Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

I move that this House express its confidence in the National-led Government—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I first of all ask the Prime Minister to present the Prime Minister’s statement.

💬 Grant Robertson: He’s a first timer.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Quite the opposite. Mr Speaker—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Simply present the—

I present the Prime Minister’s statement.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House. Copies are available on the Table. I call on Government order of the day—[Interruption] Order! I know everybody is very keen to get this year under way, no more so than myself.

Mr Speaker—

💬 Hon Members: Yay!

Well, thank you for the applause because I move, That this House express its confidence in the National-led Government and commend its programme for 2014 as set out in the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament. This Government starts the year where it left off: with a plan for New Zealand that we present today; with a sense of what is required for economic management—affordable, sensible, and responsible; with a vision for this great country; and with a united, dedicated, and committed team.

The Opposition begins the year where it left off: desperate, divided, and delusional. Mercifully it was quite quiet over Christmas, I have to say. David Cunliffe was very much like a white tiger: he was out there but no one actually ever saw him. Russel Norman spent his entire summer break working out how he could get an invitation to go back to the Dotcom mansion for the third time. Hone Harawira took a public tour of Parliament to see what it is actually like. One thing that did happen over Christmas, though, was that the Opposition proved, I think quite clearly, that it should have gone to summer school when it comes to mathematics or economics, because it is quite one thing when the Green Party wants to print money, but David Cunliffe has actually taken that to a whole new level. You see, he has gone right past the printing press, right past bitcoin, and he has now gone into imaginary or make-believe money. It is fantastic stuff. You do not have to borrow it. You do not have to print it. You most certainly do not have to earn it. According to David Cunliffe, all you have to do is spend it. That takes you into that kind of interesting space of where the Opposition is these days.

As John Armstrong quite rightly pointed out in the New Zealand Herald this morning, it is a bit of a tricky Opposition. You need to actually read the fine print. This is the Opposition that last year wanted New Zealanders to believe that if they earned under $18.40 an hour, they would get a pay rise under Labour. But it turns out in the fine print that it is actually only if you are working for a Government department pretty much in Wellington. He wanted them to believe that there was $1.5 billion just sitting out there mysteriously waiting to be spent. Yesterday he wanted New Zealanders to believe that if for an entire year they had a 1-year-old or younger and they earn under $150,000 a year—Labour’s new definition of poverty—they would get 60 bucks a week. But actually when you read the fine print, they do not. They get it after the paid parental leave has finished. That is right. The Opposition was not rushing to say: “David Cunliffe here to talk to you about my policies for the middle part of 2016.” It was like: “Vote for us and you get the money.” Well, the Opposition has gone from yeah, nah to yeah, nah, maybe. Read the fine print. They are Labour and the Greens. They would be a high-spending and high-taxing Government if they ever get there, which is good, because that is the only high that Labour and the Greens look like they can agree on at the moment.

Let us go to this Government and what it has actually achieved and what it is actually delivering for New Zealanders. The programme today spells out where this Government is going to go. But what is worthy of discussion is also where this Government has been and whom the New Zealand public actually trust with New Zealand. It is this Government, a National-led Government, that has balanced the books in this country and will see us back in surplus by 2014-15. It is this Government that guided Christchurch through the tragedies of the Christchurch earthquakes, stood behind it, week after week after week, making sure it had the support that it needed. It was this Government that guided the country through the global financial crisis, to a point where economic commentators around the world talk about New Zealand as the stand-out developed economy.

It is under this Government that 17,000 people left a benefit last year and 1,500 people a week leave a benefit and get a job. It is under this National-led Government that people are employed. It is under this Government that ACC rates are being reduced for New Zealanders, for workers, for employees, across the board, and it is under this National-led Government that when we look out there at the crime rate in this country, we see it is at a 33-year low.

It is this Government that can be trusted to roll out ultra-fast broadband. I know David Cunliffe is saying that he is going to close down Facebook. That is actually something that most leaders around the world have not managed to do. But that is right. That was today’s proclamation from David Cunliffe—the fine print. He is going to close down Facebook. That will be interesting. But this is also the Government with the track record that has seen an enormous increase in elective surgical operations available to New Zealanders. This is the Government that stood up with a plan to prevent the harm that is taking place in our communities against young children.

This Government and its plan is the reason that three-quarters of a billion dollars will be spent this year in New Zealand on looking for oil and gas—because of this Government. And actually, despite what David Cunliffe said about his new-found friends in Norway, it was Labour that had no rules in the exclusive economic zone, let alone tough rules. It had no rules whatsoever, when it came to deep-sea drilling. Last year, when we were in this House, Labour members were the ones being critical and all of a sudden, miraculously, that has changed.

It is under this National-led Government that housing will become more affordable, because we have the right approach to fixing that issue. That is through the accords with the Auckland Council and ultimately around the country. That is with making sure that new land is released. That is with making sure that there are refinements to our legislation, particularly over time, to the Resource Management Act, to allow young New Zealanders to buy a home.

It is this National-led Government that has stood up and is tackling the issues of teacher performance and principal performance, so that every young New Zealander gets a chance to succeed, to do well, and to have a world-class education. That is what is happening under this Government. Under this Government Transmission Gully will be built, like the Waterview Connection is.

In the plan for the year the Government goes back to the four key points that it has been implementing for some time. To responsibly manage finances—that has got to be the top priority. I say to New Zealanders who see these other political parties offering something that if it is too good to be true, it probably is. When David Cunliffe tells you he has found $1.5 billion at the end of a rainbow and he is out spending it, roughly, depending on whether you read the fine print, maybe, just maybe, you need to ask where that is coming from. By the way, if you are earning $150,000 and you are in that category of poverty, according to Labour, you will also have your tax rate going up year after year after year. And if you are a young couple who is buying the bakery in Hāwera and you are trying to make a living, under Labour, it will put a capital gains tax on you, because you are rich, and because you are out there trying to create employment, because you care about trying to get other people a job. When Labour has done all that, and when it has spent like it did last time it was in office—if it ever gets there again—we know what happens. Interest rates go up. The competitive part of the economy goes south, and a National-led Government has to come in and tidy things up.

Their heads are down over there for one reason and one reason alone: they know it does not add up. They know we are not even out the end of January and they have spent three-quarters of a billion dollars with their mates the Greens—let alone everything that happened last year. That is what New Zealanders like about this plan and trust about this Government—that in the course of 5 years we have actually held Government spending pretty much at the same rate, but we have prioritised what matters. At-risk New Zealanders have had Working for Families maintained, pensions maintained, and accommodation supplements maintained. This Government has reprioritised to ensure that happens.

This Government will also stick to its plan of building a competitive and productive economy. It will continue to deliver better public services and it will rebuild Christchurch. Let us go through some individual bits of the plan. Back in 2008, when we became the Government, this is what Treasury told us: the debt to GDP ratio was going to 60 percent by 2020. Why? Because we were inheriting a bunch of the stuff we saw yesterday: say anything, do anything to try to get there, and try to tell people you are doing them a favour with their own money, until the music stops and you get booted out, and someone actually has to come in and tidy the place up. What does this year’s plan show? It shows that by 2014-15 we will not be a decade of deficits; we will be back in surplus—we will back in surplus. Debt will have peaked at 26.5 percent, and by 2019-20 it will be at 17 percent—16.9 percent. New Zealanders take enormous confidence from that. This Government will work on repaying debt, because we actually trust New Zealanders and they trust us to be able to take care of them when there is actual need. When a Christchurch earthquake comes, a strong Government can stand in support. A profligate one cannot.

When it come to competitiveness, this Government will remain committed to the Business Growth Agenda and to expanding export markets. That includes trying to complete our free-trade agreement with Korea, with Russia, and with the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries, not the least of them being the United States. In 2014 this Government will do something that parties on the other side of the House talk about but never actually support, and that is get behind the film industry. This is the Government that saw over—Jacinda Ardern is shaking her head, but she was the Hobbit-hater, out there saying not to create 5,500 jobs for the hobbits—5,500 jobs created. Now we have got Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and Avatar 4 being made in New Zealand because of this Government’s actions. That is what happens when you have good government.

We are committed to smart investment. We are committed to making sure that science is at the heart of the Government. We will continue to work with Callaghan Innovation in making sure that New Zealand firms and New Zealand businesses across the country have the very best science available to them. We will continue down the path of our National Science Challenges and of our Primary Growth Partnership, and making sure we use science to make New Zealand a more competitive economy.

When it comes to skills and in the workplace, this Government will continue to do that and it will ensure that we reach our target that 55 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds have some sort of advanced trade qualification, diploma, or degree by 2017. There will be an additional 4,500 places in trades and services academies, and this year alone over 10,000 people will have access to the Youth Guarantee—fees-free learning for 16 to 19-year-olds under a National-led Government.

When it comes to safety in the workplace, that will be a priority for the Government this year, as we look, through WorkSafe New Zealand, to improve the culture in our workplaces so that workers across New Zealand can go to their place of work and be confident that they will come home from their daily work. We will make sure that WorkSafe New Zealand works with those industries that need support and need change to ensure that that takes place.

We will make sure that ACC reductions continue to be delivered so that New Zealanders can pay less for their ACC. When it comes to infrastructure, as I said earlier, work on Transmission Gully will begin, work will continue on the Christchurch Western Corridor, work will continue on the Waikato Expressway, work will continue on the Waterview Connection, not from borrowings—not from borrowings—but in some part from proceeds of sales of minor assets in New Zealand companies that have deepened our capital markets.

This party and this Government remain committed to ultra-fast broadband so that every school in the country, every hospital in the country, and three-quarters of all New Zealand homes can be wired to the world. We looked with great amazement and pride at Lorde yesterday. She is a great example of how New Zealand music was delivered over the internet. Joel Little himself said that they produced that music to give away on the internet and, in fact, it turned her into a singing sensation.

We will carry on our work around housing and addressing those issues, and particularly Christchurch will remain an important part of the Government’s agenda, as it has been since the Christchurch earthquakes. There are those anchor projects—the justice precinct, over a billion dollars going into schools and into housing. And when it comes to education, we will not say that the answer to fixing the whole problem in the education system is giving the odd kid a lunch. That is not actually going to fix the problem. What will fix the problem is paying $50,000 to a world-class principal to go in and fix up a school that is failing those kids. That is what is going to fix their education. We are going to say to those teachers to stay in the classroom, share your expertise, be paid more for that, be an expert teacher, go around the other schools in your cluster, or be an executive principal and expand that. We are going to continue with national standards so that parents can understand the progress of their child, and we will continue to work on moderation amongst schools.

We will continue our work in law and order, because New Zealanders feel safer under a National-led Government. We will continue with Addressing the Drivers of Crime and rehabilitation. We will look to strengthen and expand the rights of victims in legislation that makes it easier for children who are witnesses or for rape victims. We will continue our work on cyber-bullying. As I said, when it comes to health, one of the top priority areas for this Government is that we will continue to ensure that patients are at the centre of what we focus on in our health system. We will make sure that they continue to get access to elective surgery faster, we will continue to make sure they have world-class and gold-standard cancer treatment and that there is more money for magnetic resonance imaging and CAT scans, and we will continue to make sure that people can feel confident in what we are doing.

You can walk the walk or you can talk the talk. This is a National-led Government that walks the walk. This is a National-led Government that has shown through the work of the last 5 years, and will continue to show in 2014, that we are up for any challenge that is put before us and that we can meet those challenges and deliver a brighter future for New Zealanders. We are not going to sit there and try to bribe the electorate with imaginary money that does not exist. We are not going to ask people to read the fine print, like a commercial contract, when I give a speech at a school someplace in New Zealand. We are going to say to New Zealanders that they can trust what we say, and they can trust us to deliver what we do. We are a good Government, not a tricky Opposition. Bring on 2014.

I move, That all the words after “That” be deleted and replaced with “this House express no confidence in this National-led Government because New Zealand has become more and more divided, and because those in the middle are struggling and the poor are going backwards.” What is going to be that Prime Minister’s legacy when he finishes up later this year? Just how is he going to be remembered? Well, it will not be for that visionless, defensive speech full of tinkering and the same old, same old. It might be for his half-finished, user-pays cycleway, but I doubt it because “John Key Memorial Cycleway” does not really have a certain ring to it. It might be for the holiday home in Hawaii. Hawaii, also known as “Planet Key”—the place where there are lots of golf courses but no toilets, which will not be easy for the President of the United States or his security detail. Or it might be for the Budget surpluses that Labour always ran but National has yet to sample. In 9 years of Labour Government we never ran a fiscal deficit and National has never run a surplus. Being lectured on fiscal prudence by those clowns is a bit like being lectured on tact and discernment by Gerry Brownlee.

I think that John Key is actually going to go down in history by what the international press calls him: “unidentified guest”. No wonder—the photo ops are about as flaky as his commitment to reducing unemployment. I think he is going to be remembered for his true achievement: in short, fiddling while Rome burns—he is doing it now—and for being the last gasp of an old, tired, failed way of doing things. He will be remembered as the Prime Minister who clung to “business as usual” while every day more and more Kiwis find themselves struggling—left behind by a Government that is increasingly out of touch, arrogant, and patently just in it for its mates. He talks about an economic recovery, but let us be blunt. The only good news comes from the insurance cheques from the disaster in Christchurch and some damn good prices for milk solids. Neither of those can the Government take credit for. It does not milk the cows and it does not milk the dairy markets.

Milk is New Zealand’s greatest export—nearly a quarter of our export receipts. When the price of milk powder goes up, our economy goes up with it. That is all very well if you have got a dairy farm, as half the National caucus seems to have—at least one; sometimes five—but not much good if you are trying to run a manufacturing business and export something other than milk powder. It is not much good if you are trying to do smart, value-added, sustainable business in a world where your future seems dependent on the end of a cow’s udder.

If you take a devastated city and the price of milk out of the equation, what are you left with? An unidentified guest. But putting that aside and putting aside the fact that the Government can claim no responsibility whatever for any type of recovery, what is it doing with what there is? I will tell you what it is doing. It is making sure that it goes to the top few. That is the kind of recovery we are seeing—recovery in luxury car sales, sales of million-dollar homes, profits of big corporations, and the record highs being added on the rich list. It is interesting to hear him talk about it. He still puts his faith in trickle-down theories, but 30 years of increasing inequality, increasing child poverty, and a shrinking middle New Zealand clearly says otherwise.

Unlike milking cows, this Government is milking New Zealand, and it is called “trickle up”, not trickle down, which would explain why the chequebook is always open for big business but not for Pike River families. It is why it is happy for the employment law to be changed for Warner Bros but there is not even a chance of an inquiry for the families of dead forestry workers. It is why the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment would be happy to cough up a hundred grand for an Auckland to Invercargill yacht race that never happened but the Ministry of Social Development cut a similar amount from a trust that helps disabled children. It is why there is a billion dollars of tax cuts for the richest New Zealanders but the most vulnerable get booted when they cannot get a job. It explains why elite private schools get tens of millions of taxpayer funding, while a decile 1 Christchurch school gets unlawfully shut down.

It explains why major supermarkets are posting record profits and mums and dads with good jobs struggle to keep up with the bills. It is why power companies are raking in super-profits and retirees are going without heating because they cannot afford to open their power bills. It is why the stockbrokers who helped John Key sell our assets made over $150 million on clipping the ticket while manufacturers that are trying to sell real value-added Kiwi-made goods get a high dollar and lay-offs. It is why a select few are making millions on investment property tax-free and everybody else who works hard, plays by the rules, and earns a salary or a wage pays tax on every dollar they earn. The top 1 percent under John Key owns 16 percent of the wealth, and the bottom half owns only one-twentieth.

Like I said, the Government is arrogant, out of touch, and out for its mates. I am struck by just how out of touch it is when I hear Mr Key talking about safe and skilled workplaces—tell that to the families of the dead forestry workers or the miners—and about a so-called commitment to export markets, which is code for trade deals he will not even let the public see. There is one commitment that New Zealand would like to see, and that is a commitment to lowering our dollar right now, because the Reserve Bank says that we are 15 percent overvalued, and that adds up to jobs lost and families ruined. And that is not even scratching the surface. Listen to the Prime Minister and his southern henchman Mr English and Mr Joyce and they will tell you that you should count yourself lucky, that this is as good as it gets, and that there is no alternative. I will tell you something. There is an alternative, and that is called a new Labour-led Government.

Just yesterday in my state of the nation speech I outlined the vision for a better New Zealand, a fairer New Zealand, one where everybody has the opportunity to make the most of themselves—the kinds of opportunities that both the Prime Minister and I had when we were young. Neither of us came from families that had any money. We both benefited from a good State school. We benefited from a good health system when my dad was desperately ill. But John Key has been pulling the ladder up after himself. He is continuing his 30-year project of widening the gap between the haves and have-nots, and that is not a future that we want for New Zealand. It is not one that New Zealanders want for themselves.

