Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

In New Zealand First we believe that health is a really critical investment. We were concerned about the lack of focus on health in the Prime Minister’s speech. We have grave concerns when we compare ourselves with other countries like Australia, our nearest neighbour. We know that health outcomes should be very similar in Australia and New Zealand, but in reality they are not. New Zealand is falling behind, and it is not really good enough. There are so many issues on which we should be competing on a level playing field, but the reality is that we are not. Health outcomes are, basically, a defining feature of our First World status.

In New Zealand First we are committed to actions to improve health outcomes in the area of non-communicable diseases like obesity and diabetes, as well as to stamping out Third World diseases like rheumatic fever. More needs to be done in these areas. A whole heap more needs to be done. The bottom line is that spending more smartly has to be a focus, and this means putting an emphasis on preventive measures like, for example, our SuperGold Health Check Bill, which New Zealand First has in the members’ ballot. We believe that putting a fence at the top of the cliff is far easier than having an ambulance at the bottom, and, of course, it is far, far cheaper. The ultimate aim for all New Zealanders is to have certainty about their health care and an assurance that there is access to timely services—quality services.

The Government cannot ignore these challenges—they are not going to go away—and with an ageing population and a growing population we are going to have greater challenges than we have ever had before. Thank you.

It has been a terrific summer, with great weather, barbecues, and breaks for many New Zealanders, I am sure. But, sadly, slowly, we have all had to come back to normality—to work, to picking up our children from school with their empty lunchboxes. It is good, actually, to see New Zealand First come along with their lunchboxes replete with the Australian flag on them. But we are back to normality in this House as well, because the Government is focused resolutely on getting on with the job and with what matters to New Zealanders.

Of course, the Opposition is focused on pretty much everything else. It is focused on MPs who are no longer MPs and on a convention centre that taxpayers actually do not have to pay for. I will give Phil Twyford credit for something. He actually, unlike his colleagues in the Labour Party, asked a policy question today. I accept he did struggle to keep up with Bill English in terms of the answers that were given, but he asked a policy question. We did not see that from the other members in his party. [Interruption] Well, it is hard to know, frankly.

This is a party that believes that New Zealand has so much to be optimistic about over the next 3 years. We have got a top Prime Minister, commonly recognised as such around the world. We have got an economy that is going very well—we acknowledge it can go better—where jobs are up, inflation is down, growth is up, unemployment is down, incomes are up, interest rates are low, and New Zealanders are feeling the benefits of that. We see it—Mr Clayton Mitchell knows—in Tauranga, with construction booming, with residential properties booming, with the kiwifruit industry back on its feet doing well, and with that flowing through into the car yards, to the publicans, and to everyone in the Bay of Plenty economy. That is a fantastic thing to see.

What I am being told at the barbecues is that, yes, we are doing well, this is going very well in an uncertain world, and there is more that the country wants to see and they are going to get that from us. It is very interesting being overseas. I was briefly talking last night with someone from Britain. There was a sense, really, of envy at how things are going in this country, the good governance that people are getting from the top in this country—and really, can I say, envy, whether they are Australians, Brits, or wherever they are from—about a Prime Minister and a Cabinet and a caucus entirely united behind and focused on what matters to New Zealanders and getting on. We know quite clearly that this is a Government that over the last 6 years—and we will continue to see it—has been focusing on the finances, not on the petty stuff. It is focusing on a productive and competitive economy and better public services, and continuing to work hard on rebuilding Canterbury.

But we are not resting on our laurels. There is plenty more to come, and I see that in the very ambitious work programmes that I am privileged to be involved in through the Business Growth Agenda and through the terrific portfolios that I have taken over in very good shape from other Ministers in energy and transport, where we are seeing great infrastructure investment in this country. It is really unprecedented, actually. More than that, in energy and transport we are working very much to enhance the lives and the lifestyles that New Zealanders can lead in this country, through the travel and the options that they have and through the lifestyles that they have in this country. It is allowing us to take action on climate change, to do things in that area, and to capture the real benefits of huge technological advancement. I know that my friends in the Green Party find technology advancements difficult to deal with. They would rather that we did not have to talk about those things, but we are positioning New Zealand at the front of those things, capturing the benefits of the best advancements around the world for this country.

In energy I am really proud that we continue to focus with success on the development of petroleum and minerals, because we do have great potential in this country. We are under-explored. I accept, actually, and very much think about the need to transition to a lower-carbon economy, but what we know without any doubt is that that cannot happen overnight, that the world will continue to need petroleum for the foreseeable future, and that not all fossil fuels—I know it is a hard one to get your head around, Ms Genter, but not all fossil fuels are equal. Gas and oil have a beneficial role to play in helping displace coal in this world of ours, particularly in Asia and Africa, where there is not enough energy to meet people’s energy needs.

Minerals—abundant resources in this country. Tough times at the moment, with low commodity prices, but it is cyclical, and we know again that, contrary to what our colleagues the Green Party in this Parliament think, the smart, clean, green economy that Russel Norman talks about requires minerals. Whether it is in technology, whether it is in information and communications technology, whether it is in wind turbines, whether it is photovoltaic—all of those technologies require minerals, and this Government understands and accepts that reality.

In this Government we are taking every opportunity to promote New Zealand’s renewable advantage, which is a fantastic advantage that we have in this country, and the expertise that we have internationally, and that is going to be a real focus in these 3 years. We saw in Contact Energy’s announcement yesterday on its profits that, as competition really has heated up here, it will look overseas, look to the ring of fire countries, and export some of the expertise we have to uplift growth in this country. At the moment, 81 percent of our electricity system comes from renewables in this country—which is something I think most New Zealanders perhaps would not appreciate or understand; it is surprising when you hear it—compared with 10 or 11 percent in Australia, the United Kingdom, and many other countries that we compare ourselves to. We have huge experience in geothermal and wind and smart grids. There is a real ability to leverage that overseas, and I want to see more of that over this term.

I want to ensure competitive pressure on the energy prices. We are already seeing that. Last year there was the biggest lot of new entrants into the retail space in electricity for a very long time, with seven new players in that area. I want to support innovation in energy productivity and efficiency, whether it is the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, the Smart Grid Forum that we have already set up, electric vehicles, and the like. So although we will be certainly continuing to take a balanced approach, where we understand the desirability and the need this world has for petroleum and minerals, we will also very much be focusing as well on the real opportunities to lower our emissions in this country in electric vehicles, renewables, and biofuels.

