General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Over the weekend something went wrong with daylight saving, because everyone else in New Zealand turned their clocks back 1 hour, but in the Labour Party, members turned their political clocks back 40 years. They spent yesterday arguing that National should clean up its mistakes from the 1975 election. I thought they were a bit, just a bit, backward-looking when they spent most of last year burnishing their economic credentials for the run-up to the 2008 election—their budgets, their debts, their deficits; all that stuff. Of course, they still think that the 2008 election result was a big mistake and that one day the public will wake up and realise that. John Key will blow away like a flake in the wind, Helen will be back, and all will be well.

But I ask myself why it is that they would spend a whole day yesterday, 5 months out from an election, talking about the 1975 election, which occurred before some of the MPs in this House were born. I have figured out why they want to talk about the 1975 election.

💬 Dr Cam Calder: Why’s that?

It is because it means that they do not have to talk about David Cunliffe. That is why. He is a man sinking in a sea of his own self-importance, shown by his classy intervention on the first day of the royal tour, among a whole lot of other things. We look forward to next week’s edition of Campbell Live. It is at the doer-upper. He will be there in his paint-spattered overalls with his mate, having been down to Bunnings to buy a second-hand hammer to show us how he is doing up his house.

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: In his shiny gumboots.

In his shiny gumboots. So that is why the Labour Party is still talking about the 1975 election and a decision at that time around national superannuation, a time when today’s new recipients of national superannuation were 25 years old. I used to think that Labour was reading the books from the best Fabian thinking of the 1970s. I did not realise that they were reliving it in some kind of daylight saving time machine—not just reading about it but reliving it, and reliving it when they get tired of that 2008 election.

But, of course, if they could not bring themselves to talk about their leader—and why would they—they should be able to talk about their hard-working, effective team. But they do not.

💬 Hon Member: Why not?

Well, that is because there is no hard-working, effective team to talk about. I know that David Parker, standing up yesterday, would have liked to talk about the hard-working, effective team, having decided that he is getting dragged down by the leader, as—is he the deputy leader or the—[Interruption] He is the finance spokesman, or one of them. I do not know who the deputy leader is, and that is saying something, knowing how irrelevant deputy leaders are. You would think that I sympathise with them, but I do not, actually.

The Labour Party is letting its own people down. It is letting down this Parliament—there is no doubt about that—but it is letting down its own people, because the kind of forward-looking, aspirational politics and leadership that Labour Party voters are looking for are coming from our Prime Minister. There is absolutely no doubt about that. That is why increasing numbers of them are turning away, having stuck with Labour for 5 years. They now think that they cannot even make a decent Opposition and are turning away to look to the leadership that shows their path to a better future for their kids, that shows a real interest in the safety of their communities, and that ensures that they get the health services they need. But on top of that is a thriving economy that can deliver wage and income increases—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

An hour ago I received on the steps of Parliament this petition. I undertook to bring it immediately to the attention of the House. The Clerk has tabled the petition today. It is fair to say that this is perhaps the most important petition ever to be delivered to Parliament. It is called the “Appeal to Parliament for a NZ Risk Assessment”. It calls for the 50th Parliament to commit to an all-party risk assessment of how and where New Zealand might be exposed to key global threats. No single undertaking could be more important.

The petition comes just 2 days after the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the assessed impacts of climate change on the world in the 21st century. As the petition puts it, “We live on a biologically complex and exquisite planet, home to 7 billion people and a myriad of other unique life forms.” The petitioners say: “We believe it is our human responsibility to maintain the integrity of life support systems and the natural processes which sustain and renew them. … It follows”—they contend—“that our generation must satisfy our present material needs in ways that do not diminish the prospect of their realisation for future generations.” The petitioners express a concern. They say that “So far, New Zealand has failed to truly face up to such unprecedented threats to its collective security.”, yet with scientists saying that certain critical thresholds are upon us, the consequences of not taking the proper action will, “in all probability, be disastrous and irreversible.” They say: “Therefore, in the name of all our children and grandchildren we, the undersigned, call on the New Zealand Parliament to face up to this situation now … We believe that Parliament should build on its proud tradition of foresighted collective response to risks, and initiate a risk assessment as the first step in achieving a more secure future.”

This petition is signed by some 6,000 New Zealanders, with a leadership group of 100 signatories. They include a former Prime Minister and past MPs; the mayor of a major city; leading Māori; a number of former All Blacks and Black Caps; a university pro-vice-chancellor and other prominent academics; a former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment; a poet laureate; some of the country’s leading artists, authors, and broadcasters; and several leading scientists who serve on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change itself. I choose to cite one name, Sir Lloyd Geering, Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University. I cite him because, at age 96, Professor Geering is a member of the Order of New Zealand, the highest honour this country can bestow. This is no ordinary petition. It is no disparagement of any others brought to this House to recognise that this petition is of unprecedented magnitude and import. It essentially appeals to Parliament to consider the future of the planet and our nation, and it does so in light of the enormity of what lies before us.

