General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. What we have is the “Yeah, Nah Labour Party”. We have a wishy-washy party with a wishy-washy leader that does not know what it stands for or what it really means. What we have is the “Yeah, Nah Labour Party”. It cannot decide where it stands and cannot decide what it means. Labour wants to be the “Assure Party”. What it is actually is the “Unsure Party”. Labour does not know what it stands for. You have got to say that at least the Greens know what they stand for, and that is against anything that will actually mean jobs and growth. David Shearer may have been the “Yeah, um” leader but now we have the “Yeah, nah” leader. There is no doubt about that.

Let us take the man ban—take the man ban as one example. Labour turned round and said: “Yes, yes, we want a man ban. We want a man ban.”, and then: “No, no, no, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, we don’t want a man ban.” Then, of course, we have just had the weekend, when it came back again and said: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we will.” So it is “Yeah, nah, yeah.” We have got one for that.

Let us take Cunliffe, who does the “Yeah” to one audience and then “Nah” to another audience. Inside the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions conference we had “Yeah” to the living wage and “Yeah” to paid parental leave. Then, quite frankly, he stepped outside and went: “Oh, nah. Oh, nah—yeah, nah. Yeah, nah. Yeah, we kind of want them, but we’ll just back-pedal here faster than Shane Jones does with a remote. Yeah, nah, we actually didn’t mean it, or maybe at some stage if we can get to it.” Cunliffe is telling one audience “Yeah”, but then again, he does owe the unions, remember. So one message to the unions—in fact, David Cunliffe might be at the meat workers’ union now instead of in Parliament, and showing that he actually owes it something and that that is where he should be.

Labour’s position on big, big projects is: “Yeah, nah. Yeah, we sort of want jobs and that rhetoric sounds good, so yeah, we’ll go on about jobs. But nah, nah, we won’t actually support anything or vote for anything that means growth or that means jobs for real families.” In fact, let us take the classic example of that, which is the New Zealand International Convention Centre. It is the topic of the week. Let us take the convention centre. Labour said: “Yeah, nah, yeah, nah, we won’t be voting for the convention centre. Yeah, nah, we don’t support jobs. We don’t want $400 million dollars that taxpayers won’t have to pay. Yeah, nah, we don’t want more tourism. Yeah, nah, we don’t want to see those jobs coming in.” Unless, of course, Labour is speaking to Skycity itself, then it is: “Oh, yeah, yeah. Actually, if we’re in, we won’t roll back the contract. Actually, if we’re in, the word on this side is yeah, nah.”

Cunliffe says: “We didn’t mean what we actually said.” Let us just quote from him here, when he said to Skycity: “Do you want it straight from the shoulder? Here it is. We will not rip up the contract. We will not throw out the terms of Skycity’s gaming licence.”—yeah, nah. Yeah, nah.

His rhetoric this week, the “Yeah, no” on what he is doing—in one breath on that convention centre he has most certainly done the “Yeah, nah”. His response to the unions right now—and let us remember who he is responsible to. Let us take trade. Trade is a goody, is it not? When he was in Government, he said: “Oh, yeah, we need more trade. Yeah, we’ll support trade. Free trade is good for the country. Free trade is good for jobs for Kiwis.” But now that the unions have got him wrapped round their little finger, it is: “Nah, nah—well, maybe. Yeah, nah, yeah, nah, maybe we’ll support free trade. No, we don’t think we will now.” because the unions are actually pulling the strings, not the “Yeah, nah” leader who, quite frankly, is so wishy-washy.

Let us take superannuation. David Cunliffe says: “Yeah, we want people to work harder. Yeah, we want people to work longer. Nah, nah, not now the unions are actually running things. Nah, it doesn’t sit quite as well, so we’ll just backtrack hugely on that one as well.”, as he is kind of moving along.

Take national standards. In 2012—just last year—we had it quite emphatically from the Labour Party: “No, we will not cancel national standards.” Now that the unions are pulling the strings, it is: “Yeah, nah. Yeah, nah.” Just last weekend we had the leader saying that he would scrap national standards: “Yeah, nah. Yeah, nah. We’re not really sure exactly where we stand on those things as well.”

So, let us contrast that to the National Party, which stands for something. What will the public be saying next year to Labour? “Yeah, nah.”

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I move for an extension of time. The more the public hear of this, the better for us.

Order! The member will resume his seat.

Stop the press. Stop the press. We have just seen and heard the New Zealand parliamentary equivalent of that European zoo news story—the cross between the zebra and the donkey.

They are worried. They are worried on the other side of this House. They are worried. We see it in their faces. They know it in National. Labour is on the move. We are energised. We are confident. We are cohesive. We are buoyed by a fantastic conference. The media caught the mood. The media got it. Vernon Small from the Fairfax Group said that David Cunliffe “hit all the right notes … a new state-owned insurer to appeal nationally as well as to earthquake-weary premium-payers in Christchurch, and a flawless delivery.” In the New Zealand Herald John Armstrong said that David Cunliffe’s conference speech was “a tour de force in terms of tone, content and delivery.” Thank you, David. What a conference. David Cunliffe successfully laid out his and Labour’s vision for New Zealand: to build a future for all, an economy that works for all New Zealanders, a fair and just society where all live in dignity, an environment we protect, and a nation we can be proud of.