Transport is a fantastic portfolio, where we are really going to focus on results for this country. We have spent a huge amount of money, and New Zealanders and Aucklanders, indeed, are going to see the benefits of that. We will really be focusing on public transport. [Interruption] It winds them up. It winds the Opposition up. This Government has spent $2 billion on metropolitan rail in this country. Cycleways—very significant expenditure, seeing cycleways in all the major cities of this country. There is a focus on Auckland, which we need to be a success. We know it has transport issues, and I am committed to working constructively with Auckland for an affordable, effective transport system. To repeat again, there are big technological advancements overseas that are revolutionising transport. We want to capture those benefits for New Zealand, whether it is in electric vehicles, whether it is in connected vehicles and the like, and supporting an export economy.

We are back to normality after a long summer, where I accept some of the Opposition members will be feeling a little bit grumpy. But I say to members opposite: stop focusing on the trivia in 2014, because this is a Government that is not going to let its guard down and that is focusing on the things that matter for this country. We are not seat-warming; we have an active and a significant agenda to really enhance New Zealanders’ lives and lifestyles over the next 3 years.

The Prime Minister’s statement is an opportunity for a Government to show vision. It is an opportunity to spell out a comprehensive plan and to demonstrate that it has a grasp on the challenging issues facing New Zealanders. This Government has failed on all three counts when it comes to the Prime Minister’s statement this year, because it has no vision for the brighter future that it promised New Zealanders all those years ago. Instead it is content to manage a low-wage economy, indebted to the rest of the world, with declining standards of living and an escalating degree of environmental degradation. That is what it is promising New Zealanders. This is not a Government with a plan for the future. It is a Government of short-term wheeling and dealing, living for today, and not worrying about future generations or what it is leaving behind.

This Government will be defined by its dodgy deal with Skycity. Nothing else defines them more than the dodgy deal with Skycity. When even Matthew Hooton is saying that it is corrupt, the Government should be standing up and taking notice. It is absolutely wrong. John Key promised New Zealanders a free convention centre that would not cost the taxpayers a cent—aside, of course, from the increase in problem gambling that was going to go from the concessions that the Government granted to Skycity. He said that the convention centre was going to be free. Then he tried to tell New Zealanders last week that they were going to have to fork out some money, or it was going to end up being an eyesore. And then he turned around and said: “Oh, no, no, no. We’re not going to throw in the extra money any more. We’re just going to settle for a convention centre that is 10 percent smaller.”

Well, I agree with Andrew Little, when he said to Skycity that a deal is a deal, and that if this Government has signed up to a deal for a convention centre of a certain size in exchange for the concessions it got, if Skycity does not front up with that, then there is absolutely no guarantee that those concessions will be continuing—there is no guarantee those concessions will be continuing under a Labour Government. A deal is a deal, and that is the message that this Government, if it had the backbone, would be sending Skycity. John Key promised New Zealanders a higher degree of accountability when it came to his MPs and his Ministers, and he has failed to deliver on that, and he now fails even his own test when it comes to openness and transparency. While the National Party is distracted by all of its internal manoeuvrings and the splits and divisions that are becoming, by the day, more apparent within the Government, it is simply ignoring the big issues facing New Zealanders.

The National Party likes to think and likes to tell New Zealanders that it is doing a good job of managing the economy. So let us actually look at that. I went back and found the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update from 2008. So what exactly did the National Party inherit when it came into Government? On page 22 of the fiscal update prior to the election, it is there for everyone to see: the net core Crown debt—that is the amount of money overall that the New Zealand Government owes—was zero. The Government, when National became Government—we owed nothing. It was zero. It is there for all to see. Of course, we were going into the global financial crisis, so there were some projections for government debt to increase, as you would expect in a massive economic downturn, and those estimates suggested that net core Crown debt by 2013 would become $13 billion. That sounds like a lot of money, $13 billion. So let us fast forward to last year’s December update, and how did things pan out? As of the end of last year, 2014, this Government had racked up nearly $60 billion—three times the amount forecast prior to the 2008 election. This Government had amassed four times that amount of debt. These brilliant economic maestros had quadrupled the amount of Government debt in their time in office.

I recall Bill English in Michael Cullen’s seventh Budget, after he had been Minister of Finance, decrying 7 years of surpluses and still no tax cuts. Well, I will tell you what, I want to hear Bill English stand up in this year’s Budget and admit that he has delivered 7 years of Budgets and still no surplus. Not one surplus after his 7 years in charge of the Government finances. Bill English has clocked up the largest Government debt in New Zealand’s history. Let me repeat that again. Bill English has clocked up the largest Government debt in New Zealand’s history. He has out-borrowed Rob Muldoon. He has even out-borrowed New Zealand’s war effort for the Second World War. These guys, Bill English and John Key, have borrowed more money than ever before in New Zealand’s history and it has taken them only 7 years—6 years, actually. They are now into their seventh year and they have amassed the largest Government debt in New Zealand’s history. That will be their economic track record. If basic economic management is the acid test for Government competence, this Government has failed spectacularly.

Then let us talk about what that means for New Zealanders. Unemployment was at record low levels under the last Labour Government, and it has increased under the National Government. There are 46,000 extra New Zealanders unemployed, out of work, under National than there were when National became Government. That is an absolute disgrace. And what about those who are in work and who can actually find work? Wage growth under National has been stagnant. It has been absolutely stagnant. After 9 years of solid wage growth, where those who went out and worked hard had the opportunity to get ahead, under National New Zealanders have faced stagnant wage growth. While the cost of living has gone up and while GST has gone up, despite John Key’s promise that he would not do that, this Government has kept wages low. It has been supressing wages because Bill English—when it comes to openness and transparency, at least he was open about this—turned around and said that the low wages in New Zealand were good for us. It was good for us; it gave us a competitive advantage against Australia. Bill English was at least open about that. That is the extent of their aspiration for New Zealanders. I say that is not good enough. New Zealanders who work hard should be able to get ahead.

We recognise on this side of the House that the nature of work in New Zealand is changing. At the beginning of the year, Andrew Little set out how the nature of work is changing. More people are working in small business than ever before. Some of those huge employers have been broken up, and those people are now consultants, they are contractors, and they are small-business people. The nature of work is changing and the Labour Party is aware of that. We are going to get into that. We are going to make sure that we get behind those small businesses and support them.

What is the message from John Key and Steven Joyce? They are saying that anybody who thinks the nature of work has changed does not understand what work is. They are saying to every small-business person in New Zealand that they do not know what work is. I say to them that actually all those small businesses that I talk to on a regular basis in my electorate know exactly what work is. They know exactly what it means to put their necks on the line to create jobs for themselves and create jobs for others. This Government is so arrogant that it tries to tell them that they do not know what work is. Well, I say they do know what work is, they need a Government that is going to back them, and they are not getting that from this National Government. It is so arrogant. It is so arrogant in its approach to small business, and I think it is a breath of fresh air that Andrew Little is getting in behind small businesses in New Zealand and saying that the Labour Party is going to help them get ahead.

