General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I am a proud New Zealander and I am proud to be part of a Government that is leading a courageous country and a growing economy. I am also incredibly proud to follow the speakers on this side of the House, who are out there actually making a difference for hard-working New Zealanders in all sorts of circumstances, from one end of the country to the other. We have a Prime Minister who is willing to be courageous and to lead programmes that might be different from the programmes we have seen from previous Governments—programmes that are not delivering for New Zealand. This side of the House is doing things that we believe in, trusting Māori to look at solutions that work for them in their communities that they are leading.

I want to turn my attention to across the Ditch. I want to talk, as Associate Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, about my experience at one of our campaign-promised job fairs that was in Melbourne. The very intent of these job fairs is to attract our Kiwis home. There are 480,000 of them living in Australia. It was quite amazing to be part of a conversation with a Māori woman who was in tears. She wants to come home. She can see the opportunities here in New Zealand, which are so far greater than what is on offer in Australia. It was really quite moving to realise that we have Kiwis whom we are attracting home to New Zealand.

To be fair, we are also offering that opportunity to Aussies who want to become Kiwis. It is interesting that the net migration from Australia, to the year February 2015, was 2,400. That is the highest level ever since records began in 1978. I think that says pretty clearly how well Prime Minister John Key is leading this country and our economic recovery. Those are the sorts of things they look at. It was really interesting. It was about the day that the Kiwi dollar was hitting parity with the Australian dollar. It was amazing to get the sense from those Australians that we are no longer regarded as the poor cousin. We are up there, right alongside them, and actually we are overtaking them. If you look at our economic performance and if you look at our unemployment rate at 5.8 percent as compared with their 6.2 percent, we are heading down and they are heading up. No longer is Australia the Lucky Country. We have a golden opportunity in terms of attracting Kiwis home.

I guess one of the challenges when you have a growing economy, an economy growing as strongly as it is, is that there are a few growing pains. One of those is being able to fill jobs in industries that we clearly need. These job fairs were very directly focused on filling jobs in information and communications technology, manufacturing, health, construction, trades, engineering, and transport. There are 4,500 job seekers directly looking at coming here. It was a fantastic opportunity.

As the previous speaker, Minister Parata, said, we are also training young New Zealanders, Māori and Pasifika students, female and male, at a greater rate than the previous Government, and probably those students from the past whom the Opposition in its days in Government left behind. We are actually turning round the results and the lives and the futures of those very New Zealanders. That is why I get reactions from tradies in my electorate, like the one I spoke to yesterday, who said “Can you give John a message for me? Tell him he’s doing a bloody good job, and we want to keep him longer.” That is the mood that I get, whether I am talking to groups in Dunedin or whether I am talking to groups in Northland. Hard-working middle New Zealand, from one end of the country to the other, knows that John Key, our Prime Minister, is delivering for them—delivering in the areas that count.

I want to talk specifically about women’s participation in the workforce, because this is one of my priorities: making sure that the skills and utilisation of women is fully realised. This is a Government that is backing New Zealand women to succeed. I am really pleased to say that the results that came out today in the household labour force survey show that there are 3,000 fewer women unemployed in the March 2015 quarter. There are some very specific things that we are doing to engage more women in employment. Canterbury is a classic example: there is a shortage in the construction sector. The Ministry for Women has done a very practical, collaborative job with the sector to get more women into jobs.

Well, what we have now is the dying months of a shabby, grubby National Government. Oh yes, that last speech by Louise Upston was one of the biggest statements of conceit that we have had from a junior Minister in this Government for a long, long time.

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Says the guy who only gets 11 percent.

There are none so blind as those who will not see, as Mr Jami-Lee Ross well knows. Ms Upston talked about the job fairs. Well, I tell you what, the job fairs were wonderful for the Melbourne business community, especially the taxi drivers because they profited to the tune of nearly $1,300 from one Minister alone ferrying himself around with the Melbourne taxis at the expense of the New Zealand taxpayer. That was his contribution to the job fair for New Zealand in Melbourne.

What we are observing now—and we can smell it from here—is the rancid smell of the decay of this Government now starting to rise and now starting to bubble up. Let us just have a look at it. It is a Government overtaken by arrogance, by contempt, and now by conceit. Look at the issues: contempt for conflicts of interest in ministerial portfolios, a failure of economic management of gross proportions—and I am going to come back to these in a minute—boondoggle and pork barrel in Northland, and they cannot even get that right. They put it all up there and could not get themselves elected. There is out of control spending and abject denial of issues that are screaming out for attention—house prices in Auckland would be one of them. What we have now is no longer a Government; we have a dog and pony show. Oh yes, you knew that was going to come up. We have got the show-pony leader, who is now more “pony puller”—he is the ponytail puller from Parnell—and a Government that has lost its way and no longer knows what to do, as if it ever did.