This House is the arena for party rivalry and the contestation of ideas. We devote our time to critiquing each other and competing for electoral support. It is a pluralistic democracy, and that is fine. But there are issues that transcend domestic political competition—above all, the fate of the planet. There is no other phrase that can do it justice. It requires that we lower our swords and come together to reason our way through. There is something primordial occurring here, and we need to be up to the task. We need to be up to the task, for future generations, not only our own, depend on the decisions we make in this House now and in the critical next few years. I advance this admonition to myself as much as to colleagues opposite. I have on occasion been critical—trenchantly so—of Government policy, but I have also held conferences in the neighbouring Chamber designed to enable us to come together in a different setting and spirit and to reason our way to a cross-party consensus. May this appeal assist us in that endeavour. May it be favourably received. Mō tātou, ā, mō ngā iwi ā muri ake nei. [For us and the people who are to follow.]

I am going to talk about the economy and justice today, but I am going to start off with this, and I hope you will indulge me. I grew up in the Labour Party. I grew up as a member of a family that was staunchly Labour, and I can well remember nagging my mother in the early 1970s until she actually joined the Labour Party. That was pretty much the last time anyone should have joined the Labour Party, and I now apologise to my dead mother for the fact that I nagged her until she did. But, then again, “Big Norm” was the leader of the Labour Party, and, apart from Helen Clark, it has not had one since. I have to say that what I have been hearing from the Labour Party is nothing about the economy, nothing about law and order, nothing about health, nothing about welfare, and nothing about transport—pretty much nothing about anything that matters to the ordinary mums and dads, the Kiwis who used to vote Labour and who are now wondering why they are giving David Cunliffe even 8 percent. I heard a rumour today that it was down to 6.5 percent. So that is what is going wrong with the Labour Party.

Let us talk about the economy. Well, for a start, we will be in surplus this year—not a huge surplus but in surplus. When we came into office at the end of 2008, we were told that we would look forward to a decade of deficits—a decade of deficits—and that we would not be in surplus. We did not inherit a growing economy. We inherited an economy that, unlike the rest of the Western World, had been in recession for a year. We went into recession first. We were there before Australia and before the UK—before those other countries. Labour had taxed and had spent up large.

💬 Hon Annette King: They never went into recession.

Annette King was one of the worst-performing—one of the worst—Ministers of Health ever seen. Then again, she almost was here in the 1970s, but, no, actually, she came here in the early 1980s, so let us give her her due. What we are now doing is seeing a Government that has worked together right across Cabinet and right across the backbench to make sure that we have been able to secure an economy for our people—for New Zealanders—instead of what Labour did, which was tax and spend.

Let us go to justice, shall we. When I became the Minister of Police and the Minister of Corrections in 2008, I was given the happy news that we would have to have 12,000 prison beds—12,000 prison beds—in the next 10 years. We had 8,300 prisoners, I think, at that time—I may not be strictly correct about that number—and Labour had left us with not enough beds, and all the graphs showed the numbers going up like this. It was unbelievable that all Labour did in the 2000s was to imprison people and leave them there. It inherited 5,000 people in the prisons; it left with 8,500. What we had to do was double-bunk them. We had to bring in container cells and we had to actually bring in rehabilitation. Since then, Anne Tolley as the new Minister of Corrections for the last 3 years has doubled all that and more, so we now have the best crime statistics in 33 years—33 years. It is not 10 years; it is 33 years. That is before the statistics even started to be collected—33 years.

Who can argue with that? Well, the Labour Party members can argue with that. But why is it that they never ask Mrs Tolley any questions on law and order these days? Well, we know why. We have brought down crime. We have actually legislated on alcohol, the very thing that Labour talked about and never did. We have cracked down on welfare fraud. We have cracked down on inefficiencies in the health system. There is more elective surgery for New Zealanders; we are looking after people in the area that we need to. I can say that I am very proud to be a member of this Government and that I am so pleased I am no longer a Labour supporter.

I am not going to address the climate change issues that have been addressed by my colleague from the Greens, Kennedy Graham, but I do acknowledge the petition that has been lodged today by, amongst others, Sir Lloyd Geering and Sir Alan Mark.

The Deputy Prime Minister said in his address that the Labour Party was letting down this Parliament. The worst example of someone letting down this Parliament is the member who is just walking out, Judith Collins. That Minister will not answer questions and will not be held to account. That Minister most clearly allowed her personal family financial interests to come into conflict with her ministerial duties. She profited her family through her ministerial rank, and she will not answer questions in this House. She does not claim that there is a public interest at stake. She says that there is some private interest of hers that means she does not have to acknowledge who the paid officials were who were there.

We do not know whether this particular official is a multibillionaire on the back of corrupt practices in China. We do not know whether this person is a good person. We cannot tell—despite the fact that there is lots of news of corruption in China in respect of the facilitation of international trade with companies, including, no doubt, some companies from New Zealand—because the Minister refuses to answer questions. That is a disgraceful stain upon the reputation of this Government and, through its actions, a stain upon the character of New Zealand. New Zealanders do not like it because we have a reputation for transparency and freedom from corruption. We have no transparency from this Minister. We have the stink of corruption, her personal interests having come into conflict with her ministerial interests.

In the last week we have had the Prime Minister lay bare what the Government’s narrative is for the Budget. The Government is trying to say to not blame it for rising interest rates; blame a future Labour Government. I thought John Armstrong got that quite right. His column over the weekend hit the nail on the head there. The Government claimed responsibility for interest rate reductions caused by the global financial crisis. That was its good management, it said—its good economic management. Then the Government turned round, and its next line was that rising interest rates are caused by its good economic management. That did not work, so now it is trying to say that rising interest rates are caused by the next Labour Government.