All the while, National is increasingly out of touch and failing New Zealanders. There is a two-speed economy where many, especially in the regions, are left behind; widening inequality; an incompetent, anti-democratic Government; and crony capitalism with corporate welfare for the connected few at the expense of the people. National is so flat. This week it is mired in yet another controversy born of Steven Joyce’s incompetence. This time it is Chorus and ultra-fast broadband—“Mr Fix-it” now spelt that other way. It is yet another instance of economic mismanagement by National. John Key’s response is to undermine the regulator and consider more corporate welfare.

Labour is on the move. As John Armstrong said, “The buzzword of the conference was ‘energised’,”, and he is right. Already, many polls show Labour and our potential MMP coalition partners ahead of National and its shabby, discredited allies, ACT, whose John Banks is in the dock for electoral fraud, and Peter Dunne, who, having lost his party, was dumped for leaking a Government report.

We announced a significant move to use the successful Kiwibank model for insurance. I have not got time to dwell on that, but suffice it to say how shrill Mr Joyce was when he was sent out to head the spin. And how dumb of Mr English to call the idea dumb, insulting hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, his former president Ross Armstrong, and editorial writers across the country.

I want to end on Canterbury housing. Given the abject failure of National on housing in Auckland, I should not have been surprised to find how incompetent its efforts in Christchurch have been. But I really was surprised because at one level what we announced was so simple. The “Human Wrecking Ball” is so blunt. He is great at demolition, but he lacks the subtlety to govern, to stop the waste of short-term rentals, and to give building affordable housing a boost in the devastated suburbs in Christchurch East. We caught National flat-footed, and it was so easy because it is ideologically opposed to doing this sort of thing.

On the front page of the Press—two-thirds of the front page—the banner headline was “New era for New Brighton?”. It is about practical help for Christchurch in partnership with the council. And how did Nick Smith and Gerry Brownlee both miss it? It is so obvious. It is because they are so ideologically opposed to affordable housing. They cannot blame the Resource Management Act this time because it is already in the Christchurch plan. It is already there; they just did not find it.

KiwiBuild will deliver it. This is how good Governments govern. We use the power of the State to make a difference. We caught the National Government flat-footed. Nick Smith’s lame response in the Press on Monday was: “The Government has also made early steps to investigate affordable housing areas in the city.” Five years after being elected and 3 years after the quake, National has been caught not just flat-footed and not just stumbling but plain lame—lame.

Labour is not on the move. I will tell you what: Labour is so disappointed with those figures that are out today. It is so depressed about those figures out today because the economy is growing. Those figures out today prove it. The Opposition finance spokesperson, David Parker, knows that the economy is moving and unemployment is on its way down, from 6.4 percent to 6.2 percent. That is fantastic when you consider all of the issues that this Government has had to deal with. The unemployment rate was 7.2 percent a year ago. Our policies are making a difference. Our policies are really getting cut-through. Of course when you consider that our economy is growing by 2.5 percent and then you have a bank like Westpac out there forecasting 4 percent next year, it is no wonder that the Labour Party is depressed.

For Mr Parker to get up here and say that Labour is on the move from its conference—I cannot believe it. The only thing that I heard that came out of its conference was the man ban. The only thing that came out was that it is back talking about the man ban again, and half of the male members in the Labour caucus are really worried about that.

Of course, the business confidence, which Mr Parker did not want to talk about, is at an all-time high over the last 14 years. He forgot to mention that. Those members on the other side of the House do not trust business, but over here we do. The business confidence surveys are backing this Government.

What I want to also address this afternoon is the importance of regional infrastructure and investment, the importance of innovation, and how we are going to continue to grow our exports. Importantly, when you think about the Opposition, and I thought this article in the New Zealand Herald recently summed it up really well, you have Russel Norman over there objecting to pretty much everything—in fact, he did. He objected to everything: the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Skycity, the Ruataniwha Water Storage project, deep-sea oil exploration, the Denniston mine, the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway, saying Steven Joyce is agreeing with everything and then saying on the monorail that the Minister of Conservation still has to decide on that one—the list goes on.

Then you had Mr Cunliffe in the middle, where he could not decide anything—weasel words. Paula Bennett is exactly right: “Yeah, nah, yeah, nah, we are not really sure.”

Let us think about the project just up the road from me, Transmission Gully. Labour is not quite sure whether it should back that or not. Then you move up into my neck of the woods, the Kapiti Expressway, and Labour is opposed to that. How are we going to get the region of Manawatū-Whanganui, which needs a bit of a kick-start, moving up? We are going to need to invest in decent infrastructure. But our opponents over there are against the 1,000 jobs to be created in my electorate when the road is built. They are against it.

Then you move on to water storage projects. We know that the Greens over there are against it. We could tell from their questioning today from Russel Norman. Then you get into the “Yeah, nah.” over on the other side. They are not quite sure. On one hand, you have got David Cunliffe saying “Yeah, nah.”, but then you have Ruth Dyson recently in the paper talking about the Ruataniwha Water Storage project, where she said that the Government would be irresponsible to proceed with this scheme. So once again, “Yeah, nah.” They are not really sure about investing in the regional economy. They are not sure about the $4 billion of exports that decent water storage and irrigation projects would create.