Let us have a look at this. We expect from our Cabinet Ministers the highest standards of conduct. We do not expect Ministers to be flippant and cavalier about conflicts of interest. This Government never gets it right. It thinks “Our people are nice. They’re good people. How can they possibly do anything wrong?”. That is not the issue when it comes to conflicts of interest. The issue about conflicts of interest, no matter who the Minister is—whether it is the Prime Minister or anybody else—is the integrity of that public office. The public is entitled to know that our Ministers—who occupy the highest and most senior offices in the land—conduct themselves with the utmost integrity and that when there is a risk, or a potential or real conflict of interest, they step aside. They should not have to be asked. They should not have to be browbeaten from office before this happens. I am confident that when the full facts of various situations concerning this Government over the last few months emerge, the New Zealand public will be horrified. They will be shocked at the increasingly cavalier and contemptuous approach that this Government is taking to that important part of occupying public office.

Let us have a look at economic management. This Government will go down in history as one of the most reckless that we have ever had. It has ridden the wave—the complacent wave of high commodity prices—and it has thought “Nothing to do here. This is all going swimmingly for us. We don’t have to worry about the future, because we won’t be around long enough to have deal with it.” Well, now it is catching up with the Government. Commodity prices have been falling for well over a year now, and it knows that the tsunami is about to hit—or the lack of it, actually—which is the $7 billion hole that will emerge in this economy later this year when the farmers cannot get the returns on their goods and on their work. It will be a $7 billion hole in our economy. Of course, it will be bigger than that, because there is a multiplier effect as that money fails to wash through the economy. Then there will be less work, less income, and less revenue for many more businesses and for many more working people. That is what is going to hit New Zealand in the latter part of this year, and this Government could not care less. That is why the Government members are all looking down now, because they do not really care about that stuff.

💬 Alastair Scott: 3.5 percent growth. 80,000 new jobs. What else do you need to know?

They have ridden the wave of the benefits of it, and they do not care about it. They bury their heads in the sand, like the member opposite—bury their heads in the sand—because they just do not care. They sit by and say “This is the sign of success: a rapidly out of control Auckland housing market.” This is their sign of success. They do not care that innocent Aucklanders—young working families—are being shut out of the housing market. They never cared about that. They lost the basic New Zealand egalitarian ethos long ago—they never cared about it, never will. This is a shabby, grubby Government with no vision that is on its way out.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Well, we have had more shock, horror, overreach, and outrage from Opposition members, who are always jumping up and down and confecting outrage. That is why I believe that Mr Little is in danger of being overtaken by Len Brown to be the most successful Labour leader in Auckland at the moment. That is why that party is struggling to engage with New Zealanders and the concerns that New Zealanders have. That is why this Government is focused on New Zealand families and what New Zealanders are looking for in terms of jobs, growth, and access to good education and health care. They have seen that this Government has been very focused on their needs and their concerns. That is why we continue to have that high level of support. So if you think that having 74,000 new jobs in this economy that we did not have this time last year is not important, then I think you are out of touch with what Aucklanders and New Zealanders really want. That is why we are working hard to improve our public services in welfare, health, and education.

I want to touch on a couple of the areas in my ministerial responsibility that relate to how we as a Government can help Kiwi families get ahead. There are a couple of areas. One is the cost of living. There are two ways that you can improve living standards in this country. One is economic growth, which is what this Government has a fantastic track record in—3 percent this year. We are one of the leading growth countries and economies in the developed world, and we have got projections for further growth over the next little while. The other way is to make each dollar go further. That is why a strong, competitive domestic economy is so important. The competition laws, which I have some responsibility for, are fundamental to maintaining that disciplined and competitive domestic economy.

We have got the cartels legislation, which is halfway through the House and which we will be progressing very quickly. It is all about sending a clear message that we do not tolerate any of that behaviour. We have also got a review coming up of section 36 of the competition law, which relates to the misuse of market power. We do not want to put any barriers in the way of new entrants coming into any industries in this country, shaking things up and making it more competitive, so that New Zealanders have more money in their pockets when they go out and buy their shorts, their shoes, and their food, in every industry that they deal with. A strong, competitive economy and industry in New Zealand is a fundamental and important thing.

We keep on hearing about house prices. Well, one of the reasons why New Zealanders have invested in residential housing for so long is that it is very hard for somebody to steal your house. The contrary idea over the last 30 or 40 years of putting your savings into financial markets has been a difficult one. So many New Zealanders have lost their savings over the years, so the most important thing we can do in financial markets is build confidence in the system. That is why this Government put through a huge change in the Financial Markets Conduct Act last year. My focus very much as Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs is to make sure that we implement that well over the next couple of years. This is so that New Zealanders, when they are looking at where they are going to put their money, do not have residential real estate as just one option, but are more likely to invest in financial markets and build on their KiwiSaver funds, which have been so important in building an understanding of those financial markets.

