General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. What a great time to be a member of the National-led Government—back in Parliament for a third term with Prime Minister John Key showing strong leadership on the matters that make the most difference to New Zealand. Strong leadership was today demonstrated on security matters. Strong leadership on the economy, on health, on law and order, and on education. It was what New Zealanders voted for, and they are going to get it in spades this term.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the House you have got this gaggle of unemployable ne’er-do-wells. If any one of them could get a job, I am sure they would not be here. They have not mounted one single successful attack on the Government in 4 weeks. Can anyone remember one question that we have been asked by that crowd—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Kevin Hague.

—apart from Kevin Hague’s question? None at all. They are totally lost because they are immersed in a re-run of “Labour Survivor 2013”. You will remember that series from last year. Well, the one good guy in that got voted on to the island by us, one of them got voted out of the caucus by them, and then I think there is one left. Grant Robertson was skipping merrily down the aisle with political girlfriend Jacinda Ardern, seeing the victory tape in sight, when out of the blue came Andrew Little, the angry man from Taranaki, just fresh from increasing Jonathan Young’s majority to record levels twice in a row. He now thinks he is the man to the lead the Labour Party to victory. Then, of course, you have got Nanaia Mahuta providing the light-hearted comedy moments in the background. It is all bad over there.

Then you turn to the other side there. You have got the Green Party. Well, you have seen what those members are making in terms of a contribution to the House. Kevin Hague—32 questions on Katherine Rich; none on any health matters that make a difference to New Zealanders. The only thing the Green Party has done in health is suggest that we send homeopaths to West Africa to cure Ebola. Those people are off the planet and completely bonkers, and the people of New Zealand notice it. Meanwhile, we are getting on with the job.

I can tell you that with my new responsibilities as Minister of Health, it has been very interesting going around those 20 district health boards. This is fundamentally a different health system from when Mrs King was running it. When Mrs King was in charge, they had patients lying on trolleys under harsh fluorescent lighting for 24 hours without getting their operations and without getting their treatment. Mrs King was sending patients to Australia for cancer care. Under Mrs King and then the man from Dunedin, Mr Hodgson, they were kicking people off waiting lists. But the one thing I can tell you about Mrs King is watch where she is sitting, because she is always sitting beside the leader in waiting. If you look way back to when they rolled Mike Moore, she was there. When they had the barbecue at Phil Goff’s house, she was there. When they put Shearer in, she was there. She was there with Phil Goff, as well. So I am very interested to see who she is going to be backing, because where Annette King goes, that is where the Labour leadership ends up.

But what I can also tell you about the health system is you go around the doctors, the nurses, and the lab technicians, and they are energised. They are up for the challenge. They are thrilled that we are delivering 44,000 extra operations every year. They are thrilled that actually we have set those health targets. Under Labour there were no targets; there were just strategies for Africa. No one was doing anything. All the doctors were going to Australia. No one was getting their operations. Under us, we have raised the immunisation rates. We are tackling rheumatic fever. We are really focusing on those matters that make a difference to access to quality health care for New Zealanders, and it is working. The morbidity and mortality statistics are improving. We are getting more care out into primary care. We are actually doing a great job in improving our children’s health. We go around our electorates and people are telling us they are happy with the health system. My predecessor did an excellent job, but we are going to build on that.

In this election just gone, we put another $50 million into joint and bone pain. We are going to be rolling out free GP visits for under-13s. That is a massive achievement. It cuts the ground out from under Labour. Labour will never match that. People are saying: “Look, we used to vote for Labour, but you guys understand what we’re on about. We want our kids to be able to get the care they need. We want our kids to be in decent schools where we get decent reporting on how they’re doing. We want to know the streets are safe.” There is record low crime—the lowest since 1978. And do you know what we heard yesterday? Unemployment is down to 5.4 percent. This is a National Government delivering for New Zealanders. It is all good.

What a riveting speech from the cigar-smoking Minister of Health from Northcote, the greatest friend this Parliament has ever delivered to the tobacco industry. In fact, I am worried on behalf of Jonathan Coleman about where he is going to get his supply of cigars now that the National Party has recruited half of the New Zealand tobacco industry into this Parliament. I am worried that his supply of free cigars is about to dry up.

I want to talk about National’s great State house sell-off because this has been an utter shambles for the last 4 weeks. It is a shambles. Let me count the ways that the Government’s social housing policy has been a shambles. First, how many State houses does National intend to sell off? How many? John Key said: “Well, a few State houses.” Paula Bennett told Patrick Gower, when he asked whether it was as many as 22,000: “Logically, maybe.” She said: “Well, it could be thousands.” Rawdon Christie asked John Key: “Is 20,000 homes an accurate figure?”. John Key said: “I don’t think so, no.”