As for the corporate welfare that this Government seems intent on dishing out, it cannot find money to support families who are struggling—oh, no, no, it cannot find money for that—it cannot find money for education, health, and those social issues that we know are so important, but it can find hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare for corporates and for famers. Let us not get into the irrigation subsidies, the subsidies for polluters, or the absolute rort that is known as the Primary Growth Partnership, which the Auditor-General says there is no—no—economic benefit from. Let us not get into all that. Let us just deal with the corporate welfare. The Government is quite happy to find money to hand out to corporates, and it cannot similarly find money for the families for the things that would really support New Zealand families to get ahead.

There is a better way. Let me tell you, the Labour Party is on the way back. We are going to back New Zealanders to get ahead. We will bring fairness and decency back into Government. Under Labour, New Zealanders will have a Government that will back them to get ahead, and they will have a Government that actually upholds some minimum standards of decency, which this Government seems to have lost track of. This Government has lost track of them. This Government is simply beset by sleaze, scandal, and distraction. It has lost track of the big issues that are facing New Zealand. Its economic management is a train wreck. It is a joke. The Labour Party will get things back on track. New Zealanders know they can trust our record: nine surpluses in a row, record low unemployment versus sky-rocketing debt and increasing unemployment. I know which way New Zealanders are going to go at the next election, and the Labour Party will be back. So do not get too comfortable over there, boys.

The beginning of the year is always used to get something off your chest, so congratulations, Mr Hipkins; we hope we do not have to hear that again. There is the challenge that we have with the Labour Party. After 6 long years in Opposition, it is still out of touch. Mr Hipkins said that the Labour Party is on its way back. Well, if you look at the last election, there is not much further back you can go—there is not much further back you can go. New Zealanders pronounced on that. But Mr Hipkins tells a good story.

Let us unpack that a little bit. You see, when Helen Clark and her Government did a deal with Skycity to build a convention centre in exchange for some pokie machines, Mr Hipkins voted for it. That was OK. He voted not as a member of the House—he was over the age of 18 at the time—but as a member of the public. But when John Key does a deal to deliver a $402 million international convention centre for New Zealand at no cost to the taxpayer, somehow that is different from what Mr Hipkins voted for previously under Helen Clark. And here is the thing: it is a hypocritical position. It cannot be OK for them back then, and different here today.

The economy is growing. Employment is increasing. Wages are rising. We have had a good summer. New Zealanders are feeling good. We are a Government that is united behind John Key. We are back in business. We are focused on the things that matter. This will be the sixth time in 7 years that, as a member of Parliament, I have been able to stand up and say that. The economy is growing, employment is increasing, wages are rising, and the Government is focused on what matters for New Zealand. That is not the rhetoric we heard from the last speaker. Those are not all the things he may wish for on “Planet Labour”; they are the things that matter to New Zealanders, and we have a record of working hard and delivering for those New Zealanders. They recognised it at the last two elections. Now we are focusing on moving on and getting on with the job.

National has the country back on track, and we are growing this country and focusing on things that New Zealanders want, whilst the Opposition remains in the wilderness and caught up in sideshows. I will repeat it again: National has a Prime Minister who has the support of his caucus, the support of the party, the support of the electorate, and the support of New Zealanders. The little tweets that have been sent from the Opposition benches about us today are fanciful. They are confusing themselves and they are making things up. Never has this party been as united behind the leader as we are today and as focused on the things that matter.

Here are 10 ways our economic plan is helping Kiwis to get ahead. I will go through these quickly because there is so much that the Government has on its agenda that I want to pay tribute to more than just these 10 things. The economy grew by 3.1 percent in the year to September 2014, which is one of the highest rates of growth in the developed world. We hear from Mr Hipkins about all the things we are not doing and about what is going on in these other countries. Well, in Australia the picture is so very much worse than here. Indeed, when one looks at political management there it reminds me of the Labour Party. That is the challenge that they have. We have got growth rates of 3.2 percent, and forecast to be 3 percent, as we go forward.

As for average wages, Mr Hipkins said that there has been no growth at all but, actually, average wages have increased by 15 percent over the last 5 years. I remind Mr Hipkins that when one looks at the lowest interest rates that we have had sustainably for a long period of time, our inflation rate is around about 1 percent. So costs are not going up under this Government by anywhere near the degree that they were under Labour 6 years ago, and we have had 15 percent wage growth over the last 5 years.

Employment is growing. There are 80,000 more people employed than a year ago, and 217,000 more people employed than 5 years ago. When Bill English stood up in this House and made a commitment with our Prime Minister around job growth, the Opposition members screamed and yelled and asked where those jobs were. Well, the Opposition members have gone very quiet on that front now, just as they have gone very quiet on the number of New Zealanders leaving and going to Australia. Do you remember the football field stadiums full of New Zealanders leaving under their watch? Well, that has turned around now and we have New Zealanders not only coming home but coming home into jobs because our economy is stronger than Australia’s.

As for cost of living increases, inflation was at just 0.8 percent in 2014, well below weekly wage increases of 2.5 percent in the last year. Unemployment remains low at 5.7 percent, compared with many countries. It is 6.1 percent in Australia, and that 6.1 percent is even with so many New Zealanders leaving and coming back to New Zealand. Our balance of payments deficit—the difference between what New Zealand earns and what we spend around the world—narrowed to just 2.6 percent of GDP in 2014. This is about a third of the deficit of 6 years ago, when we came to Government. The Government is working towards achieving a Budget surplus this year and is on track to post increasing surpluses in subsequent years, which gives us choices about what we invest in on behalf of New Zealanders.

We have heard a lot about debt. Mr Hipkins is one of those who subscribe to the economic policy that says: “Spend more, collect less, and everything will be OK.” Net Crown debt will fall to 20 percent of GDP by 2020 if we stick to the Government’s plan of economic growth in the country and to being cautious about what we spend money on. New Zealanders are being very cautious about what they are spending their money on. National is a party that believes New Zealanders deserve to keep more of their money than the Government gets. That is not something you will hear often from Opposition members, but New Zealanders are being cautious about what they are spending their hard-earned money on. We too must be cautious about what we spend the funding that we get from taxes on.