Also, we are working on a review of the Financial Advisers Act, which is about giving advice to Kiwis. On the whole, our financial literacy could be improved. We have put in there a regime for financial advisers for the last 3 years and we want to make sure that we have got that right, that any conflicts of interest are dealt with properly, and that the costs and the regulatory burden of giving advice are not so high that fewer people get advice. We are focused on that, as we are also focused on the broader idea of financial literacy.

There is no more important thing you can do for New Zealand families than help them understand how money works, how interest works, and how to improve financial literacy within families in their homes in New Zealand. That is why this Government has more than trebled the amount of money that has been put into budgeting services, through the Ministry of Social Development, and I think that is a very important step. We have also been working hard on our consumer laws around the responsible lending code. Again, we are trying to make sure that people who are offering or lending money ask basic questions about the ability of the person to pay back loans, so that they fully understand the full extent of those loans.

Tomorrow Auckland Council will vote on the 3-year transport budget it will be adopting. Although the proposal involves a significant increase in funding in rail, busways, and public transport—all the stuff that Aucklanders have been asking for—unfortunately, it has to be funded through rates rises because this National Government is failing Auckland and not putting the transport budget into the projects that Aucklanders really need and want.

Last week my colleague Denise Roche, our Auckland issues spokesperson, asked the Minister of Transport, Simon Bridges, questions about transport funding and investment in Auckland. I have to set the record straight because, surprisingly, Minister Bridges got quite a few things wrong. Firstly, he said that the National Government had spent $1.6 billion on rail in Auckland, more than the Green Party had ever spent. I am not sure whether the Minister realises that the Green Party has not yet been part of a formal coalition in a Government, and, therefore, although we could have perhaps dipped into our parliamentary office budgets to try to fund transport infrastructure in Auckland, it would not have paid for much, and it really is the responsibility of the parties in Government to spend the transport budget.

That $1.6 billion he is referring to was not, of course, the initiative or the idea of this National Government. It is funding that was entirely committed under the previous Labour Government. In 2007, $1.1 billion was committed to Project DART and $500 million to the electrification of Auckland’s rail network, largely thanks to the Green Party putting pressure on the Labour Government at the time. So, despite not being in Government, the Greens were instrumental in getting half a billion dollars of investment in Auckland rail. Of course, once National came into power, that $500 million turned into a loan, so rather than actually paying for Auckland’s rail infrastructure, it is forcing Auckland ratepayers to pay it back, while it does pay for rail upgrades in Wellington. So this National Government has not committed a single dollar, to my knowledge, to new passenger rail infrastructure in Auckland since coming to power in 2008.

This is despite phenomenal growth in the rail network. We saw patronage growth of 20 percent in the past year. We are now on track to hit the Government’s arbitrary target of 20 million rail passengers by 2017, which is 3 years earlier than the Prime Minister’s threshold for bringing funding for this City Rail Link forward and actually starting it on time. Of course, that project needed to be started yesterday because it is going to have to be open by 2017 to meet the needs of Aucklanders. At the rate we are going now, we will be lucky if it is open by 2021 or 2022, but that is only if National actually sees the light and commits some funding to this central project.

Mr Bridges also claimed that 99 percent of people commute on the roads. I think he probably does know that it is closer to 80 percent who commute by car. Of course, in central Auckland less than half of people commute by car. That is because they have options. When you provide high-quality, affordable public transport options people use them. They would like to have more. This graph shows what Aucklanders want. It says right here that Aucklanders want much more spending on buses, on cycling, on public transport, and on rail. Do you know how many more want more spending on State highways? It is very few, because they know that when you make it easier for people to take public transport, you free up the roads for those who need to use them.

This diagram is the capital investment, to set the record straight. We have had 8 years. We are finally seeing progress in Auckland rail, thanks to the commitments made by the previous Labour Government, thanks to the pressure by the Greens. But we are going to hit a wall because there has been no investment over the past 8 years. All of those projects are coming to completion and no new projects are yet in place, because of the failure of this National Government to invest in Auckland. This diagram is the Government’s transport plan for the next 10 years. This is its new capital expenditure. This much is on State highways, which carry a tiny proportion of traffic volumes, and this much is on public transport infrastructure. Will that make it easier for Auckland families to get to work? No. The Government is spending a billion dollars to fast track the Pūhoi to Wellsford road, which will be used by less than 1 percent of Auckland commuters.

I ask the National Government to get some perspective, get into the 21st century, and start investing in the modes that are missing in Auckland, that Aucklanders desperately want, that will make it more affordable to get to work and to get to school, and that will actually do more to reduce the pressure on the roads than anything it is planning to do. The Green Party would do that. We have a costed plan.