Well, the other big question that New Zealanders are wondering about is where will the money be invested, the billions of dollars that will be generated from the sale of State homes? Bill English said: “Well, um, we’re not going to rebuild houses with it. It could go into the consolidated account.” On another occasion he said: “Well, if we want less housing stock there is no point in rebuilding houses with it.” Will the homes be sold to private landlords? Well, Bill English said: “We could sell them to anybody.” Bill English said: “We’ll just go to the market and see who turns up, basically. Generally, financiers and developers are not interested in social housing because it is too hard. What drives their interest is wanting to do a better job with tenants.” So it is a shambles. They are looking at privatising up to a third of an $18 billion public asset that has been putting a roof over the heads of vulnerable Kiwi families for 80 years now. I think New Zealanders deserve a bit more clarity.

But what is clear behind the bland Crosby/Textor assurances that trip so easily from the tongue of Paula Bennett—“wraparound services”, “We’re working with the community.”, “We’re all about the people.”—is that nothing could be further from the truth. What is clear here is that Bill English has had a back to the 1990s moment. He and Treasury are on an ideological crusade to end State housing as we know it. Bill English’s answer to the housing crisis, his answer to a shortage of affordable housing, is to blame the councils, blame the Resource Management Act, and flog off what State houses the Government does own. He has basically said to the New Zealand Herald that he just wants to get the $18 billion State housing asset off the Crown’s balance sheet. He wants to get the Government out of the business of actually owning houses, and simply pay a subsidy to landlords.

There are three reasons why this is a really dumb idea. First, shifting tens of thousands of New Zealand families out of State housing and into a voucher system, as Paula Bennett describes it—effectively putting money directly into the pockets of landlords—will undoubtedly drive up rents. You do not increase supply but you fuel demand by pumping subsidies in, just as National announced before the election, by subsiding first-home buyers in an overheated market. It will drive rents up. Second, social housing tenants, under this system, will inevitably end up competing with first-home buyers and other renters, making an already difficult housing market much worse. The third reason is that owning houses and having them earmarked for the express purpose of social housing means that even when the market gets tight, as it is now, at least you can be sure that there is a pool of housing there for the people who need it most. Under Paula Bennett’s voucher system, you do not get that kind of security. If private landlords and profit providers are in the mix, as Bill English has said they will be, they will naturally go to where the best profits can be made.

There is some kind of bizarre determination by this Government to somehow build an artificial market in social housing. But the market has never ever delivered affordable, decent housing to the people who need it most.

It is always a pleasure following the member Phil Stoner Twyford, although I must say I get disappointed with him. I thought he was one of the nice guys, but to hear the ad hominem attacks from that member, and having a series of Opposition questioners on the other side asking questions about personalities rather than policies, shows parties in this Parliament are bereft of ideas. Well, that is not the case on this side of the House.

I do want to say this, though.

💬 Phil Twyford: Don’t forget, Simon, you’ve been told to be nice, not arrogant and conceited.

That is right. I do want to say this, though. Today it is a privilege to speak, a day when we have had a serious debate and a series of speeches on a very significant set of issues for New Zealand and the world. Of course, I think we can all agree that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a barbarous organisation that is having its effect in the Middle East and in Islamic countries but also in Western countries, including New Zealand. We are not immune, and we know—the Prime Minister gave a speech today on this matter—that ISIL has been successfully recruiting and working in New Zealand to further its evil aims.

I just want to say, while the Hon Annette King is in the House, that I agree with her and what I thought was a very good speech from the Opposition there. She is absolutely right. This is a question of balance. It is a question of acting calmly and proportionally, and that is exactly what the Prime Minister and this National-led Government have done. We have not overreacted. We do, of course, have a duty of responsibility to New Zealanders, and that is why we are making proportionate law changes that will be in this House a little later this year—discreet legal changes to protect New Zealanders in a proportionate way.

We are also, then, acting internationally. The only other speech I have given so far in this House since the election was on the day after we had been elected to the United Nations Security Council, and I was actually really proud. The flag debate was kicking off and I was really proud to be part of a Government, part of a country, that is outward-looking, that is confident, and that is a responsible global corporate citizen in this world that we live in. The quid pro quo of that, of course, is that on occasions like this we have to step up and act in the interests of New Zealanders, and also be good global corporate citizens.

Because the question was asked in the House today, I also want to talk about another serious issue facing this world of ours—climate change. I want to say quite clearly to the member that this is a party, this is a Government, that has a strategy and a plan, and it is working hard on what is a serious issue in this country. We have a comprehensive emissions trading scheme. We accept—we all accept—that it is at a low price at the moment because of global conditions, but there is a broad range of actions and initiatives that this Government is taking to deal with this issue, not least in the portfolios I am privileged to hold. The point I really make to the members is that climate change is about much more—and climate change policy is about much more—than a price signal in the emissions trading scheme. That is why, if we go through the things we are doing and we look at where the emissions are, 47 or 48 percent—

💬 Phil Twyford: The price of carbon matters.

—Phil Stoner Twyford—come from agriculture. That is an area where it is disruptive technology that will make the difference, and that is why we in this country lead the Global Research Alliance on agricultural emissions, to find a step change in that area.