Mortgage interest rates are expected to remain low for longer, and there are thousands of New Zealanders renegotiating their mortgages at this very time. They are renegotiating mortgages at under 6 percent. That was not the case when we came to Government. The cost of getting a mortgage was 11 percent towards the end of the Helen Clark legacy—11 percent.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: That’s a big number.

It is a big number, and not one that we hear from them. I guess they are not proud of it. Again, Kiwis are voting with their feet. They are coming home, and when they come home they are voting with their hands for John Key.

I want to touch on a couple of things that I think are very important in the way forward for our economy. In respect of revenue, we have a very good system that is treating New Zealanders well and is fit for purpose. It is broad-based and it is low rate. What that means is that we are keeping rates of taxation as low as we can and as broad as possible. Everybody pays their fair share. We know this works because the vast majority of New Zealanders pay their taxes voluntarily without our having to have too much compliance around that. That allows the Inland Revenue Department to focus on those who are not meeting their obligations and, rather than the scattergun effect that we hear about from—not Opposition spokespeople but from the odd new member of Parliament who has won one of a few seats for Labour at the last election, and who is making a late deputy leadership bid over the holidays; all of the rest of the Labour Party went on holiday, and Mr Nash was churning out press release after press release on everybody else’s portfolio in Labour. He has gone quiet since he has come back; I guess they have reeled him back in. But, as opposed to what he said, we are focusing resources of the taxpayer on those who do not pay their tax. Last year we collected an extra $4 billion over and above what would have been the case without that Government investment. That is using taxpayers’ money well.

Finally, the bit I want to touch upon is the great work that Tim Groser, our Minister of Trade, is doing around the world. We have one of the best records of trade agreements anywhere. Some few years ago New Zealand signed an agreement with China.

💬 Hon Annette King: 2008, actually.

Yes, there it goes—the Opposition members say that they signed it. Well, here is the thing, Mrs King—you should not start something you cannot finish. We put it in place and we are making it work. There was $2 billion worth of trade when we started. Today, it is $20 billion worth of trade, and that is the work of hard-working New Zealanders. Let us look at a new trade agreement with South Korea that Mr Groser has negotiated and that is ready for signing. The thing about the agreement with South Korea is that it is good for everyday New Zealanders. In the part of the Bay of Plenty where National holds every single seat and you cannot find a list MP anywhere, we have a lot of kiwifruit growers. Every kiwifruit grower in the Bay of Plenty, on average, will get $8,500 a year extra in their hand because of the trade agreement that Tim Groser negotiated. There is a tariff rate of 45 percent against New Zealand kiwifruit going into South Korea, which will now reduce over a period of time to zero. That is $8,500 in the pockets of kiwifruit growers to spend in the shops and to spend in the local economy. That is a win for everyday New Zealanders, it is a win for every person in the Bay of Plenty, and it is a win for Tim Groser for the great work that he has done.

This is a hard-working Government united behind a hard-working Prime Minister. This has the feel of a brand new Government. It feels just like it did 6 years ago. We are focused on the things that matter. When I look across the other side, they are focused on things from 20 years ago. It looks like the Labour Party of 20 years ago. As Mr Hipkins said, let us bring this year on.

I understand, members, that this is a split call within the Green Party. I call Catherine Delahunty.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa. Having listened to those on the Government benches speaking about the state of the nation, I would just like to quote what has inspired me by Lewis Carroll:

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

That sums up the Government’s relationship with the rest of us very nicely. It is pretty brillig around here, and they are interestingly slithy toves.

I would like to refer to something pretty slithy: the state of our water. It is actually no good talking about the economy without facing up to water. In the Prime Minister’s statement he talked briefly about the issue of fresh water, which has, sadly, become a misnomer. Less and less fresh water exists in a number of places across Aotearoa New Zealand. This is not assisted by the Government’s National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, which is as leaky as a sieve, and a very dirty sieve at that. This summer we have seen toxic algae blooms, excessive nitrogen causing all kinds of biological effects, pathogens that can make people and animals quite sick, and sediments choking the macroinvertebrates, plus the horrifying statistic from last year, which has not improved, that two-thirds of our monitored swimming spots are now too polluted to swim in.

I followed this up this summer. I went on to the Land, Air, Water Aotearoa website on a regular basis and I checked catchment after catchment, trying to find places where the information showed it was safe to swim, and it was not there. So it is a very sad state of affairs when people want to take their kids down to the river. I am fortunate. I live beside a river. I go down to my local river and I see the kids swimming. Our local river, unlike so many, has clear, translucent water; basking tuna, torrentfish, and kōkopu; the scent of clean water and the pure reflected light in the water column; beauty and energy. It is not washing out to sea as “wasted” water, as our Prime Minister once so charmingly expressed it. Showing his usual strong grasp of ecology as a basis for any economy, he said that all this water was just flowing away and it was being wasted. My river and, hopefully, other people’s rivers are not all dammed, they are not all sucked up for irrigation, and they are not all full of pollution from the 6 million or more cows that we have in terms of density in this country.

So we are looking at the most precious resource we have got, the most sacred relationships we have with the awa—the water—and a weak political framework. It is weak and random. Low standards are being entrenched. The many good recommendations—I think it was about 158—of the Land and Water Forum are being ignored. It is about Te Tiriti o Waitangi as well. We are here to protect taonga, and the relationship of mana whenua hapū to their awa should be upheld by all of us, both in terms of rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga. But instead we have a Government that is promoting the threatening of the viability of our rivers. So the Crown irrigators were at the select committee this week talking about the Crown and irrigation. It was difficult to explain to them that actually there are a lot of other stakeholders involved in this—it is not just about using rivers for a very narrow definition of what effective farming is.

We are threatening the viability of rivers. We are facing climate change. We need to accept that the drought is here now and it could get worse for many a year. We need a strong National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management based on the scientific evidence produced by the actual scientists. Rivers need far greater protection. The Green Party wants to see robust water standards, rivers protected, negotiation with hapū, national environmental standards to look after water and flows, and there is a lot of work to be done. There are still ugly sources like Tarawera, the point sources of pollution and sewage that rely on discharges of semi-treated or treated water to rivers. Man can get to the moon but we cannot manage our waste without contaminating the water.

We have to stop the intensification of agriculture. It does not matter whether you fence every creek—and I am all for that—or plant a tree on every waterway, it will not stop those 6 million cows leeching their urine into waterways via the earth. It is not a simple matter of fencing. The other day I spent a day in Northland with Millan Ruka and I went on the Environmental River Patrol. Unlike the Government and, indeed, many regional councils, he is standing up and threatening people to say that they need to clean up water. He encourages them, and then he threatens them, and sometimes they do it. But the Government is not doing it. We are about to lose some of our most precious resources.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Prime Minister in his statement claimed that there were four priorities of his Government, and that policy and legislation would reflect these priorities. The first two priorities—responsibly managing the Government’s finances and building a more competitive and productive economy—are, unfortunately, being directly undermined by the actual policies that this Government is pursuing.