We are a fair nation and we value attributes like hard work and compassion and looking after each other, because we know that when some of us do well, we all should do well. It should not be to pit New Zealander against New Zealander. It should not be to pit the 1 percent against the 99 percent. I think that, actually, in his heart of hearts, that is something that even the Prime Minister recognised when he launched his little pet teacher bonus scheme last week. It was a pretty clumsy shot at softening his image. He even used the word “egalitarian” and—wait for it—a rugby analogy, and I just think that I am soon going to see a picture of him as an unidentified guest at a barbecue with Prince William. Predictable.

Never before, though, in all seriousness, has New Zealand faced the critical choices it faces now. We are at a crossroads. One path points to an increasingly fractured and divided society, a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, a Government that is arrogant, out of touch, and out for its mates. We want a better, fairer New Zealand. The other path is one of courage, of compassion, and of ingenuity. We want a country that embodies all that is good about our past and combines it with our highest vision for a modern, fair, inclusive economy. It means building an economy worthy of our Kiwi values, a country based on those values—and with good clean water; the water in my glass just now was very good.

In that New Zealand a full day’s work will cover the basics. There will be more jobs available, and wages will catch up with prices. New Zealanders will pay what is fair whether it is for their power bill, their tax bill, or their grocery bill. Every child in the country will have what they deserve: a fair chance, an opportunity to make the best of themselves, to work hard and to get ahead, to start life healthy, to learn early, and to fulfil their potential.

It is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do, because when every Kiwi kid can be the best they can be, this country will be the best it can be. It will be a successful economy with strong regions, with investment, with training, and with research and development, not just a speculator’s paradise or some foreigner’s farm. It will be an economy with strong regions where there are good jobs for all who need them, a networked, digital economy with faster, cheaper broadband rolled out faster than those clowns could roll out a roll of toilet paper. It will be an economy with decent work, good conditions, high wages, and safe workplaces, an economy built on a world-leading education system with high-value exports.

New Zealand is not going to get rich by exporting raw logs or raw milk powder or bulk fish caught on foreign vessels by foreign crews who are not paid the minimum wage, who do not pay tax in New Zealand, and who export the processing offshore; or by a freezing industry riddled with overcapacity that is now exporting whole carcasses so somebody else can cut them up and add the value; or by limiting a technology industry with inadequate, overpriced broadband—[Interruption] I say to Ms Adams—or by cutting research and development funding for our most innovative industries.

Over the next few months the Labour Party will be launching a series of joined-up policy packages designed to rebuild and rebalance this economy, from this country, from local communities up, and with it we will outline how the economy needs to work for New Zealanders both now and in the future. We started yesterday with our Best Start package, a set of policies that is about giving the next generation the best start possible: 59,000 families with newborn babies will receive a Best Start payment of $60 a week for the first year of the child’s life. The investment will go to all families with a combined income of $150,000 or less in their first year, and it will give them more choices about how they juggle work and home life. We need to keep easing the pressure for modest and middle-income families beyond the first year. That is why for those families earning up to $50,000, the payment of $60 will continue unabated to the child’s third birthday.

I also announced that we will be increasing free early childhood education to 25 hours, up from 20 hours. We all know that early childhood education makes a real difference, and the experts tell us that the return is $11 for every $1 invested. Alongside that we need to expand access to early childhood centres, because free hours are not enough if you have not got a centre to study in, and we need to restore funding for qualified teachers.

Why is it that that Prime Minister will pay bonuses to high school principals and cut funding for early childhood educators? Come to think of it, why is it that Hekia Parata cuts teacher development for all teachers so that the National Government can pay bonuses to a few top teachers? Does it want elites in our schools as well as everywhere else? Oh, I forgot. You are allowed more subsidies if you are a private school, or a charter school, where you do not have to teach the New Zealand curriculum, you do not even have to have a qualified teacher, and you are not subject to the Official Information Act. For that special treatment, you get paid extra by the National Government.

By contrast, in partnership with communities, Labour will fund the development of early childhood education centres in lower-income communities to ensure there are places for every Kiwi kid, and we are committed to funding 26 weeks of paid parental leave for every New Zealand family that needs it. This is interesting. What are members opposite going to do? They told us that they were committed to working this through. Now they say that they are going to veto our bill just so that they can bring in a smaller one of their own. That is like John Key saying to Barack Obama: “No, you can have your driver back. I’m going to drive with the putter.” It is the sort of lack of integrity that people are coming to expect from a Government that is not looking after New Zealanders but is just looking after its mates.

Success in the early years involves health as well as education. That is why we are going to make sure pregnant mums get booked in for antenatal checks at 10 weeks. That is why every expectant mum will be able to get free childcare training classes when they are pregnant, that is why we will extent well child checks, and that is why we will provide early access to early childhood education for those families who need it. The Best Start package will ensure parents have more choices and better support so that their kids get better opportunities and New Zealand gets a better future.

I am reminded of Mr Key’s comments a few years ago, when he described women on the DPB as “breeding for a business”. How telling about Mr Key’s values. This is a morally bankrupt Government. It is old, it is tired, and it is, as we can see from the number of Nats getting off the sinking ship, on its way out—on its way out. The challenge before New Zealanders in this decisive election year is to restore values, restore heart, restore opportunity, and restore equality.

The Labour-led Government is waiting to take New Zealand forward. We are waiting for this Government to hasten out of office so that this country can get a new tomorrow, a best start for our kids, a best start for New Zealand. Thank you.

The 2014 election offers New Zealanders the opportunity to make history by electing the first genuinely progressive Government in more than a generation. The 2014 election offers New Zealanders the opportunity to make history by voting for a strong Green Party at the heart of a progressive Government. There are few elections that can genuinely claim to be turning points in history, few elections that can genuinely claim to be forks in the road of history, but the 2014 election will be such an election. The result of this election will be either a forward-looking, progressive Government—a reforming Government in the tradition of Seddon, Savage, and Kirk—or a right-wing, throwback Government, the likes of which we have not seen since Ruth Richardson.

In the last 24 hours the contrasting values of these two alternatives have been very clear. The Green Party has proposed spending $100 million a year to ensure that poor kids at school have food in their stomachs and access to health care. The National Party has attacked this policy, yet this is the same National Party that is spending $1,000 million a year on tax cuts for the top 10 percent of income earners. Green Party values lead us to prioritise spending $100 million a year giving food and health care to hungry, sick New Zealand schoolchildren. National Party values lead it to prioritise spending 10 times that amount—$1 billion a year—giving more money to the top 10 percent of income earners. The choice of values is stark. Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister’s statement did not mention children? In 2014 New Zealanders will get to choose which kinds of values they want in their Government.

New Zealand has a strong history of world-leading, progressive, reforming Governments. The Liberal Government of the 1890s introduced the old-age pension and women’s suffrage. The Liberals worked with unions to protect working people while developing the New Zealand economy. They started our public health system. Forty years after the great reforms of the Liberals, in the 1930s, the Savage Government led the world in introducing a social welfare State that treated people with humanity in the midst of the Great Depression. The social and economic policies introduced by the Savage Government led the world, and after the Second World War they were adopted and admired across the world. The New Zealand economy boomed under the settings established by Savage. Forty years after the reforms of the Savage Government, the 1970s Kirk Government updated the welfare State by introducing such things as a domestic purposes benefit for single mums. It staked out an independent South Pacific foreign policy by protesting against French nuclear testing. It stood up to apartheid by blocking the tour of an apartheid rugby team, because, unlike our current Prime Minister, “Big Norm” knew whether he was for or against apartheid. It established the Waitangi Tribunal and returned the minimum wage to 66 percent of the average wage.

These three progressive reforming Governments—Seddon, Savage, and Kirk—were far from perfect, and some of Seddon’s views on race were offensive, but they changed the course of history and they made life better for ordinary New Zealanders. They set up New Zealand as a world leader. Forty years after the Kirk Government, it is time again for a new wave of progressive Government reform in New Zealand. It is time to refresh the progressive vision for Aotearoa New Zealand. It is time for a Green Government. It is time for a Green Government that reinvigorates our common, progressive commitment to the values of egalitarianism, sovereignty, and democracy. More than that, we need a Green Government that integrates these historically important progressive values with the new, modern values of sustainability. We need a Green Government committed to fairness, independence, democracy, and sustainability.

The next wave of progressive change that is sweeping the world is green. The green revolution is transforming the way we live on planet Earth as we learn to live good lives on a finite planet with limited natural resources. We are learning to access the unlimited resources of human creativity, ingenuity, and generosity in order to live prosperous lives within limited natural resources. That is why smart and green go together. We need to learn how to live smarter so that we can have prosperity while recognising the natural limits of a finite planet. Unleashing human innovation, creativity, and generosity so that we can all live good lives while loving and protecting our natural environment is what the green movement is all about.

History is, of course, littered with those who said that progressive change was not possible, those who opposed women’s suffrage, racial equality, the welfare State, homosexual law reform, public health, and public education. They opposed nuclear-free New Zealand and cannot remember whether they are for or against apartheid. They said that clean energy was impossible. How wrong they were. Renewable electricity generation is now the fastest-growing sector of electricity generation in the world, set to overtake gas generation as the second-largest source of electricity in the world in the next couple of years, according to the International Energy Agency. Green jobs are the fastest-growing sector of the economy. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the greener the industry, the higher the rate of job growth over the last decade. The clean energy future is here, and those who railed against it are now seeing our new reality happening before their very eyes. So, yes, there are those who will rail against history and against the green movement, but they have always been there, and yet we have made history before and we will make it again.

But as I said at the start of this speech, this election is a turning point. Although on the one hand we have the choice of a genuinely progressive Government, the alternative if the current Government is given a third term will be a very different Government from that elected in 2008. It will be a hard right Government, economically, environmentally, and socially, beholden to the damaged and discredited ACT Party, United Future party, and Conservative Party.

John Key’s claim to be a moderate has evaporated over the last couple of years. He has overseen increasing water pollution, blocked attempts to set strong rules to clean up our rivers, and subsidised polluting irrigation schemes. The Government has destroyed a price on carbon and subsidised fossil fuels, with the result that New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions are projected to increase 50 percent above 1990 levels by 2030 according to the Ministry for the Environment’s own projections.

This Government has made it much harder for people just to get by. There are 50,000 more people unemployed than when John Key first came to power. Median household income has fallen 4 percent after inflation under this National Government. Electricity prices were up 3 percent last year, despite falling demand. Rising mortgage rates this year will wipe out any pay increases many families get. This Government has failed to manage the economy. Its irresponsible tax cuts to the top 10 percent, costing $1.1 billion a year, have contributed to National’s record borrowing. In just 6 years National has borrowed more than all prior Governments combined. National’s economic priority, asset sales, has failed and has cost taxpayers $440 million so far.

But this will be nothing compared with what will happen if the National Party is re-elected. The first thing, I bet, is that John Key will not stay a full term as Prime Minister. He will be replaced by someone even further to the right, like Steven Joyce or Judith Collins. The second thing is that National can be re-elected only if it has the support of the Conservative Party, a party that wants to roll back all of the gains made in the last 30 years for the rights of women, gay and lesbian New Zealanders, and children. Such a hard right Government will further turn its back on science—climate science in particular, as Tony Abbott is doing across the Ditch. Such a hard right Government will take away the ladder of opportunity that many of us here climbed to achieve our potential. It will embrace the politics of the conservative right, which believes that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and a gay man’s place is in the closet, and it will turn its back on New Zealand’s opportunity to be a world leader in green economics and green jobs. That is what we will get if we have a third term of a National Government. The choice is stark: a broad, inclusive, progressive, reforming Government or a narrow, ideological Government of the far right.

Alongside the historic gains in economic, social, and environment policy that have been achieved over the years by progressive activists and Governments, there is one other important achievement that is worth celebrating this year, and that is the proportional voting system, MMP. The year 2014 is the 18th anniversary of MMP. MMP has come of age. The new generation of voters who will get to vote for the first time this year has known New Zealand only under MMP. These young voters did not have to experience what it was like to vote in a first-past-the-post election, with the winner-takes-all system that left the majority of voters without representation in the Government. First past the post produced Governments that had the support of a minority of voters but that had almost absolute power. It probably seems inconceivable to those young voters that we had elections where a party could have a majority of MPs and form a Government with only 35 percent of the vote, as was the case with the National Government elected in 1993.

Under MMP a party share of the popular vote is directly proportional to its share of seats in Parliament. Those who campaigned for MMP, like Rod Donald, were working to deepen and strengthen our democracy, but under this Government democracy is being hollowed out. Under this Government New Zealand has been denied the best of MMP. In fact, John Key is now telling us that he should automatically get to form the next Government and be Prime Minister even if he has the support of only a minority of voters. It is worth repeating this, because it is quite outrageous: the Prime Minister is saying that he should get to lead the next Government even if he has the support of only a minority of voters. That is his take on democracy. I do not think that he really understands why New Zealanders voted for MMP.

MMP was about bringing an end to the era where one person, like Robert Muldoon or Roger Douglas or Ruth Richardson, could force through their unpopular agenda. But John Key and Steven Joyce have returned us to that world MMP was meant to be about Governments respecting the opinions of others. Coalition Governments, cross-party select committees—these were supposed to mean something, to be a check on executive power rather than the rubber stamp they have become.

But this Government has used its power to ignore the will of the people. It showed its arrogance and blatantly flouted democracy by publicly stating before voting had even begun that it would ignore the results of the citizens initiated referendum on asset sales. We saw exactly the same behaviour when this Government decided to ignore the results of the MMP review for purely partisan, political reasons. New Zealanders voted to keep MMP at the 2011 referendum, and then thousands of New Zealanders took part in the review to make MMP even fairer. The Government was given a very clear steer by the public and the independent umpire, the Electoral Commission, on what changes the public wanted—in particular, abolishing the coat-tailing provision, which has allowed this National Government to do its dirty deals and cobble together a Government. Acting in pure self-interest, National ignored the will of the people and left MMP unchanged. It undermined our electoral system, and now John Key is doing dirty coat-tailing deals all over the country just to keep his political options alive in this election.

MMP is not supposed to be about one party struggling to maintain power by relying on a couple of dodgy hangers-on. MMP is not about the biggest minority party automatically having the right to govern. It is about forming Governments with majority support. But this Government, with its single-vote majority and its unstable and unethical coalition reliant on disgraced MPs, has forced things through against the will of the majority of New Zealanders. Entirely because of the support of Peter Dunne and John Banks, this Government has been allowed to pass into law a series of obscene policies.

Firstly, it sold off the assets built up over generations, transferring the wealth from the 99 percent to the 1 percent. It attacked our privacy, our freedom, and our liberty. It passed the Search and Surveillance Bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill, and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. The role of the State is supposed to be to protect human rights and civil liberties, but instead the National Party has passed laws that restrict our freedom of expression and our freedom to live free from State surveillance. It attacked local democracy as well as removing the vote from Cantabrians even before the earthquake. It also showed that it does not understand, respect, or trust local government or local communities by undermining the independence of local government.

The National Government attacks the most vulnerable people in our society: the sick, the young, vulnerable women, and the disabled and those caring for them. It introduced unacceptable discrimination into our law through youth rates, telling young people they are not worthy of our respect, and reinforced New Zealand as a low-wage economy. With the support of the Māori Party it removed the rights of family carers of disabled people to have their day in court. It rushed that law change through this Parliament in a single day. Muldoon would be proud.

The National Government attacks the environment. It weakened the emissions trading scheme, facilitated the exploitation of schedule 4 conservation land, and polluted our rivers. It threatened to lock up the defenders of the environment if they went anywhere near an oil rig or an oil vessel. It facilitated a morally contemptible, dirty, dodgy deal, swapping gambling laws for a convention centre. All of these disgraceful changes to our laws were possible only because of the support of Peter Dunne, whom the Prime Minister tells us he does not trust, and John Banks, who is in front of the courts for electoral fraud. This is how this Government has undermined the promise of MMP and our democracy.

But New Zealanders can take back the power this year. New Zealanders have a real chance to elect a truly modern MMP coalition. True MMP is about stable government where the majority of New Zealanders are represented in a strong coalition of strong partners. It is about principled parties coming together and working towards policies that meet the needs of New Zealanders. It is about a Government that is representative and has a range of smart new voices at the table. This is what MMP should be. This is what those who fought for MMP were fighting for.

As MMP turns 18 it is time for New Zealand to have a true MMP Government—MMP as it should be. It is time for a strong, progressive Government. It is time for a Green Government. The Green Party is ready to govern. We are ready to sit at the table and deliver real gains for real people. Yes, we will compromise—MMP requires that of all partners in a coalition—but we will not compromise on our principles or our values. We have the ideas, the experience, and the credentials. We have been a parliamentary voice for change since 1999, and we are more than ready to make a real green change in Government. We have stable leadership supported by our team of MPs who are smart, progressive, forward thinkers. We have an experienced party organisation and a strong grassroots membership. We have made real changes already in New Zealanders’ lives. We have warmer homes, cleaner food, and better transport options as a result of our work. We set the agenda and we follow through with solutions. In Government we will achieve even more. A strong Green Party in Government will focus on building a sustainable economy, dismantling inequality, and protecting our environment. We will build on our wins to make sure that we have a smarter, cleaner, more compassionate country for all New Zealanders. Bring on the election.