The rest of the emissions—nearly half of them—come from energy. That is why in the area of transport, where I am Minister, we are doing a lot of thinking about what we can do with our fleet and electric vehicles in some of these issues. That is why we have got a Heavy Vehicle Fuel Efficiency programme being rolled out, which is making a difference. That is why we have increased that programme. That is also why, in the energy sector, we make sure that our policies—and this is a perverse thing about the left; their policies would actually set this back—are increasing renewables in this country year on year, and, why, to the year to date, we have 79 percent of renewables from our electricity system. We are third or fourth at the moment in the world and we will make 90 percent by 2025. I think that is something we should be very proud of.

We have rolled out a number of other initiatives in that wider energy area—[Bell rung]—such as the renewable heat hub that I have been talking about—

Order! Just to remind members in the general debate that the bell goes after 5 minutes and they sit down.

In this year’s election, only one party addressed the widespread concerns that New Zealanders have with the current immigration policy, and that was New Zealand First. New Zealand First will be making immigration a major theme of our role in this parliamentary term, too, and we will probably be the only party to do so. This Government has a completely irresponsible and irrational immigration policy that is causing great damage to the interests of New Zealand. The Government has been boasting of net immigration at uncontrolled, record levels. It is actually telling the public that uncontrolled, record net immigration is some kind of measure of success. It claims that this massive, unplanned immigration is an achievement. In fact, the record numbers of migrants show that New Zealand has a slack, uncontrolled immigration policy—in effect, an open-door policy. The numbers of migrants are nothing short of an indictment on this Government’s incompetence on immigration.

For a start, what record numbers of immigrants show is that no consideration is given to the relationship between immigration and housing policy, while every day brings new horror stories about the housing crisis, especially in Auckland and Christchurch. In Auckland, there are soaring house prices as desperate people scramble to get a home. Hundreds of families are left to squat in caravans and garages. The Government is full of empty rhetoric about the housing crisis. Its failure to address the crisis for over 6 years continues. This Government does not have any genuine concern about the desperate housing situation faced by thousands of New Zealanders, because the one meaningful action it could take today, if it was serious about housing, would be to turn off the tap to new migrants.

Of course we cannot stop New Zealanders returning to New Zealand, and neither would we want to, but we do not have to let the rest of the world in. All the Government’s talk about housing is bogus. It is a total smokescreen. It is looking at only one side of the supply and demand equation for housing because it stupidly refuses to deal with the demand for housing generated by high immigration. Cut immigration now—that is what we say. That is the quickest and most effective way to relieve pressure on the housing market immediately. It is utterly astonishing, if not bizarre, that the Government cannot make the connection between immigration and housing.

But the Government’s immigration policy is deeply flawed for a whole range of reasons, not just housing. Take jobs. We have over 140,000 unemployed. Tens of thousands more have given up on finding any sort of job at all. Yet migrants are flooding in on a temporary work visa basis. The wages and conditions of most New Zealanders are hardly moving, leaving tens of thousands of families in severe financial stress, and it is no wonder. Massive immigration is undermining the pay of ordinary New Zealanders.

The truth is that the Government is only too happy to see that happening. Cheap labour is what its corporate cronies want and it fits with National’s commitment to globalisation. And then there is the foreign student visa racket, and a racket it is. Why are we allowing foreign students to work in New Zealand? In case the Government has not noticed, there are thousands of very able young New Zealand school-leavers and graduates who cannot find a job. Why should they have to compete with hordes of foreign students? It does not make sense. Of course, if New Zealanders are displaced in the job market, they may well end up on the unemployment benefit.

Thanks to wildly excessive immigration, New Zealand now has one of the fastest-growing populations in the OECD. That is causing great stress on housing, the labour market, and our infrastructure generally, and there is no follow-up to see just how well these migrants have settled in New Zealand. What checking is being done to ensure migrants have not become a burden on the taxpayer? We certainly have a lot more taxi drivers, and some on benefits, so just what skills are we actually getting? There is no genuine attempt to really verify that at all. This is now an open-door land. [Bell rung] It is the usual—

Order! This is the second member I have had to remind and the third member who has breached the rule. When the bell goes in the general debate, people sit. About two or three words are OK, but not the next couple of sentences.

Today has been a very important day for New Zealand. The Prime Minister has made an announcement that I think should give people cause to think about what dangers New Zealand actually has, particularly in terms of our security around people who might see themselves as wanting to go off to Syria, Iraq, and other places like that to become jihadists or terrorist fighters. We have seen acts of terrorism in countries such as Australia and Canada. The UK has become well used to being the subject of terrorism. The United States, many other countries like Indonesia, and, obviously, Syria and Iraq have had tremendous terrorism.

Terrorism is something where there is normally a public display that is there for large audiences. It is now put on YouTube and it is used to create a sense of fear amongst as many people as possible. It is actually, after this announcement, that we as a country need to react to that, and the best way for us to do that is not to go immigrant-bashing and not to revert to religious bigotry, but to remember that terrorism comes in all forms, and at the moment there is this one called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. It is one that is absolutely dedicated to the most extreme acts of violence against people such as aid workers, and truckdrivers who give up their jobs to go to help deliver food in places like Syria. That is the level of the people who are having those people’s heads cut off with knives, videoing it, and then distributing the images around the world. Those are the sorts of people whom we are talking about.