The other thing that is really important is investing in innovation. We need to invest in innovation. That is why we are investing in the Primary Growth Partnership. It is a very, very successful innovation project. There are 16 projects and $684 million invested by industry and backed by the Government. You had David Shearer, when he was the leader, out there saying that increasing spending on innovation is a crucial step for the New Zealand economy. So on that side of the House you should have them supporting the Primary Growth Partnership, but they want to attack it negatively. They want to attack investment in our primary industries. I cannot believe it. They should be out there supporting it.

Then we move into trade. Then we move into trade. Phil Goff knows the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Phil Goff should stand up in his call this afternoon and say that Labour is going to back and support the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Will Mr Goff say that this afternoon? Well, we look forward to Mr Goff standing up this afternoon and saying that Labour is going to back the Trans-Pacific Partnership, worth $2 billion in exports. I bet he does not.

It is a good place to start—will Labour members stand up and say they will support the Trans-Pacific Partnership? “Yeah, nah.” When they are talking to the farmer audience they will say yes; when they are talking to their union audience they will say nah. The one thing that is interesting about that, which both of my colleagues left out, is that the best response to Labour members is to say “Yeah, right!”.

Let us have a look at what Labour members have said out in the provinces. They have been up in Taranaki just recently. The soon-to-be new leader of the Labour Party, the Hon Shane Jones, visited Taranaki and he said: “Look, we’re not frightening to business. We’re not frightening to growth. We like the primary industries. We like the provinces, and we’re here to help.” Of course, he had in tow with him the once wannabe, and long-since-disappeared, Andrew Little as a co-pilot.

Let us have a look at what Labour members said when they were in Taranaki: “We’ll promote growth in the primary sector. We’ll promote growth in the development of the province.” But the problem is, of course, that in provincial New Zealand we have seen a maximum exodus to Australia, we have seen a huge decline in economic growth, and we have seen a massive loss of jobs. I thought I had better go and research that, so I went and got Venture Taranaki’s latest paper, which it has just released. What does it say? The rate of population growth is up, the economic outlook is up, employment numbers are up, the employment participation rate is up, and the employment outlook is up. But numbers are up in terms of the skills shortage. Well, that is a negative. Skills shortages are up—there is something for Labour to hang on to.

The paper goes on to say that natural increases in population are up, long-term international arrivals are up, house values are up, house sales are up, values for residential construction consents are up, and the number of dairy cattle is up. Labour members will probably see that as a negative. They will probably see more dairy cattle as a negative. The number of farms for sale is up, port activity is up, and the number of 18-year-olds with National Certificate of Educations Achievement level 2 or equivalent is up.

Something seems to be wrong with the “Yeah, nah—yeah, right!” approach here because the story Labour is putting forward is quite different compared with the facts. In fact, just recently we saw that Taranaki was leading in all of the statistics: economic growth, the average wage, and in terms of opportunity going forward. The question, then, is why. Well, here we go. Once again, Labour members have said that they will be totally supportive of the primary sector. Well, in Taranaki—and it will come as a surprise to Labour members—we have the dairy industry. On the one hand they say: “Yes, that’s a good thing, and we should encourage it.”, but on the other hand they will say: “Well, actually, we’re too dependent on it.” Well, there is another industry in the Taranaki as well: the energy industry. On the one hand they say that it is wonderful, but on the other hand they say: “We’ve got to be careful with where we go looking for oil and drilling for oil.”

But there is a third industry, and it was once as big, and that is the meat and wool sector. Labour members know that internationally New Zealand lamb already has a very high brand value. You can go to supermarkets or restaurants anywhere in the world and be told that New Zealand lamb is a very sought-after product. We know that internationally it is fetching about half the price it could. So what is Labour’s response to that? That is the first question I would ask. What is its policy on that?

I look forward to hearing from Labour members, because if they are concerned that the dairy industry is too dominant in the economic drivers of the New Zealand economy, why not lift some of the others? Why not bring some of the others up to the dairy industry’s level? I think that probably Sir Ralph Norris’s response in the recent report on the Fonterra scare sums it up perfectly. He said: “New Zealand society is often described as egalitarian. It has never had a European style inherited aristocracy.” As the son of a sharemilker, I am very pleased about that. But the problem with that is that Labour will not support winners. It is called the tall poppy syndrome, the “Yeah, nah syndrome”, or, if you like, the “Yeah, right!” syndrome. Economic growth from Labour is, I think, summed up perfectly by saying “Yeah, right!”.

It has been very rare for me to follow two positive speeches—one by the Hon Nathan Guy and the other by Shane Ardern—talking about positive things. It is my pleasure to participate in the general debate today. We have been celebrating Diwali in our Parliament since 2005. As we celebrate Diwali today in Parliament once again, I feel proud to reside in a country that values all cultural diversity. May I also share that we are a small nation. However, we have close to 100 nationalities living in this beautiful country. The reason for this, of course, is the very welcoming and open attitude of New Zealanders. All migrants play a very important role in building trade and cultural ties between their native countries and their adopted country, which is New Zealand.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Indian Space Research Organisation on the successful launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, flight C25, into Mars’ orbit. With this successful launch, India has entered a group of select countries, with its first Mars mission announced as a success.