The Prime Minister wants the House to express its confidence in the National Government. Well, we do not. The plan outlined by the Prime Minister for 2014 brought to mind the word “hoover”—not the great water dam in the United States, and not the first FBI boss in the United States, but the vacuum cleaner. You know why? Because it sucks. John Key has spent too long running around after the movie moguls. He is in his own fantasy land. His speech had the most confused start of any speech that I have ever heard by a party leader in this House—the most confused start that I have ever heard.

And then the anxiety when he looked to Gerry for help! His speech should have been an honest and objective statement of the conditions facing the country, the challenges ahead, and the solutions the Government has to offer, which are all the big things that matter to ordinary people. Instead, it was pure spin and manipulation and deceit, and incorrect statements. New Zealand Prime Ministers of the past would have been embarrassed to have spouted such dribble. I think that a leadership spill in the National Party is not long away. Gerry is smiling, because he may be able to get on the right side and perhaps prolong his already far too long career. But I know that it is going on. My inside information tells me that.

National is a Government of non-achievers with a woeful record of failure. It always puts the interests of foreign big business ahead of ordinary New Zealanders. It keeps selling valuable State assets in a process that can only be characterised as economic madness. Here are some of the many examples of economic failure. There are 150,000 New Zealanders unemployed, while immigrant work visas and permanent residencies—

💬 David Bennett: Come on—anti-immigration.

—are sold like expensive bus tickets. That member saw Campbell Live last night. He should watch it again tonight. All over the country it is going on, and the member from Hamilton East, Mr Bennett, thinks it is a laughing matter. It is not. It is an abomination to a First World country and to First World laws. There is a housing crisis, but the Government refuses to acknowledge that migrant numbers and overseas speculators are creating havoc and are cheating Kiwis out of a decent home. There is not one country in Asia that would tolerate such a policy. The Government could not find one politician in Asia who would support such a policy, so why is it doing it to its own people?

Nothing has been done to address the massive overseas debt. Here is what is worse—the Prime Minister did not admit it, but it is all in the documentation—the massive overseas debt is not coming down; it is going up. That is why he uses 2020 figures and 2021 figures. Look, he will be gone a long time before that. In fact, there will not be one member there left—possibly we will be, for obvious reasons. But there will not be one member there left, and those members are using figures that they first started to use in 2008—12 years away from 2020—and now they are still talking about 2020 like they are going to hold on until then. I do not think so. It is still rising. The exchange rate is crippling exporters and manufacturers, and again the Government refuses to act. It is paralysed. Worse still, it contemplates an official cash rate rise shortly, which will boot up mortgage rates, and then what will happen as well is that it will kick up the exchange rate even further.

Here it is today: Mr English, trying to show that he is in control. He says he is concerned about the high exchange rate, and that it was a concern for the economy. Whoop-de-do! We have got a finance Minister—

💬 Grant Robertson: The penny’s dropped!

The penny has finally dropped. He has been here for far too long. He has been the finance Minister for far too long. You have got people saying that our currency will possibly reach parity with Australia. It is doing enormous damage to an export-dependent nation, and what does he say? “Well, so, it’s a bit of a concern.” Oh, and this is what he also said, though. He said this, which absolutely belies what the Prime Minister was saying: “I think it’s too high, yes, and I think the Australian economy is a bit stronger relative to ours.”—relative to ours.

💬 Grant Robertson: That’s a concession.

That is a concession. He says that that indicates that, all in the one quote. In the House, and out in front of the National Party’s cannon fodder, he persuades them by saying one thing, but privately he has to admit that things are seriously going wrong with the high currency.

💬 Andrew Little: Amazing what a week in Davos does.

Yeah, well, that is what a week in Davos does. Mind you, half of that backbench over there do not know where Davos is.

💬 Andrew Little: They thought it was on the West Coast!

Those members think it is on the West Coast, between Hokitika and Greymouth. Worse still, as I say, they contemplate the official cash rate going up, and up will go the dollar even further. And then they will say: “Well, that’s a sign of a healthy economy.” It is unbelievable the kind of economic drivel that they get people like Mr Hayes and Mr Bennett to keep on repeating. I know those two gentlemen, and privately they are alarmed. They know in their hearts that that threatens their election prospects. I know Mr Hayes is smart. He is jumping ship now. He is getting out now. He is getting pushed, and he is jumping now because he is wise. He does not want to be standing around amidst the mayhem and debris of chaos, post election night 2014, whenever National flies the white flag. Mr Hayes is an experienced man. He knows he can smell danger. Mr Bennett should pay attention, as Mr Hayes can help you.

Let us look specifically at the economy. No effort will be spared by the National Party to pump up the feel-good factor in advance of the 2014 election. “Mr Spray and Walk Away” thinks he can pull it off one more time, but I have got bad news for him. He cannot—he cannot. All the storm clouds are assembling now. Within the National Party ranks, they look ready now for an alternative leader.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Oh yes, they are. Just because Hekia Parata is not part of the cabal does not mean it is not going on. In fact, I think Hekia will be the first tragedy when it takes place. There will be lots of talk of an economy firing on all cylinders, the rock-star economy, which still cannot match New Caledonia, by the way, going at 3.5 year after year. National has had stagnated, bottlenecked, corked-up growth, it gets it for a temporary, 1-year term, and it starts talking about the rock-star economy. What a joke. No effort will be made to dispel or challenge the spin that New Zealand is a rock-star—a superstar—economy. Well, look at all the fundamentals. It ain’t true. A responsible Government would have immediately corrected this sort of false and misleading claptrap.

Let me sound a warning about this rock-star economy. It is only a suggestion, Gerry, but do not forget who is making it. Treasury has never won a Grammy award for accuracy of its forecasts. It has never won—

💬 Hon Member: Who wrote that, Winnie?

Well, actually, Treasury wrote it. Thanks for asking the question. I could not have done better myself for timing. It is here and it says this—this is from November last, the 5 months ended 30 November: “The operating balance before gains and losses (OBEGAL) was in deficit by $2.3 billion, which was around $400 million more than expected, mainly due to lower core Crown tax revenue.” Who wrote that? Why, it is from the Government itself! It is from the Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the 5 months ended 30 November 2013. You see, an $86 million surplus is cigarette-paper thin, and you are getting there because the Government is suspending spending, like, for example, on overseas aid, whereas the others spent $92 million last year, and like, for example, suspending certain roading projects. Just hold them back. Those members think: “We will get a surplus any which way we can, like we will hold back some Waitangi settlements. We will not pay out to these victims of the Viet Nam War. We just will not do anything like that there, and we think we will con our way through it.” I have to tell those members that it has all been tried before and it always fails. Do not let it happen again.

As I said, only a few days ago Treasury forecast that this so-called deficit was not going to be what it thought it would be. National, aided and abetted by its pet intellectuals—and, yes, its puppets, bank economists, money traders, and corporate cheerleaders—will put a positive spin on every bit of economic news, even when it is bad. The facts are staring us in the face. Our manufacturers and exporters will get no help, with an overvalued dollar. Bill English said today about the Aussie dollar itself that it is going up by the day. It will keep going up, as I said, if interest rates are increased. But National could not care less about every manufacturer, whether they have closed or moved offshore. In the halcyon days of our great country, when National was a good party and knew what it was doing, and had practical men of experience, we used to rock on at 4.5 percent per year and manufacturing was 33 percent of our economy—the GDP. Now it is 13 percent and falling, and the Government has no plan, because manufacturing means offshore exports and it means jobs. It does not have a plan. Its plan is hands-off and to let the free market work it out.

I know the apologist from Epsom thinks that that is a great policy. He also thinks that pulling down your hoardings when you are campaigning—not on election eve, which the law requires. No, he pulls them down during the actual campaign itself.

💬 Paul Goldsmith: You couldn’t win an electorate.

Oh, really? Let me tell that member that I have won electorates that no one else could win. We won all the Māori seats once. Nobody else would be able to do that. We won all of them.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: What happened then?

What happened was they got duped by their National Party colleagues and failed to show the loyalty, and that is why the National Party is now in trouble. It is because the Māori Party that they put—

💬 David Bennett: Andrew Williams wants to go.

No, no. Mr Key made a speech last week, if you recall, and all of sudden he says: “Oh, we will be happy to talk to New Zealand First.” You know, it is a bit like that famous quote from Jesse Jackson, when he said that it seems like that when Santa Claus is running into heavy weather, he decides that now he will call upon Rudolph. It is unbelievable—unbelievable.

There is no basis for this National Government to boast about its economic record. Export prices for dairy produce have been at record levels. New Zealand has been the beneficiary of the best terms of trade for 40 years. There is nothing great or glorious about 150,000 New Zealanders not being able to get a job. What is so brilliant about creating a speculative housing bubble for foreign speculators in Auckland? Is this part of some brilliant economic plan known only to the inner circle, or what they have politely termed the “kitchen cabinet”? Do you see that phrase the “kitchen cabinet”? Well, I know some of them have spent too much time in the kitchen, but they do not make a good—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Or in the dining room.

Or they are the product of the kitchen, but they are not a kitchen cabinet. As I said, New Zealand’s external balance sheet is in an awful state. The dollar is going up, and over the past 5 years National has failed totally to diversify our economic base. We are now even more vulnerable to what is known as a black swan, or an unforeseen event or shock. That is where we sit today, and wise people have said it.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about the film industry?

Nick Smith asks what I will do about it. Well, let me tell you. We have an economy based on, or characterised by, one dominant export product, which is milk powder; one dominant export company, which is Fonterra; one dominant export market, which is China; and one dominant import, which is people—immigration. That is not a plan that a party calling itself National, which would evince putting its people first, should ever be proud of.

💬 David Bennett: Anti-migrants—anti-migration.

The stark, ugly truth is that New Zealand is nowhere near paying its way in the world, Mr Bennett. It is clear that this Government is clueless as to how to address that.

Young New Zealanders have been betrayed by this Government. Their hopes of homeownership have been snatched away. Barely any young couple can save at the speed of soaring house price inflation, and, Mr Bennett, you cannot save that fast, either. No member over there can save that fast—oh, maybe Mr Key can. But, of course, that is Merrill Lynch. The rest cannot. None of those members can save that fast, to match housing inflation. Young New Zealanders struggle under the burden of student debt, and their prospects of a decent, secure, and well-paying job have been trashed by wholesale immigration policies.

Immigration is the most thriving and corrupt industry in New Zealand today. It is not a laughing matter. It is all laid out there, and you will hear a lot more as these few months unfold in the term to come. Incredibly, over 150,000 migrant work visas were issued in the year to June 2013—150,000. Today the Prime Minister announced more work visas, and the whole process, he said, of issuing visas is going to be sped up. Apply online—get a visa online. Come to New Zealand and take a Kiwi’s job! This is lunacy and it is going to be stopped.

💬 David Bennett: Are you going to stop it?

Most certainly it is going to be stopped.

Just a point on what the Prime Minister claimed in the House this afternoon. He said that the Hobbit movies created 5,500 jobs. That is what he said. They know over there that that statement is bulldust.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, it’s not.

Oh no? Well, this is direct from the Prime Minister’s office—his senior adviser. It says this: “The PM was asking yesterday for the total number of people who will work on both Hobbit movies. The context, if he is asked about Labour’s industrial relations policy and how it might impact on the New Zealand film industry, is he can say something like ‘About 3,000 people will work on the Hobbit movies.’ If that policy had been in place, then all those people might never have got a job.” So it is 3,000 by guess here; now it is 5,500. But he is not going to get away with that sort of stuff in this campaign—oh no, sirree. We will be waiting there every time he tells a porky—wahoo, exposure. He goes on to say this: “Would it be possible to get an estimated number—just to the nearest 500 or 1,000 would be fine.” That is straight from the senior adviser of the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister gets up in the House and tells people something else. He is misleading the House again.

The Government has no idea of who or what is coming into the country. Why should New Zealanders give up their jobs to immigrants? The Government is not loyal to the people of this country. Sure, it is a Government for the people. Sure, National is a Government for the people—the people of China, India, anywhere but New Zealand. The winter is going to be tough. Jobs will be hard to get and power bills are going through the roof. As for the statement about increasing competition in the electricity industry—well, that was pure garbage. We all know we have got a price-fixing cartel operating here. Domestic consumers pay up to three times more for their power than big companies do, and many small businesses and domestic consumers are being ripped off. We all know it. It is an exercise in deception, as is the broadband roll-out. A Southern Cross cable conglomerate of Telecom and Chorus is exploiting New Zealand, the Government, and the taxpayers, because the Government is paying them more than twice what it is worth—over $1 billion. Somehow the Government is trying to put across that it is doing consumers a favour, when they have actually been ripped off.

It is just like the plan for the police. It is all about glib words. Do you know what the Government said today? It said that the Government is going to reduce the rate of crime by 15 percent—the rate of violent crime by 15 percent and the rate of youth crime by 25 percent. What a brazen abuse of figures and statistics. It sounds something like the police files out of North Korea and Pyongyang. It does not sound like a First World country. Has the Government told offenders how much to reduce their offending? Who is negotiating with the criminal community over these statistics? It is an absolute fact that if you do not have sufficient law enforcement resources, then you will not have the capacity to fight crime and much crime will go unreported. We know that on that matter, New Zealand First is the only party with a great record. Last time we had the power, we got 1,000 extra frontline police, just like that. Now the Government runs around the place talking about the police resources.

The Government is even claiming that they brought in free medicine for under-6-year-olds.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

No, Mr Key is claiming that boldly out on the public stage. Thank heavens people remember. [Bell rung] Two minutes to go, Mr Speaker? One minute to go? Wonderful. That will be enough to finish off this party.

What we have heard today, if you look at the penultimate page, is a statement about taking steps this year to introduce a National match-fixing policy. That is what we heard today—National’s match-fixing policy for the election. If you cannot win the game, cheat or fix it. Well, we are on red alert and ready to hand out a card. We cannot say it will be a red card. We cannot say it will be a green card. We cannot say it will be a yellow card. But we most definitely can say that it will be a white card. It will be a white and black card as soon as National—as it will—flies the white flag.

One last statement: remember what Mr Key said about the SIS raid last year? He said he did not know about it. We will prove in this House that he did.

Mr Speaker, may I formally acknowledge you and all other members at the onset of this important year, a year in which I hope we can genuinely work together for the best interests of all who call this land home. For many political commentators, the year begins with the annual pilgrimage to Rātana Pā. I acknowledge, therefore, the enduring legacy of Tahupōtiki Wīremu Rātana, the significance of his teachings encompassed in the Ture Wairua, and the ongoing relevance of his message for Ture Tangata. The message of Ture Tangata, of course, deals with te mana motuhake, the concerns of tangata w’enua for our land claims, and our rights and responsibilities as embodied in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is a very strong basis for establishing our priorities for the year, and it is always pleasing when those coming to the pā acknowledge those dual objectives of our nationhood.

This year, however, Winston Peters chose the moment to attack the Māori Party for what he labelled apartheid policies. I cannot let such an outrageous claim stand, and I have deliberately waited for this first speech in the House this year to remind all politicians of our moral and ethical responsibility in the use we make of language for effect. For the record, the crime of apartheid, as stated by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, is defined as inhumane acts of crimes against humanity “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systemic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other”.

In South Africa the Government implemented a regime of apartheid with penalties such as fines, imprisonment, and whippings. In 1960 a large group of black citizens in Sharpeville refused to carry their passes, and in retaliation the Government declared a state of emergency for 156 days, leaving 69 people dead and 187 wounded. Thousands of individuals died in custody, frequently after gruesome acts of torture. How, then, does this crime against humanity apply to the introduction of Whānau Ora?

Whānau Ora is about empowering and enabling families to set their own priorities to focus on outcomes. Common themes in w’ānau plans include better lives for children, employment, housing and homeownership, education and skills development, and health and cultural wellness. Presumably, this is the nature of what Mr Peters labelled sociological objectives, which are of no interest to Māoridom at all. Although it is pleasing to note that in a different waka Mr Cunliffe stated that he would listen to the voices of Māoridom as to where they want to take Whānau Ora, in the next breath he admitted that he would not be keeping the policy going as it is, suggesting that Whānau Ora is not something Labour would limit to Māori and that Labour wants to extend it to community service agencies and NGOs around the country.

This too must be challenged. Whānau Ora is available to any family—any family—who wants to support and accept responsibilities and obligations to one another. The days are gone when progress is measured by what others do to families in the name of development. Whānau Ora is not about being done to, or being on behalf of, others. Whānau Ora, contrary to the view above, has been openly embraced by New Zealanders of all cultures and creeds and is about families standing confidently and being capable of taking care of their own. Call it transformation. Call it liberation. This is about a revolution of the masses to set their own direction. I really implore our political colleagues to think seriously before they jump in and attack merely for the sake of gaining traction on the hustings.