I recognise the member who just sat down, Julie Anne Genter, and actually would like to say to that member that most New Zealanders actually want a growing economy. It is not just about railways.

It is a great pleasure to speak in the general debate, and I am very proud to be standing here as part of the National-led Government led by our very able Prime Minister, John Key. Recently, about a month ago, I was in Korea while the Prime Minister and the Minister of Trade were actually signing the free-trade agreement with Korea. A long and protracted debate went on and we finally signed the agreement, and immediately, in the first year, we will actually benefit by $65 million because there is a high tariff in Korea.

Our National-led Government has been active in improving the lives of New Zealanders. This is evidenced in our strong economy and our social progress. Our economy is strong and is rapidly growing compared with the rest of the world. There are now 74,000 more people employed than a year ago, wages are rising faster than inflation, and we are constantly supporting the growth of new industries like information and communications technology and high-tech manufacturing. Today I had the opportunity to visit Callaghan Innovation with the Education and Science Committee, and there I actually came across some new developments in photovoltaic research. To think that we can reduce the number of solar panels, which are really, really expensive, using the colour technology that researchers are developing on our houses—I mean, the future is really, really innovative, and I was very excited to actually see that kind of development.

In terms of social progress, New Zealand is ranked among the best in the world. New Zealand is a great place to raise our families. I myself, as a mother of a teenage son, can proudly say that. I am very lucky to be raising a child in New Zealand. Our children are highly educated and are given the opportunity to maximise their fullest potential. I am sure that Lydia Ko and Danny Lee’s parents actually agree that they have had the opportunity to give the best to their children because they lived in New Zealand.

All parents actually want to do this for their children, but sometimes there are issues, and I want to talk just a little bit about domestic violence and family violence. About 1½ weeks ago I was very lucky to MC an event that was hosted by the Gandhi Nivas charitable trust in Auckland, where it was raising money to house perpetrators of domestic violence. Often it is actually the victims who are uprooted from their home. It is the women and the children who are uprooted and they are actually taken away from their homes, away from the things that they know. But the Gandhi Nivas charitable trust is actually looking at taking away the perpetrators so that the victims can remain at home, in the comfort of their home. The trust is providing housing for the perpetrators, it is providing counselling for the perpetrators, and it is doing it in a very culturally sensitive and appropriate way. It is not just “Shock horror!”, remove the family, and split the family up. I commend the work of Gandhi Nivas. I know that Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga was there, and members of the Opposition were there as well. I saw—

💬 Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: Mahesh Bindra.

—Mahesh Bindra, from New Zealand First. I know that that member is very supportive of that trust as well, so I thank the member for being there. We raised a lot of money, and I am very proud that we have actually been able to do that.

We are very focused as a Government, and we are focused on our work around the main priorities. Our main priorities revolve around responsibly managing the Government finances, so that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely on the services that New Zealanders actually need and require. It is not about frivolously spending on a particular liking of certain members of this Parliament; it is about responsibly managing the whole country. I think most New Zealanders see that this National-led Government has been able to do that.

We are also building a more productive and competitive economy to support more jobs, raise incomes, and build opportunities for all New Zealand families, not just people in Auckland or Dunedin—it is not just about one specific area; it is about all of New Zealand. I know that there has been focus on the growth of jobs in the rural sector as well, and that is also evident in the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband. It is not just in Auckland that that is actually happening. It is happening right around the country.

We are also delivering better public services so that our schools continue to better educate our students. Today we had the top scholars in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement visiting Parliament. I know that one of them, the top female scholar, is actually a Korean girl. Her name is Hanseul Nam. I met her uncle in Korea, who was so very proud of her. I would like to congratulate all of those scholars.

This is the first opportunity I have had to speak in a general debate since this Parliament has been in session this year, and what a delight, a privilege, and a pleasure it is when the Government is in such good form and such good shape, with such focus, such energy, and such direction. It is a real privilege to be serving in the John Key - led National Government, which is making such progress on behalf of all New Zealanders.

In the short time available this afternoon, I would like to talk about two matters that I think are of crucial interest to members of the House and people listening around the country. The first one is the good work that is being done by the Government, particularly in relation to the work on behalf of, and in support of, New Zealand families. This is a Government that cares about families. It understands that families are at the very core, the foundation, of our society, and we want to make sure that they get the support, care, and nurturing that they need to ensure that young Kiwi kids get the best start that they can in their lives.

Secondly, if I get an opportunity I really want to have a commentary about the changed landscape on the Opposition benches that has occurred in recent times. We are 5 months into the year and the world really has changed in terms of the Opposition. Stability, certainty, and predictability are things that voters like. These are things that citizens like. These are things that society likes. John Key and the National-led Government are in fact providing these things to New Zealanders, and New Zealanders understand that. New Zealand remains, and always has been, a very good place to raise a family, a very good place to bring up children. It is not just us Kiwis who say that; it is acknowledged by others around the world.