In the past month or so I have had the opportunity to travel across New Zealand to attend Diwali celebrations. It was wonderful to see that in most of the places I visited the majority of people attending Diwali celebrations were not of Indian origin; rather, these were New Zealanders who have embraced and open-heartedly accepted Indian Kiwis. I could see people enjoying the food, the dances, and the cultural performances, and buying ethnic dresses for themselves and their children.

Another wonderful example of New Zealanders having positively embraced Indian Kiwis is in our sports teams. Ish Sodhi, a Kiwi Indian cricketer, was recently included in the Black Caps squad and represented the New Zealand cricket team against Bangladesh. Before Ish, we had Dipak Patel and Jeetan Patel, both cricketers of Indian Kiwi origin who represented New Zealand. It is my dream to see a person of Asian ethnicity make it into the mighty All Blacks one day.

Ethnic communities have educated us about new ways of living and doing things. These may not necessarily be what we are used to. It is the difference of other eating patterns, lifestyles, and social behaviour, and it gives New Zealand its international flavour. This is a very positive lesson that I learnt long ago. It is not right. It is not wrong. It is just different. I choose to live and learn from this statement.

The Christchurch earthquake was no doubt a tragic and unforgettable event in the history of this country. However, the best thing for me to see each time I visit Christchurch is how different cultures and communities help each other and continue to do so without any prejudice. As I visit different parts of New Zealand, I continue to hear great things that New Zealanders share with me on the work of this National Government. While the Opposition continues with negativity, the growing reality is that the average New Zealander is positive about the direction that the leader of the National Party, the Rt Hon John Key, is taking us in. Ordinary New Zealanders are very happy with the progress we have made. When the rest of the world lags at subzero levels of growth, we manage to average about 2 percent.

The recent survey by the Bank of New Zealand reveals that business confidence at present is at the highest level in decades. There are no doubts in my mind that the migrant community of New Zealand has contributed to our nation’s growth and business confidence. The recent media release by Statistics New Zealand confirms that employment growth continues in the labour market. The employment rate rose to 64.4 percent, and unemployment fell to 6.2 percent. Over the September 2013 quarter the number of people employed rose by 2.4 percent in the household labour force survey. Demand for workers from established businesses rose by 1.9 percent in the quarterly employment survey.

And now back to the future. I have spent a bit of time in Canterbury lately, and I am convinced that one of the great failings of this Government is the Canterbury rebuild. It has been a case of too slow, too little, and woefully lacking in execution. It has been 3 years since the first Christchurch earthquake—3 years—and the rebuild is only just beginning. That is unbelievable. Three years of waiting. The people of Canterbury have just endured their third winter since the earthquakes, and too many people in Canterbury are putting up with a housing crisis that has seen them paying hundreds of dollars every week to rent a caravan or to squash a family into a sleepout or someone’s spare room. It is totally unacceptable.

Rents are up 25 percent in Canterbury since December 2011. House prices are the highest and the most unaffordable in any city outside Auckland. The Government’s own officials say that up to 7,400 people in Canterbury are officially homeless. Nick Smith and then Gerry Brownlee today got up in this House and said that there is no housing crisis in Canterbury; there is just a challenge. Well, the challenge is for the people of Canterbury putting up with a Government that has demonstrated two massive blind spots when it comes to the Canterbury rebuild.

The first blind spot has been Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith’s oversight, if you could call it that. It might be that affordable housing is a technicality for National. It might be that it is a minor matter for National, but the Government has completely overlooked affordability when it comes to the rebuild. There are houses being built on the outskirts of the city, on new greenfields land, in developments like Wigram Skies and Prestons Road, but few, if any, of them are affordable for ordinary Cantabrians. This is a huge gap in the rebuild, and Labour will plug that gap. We will deliver 10,000 affordable starter homes for first-home buyers over 4 years—high-quality, affordable homes for first-home buyers.

The other big blind spot of this Government’s approach to the rebuild is that it is a lot better at demolition than it is at building. The “Human Wrecking Ball”, Gerry Brownlee, gave himself wartime powers to compulsorily acquire new land. He has used those powers mostly to demolish, not to build. The great Lyndon Johnson once said that any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a craftsman to build one. That says it all about Gerry Brownlee’s approach to the Christchurch rebuild. This is why the rebuild has been so slow—Gerry Brownlee thinks that demolition and hope is a rebuild plan. That is why Labour has announced the formation of the New Brighton Community Revitalisation Project. We will back the efforts of local residents in New Brighton. We will back the local business community. We will work with the council. We will consolidate the old retail area in New Brighton, which has fallen on hard times, and we will turn that community into a vibrant, modern, character beachside suburb, with hundreds of new units of affordable housing.

New Brighton is a microcosm of many other parts of Canterbury. It is a community that has been knocked around by the earthquakes. It has fantastic natural assets, including an amazing beach. It is close to the Avon-Ōtākaro river precinct. What is missing is a Government prepared to roll up its sleeves and back the efforts of the local community. I cannot believe that this National Government has missed New Brighton as an opportunity to revitalise that community and help rebuild the kind of place where Cantabrians want to live, to work, and to play.