I would ask this House to think back to the debates around section 59 of the Crimes Act, where the use of violence as a means of disciplining children was outlawed, or, more recently, in the wonderful coalition of minds that came together for tobacco reform to ensure improved health outcomes for all New Zealanders. Both of these policy initiatives were championed by activists, lobbyists, health professionals, families, children’s advocates, academics, and communities. They came together to mobilise the masses in the interest of change. So when I look at the 160 providers that have entered into Whānau Ora and, most important, the 33,000 New Zealanders who have been touched by the impact of positive approaches for w’ānau and families, I know that we are observing a new form of political activism, driven by results and by widely felt support.

When people attempt to denigrate their efforts or think they can look from afar and want to meddle in the lives of participating families who have worked so hard to build their collective capacity, it makes no sense to me. These same people, who for years have created dependence on the State, cannot think that people can restore self-belief in what they can do for themselves. Our efforts this year will continue to strive for the highest results to make the lives of New Zealand families and w’ānau better. We will not resile from that pursuit of excellence at every encounter our families have with the State.

I for one fully support the Government’s mission of five out of five children succeeding in schools. I have no tolerance for accepting mediocrity when the future of our children is at stake, but I do not believe that simply pouring more personnel into the school grounds will necessarily bring the results. A chorus line of school nurses, social workers, cafeteria caterers, and the like will not make the difference we need, unless we actively enable our families to be in charge of supporting their children in their educational pathways. The Māori Party has consistently spoken up about the key priority to address income disparity, and we are relentless in our call for Government, business, and the private sector to take seriously the campaign for a living wage.

Finally, I want to address the myth-making that is associated with our role as a partner in Government. Our founding president, matua Whatarangi Winiata, always challenged the members of the Māori Party to lift our sights high, to do everything possible to herald improvements for all those who call Aotearoa home. Our current president, Naida Glavish, has continued this theme with a message that the days of doing the haka outside the fence are over. We have an absolute responsibility to anyone who places their faith in kaupapa Māori as a framework for this nation, and we will not let their aspirations be left to flounder by choosing to sit defeated on the Opposition benches.

Our reason for being is to apply every mechanism possible towards strengthening our w’ānau to do for themselves, and I make no apology for the investment that we have been able to negotiate in a stronger future. I am proud that through our work we have achieved an extra $47 million to support trade training places for 3,000 Māori and Pasifika peoples and an additional 400 cadets in the energy, infrastructure, and telecommunications industries. I am proud that we fought for an extra $100 million to insulate homes of low-income households—especially those with children with high needs—increased resources to reduce rheumatic fever, a warrant of fitness trial for Housing New Zealand properties, and 2,000 vege gardens. I am particularly pleased at the wide range of initiatives that we have championed to change social attitudes and increase the participation of disabled peoples in all aspects of life, and the progress made in enabling Māori and Pasifika families to confront and address family violence in their midst, and there is much more. The point is that if our greatest fault is that we have stepped up to make a difference for our constituency by working with this Government, then so be it.

Returning to Rātana, I want to end by talking about the absolute standout performance in the Rātana talent quest by a young Tūwharetoa singer called Jackson Owen, who will in a couple of weeks’ time be making his way to Florida to start his music career. Jackson was discovered when his w’ānau uploaded on YouTube tracks of him singing. If the last 24 hours have told us anything, with backing and support even a humble schoolgirl can overnight become a two-time Grammy award winner. Would it not be a great day when our combined efforts could reach across the House to make sure that every child experiences success, that every w’ānau knows the meaning of mauriora in their lives? That is a campaign that I am determined to uphold.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koe whaea mō tērā kōrero.

[Thank you for that speech, Madam.]

Seeing as the Prime Minister may have missed the fact that while he was up in Hawaii playing golf and his MPs were sizing up more investment properties to buy for the biggest untaxed capital gains they could get, most Kiwi families were actually going backwards. Since Parliament last sat, housing has become even less affordable, more families have fallen behind in their rent, more families have been evicted, more families have shifted to caravan parks, the price of food and just about everything else has continued to rise, more jobs have become more precarious and more people have become poorly paid, more food parcels have been given out at food banks, more families have had their electricity cut off because they cannot pay the bill, more children are in hospital with poverty-related illnesses and diseases, and more children are regularly going hungry.

Big bank economists tell us we are about to benefit from a rock star economy in 2014, but that is rubbish. Everywhere in the world, the benefit of the economic recovery is going to the richest 1 percent while the 99 percent either stagnate or go backwards, and New Zealand is no exception. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer under a system where people strive to get as rich as they can and the winner is the person who has the most money when they die.

How crazy is that? How does that make sense when kids go hungry because families have to pay the rent, the electricity, the petrol for the car, doctors’ bills, and medical bills before they can even afford to buy food for the kids? But does this Government care? Not for 1 second.

Take loan sharks, for example. Six years ago this Government said it wanted to deal to loan sharks for preying on poor families. Well, what did it do? Nothing. Instead, it bailed out the banks, wealthy investors, and companies like South Canterbury Finance, which got a $1.7 billion taxpayer windfall, which in one single gift to the rich was more than the entire 22 years of Treaty of Waitangi settlements, where iwi ended up with less than 3 percent of what was stolen from them. Meanwhile, the victims of loan sharks are told that they have to pay up to 500-plus percent interest rates so that a small loan to pay a power bill rapidly becomes a crippling debt to the loan sharks, with no bailouts for the poor.

Housing is the same. Everyone knows that housing is becoming less affordable. Mortgages are through the roof, and as interest rates go up—it was in the paper this morning—so do rents. But this Government has no plans to create more affordable housing for low-income families who need them the most. In Glen Innes and elsewhere, the Government is actually pushing people off the waiting list, then telling everybody that State houses are no longer needed, and then bulldozing those homes so private developers can build mansions for the rich.

In education, the Government is also missing the mark. Instead of ensuring that every child can learn by adopting a comprehensive food in schools programme, as recommended by its own experts, it is focusing on a failed charter schools model from overseas and drop-in principals. We have all heard the drivel about how poverty has nothing to do with educational underachievement, but that is a refrain delivered only by those commentators who choose not to hear the advice and Governments that choose to ignore the inequality that is at the heart of increased social problems in low-income communities.

As for those jobs, Mr Key, are you happy that unemployment helps to keep wages down and to keep workers worrying that they might lose their jobs? Is it your plan that 260,000 workers cannot get a job or cannot get enough hours at work to pay for a decent chance in life for themselves and their families? Is it your plan that this Government has no policy at all to create meaningful employment, except to leave the fate of the worker in the hands of the free market? Instead, all we get is policy after policy, bill after bill, to take even more from low-income workers—employment rights, social support, tax dollars, and all of that—to feed oil and mining giants, property developers, foreign bankers, casino bosses, private consultants, and the like.

Families are struggling—Māori families, Pasifika families, and increasingly more Pākehā families—after decades of the deepest cuts this country has ever experienced. These cuts come from policies that have deliberately driven hundreds of thousands of families into poverty, policies that have led us to a direction that has been disastrous for all Kiwi families outside of the comfortable middle class and ruling elite, and a direction that has brought us to a critical crossroads in our lives. There is growing inequality, homelessness, and unemployment, and a growing population of working poor who cannot even make ends meet.

At the end of the last year, the world mourned the loss of Nelson Mandela and celebrated his momentous life. But Mandela was not just an anti-apartheid campaigner; he was also a fighter for the poor who once said: “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity; it is an act of justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” Mandela considered poverty to be one of the great evils of the world and believed there could be no freedom where poverty persists.

At the beginning of this new year, Mana stands resolute in our determination to find ways to eradicate poverty—particularly child poverty—wherever and however it may exist. We will do all we can to ensure that this issue is the issue by which political parties are measured by voters in 2014. Mana wants a new deal for Aotearoa—one based on everyone playing their part and everyone paying their way, not just families but Government and big business as well—and an economy where everyone can live in dignity and respect and where jobs are secure, hard work is rewarded, and people can earn enough to give their families a decent standard of living.

Mana is calling for homes for every Kiwi family—the building of 10,000 homes a year, especially for those on low incomes—until every child in every family is housed in a clean and warm home. This will create thousands of jobs in design, architecture, carpentry, cabinet making, painting, roofing, electrical work, plumbing, drainlaying, landscaping, roading, community infrastructure, and all the related jobs that come with a strong and vibrant housing sector. Mana will encourage immigrants to build new homes rather than buy existing ones, to increase the jobs in the housing sector and to keep the current housing stock for kiwis. And Mana will introduce a serious capital gains tax to force those with too many investment properties to sell back into the housing market, drive down the prices, and free up homes for those who can afford to buy but cannot find anything in the overheated market place.

Mana wants jobs for all and Government-created community work on an index minimum wage for everyone else who is able to work in hospitals, schools, old people’s homes, marae, sports clubs, local parks, and the like, giving people the opportunity to rebuild their confidence and develop basic work skills, while helping to revitalise their communities. Mana wants financing and mentoring for small business, because if you back small-business owners, they commit to a future in this country, rather than leave, and their success encourages their families to do the same.

Mana also calls for taxing the rich to free the poor, introducing a “Hone Heke tax” on all financial transactions, adding billions to the national budget and enabling Government to launch positive jobs programmes, feed the kids, provide a well-resourced and positive educational environment at all levels, reduce taxes for low-income earners, and abolish GST on food and essential services. Of course, Mana also supports taking back the power. In today’s world, access to a consistent and affordable supply of electricity is a staple part of life for all New Zealanders. It was never envisioned that it be owned by private investors. Mana supports reclaiming all electricity assets for the benefit of all citizens of Aotearoa.

Mana’s position is clear. This is not a time for tinkering. This is a time to be bold, to chart a new path, and to establish a new deal, where a life of dignity and respect is a birthright afforded to everyone. We call on all of the parties to rise to the challenge rather than surrender to the squabbling. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The seeds of my political philosophy lie in my background. I am not sure how much the previous speaker, Hone Harawira, knows about child poverty. I know a lot about child poverty. I know what it is like to live in a house with no power and no running water; having a bath once a week in a 44-gallon drum cut in half; sleeping on straw covered with sacks; going to bed every night hungry, piddling the bed every night—psychologically disturbed—and being thrashed every morning for piddling the bed every night. I know what it is like going to school every day in an ex-army uniform with no shoes; spending all day, every day, out of the classroom stealing other kids’ lunches; going home to bread and milk—at best—at night, cooked over an open fire with sugar on top; if I am very lucky, taking Weet-bix covered in dripping to school each day; and living in a very dark hole. That is child poverty.

If I thought that the policies of the previous speaker from the Tai Tokerau would work against that—and they do exist; they do exist—I would go to the other side of the House and support him. I would be the first to line up to support him. Why would I not be the first to line up to support Hone Harawira if he had the answers to this country’s deep, deep vein of underprivilege, desperation, desolation, and despair that so many of our kids live under? If I thought that his policies were the answer, I would line up with him and I would say so.

But let me give him one ticket out of child poverty that he might like to think about. That one ticket is twofold: living in a home with unconditional love—and I never knew about that—and a world-class education. I did get that—a world-class education. If every one of his people lived in a home with unconditional love and access to a world-class education, then in a generation we would get rid of the deep vein of social deprivation and child poverty in this country. That is the ticket. That is the only ticket—not welfare, not big Governments, not more borrowing, and not more handouts. It is instilling in people that having children is a God-given right but an awesome responsibility, that love goes a long, long way, and that a world-class education is a ticket to the future for so many of these people whom the previous speaker talked about and represents to the best of his ability in this House. But he is misguided.

In a couple of weeks we are going to open the first charter school—they call it—in Northland. I do not mind whether they call it a charter school or whether they call them partnership schools, but this is what I can tell you. The first partnership school in Whangarei will open in 2 weeks’ time. As a private provider for the last 4 years it has taken 40 Māori boys and girls from the poorest, poorest families in the whole of the Tai Tokerau. It has boarded them in Whangarei, and it has given them an opportunity to go to the best State schools in Whangarei, mostly Whangarei Boys High School, and after school they are tutored. They get in that collective home unconditional love every day of the week and tutoring every night of the week. They feel a sense of purpose and direction.

Those young people sit National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 1 with a 100 percent pass rate, I say to the Minister of Finance, a 100 percent pass rate in that partnership school in Whangarei for the last 4 years, a 100 percent pass rate in NCEA level 1 in Whangarei with Māori boys who come from places that the previous speaker represents and knows nothing about. The previous speaker has a doctrine he peddles in this House that is bankrupt—more borrowing, more welfare, and less responsibility. He does it because he thinks there are votes in it. There are no votes in representing people who have no hope, and that member will not get up on his hind legs and say to this House: “I’m going to support the partnership school that has served my mokopuna in Tai Tokerau for so, so long.” That member and the Labour Party have promised to close down that school, which gets a 100 percent—100 percent—pass rate in NCEA level 1.

That is the ticket out of deprivation. That is the only way, the one-way street, the only way out of poverty in this country. It will take a generation, but this is what this Government is working on. It stands for bringing those people up. It is like high tides raising all boats. Lift the standards at the bottom and the high tide will rise and raise more boats—all boats. We have tried throwing money. We have tried borrowing money. We have tried big welfare. And what we do know is that any Government big enough to give you everything you want is a Government big enough to take from the hard workers everything they have.

So if we want to deal with the deep vein of social deprivation—and I do because I know what it is like, and it is a dark place, a very dark place—then we have to deal with the fundamentals of human behaviour: taking responsibility for your family, giving them unconditional love regardless of your status or your wealth, taking advantage of a world-class education that is there for you at the school down the street, and encouraging young people to do that. It will be a generation, but it will lift them out. If we want to empty the jails, we have got to educate the young people. If we want to get the health lists down, we have got to teach young people what it is like to be in charge of yourself and take responsibility for your own actions. Then we will make progress. But borrowing from the savings of offshore people to hand out to others in a country and mounting up the debt to the next generation is not the way we deal with poverty in this country.

Of course I support sandwiches and food in schools—by God, I would have loved some sandwiches and some food in school—but that is not the answer. The answer is getting the fundamentals of the New Zealand economy so that we are internationally competitive. I pay tribute to Bill English, whom I have worked with closely these last 2 years, who has done a remarkable job of turning this economy round. I give praise to the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the National Party caucus—my coalition partners—for taking tough decisions. The answer to child poverty, I say to the parliamentary Opposition, is not about taking others’ money and throwing it at a problem, because we have tried that and it has failed.

The answer is education. The answer is giving everybody the opportunity of the dignity of work, and you can have a job only if you are educated. And you can get educated only if you go to school. And you can go to school only if you come from a home that loves you. And the corollary to that is a dark place, and I know about living in dark places. So if we want to deal with the fundamental issues of about 20 percent of this country’s young people coming from dysfunctional homes and families, we have to deal with the causes, not with the political side effects for the purposes of getting a few votes.

I commend my colleague the Hon John Banks for his candour, for his courage, and for his plain speaking in the House this afternoon. It is a timely reminder to all of us, as this parliamentary year starts, about why we are here. Whatever our political perspective or our philosophies, my colleague’s speech has reminded us that, ultimately, the challenge all of us face and the responsibility we accept is to try to do good for our fellow New Zealanders through our service in this House, to make sure that every child gets the best start in life and that it is more than just a slogan, to make sure that families are valued as the cornerstone of our society, and to make sure that from good, strong families vibrant communities grow. They will be diverse. They will be different. While we hold, amongst our differences, the collective view that that is what we are about, our responsibility is to focus on the issues and to make sure that we make the best fist of what we have got, in order to achieve those goals for the people we represent.

And it is in that vein that I welcome our two new members who were sworn in today. I congratulate them on their election to this Parliament, I wish them well for the time they are here, and I look forward to the contribution they will make. If I can offer one word of advice, it is that when I first became a member of Parliament many years ago, an elderly predecessor in my seat, the Rt Hon Sir John Marshall, befriended me and gave me the advice that when you work on your maiden speech, do it from the perspective that every few years it is worth re-reading again to see whether you still hold true to the values you expressed in that speech. And use that opportunity not just to tell the electorate at large about you and what you stand for but to anchor your philosophy for the time you will be a member of Parliament. So I wish both those colleagues well.

Let me turn to the Prime Minister’s statement and say how delighted I was both at the announcement late last year and the reaffirmation in the statement today that the Transmission Gully motorway north of Wellington is to proceed this year. That has been a critical part of the confidence and supply agreement between United Future and National, it has been part of the Wellington agenda since about 1939 to have a coherent northern access and egress constructed as an alternative to what was then the goat track of Ngauranga Gorge, and it has been something that Wellingtonians for generations have held out there as some mystical thing that might one day appear, all the time having the sinking feeling in their stomachs that it will never happen. That yin and yang, if you like, of hope and missed opportunity was given a very confident stamp of approval by the Prime Minister before Christmas, and the people of the Wellington region look forward with confidence to the commencement of work on this long-overdue project during this year and will be casting their eyes very widely at other political parties to see what their intentions are with regard to its continuation and its development and its completion within the time frame that has been set out.