We have a Government that has purpose, pace, energy, and a lot of new ideas going into this third term. I want to just touch on a couple of them, because they relate primarily to the strong and growing economy that we are fortunate to have at the moment—due, I have to say, in very large part to the careful, prudent, wise, and astute management of the country’s books by the Minister of Finance, Bill English, who will later this month deliver his seventh Budget. And so all those things are having a positive impact, a real impact, for New Zealand families, and I see that in Coromandel, my electorate. I see that for Coromandel families and for Coromandel children. I see the benefits that are real, tangible, and meaningful.

Parental tax credits, for instance, for lower-income families have gone from $150 a week to $220 a week. What is more, the entitlement to that support has been extended from 8 weeks to 10 weeks. Then, of course, paid parental leave, which we have had so much talk about, will be extended for a further 2 weeks to 18 weeks from April of next year. Another area that I see real positive gains in is the HomeStart programme, which is helping young Kiwi families get into their first homes. The HomeStart programme will see, over the next 5 years, something like 90,000 young Kiwis getting into their first homes. Those measures, along with so many others, are the absolute, tangible evidence that this is a Government that cares about families, has families at the heart of its policies, and is on the side of young families.

One of the things that has been most noticeable to me—and, I suspect, to most other New Zealanders—is that there has been a seismic shift in the Opposition, in what has been going on over there on that side of the House. It is a shift that has occurred since Christmas-time, and there have been a couple of things that have really demonstrated it. The most obvious one, of course, is that later today we will be hearing the maiden speech from Ria Bond, the new New Zealand First MP from Invercargill. That is a side effect of the result of the Northland by-election. I am sure the good people of Northland will be keen to hear from the new Invercargill member when she gives her maiden address in a short period of time.

I congratulate and welcome her to this place. But the good people of Northland will not be surprised, I am sure, to know that it is now Winston Peters who has, effectively, assumed the mantle of the Leader of the Opposition. It is Winston Peters and New Zealand First that have the energy and the passion of opposition. It is New Zealand First that seems to be leading the fight on the Opposition benches, and it is New Zealand First that has in fact stolen the oxygen and lunch from Labour.

It seems such a short time since you were in the chair last night and I was giving an oration on the New Zealand Business Number Bill, and I am still curious as to whether Dr Woods has read Result 9 of the Better Public Services agenda—no? It is Result 9. You have really got to read it. It is going to be very good.

💬 Dr Megan Woods: You’re talking to me a lot.

Encouraging—encouraging. There are a couple of things that I want to draw the House’s attention to. The first is, actually, one of the health announcements—if I am to put my chair of the Health Committee hat on. Today there was an excellent pre-Budget announcement by the Minister of Health, noting that there will be 4,000 more elective operations a year than ever before. This is on the back of a Government that has actually produced, every year since it has been in Government, at least 40,000 to 44,000 more elective surgeries. And, with the extra funding announced today, we are going to be moving towards 44,000, 48,000, 50,000 extra elective surgeries a year. I think that is absolutely tremendous.

I do, though, want to turn the primary focus of my speech to Tāmaki. But in beginning to do so I want to note what I think is some rather unfortunate, if not almost shameful, behaviour occurring in the Auckland Council as it looks towards rates increases of nearly 10 percent. I want to put my voice very firmly on the record and on behalf of the constituents of Tāmaki say that we are completely opposed to rates rises of that amount for spending priorities of a dubious nature. I want to make that voice very clear to the mayor and to the councillors who will be voting on that plan—that these rates rises are totally unacceptable and that the choices being made around the spending are also unacceptable. I want to make it very clear, too, that adding on further transport levies is, again, totally unacceptable.

There is some great activity happening in Tāmaki. I am very pleased to be in an area where the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company is soon to set a development of over 2,500 former Housing New Zealand Corporation homes. In recent days Ministers have announced that these homes in Glen Innes, Panmure, Point England—

💬 Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: That’s right.

—and I have got my fine colleague here, Sam Lotu-Iiga. We share that area together, between the seats of Tāmaki and Maungakiekie. We are going to see some real substantial changes in Tāmaki.

The discussions in Tāmaki have been going on for a while. It is funny; the Opposition jokes about this. One of the really fundamental things if you truly understand your communities—and good electorate MPs will know this—is that you get into the community and you have conversations. I know that Sam as a local MP and myself as a local MP have been very engaged with the community—and, yes, through that, we have also seen opportunities where the likes of the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company and others have been engaging with the community. They are making a real difference, and I want to acknowledge the work that the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company is doing in bringing the community on board.