So today, when I heard the Green Party’s contribution from Metiria Turei, I, like many other people in this House, wondered what planet she was on. I thought: “A family group conference isn’t going to help this one.” Appeasement never really does when you are dealing with people who do not want to have a solution. But I did agree with her on a couple of points. The first is the right to free speech. It is not one that I have always seen the Greens exercise in practice, but I certainly agreed with her right to say whatever she wanted to say today. But the other thing that I did agree with her on—and I think it is really important—is that brute force alone does not solve this problem. Also, however, I think it is very foolish to think that this is just an isolated group of disenchanted people who want to be made important. I think about someone like the late—thankfully—Osama bin Laden. He was hardly a disenfranchised poor person from Saudi Arabia, but the son of a multibillionaire. These are the sorts of people who have funded terrorism and they still do now, and there are Governments, I am sure, that are involved in that.

It is really important, though, that we look at these changes that the Prime Minister has discussed today and that we consider them carefully. I thought the Labour Party, under Annette King’s leadership, had a very sensible response. I would not suggest for a moment—because I quite like her—that she should put her hand forward to be the next leader of the Labour Party, but I do think it was a very reasonable and sensible response, and certainly significantly better than the response when the Search and Surveillance Bill came through, when the only parties that did vote for it were National, ACT, and United Future. But, of course, all that is forgotten now, except by me.

I think it is really important, though, that we think about the fact that when we have got 30 to 40 people, as we were told by the Prime Minister, who are of real concern to the New Zealand SIS and that there are 30 to 40 other people whom it needs to check, it is actually a significant number for a country like us. I would also say to those who want to spend today attacking immigrants that most of these people, I suggest, are not necessarily immigrants. There are quite a lot of home-grown people involved in this, and I think many of us will have seen those who have been publicised—people who have decided to convert to a religion in its most extreme form as an excuse for extreme violence. That is actually what you are dealing with—not necessarily people who are religious, but people who are violent and who want an excuse to be able to perpetrate that violence with impunity. Those are the people whom I think we should be very concerned about—never frightened, but concerned. We heard today about Canada and about its Parliament being so closely aligned to ours. I mean, what terrible act was the poor soldier guarding the war memorial doing when he was gunned down and killed—murdered? That is what we are dealing with.

Thank you for the opportunity. I do agree with the earlier speaker that there were some serious issues debated earlier, at the beginning of this parliamentary session. However, the public listening in to this debate would not have known that it was serious given the way the backbenchers of the National Party chatted, grumbled, and tried to interfere when Opposition members were making contributions.

There is another serious matter that I want to raise, and it has to do with the great house sale—the State house sale by this particular Government. Only the other week I heard Dr Shane Reti during his maiden speech make a comment that resonated with me. He made reference to the fact that he grew up in a State house. The point that I thought was important, and I am not sure whether the rest of the House noted it, was that he talked about the need for us to take responsibility for those following behind us. Unlike Dr Shane Reti, there are members of this House who do not feel that way—who have a similar experience, who had the advantage of being supported through a State house but who now, in the positions they are in, do not want to pass on that support to the rest of the population. I also heard Dr Lance O’Sullivan, another Northlander, say that when his parents could not provide for him, his country supported him, and now, as a result of that, he spends all of his days giving back to the community.

That is unlike what I have heard from the Prime Minister, who is somebody who grew up in a State house; the Minister Paula Bennett, who grew up in a State house; Alfred Ngaro, who, I have no doubt, grew up in a State house; and Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, who grew up in a State house. It seems they have now taken a stance that it was OK for our country to support them, but they have taken another stance that they do not want—[Interruption] Well, that is probably because he is named Ngaro, which is Pukapukan for somebody who is lost, somebody who is forgotten. He has forgotten that the rest of New Zealand supported him, and he has now forgotten that he has a duty to support those of us coming through who are less fortunate.

There is a waiting list of 6,000—more than 6,000 people who are waiting to get into a State house because they cannot afford to pay the market rent and because they are currently living in someone’s garage, sharing a relative’s living room, in a boarding house, in an emergency house, or, as we saw the other day, living in a car or in a caravan park. These people shower at the public toilets. They use sports club facilities to get dressed and prepare their children to go to school. They do not have regular incomes because one week they will have a 40-hour week, which they are paid for, and another week they will not have any hours because of the casualisation of the work they are in.

That is the reality. We currently have a housing crisis that this Government refuses to acknowledge. It refuses to acknowledge that there is child poverty. We do not hear Government members using that particular word any more. They continue to say something else to try to cover the situation, the crisis we are in.