As recent events—as recent as last Monday—showed in this region, we are vulnerable to a major seismic event and in that eventuality our ability to get in and out of this place with any form of efficiency or rapidity will be severely compromised by the lack of an alternative to the existing access and egress points, so it is a vital part of our safety and our transport network and it will be very much welcomed by the people of this region.

Over the last few days the political debate for 2014 has started to take shape around the issue of what is the best way of delivering what looks like being a period of Government surplus to the benefit of the families of New Zealand. I am not going to play politics with some of the solutions that have been proposed, because I think there is merit in all of them, but there are also fish-hooks in all of them as well. The critical point is this: the Government already spends billions of dollars in assistance and support in various forms for the families of New Zealand. The Working for Families tax credit scheme is the obvious example. The changes made to personal tax rates, particularly the bottom two steps, in recent years is another. We have paid parental leave. We have various other forms of assistance. If one was to tally up the quantum, one would see that it is a very large figure, but the questions that the current debate gives rise to are whether these entitlements are properly and efficiently structured, whether there are too many anomalies and uncertainties that will be perpetuated by the types of changes now being proposed, and whether there are alternatives for the delivery of the goal, which I do not think there is any great disagreement about seeking to achieve.

I note, interestingly enough, that in Mr Cunliffe’s statement yesterday he positioned his policy around the figure of a household income of $150,000 per annum. Yet there is already legislation before this House, the Taxation (Income-sharing Tax Credit) Bill, that allows households with a joint income of up to $140,000 to split their income for tax purposes. The principal argument that has been raised against that has been that the benefit is delivered to those too far up the income scale—those earning up to $140,000 as a household income. But now it seems acceptable to pay $60 per child a week to families earning up to $150,000. I think that highlights some of the dichotomy that I am speaking about. It would seem to me that a far more logical approach, which would be not only more efficient in its distribution but actually less costly long term, would be to proceed with the income-sharing legislation, to restructure the Working for Families tax credits so that the principal benefit was delivered to families who fall below about the $70,000 household income mark, who are those who would currently benefit least from a change to income sharing. We could then use the additional finance that would be saved by that move to extend paid parental leave, certainly to 26 weeks and beyond that ultimately to 52 weeks. We could then look at moving out from there to take some of the antenatal moves that were announced by the Labour Party yesterday as being in its policy, extend those, and more coherently fund them. And then we could look also at the issue of both the provision of medicines and also early childhood education. We could then put together an overall integrated package using to maximum impact the totality of the funding currently available and getting around the situation that we have at the moment and its inevitable consequence of a targeted approach, if you like.

But if we take the Labour Party example as just one example of this problem, we see that at up to $150,000 you are OK, but at $150,001 you fall off the cliff. I am not blaming the Labour Party particularly for that, but it is always that issue when you come to drawing the line. I think that what we have with the measures that Labour proposed yesterday, with the measures that were in the Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech last week about education, and with some of the measures that the Greens proposed at the weekend—although I think they were largely in our policy 3 years ago—is that if we put them altogether, we have the capacity, utilising the finance that is available, to bring out a coherent, rational, workable scheme that benefits those whom we seek to assist, and there does not seem to be too much disagreement about who those audiences are, but which also removes a number of the boundary traps, the poverty traps, or even those effective high marginal tax rates that cut in when some of these changes occur. So I hope that the debate this year is not about my auction versus your auction, or my bribe versus your bribe, but about using the totality of measures that have been proposed to bring forward a constructive proposition from which all New Zealand families will benefit in the future, and that the timely reminder given to the House by my colleague the member for Epsom just a few moments ago is one that stays in our minds throughout the year and is one we all seek to do our very best to deliver upon, alleviating the conditions that that member so eloquently described.

I say to members in conclusion that it is great to be back this year. I hope that everyone enjoys the challenges of the year that lie ahead, and may they all get the desserts that they deserve, come a certain event later in the year.

Can I start by acknowledging two of my colleagues. Sam Lotu-Iiga, just the third Pacific member of Parliament to become a Government Minister, is a man of real capacity who will benefit not just his community but New Zealand. I also acknowledge Jo Hayes, whom the Labour Party members may not know well but they should understand that she was the person who helped us win the party vote in Dunedin South with an excellent campaign on the ground in heartland Labour territory, increasing the National Party vote by thousands, and she is a welcome addition to the caucus—

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Even with Clare Curran as her opponent.

Even with Clare Curran as her opponent. Can I also acknowledge the leadership of the Prime Minister. I think in his address today he demonstrated again that his leadership of New Zealand through these last 5 or 6 years has been critical to lifting New Zealanders’ sense of confidence and aspiration, their greater sense of self-reliance and resilience, which has seen this country come through very difficult economic times in about as good a shape as it possibly could, and he has helped lay a platform for this country and its families to enjoy the benefits of one of the better-growing economies in the developed world.

What a sharp contrast with the Leader of the Opposition.

💬 Hon Member: Who?

Well, nothing has really changed in 12 months with Labour. Twelve months ago it had an unpopular leader, who was going nowhere, and Grant Robertson was undermining him, and the same thing is going on now. Quite apart from the huge difference in their speeches, the Prime Minister enjoys the support of his caucus. The Labour caucus is not enjoying David Cunliffe, and that shows up in its support.

You see, what we heard was a speech about the kind of country and Government that Labour and David Cunliffe wish they were campaigning in. They wish income inequality was growing, but it is not. It is not growing. The facts are clear: the poor are not falling behind, the middle class is not flat-lining, real incomes are growing, the most vulnerable have been protected, and income inequality is stable to slightly improving. But on “Planet Cunliffe” something quite different is happening, or he wishes it was happening. He wishes he was campaigning against a Government that was hostile to the most vulnerable, but, of course, it is not. We borrowed billions of dollars to protect the most vulnerable through a recession. He wishes there was no innovation in the economy, but, in fact, we are seeing a blossoming of New Zealand’s IT and manufacturing sectors, public floats, international deals—you name it. He wishes there was a manufacturing crisis—what happened to that inquiry—but there is not. In fact, because those members declared a crisis, manufacturing started doing well. He wishes the regions were weak, but, actually, the data shows very clearly that the regions are doing better than the metropolitan areas—again, because Labour declared that they were doing poorly. He wishes that public confidence was on its knees, but it is not. More New Zealanders believe more positively in the aspirational future of this country than at any other time I can remember in 25 years of public life, and they know that it has got a solid basis.

But on “Planet Cunliffe” there is no confidence. People are fearful. People have no hope. And you can hear it, can you not? He stood in front of the mirror and said that line and enjoyed it. But it is just not true; that is all. It sounds really good; it is just not true. He wishes that all those people who have traditionally supported the Labour Party in the social service sector—iwi, churches—and he wishes that teachers were marching in the street. And what did they do last week? They applauded the Government’s education policy in a way that I cannot recall for a National Government in a long time in this Parliament. Those people, who used to feed the Labour Party cases of Public Service breakdown, are working every day with this Government and its agencies to improve our communities, to make our communities safer, to lift the achievement of those who have underachieved, to reduce the reoffending rates of our prisoners, and to reduce welfare dependency, because the policies of this Government in those areas are meritorious, they are thoughtful, they are progressive, and they are working.

So, again, on “Planet Cunliffe” all those people would be supporting the Labour Party. In fact, they might go and vote for it in the booth if Labour can achieve its brilliant new strategy, which is to get Labour voters to vote Labour. That is the strategy: get Labour voters to vote Labour. Well, I can tell those members that we are doing a better job of getting Labour voters to vote National, and that is why we can go into this election year with some confidence.

I used to think it was “Planet Labour”, but increasingly I think it is “Planet Cunliffe”. I think there are two planets now, actually. There is “Planet Labour”, which is still sitting there pining for the return of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen—leaders whom those members took seriously, and the country did for a while, too—and then there is “Planet Cunliffe”, which is a noble and lonely place to be. There is no doubt about that. It is a noble and lonely place.

It is the “Bad Start” policy that has highlighted that gap enormously—the announcements in the last week or so. David Cunliffe’s policy around payments to families is based on the idea that he can save $1.5 billion by not pursuing promises he made that would cost $1.5 billion. At least the Greens went to the trouble of running their money through the photocopier. On “Planet Cunliffe” you just imagine it. It is like going into the shop and saying: “It’s a bargain. I saved money because it was going to be $200 for the running shoes, but they are on sale at $100. I’ve saved $100, so I can go and spend it on something else.” The $1.5 billion does not exist in the Government forecasts, so it is not available for saving, and the media and David Cunliffe and the Labour Party have figured that out only today.

The other thing that those members have said today is that in order to enforce international tax obligations on companies like Facebook, they might ban them from New Zealand. They might ban Facebook from New Zealand. Well, we know that that works. We know that that works because they have done it in North Korea and it has worked there. [Interruption] Well, there is no income, so they pay no tax. That is how they do it: get rid of the income and then they get rid of the tax problem.

The Labour Party is dealing with the New Zealand public, who are suspicious of any cash splash, as we have seen in the last few days, but it is too lazy to deal with the problems that are actually about our most vulnerable: getting immunisation rates up, protecting children from violence, and lifting educational achievement. The Government will continue to advance its Business Growth Agenda this year. It will continue to advance its prudent fiscal management. It will continue to advance a programme of microeconomic reform to support jobs and incomes. Jobs will come faster and incomes will grow faster under an ongoing National Government. Our process of considered and consistent change, working closely with the community and the business community, is starting to yield real benefits. Communicating openly and being accountable for those policies has built real confidence that the National Government has its finger on the pulse of what is required, the political will to do what is required, and the leadership to take the public along with it. That is why we can face this motion of confidence in Parliament with some real confidence.

I want to begin by acknowledging some of the contributions that have been made by my colleagues in the House today, particularly the personal address that was made by the Hon John Banks, and to just again articulate that, of course, when we discuss issues of poverty, we often also discuss at times issues of neglect. But they are in some cases two very different things, and we have always required different policy responses to address those issues. No one has ever argued that those issues are simple. They are complex and require not just one response but multiple responses, and I will speak today to some of Labour’s ideas in that area.

State of the nation speeches, as we have seen in the past 2 weeks, speak volumes about the vision and direction that political parties want to take not just their parties in but voters—indeed, the entire country—in the future if they are the successful Government after an election. You can see where there is commonality and you can see where there is a very big difference. You can see where there is consensus and where there still remains debate. If you want to talk currently about areas of consensus, it is very hard to argue that not all of us want children to have a good education in this country. In fact, we want children—no matter which school they go to, no matter which community they grow up in—to have the best education possible. There is absolute consensus on that. That is why you saw Labour respond to even the Government’s package as having some good ideas that we think we could use. We acknowledged that because of course we are always trying to ensure that we have good professional development and support for our schools. We can quibble over details, but that principle remains. That is why you will have seen us supporting, in the area of education, the Greens’ ideas. Community hubs are fantastic. The ideas around nutrition in schools—good stuff. Of course we are in support of that; in fact, we had similar ideas in our 2011 policy.

But where there continues to be division is the idea of whether or not children can have their entire lives turned round by the experience they have once they walk through the school gate. Can a child leave behind their home life, their upbringing, the nurturing they have or do not have, whether they have got enough resource, and whether there is a computer in the home to do their homework with, enough money for a school uniform, or money to participate in school trips? We can throw all the in-kind assistance in the world that we want to to families, but if families do not have the resources they need to do the job that is there, we will always have this debate. In kind goes only so far, and that is why the recent OECD report, the Programme for International Student Assessment statistics—the ones we all debated about why we are going backwards—pointed out that New Zealand and Chinese Taipei are standout countries when it comes to the fact that we have not been able to overcome those inequalities in our education system and that perhaps it was time to start looking at socio-economic factors. The OECD spelt it out for us. New Zealand would benefit by looking at policies that would improve the socio-economic status of the children who are currently failing in our education system.

You cannot isolate a child’s life. You cannot simply fix everything through a teacher, and nor should we ask teachers to fix everything. So that is why we are looking beyond that. And why should we look beyond that? Because, quite simply, the cost of families not having enough to provide for their children costs us money. We spend an estimated $6 billion per annum on the unnecessary cost of things like health care—picking up a child in a hospital system because the family could not afford their prescription or doctor’s costs. You may argue that under-sixes are free, but I can guarantee that a parent does not take their child to the doctor for their free doctor’s visit if they have got a bill that they did not pay when they last visited. We know that that is happening in our communities.

Those are the kinds of costs we can save if families have the resource they need to do their own job that they want to be doing for themselves. It is not just a waste of money; it is a waste of human potential. So, as much as National stands up and says that we cannot afford to invest, we say that we cannot afford not to. We need the political courage to do it early, to do it at a time when it will take 9, 10, 12 years to start seeing some of the benefits of what we are proposing now. But it is not about political brownie points. It is not about these bribes that somehow doing the right thing is all about. It is about actually getting the outcomes that we need further down the track. When Labour brings these policies in, I can guarantee that there will be a whole lot of political parties that benefit down the track when our prison numbers drop and when we start having preventable hospitalisations drop. It is not about point-scoring; it is about doing what is good for New Zealand.

Also, when the Government says that there is not enough money in the kitty to do this, well, there apparently is enough money to spend $40 million on private schools. That is how much this Government has spent. There is enough money to spend over $1 billion on tax cuts to the very people it is now saying are far too rich to get anywhere near close to any kind of support when they have a first child, but they can benefit from a tax cut from the National Government. There is enough money for those things, but there apparently is not enough money to invest in children. There is enough money to ignore that we are spending an extraordinary amount on our universal superannuation scheme without looking at whether or not we need to start looking at the age of eligibility, not only to guarantee that it remains universal and that it remains sustainable but so that we are able to start investing in children in their youngest years and not just in our older generation. Both groups deserve our attention as politicians.

But I want to talk in more detail about the Best Start programme because some of the members on that side of the House seem to have missed the point and the savings that can be made through this kind of investment. First, starting with the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty, the Children’s Commissioner led this group. Business New Zealand was a member of this group. Even Business New Zealand acknowledges that businesses are going to suffer if their future workforce is not properly supported. Not even Bill English seems to have acknowledged that point that it has strongly made. Business New Zealand was a member of the advisory group that recommended that New Zealand return to a universal family benefit. We had one. We had one for many, many years. Many members of this House grew up in families that received a universal family benefit. In fact, most members of this House did, because it was cancelled only in 1991, under Ruth Richardson. So most of us in this House benefited from that. It went to a mother primarily and it benefited children. It was a great part of our system. The expert advisory group recommended that we go back to that—that we return to a universal payment up to the age of 5. Labour has committed to bringing it in in year 1. There is no year that you can more justify than the first year for having such a near-universal payment. We say “near” because we did decide to put a cap in. We wanted to reach as many families as possible, and this payment will, but we did decide that in these particular times we needed to put a cap in place. The expert advisory group said to go even further than we have, but we wanted to put in place the building blocks for a system that acknowledges that we need step change. We need to acknowledge that from 0 to 3 is not only the most important developmental stage for a child; it is also the portion of time that is the hardest for parents to juggle care and work in. Those are the years that we need to be supporting, and that is exactly what we will do.

The one thing that that side of the House refuses to acknowledge, as well, is that 60 percent of people do not get paid parental leave. Sixty percent of people are not eligible for paid parental leave. At the moment, what can they do? Oh, maybe there is the parental tax credit that Jenny Shipley chucked in just so that it would try to be a little bit of a sop to the people who missed out on paid parental leave. We need something that acknowledges that the vast majority of our families are not eligible for something that has broad support in this House. So why is there not broad support for a payment that acknowledges that important year in the same way that paid parental leave does but that goes further, that reaches more people? I would like to hear the Minister of Finance’s view on that, given that he seems to have an issue with paid parental leave as well.

The Best Start package is not just about income. It is about education and it is about health as well, but, ultimately, it is about saying that New Zealand children deserve our support and that parents deserve our trust and support for them to do the job that is theirs. Thank you.

Well, it must be election year.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Really?

Yes, apparently it must be. Labour and the Greens have already rocked up with nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars a year of spending ideas, and it is not even the end of January. It must be election year. As reliable as at any other time in this House, the Greens and Labour together want to spend your money before you have even made it, which is remarkably similar to how they have spent their lives, historically. Once again, we have not even managed to get to surplus yet and they are casting around, trying to spend billions of dollars. Why do I say billions? Because it is three-quarters of a billion, and we are not even at the end of January in an election year yet.

💬 David Bennett: They’re going to find oil.