Why this worries people is that if you have got a $400,000 mortgage in Auckland—and a lot of people do, because house price inflation has gone out of control in Auckland because of the terrible housing policies of the National Government—at 5 percent interest, you are paying 20 grand a year. At 8 percent interest you are paying one and a half times that. You are paying about $1,000 a month more—$1,000 a month more—on your mortgage. National is scared of that. National is scared of that.

What else is National scared of? It is scared of the fact, as John Armstrong puts it here, that “The placid mood of the electorate … [is] a reflection of the current optimism that New Zealand has finally turned a very important corner. It is a mood which is the harbinger of one of the most dangerous forces in politics—rising public expectations of what politicians can and must deliver.” New Zealanders are sick of waiting. Forty-five percent of New Zealanders did not get a wage increase last year. They are facing higher interest rates, higher rents, and higher electricity prices. All they want is their fair share. They know that under this crowd they will never get it, because everything goes to the top few percent, who are disproportionately owning all of the houses, buying all the luxury cars, and buying the shares in the State-owned enterprises. Under this crowd that is what happens, and New Zealanders are tiring of it.

You know, the Government has had the playing of golf with Obama, the visit to the Premier of China—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Kissing George.

—and it has got the royal tour, but you know what? It is still stuck, in terms of the divide between left and right. The difference between them is 2 percent, and the Rt Hon Winston Peters is on about 7 percent. That is why the National Party is worried. That is why it is worried. Labour and the Greens combined are within 2 percent of National. National has run out of friends. They are either in the dock or on their way out of Parliament for other reasons. Winston Peters is sitting there, smiling to his ears today, on 7 percent in the polls. The National Party has got a problem, and that is why it is trying to blame increases in interest rates on the next Labour Government.

That member, David Parker, could not use even 5 minutes. The best person in the Labour Party could not use even 5 minutes in the general debate. That is a party from the past. As Bill English said, it is a party from the past—a party from the 1970s. Well, it is better than its coalition partners. Winston Peters was in his prime in the 1970s. He is actually out of it now, but the 1970s were his best years. And the Green Party—well, the Green Party is actually from the 1930s, because if you look at it, it wants to go back to Stalinism and communism and 5-year plans. It wants the central planning of the world.

The Green Party, the New Zealand First Party, and the Labour Party represent a vision that is gone. They represent the past. New Zealand wants a future. New Zealanders want leadership. They want a young, inspired country that looks forward and takes its place in the world. That is what the National Party offers. That is why the Labour Party, the New Zealand First Party, and the Green Party are struggling where they are because they do not represent New Zealanders’ desire to look forward and have a strong and developed and wonderful country.

Look at Hamilton—Hamilton is the future of New Zealand, the city of the future. Remember those words. Hamilton represents that dynamic, forward-thinking, progressive country that we will represent. National is giving Hamilton the ability to be that forward-thinking place. We are building the Waikato Expressway, and everybody from Hamilton and the Waikato should listen to this. I will say this again and again for the next 5 months: the Labour Party will not build the Waikato Expressway. The Hamilton bypass and the Huntly bypass are due for contract in 2015.

If you were the Labour Party looking for $1.3 billion, where do you get it from? You tell the people of the Waikato “No expressway.” That is what the Labour Party members are thinking. I bet you that is what they are thinking. I challenge the Labour Party members to stand in this House before the end of this parliamentary session and say that they will fund the Waikato Expressway next year. Will you do that? No way. There is no way they can do that.

Waikato and Hamilton have the most to lose in this election. If we do not get a National Government re-elected, that road goes back 30 years to the 1970s, where it is on the plans but it does not actually happen. That is what the Labour Party wants. It wants us to dream of a road, as it did in the 1970s.

💬 Sue Moroney: They’re worried in Hamilton.

Well, we make it a reality, Sue Moroney, and I want to see somebody in the Labour Party come out and say that before the next election.

The other thing we get is that we have schools. We are building new schools in north Hamilton for the growing population of that city. I see it as very rich for the Labour Party members to come in here today and go on about those Christchurch schools and talk about the community’s wishes. I know that when the Labour Party was in Government, Sue Moroney stood on a bit of land and had this article in the paper saying: “This would be a lovely place for a school.” But did she do anything about it? No. It was only when we came in that we bought the land and we built the school, and we are going to give the people what they deserve and what they need.

The New Zealand National Party delivers the future for cities like Hamilton that are the future of New Zealand.

💬 Hon Annette King: We bought the land.

No, you did not buy the land. You did not buy the land. We have got Annette King here. I want to see Annette King stand up and put in front of this House the piece of paper saying the Labour Party bought the land for the secondary school, because it did not. That Minister, the Hon Anne Tolley, bought it, and I can tell you that. No, no, you cannot do that, Annette. None of that rubbish in this House.

We are looking at a diverse, open, successful, modern country going forward. Hamilton is an example of that. We do not want the 1970s approach, which does not build the Waikato Expressway. We do not want the 1970s approach of politics, which is all about personal attacks. We do not want the 1930s approach of politics, which is Stalinism. We want a modern, free, and open world and country, and that is what we are going to get under a John Key - led Government. Thank you.