Prior to the election, a young woman came to my office. Her mother had passed away. There were three of them—she and her two young siblings. She was 18 years of age, with a young sibling aged 6 and another one of 3 years of age. Housing New Zealand was determined to evict them because the house was in their mother’s name. These three young people could not live with a relative because the auntie already had a full house. Prior to the election, we managed to convince Housing New Zealand to find sustainable accommodation for them. After the election, guess what? Instead of giving them the proper notice, Housing New Zealand then said that they had to move out to the private sector. They had to find—and this is a quote from the official’s mouth—“sustainable accommodation”. I could not convince those officials that these three young children needed a house to live in. In fact, what they said to me was that it is against Government policy to house this group of young people, who could not live on their own because their parent had died. So guess what? The Government knows there is a housing crisis, but it does not care. It does not care one iota.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak after the member Su’a William Sio. I would say that that speech was like the speech of a white knight on a white horse, but in his case it is a brown knight on a brown donkey.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

This is it—this is what has become of this speech.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No, no. I think the member will just change his tone a bit. Thank you.

This is what has become of the speech. It is the classic speech, the socialist speech that keeps coming out, and, by the way, the assumption that I grew up in a State house is not true. This is the thing—all these assumptions about who we are as Polynesian people growing up, the assumptions in his speech that talked about the knight coming in to save our communities, and save our people. In other words, they cannot save themselves. Well, this is what happens. Labour Party members keep saying: “We are here, as the Labour Party, to save you.” Well, guess what? Here is some news—our community does not need you to save it. Why? Because we can save ourselves. That is right. But this is what has happened—those sorts of speeches have become a one-trick pony. It is the same thing over and over again, hence the reason that over a million New Zealanders did not vote for the Labour Party. Labour has had the poorest result in the history of the Labour Party—in 92 years. So it is going to have to take some lessons from that.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Not as bad as the National Party in 2002. Don’t forget that.

You can shout all you like, but here is the reason why we are making a difference. Why? Because when we talk about poverty, hardship, and difficulty, it is not about saying: “Here are the things we are going to do for you.” Our communities do not need to be told that we are here to save them. All they want and all they need is opportunity and a fair go. So here is the reality.

Out there in west Auckland, in Te Atatū, where I went and campaigned for 2½ months, here is the difference it made. In 2½ months the people of Te Atatū turned round and said they halved the majority for a Labour seat that had been Labour for some time.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Turned around and said they wanted Phil Twyford, not Alfred Ngaro.

That is right. The majority of the party vote was increased from 700 in 2011 to nearly 2,000. That is what actually happened in 2½ months. Here is a telling sign. When I was at Rutherford College, Will Flavell came out and said this to me: “Geez, you’re going hard, aren’t you?”. I asked him how long he had been out in the west and he said: “Maybe some 10 years.” So here is a lesson from the wise about how it rolls out in the west. You either go hard or you go home.

Our communities want to hear the messages that make a difference, so you talk about housing and how that makes a difference. Our communities heard about KiwiBuild—100,000 homes, 10,000 per year—but here is the telling thing in the debate. Down at McLaren Park, when Phil Stoner Twyford was asked this question: “So you’re saying you’ve got 10,000 per year?”, he said that was correct. But on Q+A on Sunday he said he could build 400 in the first year, 8,000 in the second, and 12,000 in the next. That is right—it is accumulative over a period of time. People began to see through the lies and realised that is not what makes a difference. Our housing policies are making a difference.

Here is the other thing. The issues around a capital gains tax did not make a difference. That is right. [Interruption] Wahine, you can keep talking and crying all the time—here is what made a difference. All of a sudden it was a failed policy. You no longer talk about it. Why? Because it became an inheritance tax.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard: Order!

So here is the thing that becomes important. Time and time again our communities are saying that the policies are weak, the implementation does not happen, and the reality is there is nothing new. You are going to have to change your message because it is not getting through.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not know whether it is appropriate for that member to say that you need to change.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Yes, and if the member had been listening she would have heard me correct him at the time.

Here is the other bit in the issues around poverty that we believe is making a difference. Just this afternoon, for instance, we were down here looking at the Big Picture art exhibition. Over there the young children from Pukehamoamoa School had won the prize, and why? Because they showed a picture that showed that poverty is a very complex issue in our communities. We know that there is hardship in our communities. We know that there are difficulties. So how are we solving this? We are dealing with the issues in hardship, for instance, with free GP visits for children under 13, ensuring that they get access to health services that are there. What are we also doing, for instance? We are ensuring that we are engaging into communities so that they enrol into early childhood education. We know the difference that that makes to our communities—and it is making a difference. We know how that is engaging our communities as well.

I also want to talk about the fact that our Pasifika communities are changing and moving towards a value-based, National-led Government and the things that we are doing. We are seeing it happen constantly, over and over again. Why? Because those values of opportunity are constantly coming through for our people as well. Here is the difference that we know that it is making. The economy is growing by 3.9 percent.