It is like the global financial crisis—well, no, they are not, not with the Greens. There will not be any oil. There will not be any milk for that matter either. It is like the global financial crisis never happened. Labour’s last big spending splurges were between 2005 and 2008. It dramatically increased the deficit. Remember the decade of deficits it left because the music was never going to stop? It dramatically increased interest costs for New Zealanders, and it put the New Zealand economy into a premature recession, and it is like that never happened.

That is the trouble with this Opposition, and Bill English touched on that. There is this wilful denial to learn anything at all from its period in Opposition, a wilful denial to actually learn a single thing. I actually think that it is quite conceited. It was thrown out once in 2008, but also in 2011 it was rejected again, and it comes back with the same old policies in 2014, looking for the same old smack-round Labour has not learnt a single thing in Opposition.

Mr Cunliffe actually adds another dimension to it, because he is a bit tricky. He is a bit tricky, our friend Mr Cunliffe, and the journalists are working it out. Last week Mr Cunliffe was there saying: “Oh, look, I have just saved $1.5 billion a year, so I am off to spend it all, everybody. It is all wonderful. So I have cancelled these policies. I now have a cheque that I can write out for $1.5 billion a year.” And some of the scribes gleefully reported that that was indeed the case—that clever Mr Cunliffe had saved us $1.5 billion a year and he would now go off and spend it.

Except it was never there—except it was never in the country’s accounts. There was nothing about GST off fruit and vegetables going out in Treasury projections for the next 4 years. There was absolutely nothing about the tax-free threshold. But Mr Cunliffe, by cancelling something that never previously existed, has suddenly found himself $1.5 billion a year. And now he says: “Oh, but that is to do with last election’s costings of our economic plan.” Well, we know how that ended. Those costings in 2011 sunk Phil Goff when he could not show us the money in 2011. Whose projections were they? David Cunliffe’s projections. So Mr Cunliffe is back, except this time he is knee-capping himself. He should have thought that through.

The reality is that he has no idea how this “Bad Start” package is going to work. And I say “Bad Start” package because you could not get a worse start to an election year than an Opposition leader who firstly trips himself up over the way that his package is going to work—and I understand he is still doing that as we speak; the package is being redesigned minute by minute—but who also has no answer to the question about how he is going to pay for it. That is the trickiness of Mr Cunliffe, because he is basically saying: “Everybody, you can have everything that is being done now and, yes, probably some of the Green Party stuff as well—including that nice bit that it did yesterday—and you can have the $600 million and it will all be sweet.” So says the Leader of the Opposition. Well, he is wrong. It is not sweet. It was not sweet in 2008 after 9 years of progressively worse policies that were about spending more money than the country had made, and it is not sweet to go back to it today. The real answer to lifting Kiwi incomes is attracting investment that boosts jobs. And that is what this National Government is doing.

That is another thing—Mr Cunliffe is Rip Van Winkle on the economy as well. He has gone to sleep in 2008 and turned up with the same arguments for business growth in 2014. He says that we should not be exporting lamb carcasses overseas. We do not—98 percent of New Zealand’s lamb carcasses are processed in this country. Wake up, Mr Cunliffe. Life has moved on. He says that we should innovate. We do innovate. We are spending $566 million over 4 years to innovative New Zealand companies, and New Zealand’s information and communications high-tech and medium high - tech manufacturing industry is growing up like that, and is about to get to the point where it is already nearly half of our dairy industry exports. That is the reality.

By the way, before Mr Cunliffe gets in with the Greens and tries to shoot it down, dairy is only 20 percent today of New Zealand’s total exports of goods and services. So here we are doing the things that old Rip Van Winkle over there has woken up to and said: “My gosh, it would be a good idea if we actually exported something else besides meat carcasses.” He needs to do his homework. That is the conceit of the Labour Party. It went out of office and it has come back today with the same prescription for 2014 as it had in 2008 and 2011. It has not learnt anything. It has not bothered to check what is going on today, which is also conceited. Meanwhile, the New Zealand economy is growing strongly, New Zealand confidence is growing, and the public of New Zealand know that the way to become successful is to keep doing the things that this Government has New Zealand doing.

That is the focus that this Government has and we have the greatest level of confidence since the 1990s. We have one of the greatest levels of growth across the OECD, and it is likely to continue. It is not nirvana yet, but if you give us another 3 years, you never know how far you will get. But what you do know with the Labour Party is that you go backwards to a bunch of failed and rejected policies—policies that were rejected in 2008 and rejected again in 2011. What we do need to do is continue on the considered, sensible, conservative path, where we understand that there is a balance between spending and people’s incomes. We understand that you actually have to reward people for their own hard work and you have to trust them with their incomes to make good decisions. Those are the sorts of things that you have to do. And you have to do good public services.

I was bemused to see another one, Jacinda Ardern, up there before, going on about how they will get prison populations down. Well, hello, we have done that. While she was not looking, in 2008 we inherited a prison population projection that was going up like this. Now it is going down like that, and crime levels are at record lows. Meanwhile, Jacinda has picked up the 2008 election plan and says: “Oh, we had better protest about the state of the prisons and how too many people are going to be in the prisons.” Believe me, these people in the Labour Party need to update what they know. Sadly, I do not know what they have been doing in the last 5 years, but they have not been updating their knowledge at all, they have not been learning what is happening in the world today, and they have not been learning what is working.

This Government has been getting on with the job of improving public services and of delivering far better results than Labour ever managed with its avalanches of money. This Government is getting on with building a strong, competitive economy that supports and encourages investments and competitive Kiwi businesses; getting on with, frankly, balancing the books, getting rid of the decade of deficits, and getting New Zealand into a position where we can have a strong economic future in this country; and, above all, getting on with rebuilding our second-largest city.

Yes, we get an economic benefit of that—this country does—but, by goodness, we got the economic pain of that in 2010 and 2011. For Mr Cunliffe, in his conceited manner, to wander around and say that you should discount the growth of Christchurch—well, that basically involves discounting the pain that Christchurch went through as well, and we cannot do that. So, yes, there is some benefit in that, but if he thinks that it is about a milk and Christchurch story, then, frankly, he is damning the efforts of many New Zealand businesses up and down the country that are competing and succeeding on the world stage.

This Government supports those people. It is providing a platform for growth and competitiveness from this little country at the bottom of the Pacific. The Opposition needs to wake up and decide it needs a new song.

The Green Party will split its call. There will be a 4-minute bell.

Happy New Year to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is just a shame that we had to start the parliamentary year with such a disappointing statement from the Prime Minister.

💬 Hon Members: Oh, come on.

That is what I thought too. In my area, in health, we had a statement that the Government was going to focus on prevention—well, that would be a total reversal of the strategic direction it has followed for 5 years. There is going to be more of the same in elective surgery, an area that the Government has generally put more money in to at the expense of everything else in the health sector, but, actually, because of the focus on numbers, we see those with the greatest need often still missing out because their surgery requires more time or complexity. We are going to see ACC levies come down. The Prime Minister failed to point out that it was, in fact, his Government that unnecessarily put levies up in the first place.

More generally, we saw more “short-termism”, more 19th century thinking, more lack of vision, more lack of hope, and no imagination. We saw more sacrifice of the environment to further intensify already overly dangerously intensified industries. We saw more driving of wages and conditions down so that ordinary people more and more serve the interests of a few. For most New Zealanders, it truly is becoming someone else’s country.

The Green Party offers something different. We bring an understanding that although what individuals can do by themselves is important, if we actually want to transform outcomes across all of the areas that matter to people, then the Government needs to be vitally concerned with whole communities, whole systems, and the linkages between sectors. We are focused on good lives and a fair future for everyone, in contrast to policies that drive inequalities wider. We are focused on a sustainable relationship with our natural environment and a clean, green economy that helps us all deliver on our social and environmental goals and that does not just exist as an end in itself.

It has been interesting to watch over the past 5 years National members’ tactics in the general debate each week, because it tells us what their smear tactics are going to be against us in any given week. The increasing desperation is instructive. First of all, we had the devil beast. Remember that? I guess that is a hard line to maintain nowadays when National is increasingly reliant on John Banks, Peter Dunne, and the entirely untested Conservative Party, leaving us to wonder what rough beast it is that is slouching its way towards election day this year. Then we were described as the “party of no” because we said no to all of the National Party’s ideas. Well, it is no surprise that our philosophy is fundamentally different from National’s. So, yes, we disagree with a lot of its ideas, just as it disagrees with a lot of ours.

But it is very interesting to me that when at the beginning of this term of Parliament the Green Party pointed out to National pages and pages of areas where our policy and National’s coincided and where we could collaborate, National said no to all of that. The context for that is that we have been working together with National under a memorandum of understanding for 5 years on warm, healthy homes; toxic sites, which my colleague will speak about; resetting traps; and the area that I have been working with the Prime Minister on, which is Ngā Haerenga, the New Zealand Cycle Trail network. I welcome his comment in the statement about the opening of new cycle tracks. I will be standing alongside him, celebrating a resource that brings economic, environmental, and social benefits to communities around the country.

Ours is a party that is based on values and on a charter. They give us an anchor that provides us with a stable direction over many years. We understand that New Zealanders want us to work together with others. We understand that they want us to provide practical, evidence-based, and creative solutions to the problems that our nation faces in the long term. We are a party that is ready for the election. Bring it on.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare Pāremata. It is great to be starting the year on such a positive note. That positive note is that this is the year when people have the opportunity to vote for a party committed to positive solutions. The Green Party is looking forward to engaging with all New Zealanders about a smart and sustainable economy and a compassionate economy, with strategies that will actually reduce inequality and protect the environment, because the environment is what sustains everything and everyone in this country. It is just the Government that has not understood that yet.

Today the Prime Minister’s statement was a little bit of a cheap shot. It is the kind of thing that Lorde was talking about in her song when she said that the privileged live at a particular level but the rest of us do not live there and we actually do not want to. The Prime Minister had a number of cheap shots against the Greens, including a highly selective interpretation of the economic situation, where he took credit for all kinds of things that no one in this House can take credit for and he skipped over the difficult issues like climate change; the causes and effects of poverty, unemployment, and under-employment on people; children’s needs; and the ever-degrading state of our environment.

The Prime Minister’s written speech had a focus on natural resources, which really continued that “mine it, drill it, kill it” agenda, and conveniently failed to mention some of the MMP collaborations that have made real change. This is possibly because, as my colleague Kevin Hague has just said, the Government does not want to undermine its own rhetorical attacks on the Green Party by talking about joint achievements where we have played a leading and positive role. An example of this is the memorandum of understanding that I negotiated with Dr Nick Smith, and then with Amy Adams, on cleaning up toxic sites. It is kind of hard to characterise the Green Party members as a bunch of fringe crazies when we have managed to work with Ministers and actually deliver some very positive changes and leadership on issues of significant public and environmental risk.

I was a reluctant participant in the contaminated sites memorandum of understanding at first, because I was not sure what we would be able to negotiate. I have been characterised by the right-wing commentators who do not know what is going on in politics as someone who might be a bit too challenging to work with on these things. But, in fact, despite the changes to the Ministers and the Government’s instability in the Government team, we have made some solid and important progress on toxic chemicals, which will benefit all New Zealanders. The clean-up of the Tūī Mine was an urgent task, and now the Greens, the local authority, the Minister for the Environment, and mana whenua have overseen the clean-up of the unstable tailings dam and an improvement of water quality from that abandoned mine. We have negotiated a national register of contaminated sites, and we are collectively engaging with regional councils on issues of consistency, recording, and transparency.

These are all going to benefit the environment and people. This is a matter of public health and the health of the environment. I look forward to working with the Government further on this and to being part of a new progressive Government to also work on this in the future, to make sure that we clean up the mess of previous bad practice and weak regulation, as well as the frightening ignorance around chemicals. The clean-up of our country is a Treaty issue, and it is the responsibility of all political parties to make it work. The opportunity of MMP, as Russel Norman said today, is to get good things done without compromising our principles and our values. So I look forward to more solid and constructive work on the contaminated sites issue.

The Green Party has also started the year with an excellent policy launch for reducing inequality through education, which the Prime Minister dismissed as giving the odd kid a lunch. This particularly unfortunate disparagement is completely inaccurate because, in fact, this programme has been well received by many groups outside this Parliament. Groups such as the Youth Hub Barbadoes in Christchurch said it was excellent and right on the button because it will help decile 1 to decile 4 schools give children a lunch, and it also provides an opt in for other schools where children need to eat to learn. You cannot learn if you cannot eat—food for thought, Prime Minister. It is very typical of the Greens that we have thought it through. First things first, let us make sure our kids are fed, then we can improve the quality of their learning.

We have a very positive and necessary vision that we offer to this country, and a very green Parliament is what we actually need. So when it comes to attacking the Green Party, as Kevin Hague just said, we have made many positive changes in this term of Government. Despite the disparagement, attacks, and opposition, we have worked with Ministers. Despite National having amnesia about that, we look forward to leading a progressive Government that will actually make change on many of these issues. Whether it is education, whether it is cycleways, whether it is unemployment, whether it is union rights—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Mr Deputy Speaker, tēnā koe. Otirā, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa huri noa i tō tātou Whare i tēnei Tau Hou.

[Greetings indeed to you collectively and to us all throughout our House in this New Year.]

I would like to join in the congratulations to our colleague Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga on becoming a Minister, the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs. I look forward to working with him in carrying on our Government’s commitment to ensuring that Pasifika communities are recognised for the contribution they make to our country and that they have the opportunity to grow and strengthen that contribution over time through education and through other investments.

I would also like to acknowledge Jo Hayes. Tēnā koe, Jo. Kei te tū whakahīhī a Ngati Porou i tō hou mai ki roto i tēnei Whare o tātou.

[Greetings to you, Jo. Ngati Porou stands proud because of your arrival in this House of ours.]

I acknowledge those members’ competency and hard work and the fact that they reflect the diversity and strength of this National Government and its ability to speak to communities up and down our country.

Our Government has an effective, successful, and sustainable education plan. Our education plan is comprehensive. It focuses on raising achievement for five out of five. It values the voices and aspirations of parents, and it is devoted to strengthening, recognising, and celebrating the profession while also using taxpayer funds to wisely invest in infrastructure, a modern learning environment, and digital technology. We want every New Zealand child to get a better education so they can be successful here at home in New Zealand, as well as globally competitive, whether based here in New Zealand or working overseas.

A quality education and relevant skills are the sustainable answer to hardship and poverty. We have a very, very good education system. That has not happened by accident, and nor will it continue without attention. It is successful for most, with our best students being right up there with the best in the world, but it has not been successful for all, and we are focused on ensuring that we lift up those who have been falling behind, while also pushing those who are doing well to do even better.

The evidence is clear. The two in-school factors that have the greatest effect on raising achievement are the quality of teaching and the quality of leadership. The major new investment that the Prime Minister announced last week reflects this best evidence. It also follows the best practice in the education systems around the world that are confronting and beating the challenge of delivering equity and excellence—in other words, that all children get a great education in their education system. It is what our education professionals are telling us and telling me when I am in schools almost every week of the school year.

Our Government has invested the most ever, with $9.7 billion this financial year—a 40 percent increase over the past 5 years—going into Vote Education. That has been in the toughest times. Over and above that, despite those challenges, our Government is investing an additional $359 million over 4 years because we are backing the evidence, backing what works, and backing our teachers and principals to raise the achievement of all New Zealand children. We are resourcing collaboration within, between, and across schools; creating career pathways that give teachers and principals further and better professional options; raising the status and profile of the profession; and keeping, growing, and attracting the best and brightest into it. That is what our new major education investment is built and funded to deliver, and we will work with the profession to ensure that we have the design right so that we can meet the achievement challenges of ensuring that five out of five of our children and young people can be successful at school, and that we get them on to a pathway to realising their potential and living the lives they want for themselves and their families.

We are investing in 250 executive principals who will work with, support, mentor, and lead a community of schools; 1,000 expert teachers who will work with that community of schools, whose teaching practice, quality learning, and rich, deep, and engaging curriculum knowledge and practice will be shared with a range of schools; 5,000 lead teachers with exemplary classroom practice who are willing to share this in open classrooms so that other teachers can learn from that practice and take it back into their schools; and 100 change principals who can go into the schools that are struggling the most, those of highest need, and turn those schools round.

These will not be compulsory appointments. They will not be parachuted in. They will not be unfamiliar with the culture of our smaller schools. They will be principals with a proven track record in a diverse range of schools who understand the many inputs that are important to making a school successful for all of those children. Those principals can be appointed to schools only where there have been vacancies and where the board of trustees opts in to the conditions. If they do so, then we are making an allowance of $50,000 per year, on top of an existing salary, for those boards to be able to appoint those principals.

In addition, we have established a $10 million teacher-led innovation fund. We know from the best evidence that professionals learn best from each other and they learn best where they are operating in situations that are practical and realistic and that they face every day. We know that there are outstanding teachers and principals in our education system, and we want to make sure that their best practice can become common practice.