I am glad once again for the opportunity to rise to take a call in this general debate, to once again raise the awareness, to hammer the point, and to bang the drum yet again as I and other members on this side of the House have promised to continue doing with regards to this Government’s blasé, irresponsible, “Look, Mum, no hands!” approach to biosecurity. There is an old saying: “Penny wise, pound foolish.” That sums up the National Government’s approach to biosecurity very succinctly—in a nutshell, you might say; possibly an undetected nutshell, possibly even an unfumigated nutshell, such is the dearth of capacity to examine goods arriving at the border.

The latest fruit fly incursion in Northland is alarming, to say the least. Somehow these potentially extremely damaging pests are getting through. Somehow, despite the best efforts of our beleaguered border officers, they are managing to slip the net. Maybe, just maybe, this could be because we inspect just one container in four of the tens of thousands that arrive on our shores every year.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: How many?

One container in four—25 percent. A mere quarter of shipping containers are actually inspected, or so those very same border officers tell us, speaking anonymously, in fear for their jobs—in very real fear for their jobs in what is still, bizarrely and inexplicably, a shrinking service. It is shrinking in real terms, despite the protestations of this Government. Whatever the dollars being spent, the number of actual boots on the ground is diminishing, and so is the number of paws. We have too few sniffer dogs to service all our airports and seaports, all the points of entry through which an ever-increasing volume of people and goods continues to flow. Border officers, customs officials, Ministry for Primary Industries staff, MAF Biosecurity New Zealand—the people on the ground tell us that shortages and deficiencies lead to three-quarters of containers that arrive from overseas being opened and unloaded uninspected. There are not enough officers. There are not enough X-ray machines. There are too few dogs. So we just let them in to clear the ports to make way for the next wave of arrivals. There could be anything in those containers, and in all reality there probably is.

At this rate, it is only a matter of time before we lose this battle as we have lost other biosecurity threats. It is as though nothing was learnt from the Psa incursion into kiwifruit. The varroa parasite that worked its way down the country is a case in point and is expected to cost New Zealand between $400 million and $900 million over the next 30 years as varroa becomes resistant to sprays. And what else might it cost us? If we have no bees, we have no pollinators. Without pollinators, we have no plants that require pollination. Three-quarters of the economy depends on agriculture, and at least half of that depends on plant pollination.

Three-quarters is a recurring theme here. Three-quarters of the economy depends on the primary sector, yet three-quarters of the shipping containers that arrive here go uninspected for the biosecurity risks that threaten that sector because this Government expends only three-quarters of 1 percent of the value of agricultural exports on biosecurity measures to protect them. That is right—three-quarters of 1 percent, $180 million - odd spent to protect about $25 billion worth of exports. And that is only the direct exposure. Taken to the next degree, about $60 billion worth of New Zealand’s economy is at risk from biosecurity threats. Instead, we have computer systems that are rolled out despite being less than three-quarters ready for a combined ministry that is still only about three-quarters properly integrated.

Three-quarters of 1 percent is also about what this Government spends on military defence. Perhaps there are parallels here. A strongly resourced biosecurity system is just as important in terms of the defence of our country as our military is. As we arm the Defence Force so that New Zealand is part of the collective security for the region, so we must also arm ourselves to defend our future well-being against unknown biosecurity strikes. A $60 billion economy depends on it. Given this Government’s colossal lack of understanding of the need to resource defence properly and adequately, perhaps it is no surprise that it should similarly ignore the need for proper resourcing in biosecurity. Curiously enough, about three-quarters is also the proportion of the public of this country who agree with New Zealand First that we should never have got rid of the air combat force and that we want it back.

Three-quarters of an effort appears to be enough for Government members. They are about three-quarters concerned, making maybe three-quarters of an effort. I would be generous if I said they were perhaps three-quarters adequate enough to be doing the job—maybe three-quarters too generous. The voters can decide on that one. In just over 5 months, they can do just that. This Government must be living in hope that we do not have a foot-and-mouth outbreak before then, because this country’s biosecurity is nowhere near three-quarters ready to deal with one.

This problem is not going to go away in this global age when travel and trade are increasing daily. New Zealand intercepts thousands of risky organisms and risky goods each year that could threaten our $60 billion export trade, yet our biosecurity teams do not have the weapons and the staff they need to search every container coming in. New Zealand First will properly resource our border biosecurity and we will fund science and research adequately so that New Zealand is ready to handle incursions.

I just want to commence today by acknowledging the contribution of one Tau Henare to this Parliament. He has added much-needed personality and character to this place. I, for one, appreciate his sense of humour. I think it is valuable. I just want to make a point while I am on the topic and talk very briefly about the rejuvenation of any business. It is essential for any business to rejuvenate itself and to have a reasonable turnover. I note that there is not one single movement on the other side of the House to rejuvenate it. That, of course, is its problem. There could be some involuntary ones.

Today, of course, is another great day for provincial New Zealand. It is raining everywhere but the lower Rangitīkei electorate, and we need it. We have had no rain in the Rangitīkei since 21 February. It makes one realise why farmers tend to stand around in the rain. However, the very good spring and great start to summer will ensure that this year’s production will not suffer as it did last year. Significant rain will be needed very soon or next year’s production will start to suffer. For those who do not understand this, the rams are now out in the hill country, and tupping will not be as productive as ewes lose weight, meaning the probability of fewer lambs being born next spring. I will continue the agricultural lesson. Building up feed supplies is also very important for the dairy sector at this time of year, as the cows’ condition is critical as the new season approaches. As we move into the new season, it has a great influence on milk production and, consequently, interestingly enough, on the tax take next year. I will get on with some serious stuff now.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: It’s like a Federated Farmers speech.