At last. Health promotion is the discipline of improving health by addressing not only the individual factors that drive illness but also the risk environments that drive illness. Health promotion involves going beyond education and social marketing and trying to address and change those environments. Health promotion funding over the past 6 years has more than halved. That is one of the reasons why we supported the creation of the Health Promotion Agency. We felt it could make a difference. But our eyebrows were certainly raised—and those of many health promoters were raised—by the appointment of Katherine Rich to the board of the Health Promotion Agency. That is because Mrs Rich appears to have a pretty deep conflict of interest and it was very hard to see how that was going to be managed. The main causes of preventable illness and death in this country are tobacco, alcohol, and unhealthy food and drink. Mrs Rich’s day job is in fact to maximise the consumption of and profit from those very products, which conflicts with the role that she would have as a member of the Health Promotion Agency board to minimise the consumption of and harm from those products. It is a fundamental conflict of interest. It was hard to see how she was going to be able to manage it.

Managing conflicts of interest is not, as the Minister of Health would have us believe, a trivial matter. It goes beyond an ethical duty—it is a legal duty. The Crown Entities Act sets out specific legal duties that members of the Health Promotion Agency board have got, and there are three levels. The first is to complete and maintain a register of interests—professional interests, personal interests; a general register. The second level is that when a potential conflict of interest arises in relation to a specific agenda item that is being considered by the board, the member of the board must declare that potential conflict of interest. The third level is that in relation to that matter—in relation to that potential conflict—the member must withdraw from discussion and decision making in relation to that matter.

I have to say that Katherine Rich has been very diligent in her completion of that first duty. She has maintained a register of interests, but she has completely failed in both of those other duties. She has never ever—not even once—declared a conflict of interest with any item being considered by the Health Promotion Agency board, and that is despite every single meeting that she has attended including discussion by the Health Promotion Agency of strategy on at least one of, and usually more, alcohol, tobacco, or food and drink. She has failed in that legal duty. She has never ever—not even once—withdrawn from any discussion of or decision making in relation to any matter being considered by the board. She has failed absolutely to meet her ethical and legal obligations. That is not just some technical or theoretical duty that she has slipped up on; it is a fundamental thing.

So, for example, the Health Promotion Agency has submitted in favour of the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill. Katherine Rich submitted against it. Over the past several weeks, questions in this House have been exploring the very serious allegations made against Mrs Rich in Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics—that she engaged Carrick Graham to commission and write blog posts for the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, attacking public health experts. I do not know whether that allegation is correct or not. If it is not, I would be very interested to know what the initials “KR” stand for. That is a very serious allegation, and what we have heard from Minister Coleman today, and in the House over the past several weeks, is that he has not even bothered to ask Katherine Rich whether the allegations are true. She has not denied it in public. She has not issued a defamation action against Nicky Hager. The Minister has not even commenced an investigation as to whether the allegations are true. This is a Government that has been mired by allegations of cronyism, and Minister Coleman appears intent on continuing that.

I felt fortunate to be given a general debate spot today by the Hon Gerry Brownlee, especially in relation to the announcement that was made today by the Prime Minister as to what we are planning or looking at doing to help with the threat that the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) presents not just in the Middle East but as a growing global threat. There are just a few facts that I want to remind everyone in the House of, because I have listened to the contributions and it is good to see that there is general support and consensus around what our Prime Minister is doing.

Iraq is a sovereign country. I was lucky enough to be there and help to deliver the first elections after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. It is a sovereign country. It does have a democracy and its people have voted in a democratically elected Government. They have asked for help because they are having a tough time of it there at the moment. They have got a terror group that has grown and that is operating across two borders. It is well-organised. It is well resourced. Never before have we seen these groups have access to the types of funds that they currently have access to. The Hon Gerry Brownlee made a very good point that they are not just operating in the Middle East; they are operating in places like Somalia, Yemen, and Nigeria, and their tactics are changing.

The one thing that I was very pleased and relieved to see as a member of the National caucus was how carefully our leadership group is approaching this. I do not feel like we could have a stronger team leading our country into this than our Prime Minister; the Hon Gerry Brownlee, the Minister of Defence; and the Hon Murray McCully, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, and who is, probably at the moment in this country—in fact, he would be in this country—the one person who has got more knowledge than anyone in terms of what is happening globally, with the work that he has put in and the fantastic result that he and his team delivered in our securing a seat on the United Nations Security Council; and, of course, Chris Finlayson, the top legal mind in the country in terms of making sure that we remain compliant.

I was lucky enough back in 2002-03 to be responsible for overseeing the training of the newly formed security forces inside Iraq, which included the Iraqi Police Service, the Iraqi National Guard, the Facilities Protection Service, the border and customs police, and the tactical support unit. As part of that role, I oversaw the training that was delivered by Kiwis, Brits, and also Americans. I can tell you now that it made a huge, fundamental difference in the way that the Iraqi security services were able to deploy and operate. So I was very pleased to hear that the Prime Minister is considering this as an option—for us to make a contribution—because it would make a real, tangible contribution to helping Iraq out in its struggle against ISIL.

I just want to acknowledge the Peshmerga fighters, who are really taking the fight to ISIL at the moment. I was lucky enough to work with them also. They are certainly a group that are not short on courage and they are passionate about their homeland, and they are showing that they are putting up a stiff resistance. I acknowledge the Iraqi forces as well, which are doing the best that they can within the environment that they have to operate in.