This major new investment of $359 million is part of a quality teaching agenda that is already well in progress under our Government. It includes a ministerial cross-sector forum, which engages leaders from 30 peak bodies, professional and unions, iwi and Pasifika, academics, and business people. In that forum, many ideas are challenged, interrogated, and often adopted. We are engaged in transforming the New Zealand Teachers Council into a 21st century body that will meet the needs of 21st century teaching and learning challenges. We propose to introduce legislation to give effect to that. We are lifting the standard of entry and quality of initial teacher education by introducing this year new postgraduate qualifications. We are reviewing professional learning and development for the compulsory school sector. We are reviewing the regulations, or are about to review the regulations, under the Education Act 1989 to free up the operating environment so that teachers and principals can get shot of the compliance and constraints that really do not make very much difference, to create more room for them to make the magic that they do in learning situations in our schools across the country.

We are hosting the international summit of the teaching profession here in Wellington at the end of March. We expect to host Ministers of Education from all around the world. At the same time, we are hosting education festivals in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch to highlight school best practice to each other, to parents, and to the community, and to celebrate what is happening in our schools. We are having the inaugural Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards in June this year.

All of these together comprise a quality teaching agenda that is all about the education plan that our Government has. We know that by raising, recognising, and strengthening the value, profile, and status of our education profession, it cannot help but lead to deploying best-quality teaching practice and best-quality leadership practice across our 2,500 schools, so that all of our children can have the opportunity to succeed, to have a better education, and to go on to have a better life.

There has been a lot of talk about education in the last couple of weeks. I am very proud that our Government opened this year with a focus on education and is leading this debate. It is a debate about education. Many of the other announcements that have been made are a debate about social development, and that is appropriate. We are happy to engage in those debates because we are already doing almost everything that has been announced in these fresh, new policies by the Opposition parties.

We are focused on education, and this major new investment is part of an overall education plan that we have been delivering for the past 5 years, and demonstrates the fresh ideas we have going forward. I am delighted to participate in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, and we look forward to raising achievement for five out of five New Zealand children and young people.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Just to take up a point from Minister Joyce’s contribution to the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. He criticised certain Opposition parties, namely the Greens and the Labour Party, for putting forward policies valued at, according to him, around three-quarters of a billion dollars. Of course, Mr Joyce has completely ignored the fact that his Government has just stood in this House and promised over a billion dollars in new spending, and that the Prime Minister has gone on record as saying that this will grow in subsequent years. So I am not quite sure how Mr Joyce can throw stones when he is living in a particular glass house.

I also pick up the fact from the Minister who has just resumed her seat, Hekia Parata, with regard to the suggestion that the new ideas that are being put forward by the Opposition parties are not new—possibly. I am not sure whether the Minister of Education is aware that lead teachers already exist and that lead teachers have actually been in schools for a good number of years, opening their classrooms for new practice. This might be another situation where the Government is going to have to change the name, in the same way that it changed the name of charter schools, because unfortunately the Government was not aware that every school had a charter as well. So the Government may need to change the name on that policy.

I am going to spend my time talking particularly about the education announcements and the $359 million worth of new money going into New Zealand schools. Nobody will criticise more money being placed inside education, as long as it is appropriately targeted and well spent, and it can actually have proven outcomes. I need to compliment the National Party spin doctors on the brilliant job they have done on spinning this announcement in the last week. I liken it to a cupcake with brilliant icing on it, which makes you just want to bite into it. But the moment that you do, you realise that somebody has substituted salt for sugar. This looks great, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty of this spend, you can see that there is issue upon issue upon issue, and the New Zealand public and the teachers unions, particularly the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, need to continue to have a really close look and conversation about what is being announced in these policies.

It looks to New Zealand First like another opportunity for divide and rule, and even within the week since this announcement has been made—or the days since this announcement has been made—it has caused a wedge between the teachers unions. We cannot afford as a nation to have the teachers unions, the teachers, the parents of New Zealand, the boards of trustees, and all those who care for true, free, and wide success criteria in education be manipulated in this way by spin doctors from this Government. This is a very similar spin, and it is possibly the same company that came up with the spin that national standards were going to be good for our children and that creating a single line in the sand that every single New Zealand child had to jump over at the same moment, in the same year, and in the same way was going to be good for our young people.

This is another cynical attempt by this Government to portray itself as the party that cares about public education in New Zealand and its quality delivery for our kids. In reality, these latest announcements are—and they have been identified as such by the Quality Public Education Coalition—nothing more than a banker’s solution, providing additional top-down expertise, and very highly paid at that, rather than a workforce development approach. These policies create another level of middle managers, such as in a corporate environment, whose job it is to tell other people what to do. And how will these executives be identified as using best practice? Why, they are going to be based on their national standards results, of course. Even the Prime Minister has gone on record as saying that the national standards results are ropy at the least.

But we will fix that, says Minister Parata. We will introduce a computer program where you can enter test and assessment scores for each child, and the computer will spit you out a result for that child. You are either at, above, or below the national standards. That is called the PaCT tool. The PaCT tool was included inside the announcement that went out with the Minister’s press release. How convenient is that—how convenient is that? We now do not need teachers who can actually think for themselves. We do not need teachers who actually have a relationship with their children. We do not need teachers who can use their personal judgment. It is so annoying when teachers invest themselves personally inside their children, inside their students, and inside their classrooms! It is so annoying when those people will not do as they are told! So we need to develop a way by which we can force those people to do as they are told. I mean, after all, they are public servants. There is a very good reason why in most dictatorships the first people that are got rid of are the teachers. The first people a dictator removes are the teachers, because they are the people who think and who truly care about their young people, and provide knowledge, and will not back away from a confrontation.

This is a trickle-down theory. This is a trickle-down policy. This Government has just repackaged its educational policies from the 1990s. It has possibly got in some new spin doctors and put a different label on it, but this is trickle-down. It is going to put bonus payments on to a certain number—6,700-odd—of our thousands of teaching professionals, and it is going to make them compete for those positions. It is going to put bonus payments on top of them. It is going to shoot them into other schools to tell them what to do, and it is going to hope that that trickles down to the 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and 7-year-olds inside those schools.

This new money could have been used to employ the large number of teaching graduates who cannot find teaching places inside this country. It was only in October 2012 that the Ministry of Education went and told three-quarters of the teaching graduates to go overseas to find work. The ministry said that it might need them in 20 years’ time or it might need them in 10 years’ time, but it said that unfortunately they needed to go overseas then. We could have put 9,000 beginning teachers into classrooms, being mentored right now, today, by experienced, senior teachers. We could have cut those classes—basically, the class size would have been cut in half—giving that experienced teacher the opportunity to take those students who require extra support, and leave the beginning teacher who is under their supervision with the majority of the class to run those rote or basic lessons or classes, and actually expand that experience base.

We would have futureproofed our education environment, and we know that we need to. We know that we have an ageing population inside our classes. What is the solution that this Government is going to come up with—import teachers because we have sent all our young ones away? There was an opportunity here to use this money to take away those barriers. Current graduates cannot get the time in the classroom that they require to then become registered, which means that they cannot then go on and actually fully participate.

This new money could have funded mandatory professional development in every staffroom in New Zealand in the delivery of Te Kotahitanga. The Minister took issue with the teachers of New Zealand and said that they did not know how to show respect to Māori students because they could not pronounce their names. Yet there is no solution here. There is no support being offered. Resource teachers of Māori are out there in New Zealand and nobody knows anything about them. They are on the payroll. They are out there wanting to help, and they want to support the delivery of Te Reo and tikanga Māori inside our classrooms. Here was an opportunity to actually bring the resource teachers of Māori on board with some more money, to go and professionally develop Te Kotahitanga throughout the country—a programme that we know does not just benefit Māori students; it benefits every student. It is based on principles of respect and understanding, on individual education programmes, and on being the best you can be—not on meeting that line, but on being the best you can be.

This money could have been used to review Tomorrow’s Schools. Twenty-five years on we have ripped bits away and we have chucked in something else. The Minister says that she values the parental voice. Not a single time in any of these statements is there any parental voice. Not a single in time in any of these statements has there been any student voice mentioned. Where are the voices of the young people who are actually inside these institutions? Where is the student voice? Where is the collaboration with those parents and those students? Where is the widening of the success criteria, not the narrowing of them? Lorde actually came to school and recognised at 5 years old, as she has been quoted, that she loved singing and music. That was inside a State school. At 13, she won Belmont Idol—inside a State school, supported by State teachers, and with a wide curriculum. This money was squandered.

What sort of planet is New Zealand First on, when the Government announces additional money to reward lead teachers and expert teachers, and New Zealand First describes it as an attack on teachers and makes analogies with dictatorships around the world?

💬 Dr Cam Calder: “Planet Winston”.

It truly is on “Planet Winston”.

The contrast today between National, Labour, and the Greens could not be clearer than from this afternoon’s debate. Prime Minister John Key has set out a clear, balanced, and affordable plan for our country—a plan that is about balancing our books. It is a plan that is about striving for excellence in education. It is a plan about rebuilding Christchurch and about growing businesses and more jobs. It is about reducing crime and improved road safety. It is about making houses more affordable.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: And you haven’t done that either.

It is about a First World health system. It is about more operations, about improving—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I just remind the member Denis O’Rourke that he cannot bring me into the debate. You cannot say “you” because it refers to the Speaker.

It is about better health care for our country. And it is about sensible, practical environmental policies, which I also want to talk about as Minister of Conservation.

Labour’s latest leader’s speech shows that Labour has learnt absolutely nothing from its big spending, its big taxing, and its anti-growth time in Government. In that Labour leader’s address, I did not hear a single sentence about how we might grow the economy. You see, the members opposite are all about spending our wealth, rather than the focus on how we created it. I loved Labour’s notion of saving, with this dropping of the dopey idea of removing the GST on food and removing the $5,000 tax-free zone, saying “Oh, we’ve saved $1.5 billion that we can now spend on the baby bonus.” Well, this is like me telling my wife that I have decided not to buy the thousand dollar flash suit, but I am going to spend the thousand dollars on some fancy Gucci shoes—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: And that you’d saved it.

Yes, that is right—and that I have saved it.

I also fret when Labour now tells us that families are in poverty if they are earning less than $150,000 a year. We are going to have a baby bonus for a very fertile member like Jami-Lee Ross, who is expanding his family. Jami-Lee Ross is a wonderful father, but I am sorry, members on this side of the House do not think that we need a baby bonus for backbench members of Parliament—actually, aspiring backbench members of Parliament. We are on track for a surplus by the slimmest of margins and we certainly do not need handouts of that sort. We will go straight back into deficit and debt—the pattern of Labour Governments.

Let me challenge Labour’s claim that this Government has done nothing for those families that are doing it tough. Well, let me take Labour members through it. This Government has a very proud record. Take warm and dry homes—in 2013 we completed our programme of insulating every single State house.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: It was the Greens’ idea, not National’s.

Every one of those 69,000 State houses. For the benefit of New Zealand First, that was not part of the confidence and supply agreement from 2008 in respect of the Greens; that was about another programme, and that was for 300,000 homes that we have insulated. Let us ask the question: in the boom economic times, in the 9 years in which Labour had its hands on the purse strings, how many homes did it insulate? Very, very few. That is less than 2 percent of what this Government has done in far tougher times, and Labour members have the gall to say it is they who have a monopoly on caring.

Let us go to another area—child immunisation rates. What were the child immunisation rates when we came into Government? They were less than 80 percent. They were comparable with those in Third World countries. And do you know what? We now have child immunisation rates of above 95 percent. And do you know what I really celebrate? Pacific Island and Māori rates of immunisation are now above even European levels and are some of the best, having gone from some of the worst in the world. I congratulate Tony Ryall and the health team on what they have done in that space.

Let us take the Government’s latest efforts on rheumatic fever—giving families priority for State housing to address that. The strategy that we have worked on, together with the Māori Party, addressing that Third World disease is part of our programme for dealing with disadvantage. Every member in this House would know that it is a good principal and a quality teacher who are the real breaker of poverty—the real breaker of poverty—and that is why this Government is backing the incentives for improving the quality of our teachers and the quality of our school leadership. You see, there is not a monopoly on caring in this House. What there is over there is a party that is hell-bent on giving a handout, when we on this side are hell-bent on giving a hand up, and that will long be the case.

I want to talk about housing. Let us first get the record straight. All of the measures of housing affordability show that houses today are more affordable than what they were after 9 years of the Labour Government. The truth is that house prices doubled during Labour’s time, interest rates were over 10 percent when we came into Government, and that had a really tough impact on New Zealanders aspiring to own their own home. We have got a programme last year that we have really been getting momentum on: freeing up land supply with that Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act. We have already, through that legislation, approved 15,000 new sections in the city of Auckland, and we now have work under way on accords with Christchurch, Wellington, the Bay of Plenty, and other communities.

We have got a bill before the House dealing with those infrastructure costs. Actually, an area that has gone up more than any other part of the cost of the House is those council development charges, and we are fixing that. We have got the work progressing on the materials’ cost, which is going to be delivering and bearing fruit this year, the work on sector productivity, and the work that my colleague Maurice Williamson is doing on compliance costs. And if there are any of those initiatives that excite me, it is the online building consent service, which has huge potential to make a difference.

Let us look at the results. Last year—here, listen to this—we built more than 20,000 new homes. That is the most in more than 5 years. That is evidence that this Government’s housing policies are working. I went back through the statistics. There was a bigger growth in the number of new houses—a bigger growth in the number of new houses—from 2012 to 2013 than in any year in history. But it is more than that. We are committed, this year and next year, to building a thousand extra State houses in both years—a thousand houses in both years. That is more new State houses in more than a decade, and, as well as that, we are partnering with the community sector to build community houses, and we are going to do 300 of those this year. That is the biggest record ever in terms of growth of the community housing sector.

The last area I want to cover is the Prime Minister’s speech about conservation and the goals for this Government to create a record number of marine reserves this year—a record number of marine reserves this year. I do have to challenge members of both parties opposite. It was an extraordinary comment. They said that National is allowing deep-sea drilling without any environmental rules. That is the claim they have made. Let us tell the truth—let us tell the truth. The reality is that during the last Labour Government there was deep-sea drilling with absolutely no environmental rules in the exclusive economic zone. It is this Government that has passed that exclusive economic zone legislation and set up the Environmental Protection Authority to ensure that there are checks. With the subantarctic islands, with Akaroa, with our initiatives on the West Coast and in Kaikōura, we are going to be making more progress on marine conservation in any year, again furthering the balanced programme this Government has.

Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, can I first of all wish you a very happy new year and say how much I enjoy it when you are in the Chair. I would like to respond, before I give my contribution to this debate, to Dr Smith on one point. Dr Smith, I suggest that you read the article by Professor Graeme Aitken, the Dean of Education from Auckland University—someone who, I suppose, knows a little bit about education—who wrote in the New Zealand Herald today: “the Everest of research … shows that socio-economic status is the strongest predictor of achievement.” So maybe, Dr Smith, you might like to start with this.

In April 2011 the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister, Sir Peter Gluckman released a seminal paper on the better use of evidence in policy formation. He said this: “policy formed without consideration of the most relevant knowledge available is far less likely to serve the nation well”. He then went on to say this: “evidence-based approaches must also lead to greater efficiency in the provision of public services. One suspects that there are many Government-funded programmes now in place that when properly assessed would not meet objective tests of effectiveness; such evidence of non-performance would allow both the public and politicians to accept, and indeed require, redirection of effort.”

The Children’s Commissioner, appointed by this Government, set up an expert advisory group on solutions to child poverty in New Zealand. It reviewed both the international and New Zealand literature. It spoke to overseas experts and to local experts. It talked to officials and to civil society groups. It heard submissions. It even listened to members of Parliament.

In November 2013 the Health Committee released a comprehensive report on improving child health outcomes from preconception to 3 years of age. We listened to officials. We read international research and local research from groups like the Brainwave Trust and others. We came to the conclusion—we, the members of the select committee: the National Party, the Labour Party, New Zealand First, and the Greens—that the Government needs “to put more focus on and investment into the pre-conception period to three years of age,”. We said: “Such policy is not only backed by science, equity, and ethics, but also makes sound economic sense.” I repeat that—sound economic sense.

So why would this Government or any future Government not listen to the science, the evidence, the ethics, and the economics of investing in our kids—investing in our kids? You see, we have heard passionate speeches from the Government today about all that it is doing for children. Nick Smith nods. So how is it, Dr Smith, that one of Parliament’s select committees, the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty, the Prime Minister’s own science adviser, and others are saying: “Listen to the evidence.”? The evidence in New Zealand is telling us that we are not doing well by children in New Zealand.