Labour’s approach is creative. It is hands-on. We announced a package of announcements on the weekend, including KiwiAssure and including the smart use of empty but habitable houses in the red zone. We promised 10,000 affordable starter homes in Canterbury over 10 years, and we will get behind the efforts of local people in New Brighton. We will work with the Christchurch City Council, with the private sector, and with the community to revitalise New Brighton. Thank you.

I first want to pay my respects and condolences to Lotu-Iiga Lotuatamaiti, Sam Lotu-Iiga’s father, who passed away suddenly this week, and also to Peter Fatialofa, the former captain of Manu Samoa. They were two sons of Samoa, so my condolences go to both families.

Twenty years ago today—it sounds like a song—on 6 November 1993, I entered this House. Today is the 20th anniversary of that. I want to thank first of all the Rt Hon Winston Peters of New Zealand First for giving me my shot at politics. And no, it was not my second party: it was my first.

I have been in for 6 years, I was out for 6 years, and I have been in for 8 years. I know it sounds like a lag and I know it sounds like a prison sentence—a prison term—but in 20 years, I have seen them come and I have seen them go. I have seen changes and I have seen things that stay the same. There has been one constant in all of those 20 years: Labour has no idea. It never did have an idea, and it never will have an idea. Just imagine if it ever got the reins of power to drive the ship. If it was a captain of a ship, it would spend like a drunken sailor.

But that is not all. See, there is nothing wrong with spending like a drunken sailor if it is your own money. But the fact of the matter remains that when you spend like a drunken sailor and it is not your money, it is the taxpayers’ money, and then there is something seriously wrong. It was pork barrel politics then and it is pork barrel politics now.

Before he went away, Mr Twyford got up in this House and he said: “In the great words of Lyndon Baines Johnson”—I could not believe my luck. There was the biggest racist bigot from Texas that the United States has ever known. In fact, what he did was to send the world into the Viet Nam War, and this from Phil Twyford, the member of Parliament in my own area. I am shocked and I am horrified. The message to children out there is when you go home tonight, read about who Lyndon Baines Johnson really was. He was the one who sent people to the Viet Nam War. He was the one who—oh, so this is the great Lyndon Baines Johnson. Therein lies the answer to the question. Can these guys deliver? Can these guys run the ship? Absolutely not. And you know why? Do you know why? Because they rely on old, outdated models like Lyndon Baines Johnson for their thinking. That is where the thinking of Mr Twyford comes from.

Look, I do not know. Let us take Skycity. Labour railed against the Skycity deal, but on the other hand took tickets from Skycity to go to the rugby. Let us take a look at the man ban. It does not know whether it is Arthur or Martha. For goodness’ sake! Labour wants it both ways—50c here and 50c there. Do you know why? Because it does not have an idea. It never had an idea. In fact, what it is doing is apologising for stuff it did 20-odd years ago. But really—

💬 Dr Cam Calder: They want to do it again.

Labour wants to do it again. So what it is going to do is have KiwiAssure. It will get this thing up and running, and then what is the bet that it will sell it? For goodness’ sake! For goodness’ sake. We have been there, we have done that, we have bought the T-shirt, and we ain’t voting Labour again.

Can I begin by congratulating you, Mr Speaker, on your New York City Marathon run and by saying that it is an excellent example to the rest of the House. I want to acknowledge Tau Henare and all the rest of the 1993 intake for their 20-year anniversary today. It feels like just the other day that Tau and I were newbies in this House. I have stayed with the same party, actually, while I have been in the House because I backed a winner to start with. I did not need to change parties to stay in Parliament, but I still acknowledge the 20-year contribution that Tau and others have made.

I want to congratulate the Labour Party on showing its support for Canterbury by having its annual conference in Christchurch. When it was first suggested, those of us from Canterbury took a bit of a deep breath and said: “Woah! This is a big ask. How is Canterbury going to cope with this? How will the Christchurch Labour team handle that?”. Of course, we were worried, frankly, that not a lot of people would come to Canterbury. It is a lot easier for the majority of the population who live north of Hamilton to go to a conference in Auckland. We were overwhelmed by the number of delegates who came to our city. People came because they wanted to support Canterbury, but, actually, I think there was another side. They came because they knew that this was going to be a weekend of exciting debate, of fresh ideas, and of a clear vision for an alternative to the current Government.

We want a Government that is in touch with people and that understands the needs and aspirations of, and the future chances for, New Zealanders, and we want a Government that will give every New Zealander a stake in that future. That is what Labour talked about on the weekend, and that is what we want to deliver next year. The whole conference was so energising. We had some great debates. We always do. The media were not up to the bigger-picture issues. They just shared the more contentious, I suppose, issues with people, but I know that the debates on the floor of our conference were challenging and exciting.

It does put Labour in stark contrast with the current Government. We have seen so many examples of the out-of-touch and, frankly, arrogant performance of the John Key - led Government that people, particularly in Canterbury but, I know, all over the country, are really asking: “What does it take to make this Government connect with the people? What does it take to make it listen to the people? What does it take to make it understand?”. A recent example is Gerry Brownlee, with a very, very harsh report from the Auditor-General about the performance of the Earthquake Commission in Canterbury, and Gerry Brownlee brushes it off. He says: “Oh, everyone seems pretty happy.” Well, he may not have been outside his own home in Christchurch, because people are not happy with the performance of the Earthquake Commission, and they are not happy with the performance of insurance companies. People are feeling threatened and bullied. They are being given low-ball offers, and they feel as if they have very little alternative. They are feeling powerless against the weight of insurance companies.