I thought you might need a little bit of a lecture. I want to spend a little time on the work of this Government and the progress that I have seen in the Rangitīkei electorate in the past 2 years as a result of this, and on the confidence that has been retained in the business sector by the prudent leadership of the Minister of Finance, Bill English, and his fellow Cabinet Ministers. In the Ruapehu area, the Prime Minister’s national cycleway initiative has created new jobs and optimism as the cycleways progressively open up more opportunity. They are also creating new opportunities for accommodation providers and food outlets. In Taumarunui, the Forgotten World Adventures is a very successful business running carts into Whangamomona and on to Stratford and back. This business is extremely popular and has regenerated Whangamomona, its hotel, and associated backpacker businesses, and has provided new life for accommodation and food businesses in Taumaranui.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: This member’s on the same “Road to Nowhere”.

That was on the “Road to Nowhere”. There is the increasing popularity of walking, such as on the Tongariro track, with some 120,000 visitors per year walking the track, and the gorge track in the Manuwatū even attracts some 30,000-odd people every year walking across it. Other environmental tourism initiatives include the wonderful Wanganui River and two national parks, Wanganui and Tongariro. Slowly but surely more jobs are being created throughout the region, leading to new opportunity and optimism in our region. This is all created by the friendly business environment created by this Government. Of course, agricultural-related businesses are thriving in this environment as well. As market access improves, so do prices and jobs, and better pay will follow. Logs, meat, and milk are all selling well internationally and demand is continuing to be strong.

As more attention is given to the environmental matters affecting agriculture and the use of technology increases dramatically, a higher skill set is required by the sector. A more sophisticated and better-paid service sector is needed to service our farmers. These people are adding spice to our rural communities. If we maintain the momentum, we will see our smaller communities revitalised, slowing the urban drift, which is one of the keys to a brighter future for regional New Zealand.

In the Manawatū, Palmerston North, and Rangitīkei Plains part of the electorate, manufacturing is thriving, as the Minister for Economic Development, Steven Joyce, saw last week, as he visited a number of very progressive, innovative companies, including New Zealand Pharmaceuticals and C-Dax. We also have some newcomers in the area that are creating great interest and many job prospects in our region, like at Fonterra with the Massey research facilities and the Crown research institutes. It is easy to paint a very rosy picture of business progress in provincial rural New Zealand, all created by the activities and initiatives of this National Government.

I think this Government has achieved an awful lot for provincial New Zealand, and I, for one, am very proud to be part of that growth. Thank you.

“We do not reward courage with refusal.” This is a quote from one of the support services that made a submission to the Social Services Committee inquiry into the funding of sexual violence services. The Green Party believes that all New Zealanders deserve good lives and a safe future. Courageous advocates and survivors have been telling this House for decades what they need. Sadly, all too many more have been suffering in silence, and too many more again have lost their lives while they have been waiting for action from this House.

Domestic violence and sexual violence are at epidemic levels in this country. One in three women is likely to experience domestic violence in her lifetime. One in four girls and one in eight boys are likely to be sexually abused in this country. Like most people in this House and in this country, I carry stories of sexual and domestic violence with me as part of me. This issue is personal; it is not abstract. It takes incredible courage for victims to disclose abuse. It also takes incredible courage for abusers to admit fault or seek help. It takes a peculiar form of resilience for those working in these sectors to keep hopeful, to keep going, and to keep giving us another chance to fix this for their communities.

As a Parliament, this is our opportunity to all come together and reward courageous women and men with support through sexual violence services funding and also, I propose, through workplace protections for victims of domestic violence. I hold great hope for the select committee inquiry into funding proposed by Alfred Ngaro and me and supported by Labour and the Government. I hope that it will give New Zealand a cross-party solution and a sustainable solution for sexual violence so that everyone can finally get the right help and the reward for their courage. It has been suggested to me that we could see a major turn-round in the levels of violence in this country within just 10 years if we started on this now. Surely—surely—that is a future worth coming together for.

Last week I also proposed a member’s bill to help victims of domestic violence keep their jobs, because, sadly, at the moment, all too many of them are losing them or having to leave them because of the behaviour of their violent partners. This bill would also offer support for employers to be able to help their staff who are experiencing domestic violence. I put this bill forward because I know that domestic violence is a huge problem in this country and one that I believe that every member of this House wants to solve. This bill offers really practical solutions to help businesses and help victims in the workplace because it has a huge impact on our workplaces at the moment. Victims are being harassed, stalked, and assaulted in workplaces at the moment.

The Public Service Association commissioned some New Zealand research by economist Suzanne Snively, which found that, by conservative accounting, New Zealand businesses are losing $368 million a year in productivity from the impacts of domestic violence in the workplace. But even if employers had to pay for implementing all the provisions in my bill—and I think there is an argument for ACC doing it instead, for much of it—businesses would still, with all those costs, be making $150 million within 10 years through productivity gains. For me, this is another thing that we can come together on because it will save money in the income support budget, it will protect victims, and it will increase workplace productivity—win, win, win.