In his speech John Key mentioned his Government’s inexplicable commitment to spending billions and billions of dollars on a few expensive motorways that do not get much value for every dollar spent and will have no positive impact on our economy and certainly will not lead to it being more productive. How is this good financial management? It is not. Take the Ministry of Transport and its own advice to the Minister. This was written in 2013 in preparation for the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport Funding. It was not released to us under the Official Information Act until very late last year, after the election, just before Christmas. What it shows very clearly is that everything the Green Party has been saying for the past few years is true. It backs up exactly what we have been saying. It shows that over the past decade demand for roads has declined considerably. It shows that people getting to work, especially in our largest cities, are increasingly choosing to take public transport or walk and cycle, even though our walking and cycling conditions are very unsafe and even though our buses and train services are of a much poorer standard and much more expensive than overseas.

Imagine if the Government actually invested in proper public transport and made it affordable—how many people would take it? We would not have any congestion. The evidence shows that rail freight grew considerably over the past few years while road freight declined considerably. The evidence shows that local roads carry many more vehicles than State highways. Despite all of these very clear trends, National shifted money away from local roads, away from capital investment in public transport, away from rail and sea freight, even though all these areas and modes have much greater value for money and they have increasing demand from all sectors, private and public.

They are not only better for productivity and the economy; they are better for the climate, they reduce costs for the Government, and they reduce costs for households and businesses. But National, supposedly a good fiscal manager, instead shifted hundreds of millions of dollars a year into a few expensive gold-plated motorways. It is actually increasing borrowing for some of these projects, so we will be paying it back for decades to come.

Another policy the Prime Minister signalled in his speech was the wholesale attack on the Resource Management Act. This is our world-leading environmental protection law. I know New Zealanders like myself love our wild places, love our wild beaches, forests, and green spaces in and around our towns and cities. All of these places will be under threat if the Government’s radical proposals to change our law succeed. The alleged purpose of the changes is to create affordable housing. This is absolute rubbish. The purpose and principles of the Resource Management Act have nothing to do with the supply of places to live. Let us just make that very, very clear. The purpose and principles have nothing to do with the supply of housing.

There are unhelpful rules in district plans that existed prior to the Resource Management Act—in fact, I spent most of my career before I came into Parliament trying to raise awareness with this particular Government about some of those unhelpful rules, which it was completely uninterested in dealing with. What those unhelpful rules do—rules in district plans, which have nothing to do with the purpose and principles of the Resource Management Act—is to largely prevent the supply of apartments in inner-city suburbs, which is where the market is demanding that new dwellings be built, and they are not being built. Instead of this Government showing leadership with the actual tools that already exist under the Resource Management Act, like national policy statements and national environmental standards, it is looking at gutting the law itself. The truth is it does not care about affordable housing. If National cared about affordable housing, it would introduce better protection for tenants. It would limit the sale of property to residents and citizens and stem the flood of foreign money coming in and inflating our local housing market. It would introduce a capital gains tax to rectify the perverse incentive to invest in property instead of the productive sector of the economy. And, most of all, it would build more places to live. In particular, it would build high-quality apartments and town houses in the inner suburbs of Auckland, and it would invest in high-quality public transport like the City Rail Link, which it is holding up and which is desperately needed, and the rest of the congestion-free network, which the Green Party supports and would build, and we know that we have the money to do it. The Government is taking none of the fiscally and economically responsible options that are available to it that would not only help the economy but would address climate change and reduce inequality, which are the priorities of the Green Party. We will continue to offer positive, practical, proven solutions, even though this Government will continue to ignore them, I suspect.

This is a split call between the National Party and the Māori Party.

Well, now we know. It is news to me, but the Greens are now wanting to ban lifestyle blocks, a house with a bit of a section on it so you could have some chickens, run a dog, kids could run around, have a sandpit, have grass between the toes. Now they want high-rise apartment blocks everywhere. I find that very interesting. Maybe I have missed something over the last few months but that was a new one to me. We do not really want too many high-rise apartment blocks in Hawkes Bay, I say to the member Julie Anne Genter, so perhaps we could explore that a bit more.

I do agree that this House expresses its confidence in the National-led Government and commends its programme for 2015 as set out in the Prime Minister’s statement we heard a little while ago. We will continue the hard work—the hard work—that we have been undertaking for the last two terms as we turn this country to a much brighter future, changing the framework and leading us, a small but confident nation finding its way through the world, trading its way around the world, growing jobs, looking after our families, delivering on those social issues that concern us particularly as Kiwis, while at the same time growing our economy.

I was not going to go back but a previous speaker started talking about the 2008 Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update—that was the one before the election when the National Government came in. Interestingly, the same speaker around that time said something like “Labour’s not looking back.”, and then he started talking about the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update. He raised some of the points in it—fair enough—but listeners should remember that in that same Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update it talked about interest rates, it talked about inflation rates, and it talked about migration, I believe. So, given the data that that previous member talked about, this is what is not happening under a National Government, with our prudent management of the economy and our focus on better public services. That is what is not happening; this is what did happen in the years 2005-08, particularly under the previous Government.

Mortgage rates were over 10 percent. Floating mortgage rates were over 10 percent. Working capital for businesses was well through double figures under the Labour Government. Inflation was nudging 5 percent. Inflation was nudging 5 percent under the Labour Government in that Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update. It is now almost flat, to under 1 percent under this Government. As for migration, New Zealand families, Kiwis in their droves, 30,000 to 40,000 a year were abandoning the policies of the Labour Government with their feet and moving offshore. Friends, whānau, family left—some for good. Now that net result is around zero to positive, in terms of Kiwis not leaving and coming home. That is the absolute stark difference between this National Government and what we inherited from that Labour Government all those years ago.