That is why people in our city were so excited at Labour’s proposal to have KiwiAssure, an insurance company that puts people first, that is service-focused, and that says: “Our customers are the most important part of our business.” That is what we want in Canterbury. We are fed up with insurance companies that forget that we have paid premiums to them for years for cover. When we need that response from them, we expect to get what we paid for. That is not what many people are getting. We want to make sure that the business of the insurance company is about the people and their needs. We have heard the criticism from the National Party and the insurance industry, just the same way as we heard that very same criticism from the National Party and the banking sector when we proposed to introduce Kiwibank, and what a success that has been. We need guarantees of security. We want a business that invests in New Zealand and New Zealanders first above profit. That is what KiwiAssure will do, in the same way as Kiwibank has done.

National wants to sell off the profitable industries that New Zealanders have built up. We want to invest in them for the future of New Zealand and for the future of New Zealanders. Thank you.

To evoke an old Spike Milligan song, Labour is walking backwards for Christmas. And not only back for Christmas—right on back to the 1970s. We are hearing alarming echoes of Soviet Union statist policies in the form of a State-run insurance company and a State-controlled electricity market. Free trade—and we have got one of the proponents of it over there. I have got to pay credit to the member Mr Phil Goff, who negotiated the free-trade agreement with China. Free trade has long been a bipartisan agreement, but now the current leader is questioning Labour’s support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, while Labour’s ex-leader is saying “Labour should continue to back it.” But what the leader, the dithering David Cunliffe, is saying to one audience, he might not be saying to another audience. “Will we back it? Well, maybe, yeah—nah, nah.”

Labour is painting a picture of itself as a party bemused, befuddled, bewildered, and becalmed, and certainly as one that is unfit to govern. With Labour at the helm, New Zealand’s ship of State would veer dangerously on to the rocks of higher borrowing, higher spending, and higher taxes—the very policies that pushed New Zealand into the global financial crisis 6 to 12 months before the rest of the world. A Labour Government supported by the Greens would be an absolute disaster for New Zealand, in stark contrast with the steady, considered, prudent financial management that has characterised the National-led Government’s stewardship of the country’s finances over the last 5 years. This principled and pragmatic Government continues to work relentlessly for the benefit of every New Zealander, adjusting the mesh in many areas and at a multitude of levels. It has succeeded in cushioning vulnerable New Zealanders from the ongoing effects of the worst economic conditions in decades, and one only has to look at the situation abroad to realise how fortunate we are in this country.

Over the years the Government’s prudent financial management of the nation’s finances has received ringing endorsements from stars in the world economic firmament. It has been noted that reducing our exposure to overseas debt markets as much as possible whilst, as I mentioned before, still cushioning vulnerable New Zealanders from the harshest edges of the ongoing global financial crisis—we are doing that. Our considered fiscal stewardship means that New Zealand’s economy is performing better than the US, the UK, Germany, the bulk of the eurozone, and, of course, Japan. The effects of the drought earlier in the year have largely been shrugged off, and we are witnessing a continued upturn in the non-agricultural sectors as well, meaning that the New Zealand economy is set to go for a substantial acceleration of growth in the second half of this year and beyond.

Growth is occurring, as we have heard, across a range of sectors in addition to construction and housing. Consumer spending is growing at an increasing space, with spending on services particularly strong over the June quarter. Manufacturing and services activities surveys have put in consistently strong readings over this year. China’s insatiable demand for our primary products means our export earnings are looking very healthy.

It is gratifying that the expansion is becoming more consistent across the region. My colleague here mentioned Taranaki—many of us call it “Taradise”—where the twin pillars, the black and white pillars, of oil and milk are propping up the economy and causing it to grow hugely. In fact, it is leading New Zealand as we speak.

This is a Government that is getting results for all New Zealanders. Our focus has been on growth that is sustainable and built on higher savings and earnings, rather than ever-more-increasing debt and greater consumption. As I have noted previously, our prudent policies have been praised by Peter Orszag, President Obama’s previous Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He praised New Zealand as standing out in the world as the only country that has coupled additional economic stimulus with medium-term fiscal consolidation. Not surprisingly, huge numbers of New Zealanders report suffering nightmares at the thought of our measured approach being replaced by an economy measured by a coalition of money-printing Greens and a Labour Party bereft of strong leadership, dithering and dodging and answerable only to its union masters.

Other support of the Government’s economic management has come from the IMF’s Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, who praised the Government’s economic policy Business Growth Agenda, and described the New Zealand economy as being very stable, very promising, and a lot better than other parts of the world. The IMF endorsed New Zealand’s balanced and pragmatic economic management, and confirmed that the Government’s economic plan strikes the right balance between supporting growth and eliminating public debt.