I hope this House will come together to ensure that we can make New Zealand a great and safe place for every New Zealander. Kia ora koutou.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātau katoa e tautoko i ngā mihi ki te Hōnore Tau Henare, tēnā koe. He wā tōna ka mihia koe e te Whare Pāremata.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Salutations to us all endorsing the accolades to the Hon Tau Henare; greetings to you. There will come a time when the House of Parliament will acknowledge you.]

Yesterday I was giving a statement to the media, and it went something along the lines that the justice system we have in Aotearoa is flawed. For many Māori it is unfair, it is biased, and it is filled with prejudice, and there is institutional racism in the justice system of this country that spans across the entire system, from the police to the courts to corrections. How do we know? Well, the United Nations recently released a report urging authorities here to address the disproportionately negative statistics that impact on Māori from the criminal justice legislation extending sentences or reducing probation or parole. We know because international reports tell us that it is institutionally racist. We know because umpteen reports written here at home base tell us that that is so. All we have to do is look at the statistics. Māori are 15 percent of the population, yet we are 50 percent of the prison population. That is a disgrace—that is a disgrace—and we have got to do something about it.

But it is not just the proportion of prisoners who are Māori; it is the proportion of Māori who are actually prisoners. For Māori males born in 1975, it is estimated that 22 percent had a corrections-managed sentence—that is, both custodial sentences and community-based sentences—before their 20th birthday, and that 44 percent had a corrections-managed sentence by the age of 35. This means that virtually every Māori whānau in the country will have someone who has been labelled a criminal. That is unacceptable to the Māori Party. We can say that Māori are four to five times more likely to be apprehended, prosecuted, and convicted than non-Māori counterparts, and in the case of Māori aged between 10 and 13 this is six times more likely. Māori are seven times more likely to be given a custodial sentence and 11 times more likely to be remanded in custody awaiting trial. It costs $90,000 to keep a prisoner in prison. It costs $1 billion to run the Department of Corrections. That is simply crazy.

I want to draw on a local example, because they are easy to talk about. Following the apprehension for crime, the percentage of Māori who are prosecuted is far higher than the percentage of non-Māori who are prosecuted. For the same crimes, Māori are arrested at three times the rate of non-Māori, and here is the example. In the Waiariki electorate, there were two similar examples that resulted in two vastly different outcomes. In one incident, a Pākehā offender was in a boating accident that caused the death of an acquaintance. This person was discharged without conviction and ordered to pay a fine to St John Ambulance. In the other incident, two young Māori boys were involved in a jet ski accident resulting in the death of a friend. They were both convicted, even though they had participated in a restorative justice process and were close friends of the victim. This conviction will now hang over them for the rest of their lives. The Tūhoe raids signalled serious flaws in how the police dealt with Māori communities. Thankfully, the police have moved to deal with that, having acknowledged that there were serious flaws in that. And, of course, the foreshore and seabed bill introduced by the Labour Government some years ago—it also acknowledged some serious flaws there.

So it is not just about acknowledging that those are there; we have got to do something about it. For our part, for the Māori Party’s part, it is that we need to try to keep people out of prison, out of the system, and get them back into the communities. We have raised a number of times through the media the need to look at a system-wide review, and the United Nations has supported this by also recommending a review of the degree of inconsistencies and systematic bias against Māori at the different levels of the justice system. Minister Sharples has established Whare Ōranga Ake, and he is also working constantly with other Ministers to advance programmes that work to address the issues of offending, such as Drivers of Crime, a youth justice plan. And we are doing some good things: the Rangatahi Court, which is an awesome initiative, and community law forums. We need to develop those further.

So we want to work with iwi and whānau to reduce Māori imprisonment and find a better way to go. We want to search for creative and integrated solutions to root causes that cause the disproportionate rates of Māori who are locked up in prisons. In the short term, and until this transformation occurs, the Māori Party would, firstly, like to throw out that stink three-strikes legislation—get it out of here—extend Whare Ōranga Ake to every State prison, initiate computers in cells to foster literacy and numeracy, support whānau focus on alcohol and drug addictions, and also reintroduce preferred lawyer status in legal aid. In the end, what we would like to do is shut down the Independent Police Conduct Authority and establish an anti-corruption commission. We believe that those are some of the answers that, moving forward, might deal at least in a small way with the issues that we have around institutional racism in Aotearoa.

It has been really insightful and instructive listening to the National MPs in this debate because clearly they are trying to get back in touch with the provinces with the speeches they have made. I think what that tells us is that they know they are in big trouble in the provinces, and so they should be. They absolutely deserve to be because just last week the GDP data that came out from Statistics New Zealand showed that economic activity per capita is actually going backwards in the Waikato but also in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Taranaki, Manawatū, Wanganui, Marlborough, the West Coast, and Southland. So those members are in big trouble and they deserve to be. The great sucking noise that you hear from provincial New Zealand is, in fact, Government services being withdrawn from the provinces in New Zealand and, as a result, economic activity dropping and unemployment going up.

