks. There is massive community support for it and it has a majority in this House, but, no, the Government intends to veto that change.

I want to talk particularly about industry training because industry training is supposedly how women might move into these non-traditional jobs, and yet the numbers do not bear mentioning. The numbers of women in industry training are appalling. Recently, when I questioned the Minister on how this lines up with the Better Public Services goal, the Canterbury rebuild goal, or even the Business Growth Agenda of delivering more skills—the numbers of women in industry training are going down. I just want to identify some of the worst cases. In the building and construction industry, 1 percent of trainees in that industry are women. In joinery it is 6 percent. In electricity it is 7 percent. In infrastructure it is 6 percent. And what is the Government doing about it? Well, according to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is helping here. Well, it has done a pamphlet, it has done a research paper, and it interviewed seven women in the electrical industry. It is a joke.

Being lectured on job growth by Carol Beaumont and Darien Fenton is like being lectured by David Cunliffe on how to write a CV, because they have no idea about how badly the policies they are pushing would hurt workers. They have no idea about how successful the New Zealand economy is right now, and how many New Zealanders are gaining jobs because of the policy settings that this Government has put in place.

I want to go on to that a bit further on in my speech, but first I want to turn to Metiria Turei’s speech at the start of this session. I have nothing but disdain for the Greens and the sanctimonious, duplicitous bile that comes from their mouths. They have the cheek to come into this House and claim that members on this side have some great conflict of interest, and even though they are democratically elected to this Parliament, they cannot vote on a piece of legislation.

I have never seen a Greenpeace submitter declare conflicts of interest in a select committee. I have never heard the Green Party declare conflicts of interest because it is associated with Greenpeace and other green organisations when it promotes policies. I have never heard the Labour Party declare conflicts of interest, despite the fact that it has tens of thousands of dollars of union backing every election. Good on the Labour Party. That is its right.

But if the Green Party wanted to be consistent, if the Green Party actually believed in policy and principle, then it would be saying exactly the same thing about the Labour Party and about itself as it has been saying about Sam Lotu-Iiga and other members on this side. Sam Lotu-Iiga stands up for his community. Sam Lotu-Iiga stands up for job creation for his constituents. This Government stands up for job creation for New Zealanders. The other side wants to just oppose everything that this Government does to improve the case for New Zealanders. I have absolute disdain for those Green Party members across the way.

I want to turn to David Cunliffe a little bit as well. I would like to refer to David Cunliffe as “Dr Jekyll and Mr Cunliffe”, because he says one thing on one side and he has absolutely another message going out around the place.

Oil and gas has been touched on by a number of my colleagues. We had Mr Cunliffe talking about the fact that the Labour Party opposes a range of oil and gas exploration initiatives, despite the fact that they will create jobs for New Zealanders. Shane Jones goes out on the other side and says that Labour supports them. We had the Labour Party saying publicly that with its mates in the Green Party it would repeal the Skycity legislation, but just behind the scenes Mr Cunliffe was telling Skycity that, no, it will not do anything there. We heard Mr Cunliffe talking about Labour’s great plans for union membership and everything that it is going to do to extend paid parental leave and increase the living wage, but when he talked to the media afterwards he backtracked immediately.

On regional growth, just last week Mr Cunliffe tried to paint a story of absolute destruction out there in the regions, but then the figures came out and he was absolutely wrong again. We have done a lot for jobs in New Zealand—65,000 people have jobs in this country because of the policies that we have put in place. Everything we try to do, Labour opposes. Let us take the 90-day trial—13,000 extra jobs—the 1,000 jobs being created by the International Convention Centre, the 225 jobs through Bathurst Resources escarpment mine, and the thousands of jobs through the roads of national significance. If Labour really was serious about jobs—you can wipe that smile off your face, Mr Faafoi—it would be supporting what we are trying to do.

Let us remind the Labour Party of the economic climate that we inherited. We inherited a current account deficit of almost 9 percent. That is now at 4.3 percent. External debt had blown out to 84 percent of GDP. We have got that down now to 71 percent of GDP. Inflation was running at 5.1 percent. It is now at 1.4 percent. Anyone who has studied economics for even just a few years would know that inflation is the biggest thing that harms workers. They would know that mortgage rates going high harms workers considerably too.