This Government says members on this side of the House have learnt nothing. I have to say it is sad—it has learnt nothing. It learns nothing from evidence and nothing from science. Well, I have to tell you that a Labour-led Government has and will. New Zealanders have had enough of cheap words and flash slogans about the value and the importance of our children. We hear the platitudes. They are rolled out all the time—lines like “Children are our greatest gift.”, “Children are our future.”, “We value children.”, and “We are already doing so much for children.” Well, the evidence shows that that is hogwash.

We have some of the most appalling statistics relating to children in the OECD—the OECD, countries we like to compare ourselves with. Well, I am disgusted and distressed when report after report shows that this country is failing its children. This is a country that has so much. The Prime Minister has said it is an egalitarian country. When did he connect with New Zealand? This country has not been an egalitarian country in that way, probably, for 30 or 40 years. We have seen slowly the destruction of that egalitarian society, accelerated under this Government. We see statistics about the high rate in this country of child accidents, of child abuse, of child poverty, of youth suicide, and of failing educational achievement. You have got to ask yourself: where did we go wrong?

The Prime Minister likes to say he was brought up in a State house, but this Government, although it is building 1,000 extra, does not tell you about the ones it has knocked down, the ones it has closed up, and the thousands it has sold off. It does not tell you how it treats State house tenants—as worthless citizens. The Prime Minister likes to say that he was brought up on a widows benefit—plus the family benefit, and maybe it could have even helped pay for their first own home. But “benefits” is now a dirty word. Beneficiaries, especially those caring for children, are worthless in the Government’s eyes. They are judged for their predicament.

Homeownership is now out of the reach of thousands of New Zealanders, and as for giving a universal payment for children, that is now called an election bribe—the very universal payment that helped Mr Key when he was a kid. Paula Bennett likes to crow about how she got off the DPB and made good. She got a degree and she got it with a training incentive allowance, but she got rid of that allowance. Why has the Government not stopped and asked itself a few questions? If the Government supports families and if these policies supported the Prime Minister, Paula Bennett, and others within the National Party, why is National denying those very policies for New Zealand kids today? If those polices helped those members as children, why are they not appropriate to help children today?

You see, it is all about priorities. The reality is that the priorities have changed in New Zealand, and children are no longer as important to this Government as they were in the past. Instead of seeing the future of our country in healthy, well-educated, motivated children and families, this Government does not believe they are a priority. It is now dog-eat-dog. Top dogs get the top dollars and the rest get the leftovers. It has to change. It is going to take a Government with courage, with commitment, and with priority.

I can assure New Zealanders that Labour members are totally committed to turning round the position of children in New Zealand. Yesterday we announced Best Start, based on evidence, research, and what New Zealanders say needs to happen for children. Why will that Government not open its ears and its eyes and for once look and see what is happening to our kids and, instead of opposing everything, support it?

What a fantastic speech today, with the Prime Minister’s statement leading off the start of this parliamentary year, 2014, which is going to be a fantastic year for the Government and for the National Party—a statement that, of course, those opposite do not believe. They do not buy into it. They hate the fact that the economy is really starting to move—3.5 percent from September to September last year. Is that not fantastic economic growth, when we think about what is happening in the Canterbury rebuild, helping those people get back on their feet, and when we think about the big plans that we have for infrastructure in this country? It is a fantastic Prime Minister’s statement.

We need to also acknowledge Bill English and the way that he steered this economy forward over the last few years. We are all going to reap the benefits of that going forward. It was interesting that David Cunliffe, in his—whatever it was—state of something speech, came out and suddenly magically said: “Oh, we’re not going to take the GST off fruit and vegetables. We’re not going to do something else on tax-free status and that’s magically just generated $1.5 billion.” That is not at all budgeted in the Government books. So therefore he just felt that he could come out with a delusional policy and announce all of this stuff, which, actually, some have said is to encourage those on incomes up to a level of $150,000 to have more babies Some have labelled it middle-class welfare, and that is the way it will be portrayed out there in the electorate. We have a Labour Party that is old and tired.

💬 Hon Annette King: How ignorant. What an ignorant member.

Annette has not got any new, fresh thinking. She has not got any new ideas. For Mr Cunliffe to come into the House today and actually start criticising primary industries, he is actually not in touch with what is happening in our rural communities. He does not feel a part of what is happening with the productive sector of the economy, because for that $1.5 billion to be spent, it has to come from somewhere. It has to come from the productive sector of this economy, and that is the primary industries. It does not just drop out of the sky. It is not budgeted for. It is not factored in to our forecast going forward. Yet Labour just expects the primary industries to pick it up.

Here we had Mr Cunliffe today, who is not in touch with rural communities. He would not give a damn. He says that they are not adding value in the dairy industry. We should be proud of the New Zealand dairy industry and what it has achieved, exporting to around 200 countries all around the world. What we have is the fact that, of course, Labour is opposed to anything that is happening that is productive in our primary industries. It is against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has the opportunity to generate more income for our rural communities, more income, actually, for most of New Zealand. It could potentially be $2 billion.

Labour is, of course, against other trade opportunities, as well. I cannot believe that. We have also got the Primary Growth Partnership, which is a real showcase policy, working well with those in the primary industries—17 projects up and running, supported by this Government, and $700 million invested. That is going to generate billions and billions of dollars in research and development, and Labour is opposed to that. Labour is opposed to research and development. This Government is partnering with primary industries to lift our growth potential, to put more products into different markets. Labour is opposed to that. I cannot believe it.

It is also opposed to irrigation. This Government has invested $80 million and is forecast to invest $400 million in total in decent water storage projects in our regional economies. This, of course, is going to grow our regional economies. It is also good for the environment—

💬 Moana Mackey: Oh, yeah. OK. Poisoning water is great for the environment!

—because when water is stored it takes the pressure off the aquifers. You can maintain summer water flows, and, of course, that is good for the aquatic and marine life. Of course, Moana Mackey chips in from the back seats over there in Labour. It just goes to show that Labour does not care about job creation. It does not care about regional economies. [Interruption] I am sure that is Moana Mackey. Labour does not even care about growing jobs in our regions. Here it is against research and development. Here it is against irrigation. Here it is against opening up new markets. We have just had a new market open up in Peru. Is Labour against that? Yes, probably. We are working hard in other international markets as well. Russia and South Korea are looking promising. We have got to acknowledge the good work that Minister Groser and Minister McCully do on the international stage, supported by the Prime Minister as well, to open up these international markets so that we can continue to grow our primary industries, because you cannot have policies rolled out, like the dopey one that Labour announced just a couple of days ago, that cannot be supported by the productive engine room of our economy.

We have $32 billion worth of exports at the moment. We have set a target of doubling that to $64 billion. That is going to happen with the Primary Growth Partnership. That is going to happen with more trade opportunities. That is going to happen with water storage projects. Also important is lifting the potential of Māori agribusiness. That is where we are working closely with the regions like Northland. We are looking at other opportunities over in the East Coast as well, where we need to partner with iwi and other communities to lift their overall growing potential. If you look at the potential in Māori agribusiness, there are about 1.5 million hectares owned in multiple ownership of iwi, and about 300,000 hectares are under full production. If we can lift the rest—the other 1.2 million hectares—if we can lift the potential there, that is worth an $8 billion prize in growing our exports. It is worth 3,500 jobs. That is why we need to celebrate this Government and what we are trying to achieve in primary industries.

Also in the Prime Minister’s speech he talked about the importance of biosecurity and investing in our front line. We have got 100 new biosecurity officers that we have rolled out in the last 14 months. That is hugely important. We have got 11 new X-ray machines as well in our major airports, which is important and a real focus of mine. It is my No. 1 priority. I need to acknowledge the work that the Ministry for Primary Industries is doing right now in the Whangarei area, working closely with that community, where we have had a fruit fly that was detected in one of the traps up there—a Queensland fruit fly. As a result of that, we got 70 people on the ground there, another 80 or 90 or so working as well, and a big response to ensure that we do more trapping to hope that we do not have any more fruit flies in that area. I want to acknowledge the wonderful work that our biosecurity people do and also acknowledge the support of the Whangarei community in this response, and what it has been is a very good response.

Also in the Prime Minister’s speech he talked about infrastructure. I cannot work out whether Labour on the other side of the House is opposed to Transmission Gully or it supports it.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: We don’t know.

We do not know. We do not know. We might hear today. What does Chris Hipkins think about Transmission Gully? Does he support it or is he against it?

💬 Chris Hipkins: Support.

He supports Transmission Gully. It is good that we now have Labour on the record as supporting Transmission Gully. If we move up to the end of Transmission Gully, where it comes into my electorate, the wonderful electorate of Ōtaki, Labour is opposed to the Kapiti Expressway. A thousand jobs will be created by the Kapiti Expressway, and Labour is opposed to it. The biggest Government investment in the Kapiti district, and Labour does not give a damn. It does not give a damn about my constituents sitting in a traffic jam getting into the capital city of New Zealand. It does not give a damn about freight getting through to the port here, or about people getting to their hospital appointments on time. It does not give a damn about the Kapiti Expressway. It does not give a damn about infrastructure and investing in that in the community. Of course, how do you grow the productive engine room of the economy? You make investments in roads. You make investments in ultra-fast broadband—200,000 people are going to benefit from the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband—

💬 Hon Annette King: When?

—in rural communities, and that is happening as we speak. Annette King says “When?”, yet when she occasionally comes up in her van and sees the people of Levin, she does not acknowledge the fact that ultra-fast broadband is going to connect us not only domestically but internationally. This is a fantastic Prime Minister’s statement, and it should be endorsed by every political party in this House. Let us roll on to the 2014 election.

If we needed a clear statement of the lack of enthusiasm and lack of ideas that permeate this National Government, we just had it. We just had it from that member, Nathan Guy, who talked about the research and development tax credit. Well, I have a question for him. Who cut the research and development tax credit? Who was it that removed the financial support for firms to invest in research and development? Oh, that would be the current National Government.

Of course, Nathan Guy argued that by providing $60 a week for families who have newborn children, we are going to be encouraging people to have a whole lot more babies. It is like saying that because New Zealand superannuation is universal, more people are going to get old. No, that simply does not compute. It simply does not compute. Is the Government arguing for means testing New Zealand superannuation? If it has a problem with providing universal support to New Zealanders, is it going to means test New Zealand superannuation? Because that is the logical extension of what it has been arguing. Nathan Guy talked about Transmission Gully. After 5 years in Government, not one sod has been turned for Transmission Gully, but I will tell you what—there will be a sod turned in Ōtaki at the next general election. There will be a sod turned in Ōtaki at the next general election—you can mark my words—because Nathan Guy’s term in this Parliament will be coming to an end.

I want to talk about the fantastic announcements in the education area that David Cunliffe made in his speech yesterday. We will be extending free early childhood education for 3 and 4-year-olds to 25 hours per week. That is something that I know parents all around the country are going to be looking forward to and will welcome. We have said that simply extending access is not enough, however. We have also said that we want to increase the quality of early childhood education in New Zealand and that means that we will reinstate the commitment to having a fully qualified and registered teaching profession in early childhood education. That is something that this Government has moved away from.

It is interesting that Government members are willing to talk about quality teaching in schools, which is something that I support, but they are not willing to talk about quality teaching in early childhood education. In fact, they do not see that as a priority. Giving kids the best possible start with their education—and that means investing in quality early childhood education—is one of the most progressive things we can do for the education system. That is why I am absolutely proud that Labour’s commitment to increasing the number of hours that children can access is being accompanied by an absolute commitment to increasing quality by funding fully qualified teachers in early childhood centres.

We also have to recognise that there are some parts of the country where the funding model has been one of the contributing factors to a lack of provision, because the current model that we have has seen most of the growth in early childhood education in the last decade or so come from the for-profit early childhood sector, and that has meant that in many communities—or in a small number of communities but vitally important areas—there is underprovision, because the for-profits do not see a profit-making opportunity in it. We actually have to get serious about that and that means that we will put money in. We are unashamedly saying that the Labour Government will put money into building new centres where there is underprovision, because underprovision is—particularly in many poor communities—one of the contributing factors to those kids not getting access to early childhood education. That is the third leg of the stool of Labour’s early childhood policy that David Cunliffe announced yesterday and I am really, really proud to stand behind that.

It is a pretty clear contrast to the things that John Key has been talking about—John Key’s six-page apology for Hekia Parata, which he made last week. This, of course, is the same Minister of Education who brought us school closures in Christchurch; who thought that increasing the quality of education was going to rest on having bigger class sizes; who brought us Novopay—if they are talking about increasing the pay for teachers, there are still teachers around the country who are waiting to be paid at all as a result of that botch-up—who brought us charter schools that do not have to have qualified and registered teachers; who brought us national standards, which, of course, have been proven to be neither national nor standard; and who is now saying that the Government wants to focus on the quality of teaching.

Well, I thought that was a very interesting argument, because I think that quality teaching is vitally important, but I do want to pick up the comment by Graeme Aitken, the Dean of Education at the University of Auckland, who said in an opinion column that there is an “Everest of research that shows that socio-economic status is the strongest predictor of achievement.” When the Government talks about quality teaching being the strongest predictor of achievement, it is not actually correct. Quality teaching is the strongest in-school predictor of student achievement; there is no argument about that. But it is simply wrong for that Government to bury its head in the sand and claim that all of the things that happen outside the school do not have an impact on kids when they get through the gate. As Graeme Aitken has argued, the changes that the Government announced last week will have “limited impact if they are not accompanied by bold initiatives to address social inequality and poverty.” That is exactly what the Labour Party has done this week with our Best Start programme that David Cunliffe announced yesterday.

I also want to quote—because I think this is actually really important when considering the package that John Key announced around teaching last week—Graeme Aitken on paying good teachers more. How is this Government going to decide what a good teacher is? If it is going to decide it based on national standards and the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, then it is setting our education system up for failure. As Graeme Aitken has argued here: “Top teaching is not about cramming for results”—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: What about the member’s own thoughts?

—“on limited measures of learning. It is about leaving students with greater enjoyment of reading, writing and mathematics and feeling confident about new learning in these areas. It is also about opening students’ minds to the rich curriculum offered in the arts, sciences, languages, technology, health and physical education and the social sciences.”

I say to Gerry Brownlee that I agree with him. My thoughts are very, very similar to his. I think he is absolutely right when he says that we cannot simply narrow the definition of success in our education system into cramming kids to pass a couple of tests in a few areas. We actually have to give them a broad, well-rounded education. That includes subjects like woodwork. Some kids do quite well in woodwork—probably not the ones who had their educational opportunities completely hamstrung by having the misfortune to have Gerry Brownlee as their woodwork teacher, but many kids do quite well in woodwork and they do find that a bridge to other opportunities in education. Kids learn quite well in context, and I actually think, if we are talking about numeracy, that kids doing woodwork quite often find woodwork a very good context in which to learn better numeracy skills. They have to learn skills around measurement and around all sorts of things; it is a good context.

But this Government does not seem to think that is important. It thinks that instead you should be cramming kids full of literacy and numeracy alone without the rich context that comes from a broad curriculum, which is what I think we should be focused on in our schools, and that is certainly—

💬 Moana Mackey: Where’s the science?

“What about science?” I hear Moana Mackey saying. Science, of course, is a vitally important part of the curriculum as well. There are no national standards in science. It is not a priority for this Government. Well, I think—

💬 Hon Annette King: All that stuff from Nathan Guy.

After all that stuff from Nathan Guy about science, it is a shame that National does not seem to think that science is important in schools. I think employing a Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister was a very, very good idea. I think that listening to him would be an even better idea, and that is certainly not something we are seeing from this Government.

Instead, of course, we have John Key and his dance of the desperate and dateless. It is like political speed-dating over there on the National benches. We have got Colin Craig, John Banks, and Peter Dunne. Peter Dunne is now restored to be a Minister of the Crown. I am really interested to know from John Key and from the National Government who leaked the Kitteridge report. Who leaked the Kitteridge report? If it is happy to have Peter Dunne, the prime suspect for leaking the Kitteridge report, back in the Government, it must think that somebody else did it. How could John Key sack Peter Dunne last year for leaking a Government document and then turn round and reinstate him without actually establishing, if it was not Peter Dunne, who it was?

💬 Carol Beaumont: Who done it?

Of course—who done it? But we know that this is nothing to do with principle. This is everything to do with the desperate clinging to power by this National Government, which is out of ideas and which is out of energy. It is time, and in the coming election it will be replaced. It will be replaced and there will be a Government with a commitment to ensuring that all New Zealanders share in the economic recovery that is taking place—all New Zealanders get their fair share of that. That is not going to happen under this Government, which is committed to the trickle-up theory that sees all of the wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer New Zealanders, while those in the middle get squeezed, and those on the lowest incomes get absolutely clobbered.

The days of those policies are coming to an end. We have to bring in fairness. We have to restore the balance. We have to restore a fair and just society in which every New Zealander is rewarded appropriately for their efforts, every child in this country gets the best possible start in life, every school is a great school, and every teacher is a great teacher. This is not about picking winners; it is about giving everybody their fair opportunities in life.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.