Just in my area alone, the week previous to that data coming out, there were 120 jobs lost at the Hutton’s factory. That factory has been going for more than 60 years in Hamilton, but under a National Government those 120 jobs are gone and that factory is shut for good. But that was not the only thing that happened that week. That same week, because of the funding cuts from this Government in the health sector, the Waikato District Health Board decided that it was no longer going to provide maternity services in Morrinsville or Te Awamutu. Those are actually quite large New Zealand towns, and that is another example of public services being withdrawn from the provinces in New Zealand.

In Hamilton, in the Waikato region, unemployment is actually going up at the moment. In the last quarter, unemployment rose to 6.8 percent. In the previous quarter it had been at 6.1 percent. That 6.1 percent is bad enough, but, actually, unemployment is increasing in areas like the Waikato, and that shows how badly this Government is doing in the regions. We also learnt this week that the Public Service is growing in Wellington, and that is because services are being sucked out of provincial New Zealand and centralised. The Government knows that it is in real trouble and it is trying to retrieve that.

It also knows that it is in real trouble when it comes to New Zealanders understanding the growing gap between the rich and the poor in this country and inequality, because we learnt also last week that nearly three-quarters of New Zealanders know that the gap between rich and poor has increased under 6 years of the National Government, and almost two-thirds of New Zealanders feel they are no better off or have gone backwards. That is what the Herald-DigiPoll tells us, and that is the real challenge ahead of New Zealand today. We know that there will be more money to go around in the Budget, and, of course, you know, we are used to that on this side of the House because under Labour we had nine surpluses when we were in Government—nine surpluses, year after year—so we know what that looks like. But how will it be spent under a National Government? I think New Zealanders sense and know that when we get increases in the Budget, it is not going to go their way under a National Government. It is going to go to National’s mates. We have seen it time and time again, where the decisions National has made have favoured its wealthy mates at the expense of ordinary New Zealanders, and that is the challenge for the Budget coming up.

I talked earlier in question time about a way that we could actually do something that helps families. What I said—and I think these figures are important—is that the core Crown expenses for the next financial year to June 2014 are forecast to be $73.2 billion. In that same period, increasing paid parental leave to 26 weeks—under my bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill—would cost a net amount of $36 million in that same period. That is just 0.05 percent of the core Crown expenses. It would also be just 3.6 percent of the new spending that the Government is planning. So why is National insisting on using a financial veto? There is no justification for a financial veto against this bill. The public knows it. Last year Bill English was inflating the actual cost of the bill by 100 percent, and even when that inflated figure was put to New Zealanders, 62 percent of them said they wanted it anyway and they knew it was affordable. They are not going to be fooled by this Government’s plan to try to pretend it is not affordable.

Also, the submitters on this bill know it is affordable. Out of 3,807 submitters who came forward on the bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks, 99.6 percent of them agreed. They agreed that it was affordable and that it should happen in the way it is planned by Labour—staged in over the next 3 years. It is entirely affordable and the Government knows it. These are the issues in front of New Zealand.

Kia orana, Mr Assistant Speaker. The only sucking noise, which was described by that member over there, Sue Moroney, is actually the sucking up and the vacuuming of all the votes that traditionally were going to Labour but that have been sucked out by a whole lot of other parties. Why? Because—and I want to make this statement in my general debate speech—Labour is no longer the traditional choice for many people in New Zealand. It is no longer the traditional choice. You would have heard that from the honourable Minister Judith Collins. It is no longer the traditional choice. How do we know that? I think that member should be more worried about the urban centres, not the provinces.

This is how it goes. On Sunday we were at the Malaeola Community Centre, and there we were in the heart of Māngere at the Catholic service. There were over 1,000 Pacific Islanders who were there at that service. It was quite interesting because we knew at that time that there were three National MPs who were there. There were two Ministers and me. There was furious texting by Mr Su’a William Sio to try to get support to come to that service. There was a bit of a rent-a-crowd. He came along and then afterwards, when there was the interview on TV3, this is what happened. They went out to what was the traditional base and voice of the Labour Party and the question they asked was “Do you vote for Labour?”. Yes, some said yes, but here is what others said: “Yes, but Labour is not delivering the goods.” That was the first statement that was made. Oh, that has got to hurt a little bit.

Secondly—and I love the way our Pacific people said this—TV3 asked: “Oh, well, what about the leader David Cunliffe?”. And they go: “Oh, yeah. He’s good, but he’s got so much to learn. He has got so much to learn.” That has got to hurt again. Why? Because the fact is that he is not the leader of choice for the Pasifika community.

Here is the third thing. Here was Su’a. He had the people there. The rent-a-crowd at the back were all looking good and trying to make Labour look good, but when the old man with the green coat was asked the question about David Cunliffe, he simply said: “Who is David Cunliffe? Who is David Cunliffe?”. That is right. He is sort of like Where’s Wally?. Where is David Cunliffe? We do not know him. But here is where it gets really interesting. When Tova O’Brien asked the honourable member Su’a William Sio “Is that correct? Do they not know David Cunliffe?”, he said: “Yes, that’s correct.” They do not know him. So that is supposedly the heartland.

The Labour members are quiet at the moment because they know it hurts. Forget about the provinces and go back to the cities to the places where you know that you had your support—it is gone. Why? Because the people do not even know who this leader is. Sue Moroney is shaking her head, but she knows this is true, because Labour’s own member said it.