Imagine what the report might have been if New Zealand’s economy were managed by a dithering and dysfunctional pick-up team of a not-quite-sure-where-we-are-going, anti - free market Labour Party and the red-Green money printers. The New Zealand economy is in very good health, and it needs a National Government to stay that way.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I would just like to start my speech today with a mihi to a great New Zealander whose anniversary of passing is today, and that is Mr Rod Donald. The Green Party owes Rod Donald a deep debt of gratitude, as does the country. Indeed, without the work of Rod Donald and others we would not have MMP, and many of us would not have the opportunity to represent the real constituencies that need to be represented in this House. Rod was an extraordinary man, an extraordinary contributor, and he helped the Green Party become the positive, visionary, grounded, and successful party that we are now. I think that if he was with us today, he would be proud to see that we have become a strong and positive force in New Zealand politics, with a great future ahead of us and with a clear, transformative idea of where we need to go.

This week there is more good news, as the National Government likes to say, but this time it is good. This week we had another Green success, and that success related to an interesting story. All the MPs in Parliament about 6 months ago received this little gift, which was a type of health product for handwashing. I read the label, and on the label I found a chemical that is very, very dangerous to human health and to the environment. To its credit, when I challenged the company that sent us this gift, Health Basics, and said that this chemical triclosan is a risk to human health and the environment, it withdrew the chemical. That was an incredibly positive thing to do. The company has also looked at its other products in terms of making them safer. So today I am celebrating the opportunity that that company has taken up of listening to the Green Party when we said that our health and the environment should not just be “greenwashing” but must be made real.

However, we cannot do that product by product and company by company. Much as I applaud Health Basics, which did this—this excellent work by Health Basics—there are over 150,000 chemicals yet to be identified but thought by the World Health Organization to be endocrine disruptors, which is what triclosan is. These products are in our toothpastes, our underarm deodorants, and many of our antibacterial soaps. For the citizen who is reading the label and finding these chemicals that actually create endocrine disruption, affect muscle performance, are deadly to aquatic life, and in chlorinated sewage water turn into dioxin from this one product, triclosan—we cannot expect the citizens to know this.

So there is a role for the regulator, and my challenge today is to the Minister for the Environment. Instead of having the Environmental Protection Authority laboriously requiring citizens to prove that chemicals are unsafe or me as an MP, who just happened to know about this and to find the company and challenge it, it would be excellent if the Minister for the Environment stepped up on this issue and changed the Environmental Protection Authority model for assessing chemicals. I have asked the Minister and the chief executive officer of the Environmental Protection Authority to reassess triclosan immediately—we need it out of our products—but also to change the way in which all chemicals are assessed, so that we follow the European modern model, which is precautionary and which requires companies to prove safety, not people who have been affected by chemicals or people like me who have concerns about individual chemicals to actually prove that they are dangerous.

We need to change the burden of proof, and this is something that I, having asked the Minister and the Environmental Protection Authority to do, am hoping they will listen to me about. We cannot keep talking just about safety in the workplace. The Minister introduced a very good programme, and a bill is coming up around safety in the workplace with chemicals. But what about safety in our homes? There is nothing more precious than the way in which we treat our environment and the way in which we treat our bodies. If we do not take an opportunity like this one to clean up our chemical practices, we will continue to have degraded waterways, the creation of dioxin, and people with health issues that are often creating hormone dysfunction.

This is a very serious matter, which I am delighted to say we managed to get some progress with this company on. It shows you that if people get the information and if the Government will provide a decent framework, we can have healthy homes. But, in the meantime, there are thousands of chemicals out there in daily life—in our shampoos, in our soaps, in our underarm deodorants—that are directly going into our bodies and are disrupting our endocrine systems and causing health issues. We are not a healthy population and products are not necessarily safe until somebody raises the issue. We have a responsibility to make change.

One of these issues that I have been working on for a long time is the issue of dioxin. It is terrifying to think that triclosan can create dioxin in our sewerage systems and wastewater simply by being washed down out of the household water and plumbing system. People do not know these things. We need to make change.

We have heard a very effective argument from the Government side in this general debate that the Opposition, the Labour Party in particular, is becoming the “Yeah, Nah, Yeah Party” of New Zealand. I would like to reflect on a conference that I attended over the Labour weekend, ironically, in Tauranga. It was an Institute of Information Technology Professionals New Zealand conference, at which I saw exactly that approach acted out in practice.

We had Gareth Hughes representing the Green Party. He made a very clear argument against having a national security apparatus in New Zealand. It is something I would utterly disagree with, and I think that on this side of the House we are very strong proponents of bringing in appropriate measures to secure our people and our IT networks from attacks from those who would wish to harm us. But Gareth, on the other hand, made a very clear argument against that approach. He said that we do not need a Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), we do not need the New Zealand SIS, we do not want the police involved in counter-terrorism activity, and, in fact, he did not think we should be cooperating with friendly allied nations like the United States, the UK, and Australia on intelligence gathering. That is an approach I utterly disagree with, but at least he had a clear approach and he was outlining what he thought.

The Labour Party, on the other hand, was represented by its recently demoted information and communications technology associate spokesperson, who laid out a very peculiar approach. She did not say that Labour was going to repeal what we were doing instantly. She did not say that it was going to actually have an active programme of its own that it would bring in to replace the amendments to the GCSB legislation and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill—the “TICCS Bill”—which passed yesterday. So Labour has no alternative in place. There would be a royal commission of inquiry, a series of inquiries, and over a period of time we would be left vulnerable while it goes through a process of consultation and persiflage. I think that we have seen in that particular example a very clear case of Labour adopting the “yeah, nah, yeah” approach to security. It is a shame because previously that was a party that took the security of this realm very seriously.