Under this Government we have seen a much improved economic climate. We have seen much improved economic figures. We are seeing jobs being created. We are growing faster than the average growth rate of the OECD. Those guys do not understand it. They actually do not care. The Green Party is duplicitous and sanctimonious, and the Labour Party really should be dissociating itself from the Greens. That would do Labour a lot of favours, but it is not smart enough to do that.

I rise to speak on the great city that is Tauranga. I wonder how, with two sitting Ministers, Tauranga’s national standing and reputation could be so diminished under their tenure. Look at the recent council elections, where national media covered changes in Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, and Hamilton with front-page news, but there was barely a murmur of Tauranga, the country’s No. 1 export province.

How can it be, with two sitting Ministers, one of whom is the Minister of Energy and Resources, that Tauranga householders pay 15 percent above the national average for their electricity? How can it be that Tauranga ratepayers are saddled with a $60 million noose, incurring additional daily interest in excess of $10,000 per day, for Route K—Route K being the road that should be a State highway as it connects directly to the port? Why has that not been handed over to the New Zealand Transport Agency? Are we going to wait until just before the election?

How can it be that despite having the Minister of Health as a local member, 11 and 12-year-olds are made to wait over 9 months for an appointment with an ear, nose, and throat specialist at Tauranga Hospital? Schools such as Mount Maunganui College, not 15 minutes from Tauranga Hospital, have to wait many hours and sometimes overnight for medical specimens and smears to be transported to Tauranga Hospital, when the international standard is under 2 hours.

How can it be that the rotting, festering carcass of the Rena is still on Astrolabe Reef, still polluting our waters, and, even worse, still sending a message to offshore companies with deep pockets that it is OK to come and pollute our pristine waters? This Government is continuing to demonstrate that it cannot even remove a boat off a rock, and yet it is ready to risk the total devastation of our coastline by allowing deep-water drilling, not only to depths of 3,000 metres but—chuck in—in earthquake-prone areas as well. How can that be?

How can it be that the Port of Tauranga is storing a highly toxic and dangerous chemical, the oil dispersant Corexit? It is time that this Government put people first, not profit.

I will also speak on bullying, because it appears to be rife in New Zealand. Bullying is a virus and has wheedled its way into our daily lives. Here are just a few real examples of bullying in Tauranga. A young woman came into my electorate office, suicidal. After a year of trying to service a bank debt by paying $50 per week, that debt had blown out from $27,000 to $56,000, solely due to the fees charged by the bank in giving it to their collection agency—corporate bullying.

A young man on the benefit approached me after his power had been cut off. Even after setting a repayment regime with the power company through Work and Income New Zealand, that power company was then refusing to reconnect him, saying that in order to reconnect him it would treat him as a new customer and subject him to a credit check, which he would fail—bureaucratic, immoral bullying against the disadvantaged.

I know of a law firm that sent people to the bedside of a terminally ill patient in Tauranga Hospital and changed her will just 2 hours before she was due to have a life-saving operation. She thought she was signing operation consent forms, not signing a change to her will. So here we have lawyers complicit in the bullying of the elderly and the vulnerable.

I am not going to name all of these firms, because they deserve a chance to truly put things right. I hope they hear this and do the right thing. But this bullying and unfair treatment of our people must stop. Look at ACC, with its standard line: “That’s not an injury. It’s degeneration.” That is systematic bullying of the injured and vulnerable. The average Kiwi believes in fairness, and we should not tolerate unfair behaviour.

Parliament has its own bully-boy, one whose behaviour was publicly recorded only weeks ago when two young staff members—two highly competent researchers—were unjustifiably dismissed without notice. And, instead of fighting for what is right, that member’s caucus, sadly, is so browbeaten and bullied into submission that it uttered not a word, not a murmur, not a syllable, not a sound. Instead, it took a 21-year-old board member of that party to stand up and speak truth to power—truth to power—in defence of these promising young men who were wronged.

I believe we need to stop bullies in their tracks. We are, after all, a nation that believes in giving people a fair go. New Zealand prides itself on being an egalitarian society, and we should not accept bullying from any Government, any business, any political figure, or any individual.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. An accusation has been made. There are 120-odd members of Parliament in this place, and I think it behoves that member there, Brendan Horan, to name that person so that the rest of us are not wrapped up in his little game.