But it gets even better. Then on The Nation there was Shane Jones. He was being interviewed. He was asked the same thing too. He was asked about David Cunliffe. Even with his oratorical excellence, he stumbled and sort of said: “Well, we are a team.” and “Yes, we’re trying to gather around him.” In other words, Labour is stumbling and struggling to try to find an answer to this.

So here is the reason Labour is shifting and changing. It is no longer the traditional choice. Why? Because we are first, second, and third generation. People are saying in our Pasifika communities that actually there is another choice that we can make in order to be able to choose a Government that makes a difference for us. I want to give a couple of examples. Here is the difference. This is not about just shelling out more money to say that is it—we have got more money for benefits, more money for housing, and more money for employment. It is actually about being in partnership with those particular communities.

Let us talk about the Lotofale’ia Tongan Methodist Church in, again, the heart of Māngere. It had a 6.4 hectare block of land on Donnell Avenue. It went into a three-way partnership with a social housing provider, Lifewise, and with the Government, and $4.3 million was granted. How many homes did they build? They built 22 homes. Twenty-two homes were built. Twenty-two Tongan families now have an opportunity to be housed. Here is the point of difference. Here is the point of difference, and it is not just about doing things to people or doing things for people. It is actually doing it with this community. They are starting to wake up. They are starting to say that this is the sort of Government that they want to work with. Why? Because they can be self-determining for themselves.

I will give you another example: The Rise UP Academy. This one has really got to hurt. Why? Because here is a trust that even has Labour Party members inside. We know that on the Labour side it has clearly said that if it comes into Government, it is taking out charter schools and partnership schools. But here is this Pacific school in the heart of a community, in Māngere, turning round and saying that it wants to have the right to choose. I will tell you why it is not turning towards Labour. It is because Labour is removing the ability to make a choice for change.

💬 Hon Annette King: You wait.

Yes, that is right, Annette King. We will wait. You are removing the choice. They do not get to choose, so Rise UP Academy turned round and said: “Guess what? We want to choose for ourselves.” So here is an academy making a difference for 50 Pacific and Māori children in the heart of Māngere, again, and it has got to hurt every single time because we are making a difference with that. Let us also talk about—

Kia orana, Mr Assistant Speaker. Meitaki. Do you realise that this is my fifth month here, and I have been listening to debates across the House on the drivers of inequality in our society and the commentary on the causes and measures of child poverty, for example. Is it about choice, is it poor decision-making, or is it a lack of education? Possibly. A young mother of a 1-year-old boy came into my electorate office a few weeks ago. Having found a two-bedroom flat, she paid a week’s rent as a deposit to hold it and was seeking support from Work and Income to pay the bond to move in. Her current housing situation was really unsafe. She, along with her young son, was in a boarding house. The bedroom that they rented did not have a lock on the door, their landlord was starting to act inappropriately towards her, and she was feeling unsafe.

Work and Income was unable to support her with her bond, so she was in a bit of a predicament. She could either try to find other people to help her put up the bond or remain unsafe and lose all the money that she had already paid. We regularly have families turning up desperate for accommodation, and we have developed a pathway with local community housing providers and others to triage and support the most at risk and in need, much like the case that I have just described. We regularly have requests through the colder months for support for power bills, sometimes in excess of $300. Our local blanket bank has reported this week that it has run out of blankets, and winter has not even started yet. Our food banks report an increase in the number of people accessing them on a regular basis. I read a report recently in context with the social sector trials discussing the hospital admissions for cellulitis, pneumonia, and other respiratory conditions—conditions of overcrowding and poorly heated, damp homes.

The Social Services Committee recently heard from the sexual violence prevention sector about the pressure that it is under to deliver services to more for less. Notifications to Child, Youth and Family have increased exponentially, and the community sector is being asked to plug the gap that the statutory agency can no longer manage. Back in the electorate office, we have more people looking for accommodation who are unable to find it, to afford it when they do find it, to get into it, or to afford to keep it.

The Minister of Education believes that the way out of poverty is through education. Although I do not entirely disagree with that statement—I believe that education, and particularly the level of education of our mothers, is a key factor in the success of our children—I have a problem with the statement that is twofold. It fails to recognise and deal with the need that exists today. These fine words will not feed our kids; house them in decent, warm, dry homes; provide for their health; or help them to thrive—not the kids who are poor, hungry, and homeless.

The other problem that I have with that statement is that it flies in the face of the exemplary results that Phillipstown School has achieved with its Māori and Pacific children. On a recent visit there I was really impressed with what the school had been doing, with the achievements of these children, and with what they had made based against the national standards targets. Māori and Pacific kids are bettering their targets under national standards, yet the decision to merge that school with Woolston School goes ahead.

I believe that our families are being put in an impossible situation where, based on the resources they have, there is no choice. It is not bad decision-making; there is no decision to be made. Our families do not want handouts; they want a Government that provides jobs that will pay them enough to care for their children. That is when they can have a choice, not in a low-waged economy that means 60-hour to 80-hour working weeks to provide the basics, and sometimes not providing that. They want a Government that recognises that families build communities. That occurs when you put down roots, build relationships, and actively engage in community life and are not constantly on the move to find work and cheaper, and sometimes safer, places to live, in homes that are healthy and warm. They do not want a Government that refuses to intervene to house its people. They want a Government that will make sure that all people pay their fair share and that it is distributed with some equity across the spectrum of need. They want a Government that recognises how valuable the mother-child bond is in future success.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.