Over the weekend we had the Labour Party conference in Christchurch. As a strong royalist and a former member of the Monarchy New Zealand group—in fact, a former vice chair of Monarchy New Zealand—I was interested to see that one of the remits, one of the policy discussions, that it was having was on republicanism. Again, it was a bit ironic because David Cunliffe walked into the conference to the song “Royals” from Lorde, who is a wonderful New Zealand artist—an award-winning, platinum-winning New Zealand artist, and that is a great song. The lyrics to that song go something along the lines of “Let me be your ruler”. Well, I think the New Zealand public will be saying to Mr Cunliffe: “Yeah, nah.” to that next year because I think the New Zealand public, by and large, are utterly supportive of the Queen as our head of State—an absolutely incorruptible person, a person who has no desire for higher political office, and a person who has no need for financial gain. It is a system that is not broke and does not need fixing.

In fact, we saw Her Majesty promoting a wonderful New Zealand product just yesterday, when she wore the beautiful blue pearl brooch that came from Christchurch that the Prime Minister gave her, promoting a great New Zealand company. I think the punters of New Zealand, the public, and certainly we on this side of the House are very clear that our approach to that is: “It ain’t broke, so don’t fix it.”

Others in this House may have a different view. I have heard from Green members that they are very strongly opposed, for a range of reasons. But it seems that the Labour Party approach on this is like almost everything else it is doing at the moment. It is: “Yeah, nah, maybe. Well, let’s kick it to a policy committee for further discussion. We might have a referendum in due course, when the Queen dies.” It is all very much death by consultation, rather than having a clear position that the New Zealand public can understand when we go into the next election campaign.

Another issue that I heard at the information technology conference in Tauranga was on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This is something that on this side of the House we have been clear on. We are utterly supportive of liberalising trade with our most important trading partners like the United States, like South Korea, and like Japan. We already have a pretty open market in this country. For instance, the Inland Revenue Department is looking at a new computer system. It is going to open that up to procurement from others overseas. Our companies, our bright IT firms, should have the ability to get into Government procurement roles in America and elsewhere. Thank you.

This Government is out of touch. This Government is failing New Zealanders. This Government is not listening to anybody. It is tired, and it is old, and it is on its way out. It is not listening. That is easy to tell because on issues such as asset sales or the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation, or even on something as effete as charter schools, the Government is not listening to what people are saying about those issues. People in New Zealand do not want charter schools, they do not want their assets sold, and they do not want their privacy invaded at will by surveillance agencies.

This Government looks after only its mates. It does not matter whether we look at Skycity or Rio Tinto or Chorus, or even at education—again, another $3 million to bail out Wanganui Collegiate School. We can see, even from the little gestures—although $3 million is quite a lot to a school—that the Government is looking after only its mates.

But let us have a look at the ruin that is happening within the National caucus. Look at who is going. Chris Tremain has announced that he is going. All of those real estate signs could not save him. Chris Auchinvole has announced that he is going. Phil Heatley has said that he is going. Paul Hutchison has said that he is going. Cam Calder has said that he is going. There is something about rats and sinking ships here that is really beginning to ring true—that is really beginning to ring true. Colin King is being challenged in Kaikōura. I do not think he will see this place again.

But look at the next tactic. Bill English and Murray McCully are going on the list only. They are not going to represent those constituents whom they are meant to have represented for a long time, but given that neither of them live in their electorates, that is debatable. However, the point about Bill English and Murray McCully going on the list only is that they are clearly lining themselves up to exit without precipitating by-elections, which are a bit inconvenient for the party, as soon as a nice little diplomatic sinecure comes on to the horizon. As soon as the offer of a job comes on to the horizon, we will not see Bill English or Murray McCully for dust. They will be able to exit easily as soon as a diplomatic post comes up.

Labour wants to build a future that all New Zealanders can benefit from, not just a few. It wants an economy that works for all New Zealanders—a fair and just society where everybody can live in dignity. This is not new. This is stuff that Labour members have always stood for, and that the National Party has never enunciated.

We want an environment we can protect and a nation we can be proud of. We will protect the environment so that our water quality is restored, our unique biodiversity is strengthened and not threatened, and our endangered species are protected, preserved, and restored. We will lead a country that is able to wean itself off fossil fuels so that we do not have to drill and frack everything for short-term economic gain and long-term permanent environmental destruction. We will build a future that is focused on smart technologies, on renewable energy, on the quality and skilled jobs that those industries require, and on decent living wages that go with high-skilled jobs.

We will repeal the Government’s attacks on the Resource Management Act. We will restore it to its original function of regulating planning and development with the environment in mind, not the developer’s profit. We will put the people back into public decisions, instead of increasing the number of non-notifiable Resource Management Act processes—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: You haven’t been talking to Shane Jones lately.

—or slipping Supplementary Order Papers in after the select committee has reported back, Mr Bridges. We will build people back into public decisions. We will rebuild New Brighton. We will do the things that real people need for real lives.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.