The previous speaker also talked about small businesses in New Zealand. I quote from Andrew Little’s speech earlier in the year, because I agree with him on this one. He said small businesses are “the engine room of job growth”, and said that that is what New Zealand is. That is quite correct, and he talked about Labour priorities. Fair enough—he can say those things. But, as I mentioned in answer to a question today, cash flow is king for small businesses. It is in the cash flow struggle that small businesses really struggle and spend so much time. So it is helpful if people pay the bills. In this example here a small business was not paid for 4 months after sending an invoice to one Andrew Little—for 4 months. The person who sent the invoice did get a response. He said: “I wrote up my notes as best I could and sent them off along with an invoice for time spent. Both were received with thanks: ‘Thanks. We got your invoice.’ That was it; 4 months later no payment, no part-payment, no deposit, no engagement, nothing.” Cash is king for small businesses and when the leader of the Labour Party does not pay bills due 4 months ago, serious, serious questions need to be asked not only of its policies but perhaps of the gentleman himself.

Small businesses are the engine room of the economy—that is right—and they have gone from strength to strength in the last 6 or 7 years. Labour would drop the 90-day trial; we are keeping it. Labour would drop the starting-out wage; we are keeping it. Labour would bring in big minimum wage increases; we are keeping them as sustainable as we can, to pay our people more. I could go on. The point being that the context, the environment, and the parameters under which small and large businesses have to operate under Labour are not very flash at all. Those same circumstances can be witnessed by the economic matrix before us today, be it measured by migration, measured by very low inflation, or measured by high GDP growth across the OECD in New Zealand. I could go on. Things are looking very, very good. We have done a lot of hard work. There is a lot to do and we will continue to focus on those most important things that matter. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tātau katoa. Kātahi anō ahau ka hoki mai ki te Whare Pāremata, ka tuku i āku mihi mō te Tau Hou ki tēnā, ki tēnā o tātau. I a au e tū nei, ka tuku ngā kōrero poroporoaki nei ki tērā i takoto mai rā i tōna marae, ko Apirana Mahuika tērā i te wiki kua hipa ake. Ko Tama Huata tērā i tuku atu ai ki te kōpū o Papatūānuku, ā, ka mutu ko Celia Lashlie tērā i tēnei rangi tonu nei. Kua tukuna rātau, katoa o rātau wā tātou mate. Tukuna rātau kia haere, kia moe, anei tātou e hui nei i tēnei rā, huri noa, tēnā koutou, tēna koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Greetings to us all. I have just returned to Parliament and extend my greetings of the New Year to each of us. As I stand here I extend these tributes of farewell to that one who lay in state upon his courtyard. That was Apirana Mahuika last week. That was Tama Huata who was interred in the bowels of Mother Earth, and, furthermore, Celia Lashlie, who passed away just today. They and all of our deaths have been released. Allow them to go, to rest. Here we are assembled here and throughout today, greetings, acknowledgments, and salutations to you collectively and to us all.]

By way of an introduction to the Prime Minister’s speech last week I say that I, unfortunately, did not hear it but I hear from the other speakers today that it was pretty good. I was, in fact, at Tikitiki, paying my respects to Dr Apirana Mahuika. I think about him today and, in fact, three people in the last week or so. I mentioned them earlier as well: Tama Huata on the East Coast on Ngāti Kahungunu land, the area the Hon Mr Foss is from, and also, of course, we heard the news about the passing of Celia Lashlie today. Those three people, along with many others who have passed on, have given a huge contribution to Aotearoa. In terms of Apirana, of course, he is best known for his absolute belief that there was only one tribe in this country—Ngati Porou—and everything hinged around them. But you cannot blunt his absolute determination to advance the causes of Ngati Porou in the areas of fisheries, foreshore, and whenua of Ngati Porou, and indeed Te Reo Māori me ngā tikanga o roto Ngati Porou [the Māori language and protocols within Ngati Porou]. I might mention Wai 262 as well as the Ngati Porou claim—all advanced by him and he was a huge supporter of Te Reo Māori.

We think about Tama Huata. Like Api, Tama lived and breathed for his iwi around Ngāti Kahungunu, with a particular passion for performing arts. He founded the Kahurangi Māori Dance Theatre in 1983 and charged ahead with a heap of other new initiatives including the Waiata Māori Awards, creating the Māori performing arts degree, organising a number of huge festivals—Waitangi Day, Matariki, and for the descendants of Tākitimu waka. In about 2 weeks’ time we all go down to Christchurch for the biggest performing arts festival in Aotearoa: Te Matatini. That will be great and that is part of the legacy that Tama Huata has left to this land.

Today we have lost another one whose life was devoted to improving the lives of others—in this case, to improving at-risk children and empowering families to find their own solutions to the challenges they face. Celia Lashlie is the first woman to work as a prison officer in a male prison in Aotearoa. She wrote and spoke about and lived her work. Her work within the New Zealand prison service helped her to understand that to unravel the complex issues needing attention within New Zealand’s at-risk families we really need to start with the women. Celia believed that we will see the changes that we have been seeking when these women come to know and to believe that their decisions matter, that they hold the destiny of their children in their hands, and that they can overcome the impact of their own traumatic childhoods. That is Whānau Ora at its very heart.

So what is the common link? I suppose, as I said before, they all have given huge contributions to Aotearoa, but, actually, they all talked about things that this Māori Party absolutely believes in. In the Prime Minister’s speech he set out the platform for the future and I have been honoured enough to be given the responsibility of taking the lead in terms of Māori development, Whānau Ora, and associate economic development. Part of that big, huge plan is that my priorities will based pretty much on three things. One is whanau. As you would expect, the ability to maintain whakapapa is hugely important. Economic development, of course, must link to that, as must strong communities.

Whānau Ora, for example, is at the heart of my thinking. It is at the heart of our Māori Party platform, and it is vital to nurturing our children. Whānau are the critical agents for change, and this Government will be prompted certainly by the Māori Party to ensure that we broaden the reach of Whānau Ora and make sure that things such as the navigator force that has been out and about really do contribute to the best interests of this country.

In terms of Te Reo I am pretty sure that I will be talking to the Māori Affairs Committee tomorrow about plans on that, and the view is: “Who better to look after the Māori language than our own people?”, but the Crown must still own its responsibilities around that. In terms of Māori regional development, at the forefront of those developments will be the review of the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, and there will be more announcements made about that in the very near future. Suffice it to say that the current Māori economic asset base is now estimated at around $42 billion. That asset base continues to grow. Considerable untapped potential still remains, and it is my responsibility to try to move that forward.

Lastly, at the heart of Māori and regional economic development are strong communities. Strengthening Māori communities is necessary to support our capacity as a strong resource base for whanau, hapū, and iwi development. I am looking really at the whole notion of community hubs, and I will be looking forward to implementing many of these things under the guise of the relationship between the Māori Party and the National Party over the next 3 years. Kia ora tātou.

The next call is a split call between National Party members. I call Scott Simpson.