We know that in recent weeks we have seen the opening of a new early childhood centre. We have seen the development in Tāmaki of what was an old scout hall that has been redeveloped as a community facility—those who are locals will know it well. A good number of us will be there on Saturday morning when the new music and arts centre in Glen Innes, Te Oro, opens. I am very much looking forward to that.

Glen Innes is an incredibly strong and vibrant community. It is a very proud community. It is absolutely fantastic, and they are calling out for these services, these opportunities—including, as the honourable Minister pointed out, the Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative project to the south of my electorate and to the north of the Hon Sam Lotu-Iiga’s electorate. This is a huge array of initiatives funded by the Government going on.

Do you know what? I should note what is really making a difference, because it was mentioned by one of my colleagues the other day that Glen Innes is this really red Labour seat. The irony is—and I was looking back over the figures—that, actually, National, and the MP there, as well, almost won the booths of that seat in the last election. In fact, in one of the booths in the very heart of Glen Innes, the Labour candidate won the seat by only 11 votes.

💬 Hon Member: No!

I know—shock, horror. Eleven votes in the heart of what is supposedly a Labour part of my electorate. I mention that only because I believe, actually, that the hard-working MPs—dare I say it—and also the National policies are making a substantial difference, and people are seeing that.

There are 2,500 homes that are going to be turned over to the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company, and over the years they will be transformed into about 7,500 new homes, particularly in Glen Innes but also through to Panmure. It is a wonderful opportunity for the people of Tāmaki.

What a past few weeks it has been. It has been scandals. It has been blunders. It has been failures. I want to agree with the speaker just before, Simon O’Connor, who was talking about a seismic shift, because that is what is happening in this country as the people of New Zealand wake up and understand what this Government really is all about. It is a Government on its last legs. It is tired, it lacks ideas it is complacent, and it is becoming more and more arrogant. To see the lack of ideas you have only to look at the thinness of this Order Paper. More experienced MPs in this House have said to me that they cannot remember a time when there was so little Government business being put forward in this House. Even the select committees are knocking off early, because there is nothing much to do. It is just not that busy, and this Government is showing that it has not delivered.

Today we have had the Auditor-General’s report on Whānau Ora come out. The Government has been supporting Whānau Ora and saying what a success it has been. Well, let me read, from the sixth paragraph in, what the Auditor-General said. She said “We wanted to clarify for Parliament and the public what Whānau Ora is, where the funding has gone, and what Whānau Ora has achieved after four years. It was not easy to describe what it is or what it had achieved.” If you do not know what it is, and people cannot describe it, and they do not know what its aims and its policies are, how can it possibly be successful—how can it possibly be successful? To look at that programme and say that this has been a success is absolutely not true. You have to be able to describe what it is you are trying to set out to do, and this Government has not been able to do that. Instead, we have had $42 million spent on bureaucracy and administration when it should have been going to the people who deserved it and needed it. It has not delivered on that.

The Resource Management Act—what has happened to that? We do not know. It is certainly not on the Order Paper. Nick Smith has buried his head. He has not delivered on that, and it is probably because he is looking a bit stressed—a bit stressed—at the moment, because he has got to deal with the housing crisis in Auckland. Last week the average house price in Auckland hit $800,000—$800,000 is extraordinary. This Government is saying $550,000 is an affordable house—an affordable house for $550,000. Who can afford that? Certainly not young people in New Zealand. It has not delivered, this Government. It certainly has not delivered, and Nick Smith blames the council. He blames the council for cancelling special housing areas right at the end of the motorway. That man needs to get out of Nelson and get on the north-western motorway at 8 o’clock in the morning and see what it is like to drive from rural areas into the city. That would take him an hour and a half. That is why the council does not want to have any more of those special housing areas right out in the boondocks.

The Government has not delivered on that. It did not deliver on Northland, and I thank the member from the other side for bringing that up. Simon “10” Bridges did not deliver, and National lost that seat because they could not deliver. The big kahuna that it cannot deliver on is the Budget surplus. Seven times in a row the Government has hit a deficit. And what does John Key say? “It is like landing on the head of a pin.”

💬 Hon David Parker: A 747.

Landing a 747 on the head of a pin. What an extraordinary analogy! Well, nine times out of nine, Michael Cullen landed on the head of a pin. Seven times out of seven, that man—the finance Minister—is not able to land on that pin. That makes me think that Michael Cullen is a very trusted pilot, and Bill English—you would not let him out of the simulator.

These are promises after promises, and the Government is losing its way. It is a Government that is tired and lacking in energy. It is lacking commitment. It is arrogant. It is smug. It is hubristic. It is finished, and all it is doing is seeing out its time until it stands aside and lets a real Government take control.