I will just say a little bit about that environment and some of the risks that they face. We do not hear about it and we do not really talk about it too much, but you have to remember—and I think the Prime Minister alluded to it today—that a big part of how these terror groups operate is through kidnapping. Actually, families of members of the armed forces are targeted. That, of course, puts them in a very difficult situation. What would any of us do if we were faced with a situation where our family, our children, or our wife has been taken and there are demands put on you in terms of whether or not you will actually turn up the next day and deploy with your colleagues? So this is one of the challenges that they really face.

In terms of their tactics, I think David Shearer made a very good point and the Prime Minister backed it up. We are not being alarmist. No one wants to be alarmist. Every single night we go to bed, and probably most of us are unaware that the police are out there dealing with all types of crimes that we will never see, that will never touch us, but that are happening. But they are trained, and they understand how to deal with those.

The big State house sell-off is real, and it is amongst us, and it is the result of this Government and its plans to abdicate its responsibility in the State housing space.

I want to stand and bring up a very localised situation that I am experiencing in the Hastings and Napier area when it comes to a real lack of State housing stock. I have got numerous reports in the papers that go back months and months, saying that the situation is getting worse. I am having meetings on a regular basis. It was quite hurtful to hear the honourable Alfred Ngaro talking about people having to look after themselves because, I am proud to say, our first family home was achieved through the capitalisation of my sister’s family benefit. That allowed my family—my parents and five siblings—to get on the homeownership ladder. I acknowledge that and we are proud. She keeps reminding us that she actually owns the family home, even though she is 55 now.

But in all seriousness, there have been some great policies in the past that kept our obligations as a State, as a Crown, to help those who do want to get into homeownership. I just want to remind this House that those policies in the past did actually work and we did get people into homeownership. I want to stand and say there is nothing that makes you more proud than to know that you own your own home. But the reality for a lot of the communities and constituents we on the Opposition side represent is that just getting a decent roof over their heads for themselves and their family is a basic right for every New Zealander.

Like I said, I want to put a spotlight on three areas. When I spoke earlier addressing the Speech from the Throne, I highlighted some amazing people—local champions who are working in the advocacy role of their own will and through their own commitment because they see the hardships many, many families are facing in the Hastings and Napier area. I want to acknowledge them for what they do on behalf of those on the long waiting list.

Kiri Swindell is a wonderful lady from Napier, who every Friday at 6 p.m. is in the Clive Square soup kitchen feeding between 15 and 40 homeless people, mainly men—15 to 20 in Napier who come to her soup kitchen, which she provides with her husband. She does not work for any agency. She does not receive any funding. She does it because she sees a need. So I want to acknowledge what Kiri says. She, along with the other advocates who I know in the Hawke’s Bay, are meeting on a regular basis so that we can bring the issues on homelessness and the struggles of people in both Napier and Hastings to the public’s attention. A lot of it is getting led by this Government, saying that everything is kei te pai, when really we all know that at the end of it, it is not. So I want to acknowledge Kiri and her husband for the work they do in Napier.

I want to also acknowledge Florence Karaitiana, who is another local housing advocate who works in the Raureka, Camberley, and Flaxmere areas. These women have taken it upon themselves to be informed about the housing situation. Florence has aerial photographs of all the State homes of Raureka, of Camberley, and of Flaxmere—all the State homes. Her question is: why are they vacant when we have so many on the waiting list? It is a pretty simply question. In fact, they were in my electorate office and we literally counted each State home from these area maps and we got up to at least 100 in those three suburbs.

It baffles me that we hear from the Government that it has got a housing plan when in reality, when I go back to my electorate office in Hastings and Napier, I have people coming in daily who are waiting for State houses. It is just not fair. In Maraenui we have over 100 vacant State homes boarded up. I want to acknowledge that we have had some new two-bedroom, futureproofed homes built in Maraenui, but the supply is not keeping up with the demand. Thank you.

It is my pleasure to speak in this general debate tonight because it is my turn to highlight the fantastic work that this John Key - National Government is doing to enhance and strengthen our community across New Zealand but also in Invercargill and Southland. All throughout the campaign, the Opposition cried how rubbish New Zealand was, how terrible it was to live here, and how the sky was falling. Well, New Zealand did not agree, and I certainly do not agree.

As such, I am extremely proud of the achievements that this Government has made in these difficult economic times to grow our economy, to deliver better public services, and to support our families. This is a Government that is not afraid to think outside the box. We have initiatives novel to the Opposition, such as a Business Growth Agenda, implementing strategies to keep New Zealand open for business, and negotiating essential free-trade agreements, which are especially important for areas such as Southland that have an export-driven economy. New Zealand simply does not have enough people to sell our wares to, and we must treat the rest of the world as our business partners.

This Government is also investing in infrastructure. We are investing in ultra-fast fibre to connect even our most isolated businesses with the rest of the world, and Southland is a prime example. Even though we live at the bottom of the world and our hair is swept with the winds off the polar ice caps, our businesses are thriving. They are producing more, they are hiring more staff, and they are generating higher incomes for our people.