It is an absolute privilege to rise in the House, at the first opportunity I have had to speak in 2015, to participate in the debate and support the Prime Minister’s speech, so eloquently and positively delivered last week. It is also an absolute privilege to be a member of this National Government, which, after 6 years, is entering its third term and making such wonderful progress on behalf of all New Zealanders. The country is in very good heart. We are heading in the right direction. We have lots yet to do, but, boy, have we got a big plan for New Zealand and New Zealanders.

It is also a privilege to be the member of Parliament for Coromandel, where I am pleased to report that we have had the summer of our childhood memories. It has been a magnificent summer on the peninsula—

💬 Hon Annette King: All the National Party’s work.

I know that Annette King loves it when I get up each Christmas and talk about how wonderful the Coromandel is and how wonderful business is and how much thousands of New Zealanders who come to holiday over the summer period have enjoyed their stay on the beautiful Coromandel.

One of the things I note is that at times over the Christmas break I saw so many members of Parliament around the electorate that I thought there were probably more members in the Coromandel electorate over the summer break than sometimes there are here on a sitting day in Wellington. They came, like thousands of other New Zealanders, to enjoy the beaches, the surf, the bush, the nice white sand, the quality of parliamentary representation while they were holidaying in the electorate, and for a whole lot of other good reasons.

But they came in noticeably larger numbers this year than the summer before. Why was that? Well, partly it was because they are feeling confident about the state of the nation, they are feeling confident about the economy, and they are feeling confident about their own futures. Petrol prices are lower. That means that they have been able to come and enjoy a wider, longer distance around the electorate, and they know that the Government is looking after their interests with care and diligence and making sure that their futures are bright and prosperous. So they are spending more time and more money in the electorate than they did last year. I think that is a terrific thing. Small businesses all around the Coromandel have noticed that. They are telling me that they have had a great summer, and with a little bit of luck it will run through to Easter. It is true that the farmers are finding that it is about time the lack of rain was remedied, and surely soon that will come.

I just want to spend a minute talking about my role as the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee. That is the committee that this year will be tasked with shepherding through the select committee process the much-needed second phase of reforms that the Hon Nick Smith will be bringing to Parliament in the not too distant future—the reform of the Resource Management Act.

The Hon Nick Smith gave a speech in Nelson only a couple of weeks ago, and he highlighted the fact that the Resource Management Act, since its inception 25 years ago, has produced something like 80,000 pages of plans and rules across the country’s 78 councils. That is just too cumbersome. It needs some significant work, and we have an obligation, I think, as parliamentarians to steer through this House some legislation to modernise and make more relevant and appropriate the very important foundation stone that is the Resource Management Act in terms of our country’s planning and economic and environmental balance. So the plan is that we will modernise it, make it more relevant, and make it more practical, and we will standardise plans and simplify processes for hard-working New Zealanders who simply want to get on and do things that are logical and sensible but have sometimes been completely bogged down by bureaucracy and by often well-meaning councils that have, in fact, following year after year of opinion, precedent, guidance, and rules, made those rules too hard, too difficult, and too high a burden for hard-working New Zealanders to get around.

There is such a big difference between this Government and the Labour Opposition. We are a united, focused, hard-working team, and we have got a big plan, a big vision, and a big future for New Zealand. There was a time when people used to know what the Labour Party stood for. They no longer do. I am very pleased to be able to stand here today and support the Prime Minister’s statement, and I know that my colleagues will do so with vigour as well.

It is a great pleasure to rise in support of the Prime Minister’s statement, in the second half of this 10-minute call, and I would like to commend the member who just sat down, Scott Simpson—what a fantastic champion he is for Coromandel, is he not? I am indeed very jealous that I have not yet been elected as the member for Mt Albert, but I am, actually, getting there. In the tiger country of Mt Albert, which is the stronghold of the Labour Party, the National Party did win the party vote, and I think we actually did very well in the last election.

I just want to talk a little bit about the wonderful progress that we have actually made in this country. What a fantastic Minister we have in Tim Groser—in the activities that he actually engages in on behalf of New Zealand by negotiating free-trade agreements up and down and all around the world. The one that I am particularly interested in, which I think a member actually spoke about earlier, is the free-trade agreement with South Korea. Mr McClay mentioned that every kiwifruit farmer in his electorate is getting $8,500 as a result of that free-trade agreement because the tariff that was sitting at 45 percent is now no longer there. It is actually going to be reduced and go to zero. We are able to compete with other countries—for example, Latin American countries like Chile that actually export kiwifruit from Chile to Korea. We are going to be on a par with them, on an equal footing, when it comes to competition. No doubt our kiwifruit is going to be definitely better than the ones from Chile.

I also want to make a comment about a comment that I think Julie Anne Genter made about roads not being important—that it was not productive spending from this Government. I would like to urge that member to perhaps talk to the manufacturers and talk to exporters who use our roads with trucks and who put their products on to trucks to the ports to be exported to gain money for the New Zealand economy. I would just like to mention that to that member because it is, in fact, important.

I just want to reflect on the time when Helen Clark used to be the member for Mt Albert, back in 2008. Mortgage rates in New Zealand were around 11 percent. Have we not come a long way? Has the National Government not done very well? At the moment, I think the mortgage rate is sitting somewhere around 5 percent—somewhere just around there. I am so very pleased that New Zealanders are, in fact, returning to our country. We do not have the 30,000 to 40,000 New Zealanders leaving our shores because they could not stand the policies of the Labour Government. We have a National Government, and people are returning. We have numbers returning to this country, and our unemployment rate is sitting somewhere around 5.7 percent. Compared with Australia, which was the country that New Zealanders were going to for the better opportunities and better work opportunities—its unemployment rate is much higher than New Zealand’s. It is sitting at somewhere above 6 percent.

Our businesses are doing so well. When we became the Government back in 2008, I actually happened to visit some of the small businesses that were operating in the Mt Albert electorate, and when we cut the business tax, that 3 percent that they were benefiting from was actually going to research funding that they could not afford as a small business. What a fantastic opportunity that was for small business. New Zealand is in good heart. New Zealand is led by a fantastic Prime Minister, and I am so very proud to be part of this John Key - led Government and the National Party.

I know that I have actually mentioned this previously, but it is always a fantastic thing when we actually look at the performance of our Kiwis overseas, like Lydia Ko, who is the world’s No. 1 golfer—and what a fantastic result that was—at age 17 years, 9 months, and 7 days. What a fantastic thing. I know that John Key is a great supporter of Lydia Ko, and Lydia Ko is a fantastic supporter of our Prime Minister, John Key, as well. It was a fantastic speech that the Prime Minister made, and I stand to support him in his Prime Minister’s statement. Thank you.