It is a pleasure to speak in the general debate today. It is a wonderful opportunity to follow the segue of my colleague and to lift our eyes to the horizon—lift the eyes of Northland and Whangarei to the horizon, because we know the truth. We live there. We smell the air, we breathe it, and we know the truth. We are lifting our eyes to that horizon, and that horizon is looking good. That horizon has had seven consecutive quarters of economic growth—seven consecutive quarters of economic growth—spread across a number of industries.

I am going to tell you which industries they actually are but, first of all, up front, I would like to acknowledge our international team—New Zealand’s international leadership on nuclear disarmament—because last week a member and I had the privilege of being in New York at the United Nations. Our team there is excellent. I would like to acknowledge them. I would like to acknowledge New Zealand’s strong voice and international leadership on nuclear disarmament, but let us get back to Northland and Whangarei.

I could talk about a whole list of initiatives, but I am biased. I am biased because I am with a Government that has created those opportunities. So why do we not hear what other people say? Let us listen to what others say. Māori have a whakataukī, and it says this: kāore te kūmara e kōrero mō tōna mana. The kūmara does not speak of its own sweetness. So let us let others talk about us. What are they saying?

Let us go to the start of the year. The Northern Advocate on 10 January 2015—boom! It says “Our busiest summer in 5 years—Northland is riding a five-year summer holiday high, with tills ringing at record levels, campgrounds full …”. Later, on 15 January, it says that the building industry is booming: “Northland’s construction industry is booming with building consents reaching a seven-year high in New Zealand.”

Let us go to a month ago. Tourism—and what was the key word? Boom. Tourism boom for Northland: “Northland’s hospitality sector is making hay big time this endless summer—so much so that a number of high-profile events in the coming weeks could force visitors to scramble for decent accommodation.”.

Whangarei and Northland are lifting. We are seeing the benefits of stable government and thoughtful economic development, and that thoughtful economic development continued on the weekend, when the Prime Minister announced that a $3 million cycle track would be coming through the far north. And a few days before that Whangarei District Council announced another cycling initiative. It goes like this: “New cycle track will be bonus for safety”, and I quote from the Northern Advocate on Saturday, 1 May. A new multimillion-dollar cycle track next to railway lines will connect five Whangarei schools. What a great initiative.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Excuse me—the echoing has gone on for long enough. I think we will get back to the member now. Thank you.

The Northern Advocate on 2 May says “The Kamo cycle route has been on the cards for a while … But with some promised funding and preliminary approval from KiwiRail to build the track, plans for the Kamo route are now under way.” This will connect five high schools in Whangarei. What a great initiative that is, combined with the $3 million for the cycle pathway through the far north. It keeps getting better. It is like an infomercial—wait, there is more; wait, there is more.

Port Whangarei Ltd has recently undertaken an order to install a 100-tonne mobile boat hauler. That is going to bring marine repairs to Whangarei, which will increase the labour force and will bring revenue into Whangarei. A year later they are going to pick up a 450-tonne mobile boat lift. That is going to catch a lot of the international luxury yachts, and those yachts that are going elsewhere will come to Whangarei.

If you go another five or 10 kilometres around the coast to Northport—the other deep port—it is also announcing good news. You see, part of our economic growth issues have been around containerisation. We have not been able to fill containers in Northport. Here is what it announced 10 days ago: “Northport is to purchase a $5 million mobile crane for delivery by the end of the year, giving it the ability for the first time to load dedicated container vessels.”

What the company is predicting is that 40,000 trucks that currently go past Northport will now be able to be loaded on to containers in Northport. When you imagine that every logging truck that goes past is equivalent to 5,000 vehicle movements, and when we look at safety on the road, this is a good news story, and it is clear evidence that Whangarei and Northland are doing well. Northland is lifting. Whangarei and Northland are great places to live, and New Zealand is a great place to live. We are doing well, and this is all due to our good and stable government. Thank you.

Well, what is the opposite of boom? It is bust—bust. I tell you what—the legacy of this Government will resonate for decades, with its economic mismanagement of large Government projects and the secret deals it has done with large companies, which have hurt New Zealand industries, destroyed skilled jobs, wasted taxpayers’ dollars, and let down New Zealanders.

It has botched up, and it continues to botch up, large Government projects. I am going to talk about a few IT projects across Government. There was the project to reform the Inland Revenue Department system—$1.5 billion. There was the Novopay botch-up and having to pay our teachers $45 million to fix that up. There was the merger of the Customs Service and the Ministry of Primary Industries systems; a blow-out of 25 percent—$25 million. There were the changes to the child support system, which resulted in an $830 million blow-out. Well, that does not sound like boom to me; it sounds more like bust. No wonder this Government cannot reach a surplus.