Thank you very much, Mr Henare, for your contribution, but it is not a point of order. It is entirely up to the member. Honourable members, the time for this debate—

💬 Simon O’Connor: Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Oh, you were lucky.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Damn straight.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Simon O’Connor.

💬 Hon Member: No, we’re lucky.

Absolutely—it is lucky for the country that we have taken this 5 minutes. Look, I was absolutely struck today in question time. We had sanctimony coming from Metiria Turei, the leader of the Green Party, particularly, who began to lecture us on the supposed virtues of the Catholic Church. I do not stand here to speak for the Catholic Church either, but I am absolutely amazed that this is happening. I look forward to Ms Turei and others taking on the fullness of Catholic social teaching, the respect for life, and the dignity of every person.

Speaking of the dignity of every person, I am incredibly proud to stand next to Sam Lotu-Iiga, the MP for Maungakiekie—the MP who took a red Labour seat and turned it blue—and to work hard with this man every day to do the best that we can for our electorates in Tāmaki and Maungakiekie.

What we heard today, though, from the Greens—particularly coming through Greenpeace; of course, it has not declared directly its allegiance there—was something about which I would say shows we can count on the Green Party to provide us with fairy tales. You see, once upon a time there was a land that never had to worry about oil spills or pollution. There was no intensive farming or agribusiness, and no genetic engineering or modification. No one owned a car and most people walked wherever they had to go. It was a Green Party paradise.

It was, of course, Europe in the Middle Ages, and no one then thought of it as a paradise. You see, in reality, life in the medieval period was brutal, short, and tragic. Infant mortality was 25 percent. Just to help out those who cannot count, that means one in four newborn babies died before their first birthday. Today infant mortality in New Zealand is 0.4 percent. Life expectancy in the medieval period was about 30 years. Now, New Zealanders can expect to live to an average age of around 79. Violence in that medieval, green paradise was rife. In fact, scholars estimate that people were 35 times more likely to be murdered then than they are today. Life was horrible, but their beaches were gorgeous.

We have come a long way from there. Our quality of life today is the envy of every country in the world and everyone who ever lived before us. You may ask how we achieved this great standard of living. It has been a slow process. It is called science. It is something that the Green Party and its Labour allies and followers care little for. Science has been the driving factor. It has provided us with many ways to improve our lives, but it has also provided us with the resources to do so—and by that, I mean income.

Last year the New Zealand Treasury received $1.9 billion from the oil and gas industry. I listen to the Greens, in particular, demanding that we forbid future drilling. I listen to them scaremongering and bullying people—there we go, Mr Horan; bullying is there—and insisting that oil is bad for New Zealand. And do you know what? They are just plain wrong. Last year that $2 billion saved lives. It saved young people and retired seniors. It educated students and it supported welfare beneficiaries.

The $2 billion we received in oil and gas revenue was enough to cover just over half the entire tertiary education budget for the year or to cover the entire budget for the Canterbury District Health Board and the Southern District Health Board for the year. In fact, $2 billion could pay for every single unemployment benefit given out for the next 3 years, and it could pay for about 30,000 heart valve replacement operations. It could almost cover the entire transport budget, or half of our law and order budget. You see, this is what oil and gas means to New Zealand. It will pay for new schools, new hospitals, and the insulation of homes. It pays for more doctors, teachers, and scientists. It will contribute to income support for those who need it, to aged care for the elderly, and to health coverage for everyone.

In contrast, the Green Party is intent on blindly following a dangerous dogma that will leave people alone, facing harsh realities without assistance. Without oil and gas revenues, the Green Party will have to cut many of the services New Zealanders count on. It intends to turn back the clock and take us all back to a time when industry and science were unwelcome, and when people lived harsh lives in grinding poverty.

The oil and gas we are searching for will have a tangible benefit for all Kiwis. It will raise the quality of life for everyone, especially the most vulnerable elements in our society, which rely on Government assistance. Look back into history. New technology is vitally important to our lives today, but without the money to run it, we might as well be living in the Dark Ages with the Green Party. Now we can finish the debate, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Thank you for informing me that you have finished.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.