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Some pretty good MPs, too.

Thank you. In fact, unemployment figures released today in the household labour force survey say that the South Island unemployment rate is 3.4 percent. That is fantastic.

Unlike the Labour Party, this Government is a dynamic one. We are not one-trick ponies. Not only do we care about building a strong economy but we care about our families getting ahead too. Take health care, for example. We introduced free doctors visits and prescriptions for children under 6, and now we are extending it to children under 13 years of age. This means that cost is not a barrier to our children getting the medical attention that they need and early intervention, including immunisation programmes, to keep our kids healthy. I am so pleased that another doctor’s surgery in Invercargill has signed up to that scheme to keep our Southland kids healthy. This year our public health care budget will reach a record $15.6 billion.

💬 Scott Simpson: How much?

$15.6 billion. We are making each dollar go further, and we are focused on front-line results. There are more elective surgeries to reduce pain, restore independence, and improve quality of life. Since 2008 there are 1,600 more doctors and 3,200 more nurses in district health boards. We care about New Zealanders’ health and their lifestyles.

I want to pay tribute to the Southland Institute of Technology. Yesterday it signed a memorandum of understanding with an Indonesian polytechnic, LP3i Polytechnic, to develop an exchange programme not only to enrich, obviously, Invercargill’s cultural diversity but to bring students over for a staircase option to allow them to study, after they have completed their diplomas, to complete a degree in commerce, applied management, or hotel management. This is indicative of the standard and the quality of the courses offered by the Southland Institute of Technology. This John Key - National Government has a goal of doubling the total value of international education to $5 billion by 2025, as set out in our Business Growth Agenda. The polytech and Invercargill are contributing to this through such alliances, and I look forward to meeting the first students taking part in this exchange soon.

There is much still to be achieved, but New Zealand, Invercargill, and Southland are coming out of one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression and we are well on the way to a more prosperous and meaningful position. I look forward to being part of this positive and pragmatic Government now and in the future.

This Government is embarking upon the most significant change in State and social housing that this country has seen in 80 years. It is going to be a disaster. It is going to be an absolute disaster. When we look at the housing issues in this country, the spectrum of need goes from homelessness—people living in cars, garages, and tents—right through to the other end where only those with the most wealth can actually afford a home these days. It is shameful what this Government is attempting to do to those most vulnerable, those most in need of housing.

We are talking about State housing—our housing; housing that is owned by the New Zealand taxpayer, housing that we are proud of, that we should be proud of, and that we should continue to invest in. It is State housing, which this Government wants to morph into the terminology of social housing. Let us get it right. State housing is housing that we own as a nation. It supports our beneficiaries, supports our low-income families, supports people who are unwell, supports young parents, supports our older people, and supports our community organisations. When I ran a refuge, I had the privilege of having community support through State housing to support women and children who were trying to escape violence. That is what State housing is about. It serves people who cannot access affordable housing through the private rental market.

Let us look at what the Minister of Finance, Bill English, said today about the Government’s changes to State housing—the proposed sell-off of some of the State houses. Some of them will go to social housing providers, but not all. Some of them will be retained by Housing New Zealand, and others—the rest of them—will be sold. Who to? To private landlords, that is who. What will they do with them? There are two pathways of thought around this. What is the justification for selling State houses? The Minister Bill English said that they needed to be fit for purpose, so they needed to be the right type, in the right place, in the right condition, and of the right size. OK, so he is probably talking about three-bedroom homes, which are not the right size for families in need and for some people in need.

There are 6,000 people on the Housing New Zealand priority A waiting list. About 1,400 to 2,000 of those people are waiting for transfers from one type of house to another. There would be more than 4,000—nearly 4,500—people alone waiting for a type of house. There are some real difficulties that I have with reviewable tenancies, which will move people from their current State houses and into other types of housing. It means that we are putting vulnerable people out into the private housing market, and letting them drift. We are divesting ourselves of housing, with no plans to invest that funding back into the housing market. If the Government does have plans, tell us about them. Where is the transparency? What are your plans? What are you going to do? What is the Government planning to do?

My second area of concern is around the accommodation supplement. There has not been a lot of discussion about what is going to happen around the accommodation supplement. There has been really limited discussion around this. Who does the accommodation supplement support? It supports the private landlords—the private landlords—who are likely to pick up some of these State houses that we are selling. Will the Government actually tell us what it is budgeting, what it is committing to in terms of the accommodation supplement? Minister English said today that the changes to social housing, State housing, was going to provide more money to be available for people and their housing needs—not more housing; more money. This signals to me that there is going to be more money available for private landlords for the accommodation supplement, and that is a shame. It is a tragedy. We need to build houses, not provide more money for private landlords—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: To put rents up.

—to put rents up, to live off the poor, low-income folk who actually want decent housing and deserve decent housing.

What has this Government committed to pay directly into the pockets of private landlords?

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.