That was the sound of the National Party MPs struggling to find 5 minutes’ worth of good things to say about their own Government. We have just heard it from Melissa Lee, and from Scott Simpson before her—running out of things to say. New Zealanders listening to those debate speeches must be scratching their heads and wondering whether they are living in the same country, because the rose-tinted approach from the National Government just does not bear out in reality—the reality of everyday New Zealanders’ lives and what they are struggling with. According to Scott Simpson, the country is in great shape because the members of the National Party caucus all went and spent their Christmas holidays up in the Coromandel. That is the best thing he could come up with—how his Government is apparently somehow relevant to ordinary New Zealanders’ lives. So I think it was very disappointing to hear those two contributions.

I missed the Prime Minister’s statement. I was not in the House the day that he set out his vision for the country for the coming year. However, it would appear that I did not miss much at all, because the Government is completely distracted. Instead of actually focusing on the vision for the brighter future that Government members once used to talk about for this country—has anyone noticed they have stopped saying that? I have noticed they have stopped saying that. In fact, they have even stopped saying they are on the cusp of something big. They were saying that just before the election, and they have stopped saying that all of a sudden. But instead of addressing those issues they are now distracted. They are completely distracted by issues like their Skycity shambles. They are distracted trying to dodge the Mike Sabin bullet. And they are distracted by their plans to sell off State housing. And none of those things are going very well for them at all.

Let us just consider the Skycity shambles. The Prime Minister said that he promised a 3,500-seat convention centre—world class—for New Zealand. That is what he said. He said today at question time that it is a done deal by the National Government. Well, that done deal turns out to be nothing like 3,500 people sitting in a convention centre, coming from overseas. It is not going to be the iconic convention centre that the Prime Minister once gloated about. In fact, again, just like we do not hear them talking about the brighter future much any more, just like we do not hear them talking about being on the cusp of something big any more, we are not going to hear much about an iconic convention centre from that Government any more. And yet Skycity has done fabulously well out of it. This done deal—the deal done—by the National Government is actually very, very good for Skycity because it got 3,500 people’s worth of gambling concessions that will actually cause New Zealanders harm. So that is very good for Skycity but it is not good for ordinary New Zealanders.

What about the Mike Sabin bullet? Well, the Government is not doing very well at dodging that one either. I do not know how those Ministers feel, but every time I see Anne Tolley and Michael Woodhouse on TV, desperately trying to hide what they knew about the Mike Sabin affair, it makes me cringe. I am sure that ordinary New Zealanders watching that performance on the news night in and night out are cringing as well because they know that those Ministers are avoiding telling New Zealanders what they knew and when they knew it. What New Zealanders are asking is: why—why will they not just come clean and say “I knew this on such and such a date.”? Mike Sabin has left Parliament. What is the point in continuing to hide this information? The answer has to be that they are trying to protect the Prime Minister. That can be the only answer, but it is not looking very good for them.

And the sell-off of State houses? Well, in Hamilton it looks like that is going to be a double whammy, because we have just had our city council sell off a couple of hundred pensioner housing flats and now what we have learnt is that probably somewhere between 200 and 800 State houses are going to be sold off in the Waikato in the few years ahead. Of course, the Government will not tell us how many it is. It seems to be hiding that information as well, because it is ashamed that it is going down exactly the same pathway the National Government has always gone down—selling off and flogging off State housing, even though in cities like Hamilton we face increasing homelessness.

Meanwhile the story that the Government has constructed about itself—about it being a good economic manager—is disintegrating before Government members’ very eyes. We heard earlier from Chris Hipkins—and he is absolutely right—that when Labour left office, there was zero net Crown debt. That means we did not owe money. It was a huge thing that the Labour Government did. It took 9 years of being absolutely focused on ensuring that we paid off our debts as a country. Then the global financial crisis came along. The Government changed around about the same time. Treasury predicted that by the end of 2013 the country would be in debt to the tune of about $13 billion. And yes, that sounds like a lot of money. But what has happened? It has ballooned under that Government to $60 billion—$60 billion of debt has been accumulated by that Government. That is not good economic management under anyone’s set of rules. So if the Government believes that it is a good economic manager, then it is operating under a completely different set of rules from what ordinary New Zealanders would understand as being good economic management.

Then today at question time we also learnt that the Government is so bad at managing the economy and so bad at managing the Government’s books that the only way that it will get within cooee of having the surplus it has been promising year after year after year is to dip into the pockets of ordinary working New Zealanders and business owners to over-inflate the levies it is charging on ACC. That is right. That is the grand plan. It does not intend to get to surplus by growing the economy, by growing jobs, by creating more opportunity. Its only plan for getting to surplus is to rort the ACC levies so that workers are paying more every week through their ACC levies, and so are business owners.

Today the question was put to Bill English, and he would not answer it, that that rort—the Government’s inability to bring about economic growth and its inability to address these issues—is going to cost households $60 more a year and businesses $1,500 more a year. That is what is propping up Bill English’s surplus. Yet even though the Government has got its hands in the pockets of workers and business owners through its ACC levies, guess what? Treasury says that the Government still will not get there—even though the Government has got its hands in the pockets of workers and business owners, Treasury says that the Government will still not make surplus. It is going to crash and burn, and it is going to come in $500 million under.

So what is the plan, Mr English? You have already put your hands in the pockets of workers and business owners. You are not going to be able to milk them any more. What is the plan? Because I can tell him that in the Waikato, that plan is not going too well. Dairy payouts are down and jobs are going every week from the Waikato. While dairy payouts were at their highest—at their highest level ever—we had 300 jobs going from Ruakura, the local research facility; we had hundreds of jobs going from New Zealand Post; we had hundreds of jobs going from the Huntly mines; we had jobs going from Genesis Energy; and we have got jobs still to go from our local hospital kitchen as that Government contracts out their jobs. All of these are jobs that have gone in the Waikato because of decisions made by that Government at a time when dairy payouts were at their very highest. We can only shudder to think what is going to happen to the Waikato economy with those dairy prices plummeting as they have done last year and early into this year as well.

So the rosy picture presented opposite is not a picture that is the reality for ordinary New Zealanders. They know that they are not being told the truth by the Government, and they are looking forward to the straight-talking, honest approach of Andrew Little and the Labour team, because that is what people have been telling me. They are saying “What a breath of fresh air. We’ve got the Prime Minister going round and round in circles and not being able to say a straight answer, and we’ve got the straight-talking Andrew Little telling it how it is.”

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Debate interrupted.