The Government members pride themselves on being top-notch economic managers; in reality, they are economic managers from hell. Whānau Ora is just the latest example. The Government cannot even get to a Budget surplus, but it is good at papering over the cracks, and it bullies people into keeping quiet. It threatens whistleblowers, it breaks its promises, it makes excuses, it denies, it looks the other way, and when something goes wrong—well, it is always somebody else’s fault. It is either the previous Government’s fault, the officials’ fault, the councils’ fault, or some poor individual’s fault. There is always some poor individual whom it will point the finger at to take the rap.

One of the biggest failures of them all continues to dog this Government. Colleagues here have talked about the big failure in this Budget, but one of the big ongoing failures of this Government is its deeply flawed and economically wrong decision, which was fully sanctioned by this Government, for KiwiRail to purchase carriages and locomotives offshore, killing local industry—killing a local industry—ripping the core manufacturing capacity from a city, and forcing skilled workers to leave town or to leave the country or to settle for the dole or a job at Bunnings. For what—what was the value? What was the value for money here? It was 500 wagons, 40 locomotives, and hundreds of millions of dollars given in an overseas procurement decision to a Chinese Government - owned company that has turned out to be a complete failure.

There are asbestos-ridden locomotives, fault-ridden wagons, and what do we have now? We have got a team of Chinese workers brought into New Zealand to continuously fix the faults that would not have occurred had the locomotives been built in New Zealand. The workers are not being paid a minimum wage. It is all highly secretive, and the Minister responsible for not carrying out a proper inquiry into those Chinese workers being in New Zealand—the Minister responsible for letting them in in the first place—is the same MP from Dunedin who did not stick up for keeping Hillside alive.

This is worse than false economy; it is economic mismanagement and it is destruction of a whole industry. It is wanton—wanton—destruction of meaningful jobs and value to the Dunedin economy, and not just to the Dunedin economy but also to the wider region, and to an industry that is adding value to the whole of New Zealand. Meanwhile, this week, in Victoria, just across the Ditch, the new Labor Government announced in its Budget a 10-year plan for 100 new metropolitan trains, 100 new trams, and significant expansion of the regional train fleet. It was a $2 billion commitment—well, that is a vision. It will inject funding into local rail manufacturing and broaden skill sets. That is giving hope to a whole community.

It is great to have the opportunity to speak in the general debate this evening. There has been a lot of talk about economic performance and so on, but, look, there are 80,000 more people in work than there were a year ago. What does that mean on the ground? In Kaikōura, just recently, I was talking to some businesses that claim to have had their best year ever in business. Those businesses are doing well, and they are actually employing lots of people. It is at that level that employment is growing in New Zealand, rather than by keeping something like the Hillside workshops, which are no longer relevant to New Zealand’s economy and business—

💬 Phil Twyford: No longer? It’s because you closed them down.

Well, if they were, they would still be in business. We have an inflation rate of less than 1 percent, and that is significantly lower. We are in a unique economic position where we have got economic growth but low inflation, and that is quite unusual. We are actually adjusting our economy to it—it is fantastic.

I want to talk a little bit about housing, which has been discussed a lot lately. It seems to be a triumph of ideology over good sense, where the debate is swinging on who owns the houses rather than on having a house for people to live in. If you do not have a house in the social housing areas, you do not really care whom you rent from or whom you get it from—[Interruption] Not you, Mr Assistant Speaker, of course—the person concerned. I think the main point is that those people do have a place to live. That is why relooking at the whole system is a much better way of going about it, and I am proud to be part of that.

In relation to that, I want to talk a little bit about Resource Management Act matters, about how new houses are being built, and about how new developments are getting on. Just recently we had the Rules Reduction Taskforce in my electorate. It went through and looked at the rules that impact those things, and it was quite significant. We had an hour with the councillors and council staff, who told us their views on the duplication of rules and on the rules that do not seem to make a lot sense. Then we had an hour with builders and an hour with the general public. We met with consultants who help with resource consents. We met with architects. And we met with engineers. It was amazing the stuff that came out of that, and I am sure that we are going to get some really significant gains out of that.

For example, it is the little things, which wind builders up—the test and tag rule, where when you go and buy an extension cord or a power tool at the local hardware store, you can take it home and use it, but if you want to take it on to a building site, it has got to be tested and tagged before you can use it. Then, in 3 months’ time, you have to do it again. There are no moving parts—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): That is the fifth warning the member has had.

Is it? OK. When we get tests for our cars, we get 3-year warrants for brand new cars. So to have an extension cord that has a life—as far as the test goes—of only 3 months does not seem to make any sense at all to me. It is time that those sorts of rules were dealt with—the sooner the better.

One of the other things that came out of that is that there are 170 planning documents across the 78 councils in New Zealand, but in Scotland, which has 5.3 million people and is of a similar size to New Zealand, they have only 37 planning documents. Clearly, we have a much more complex local government environment in which to work, and that is causing some issues. Certainly, in the Marlborough Sounds, where over 78 percent of New Zealand’s aquaculture is based, the council is mooting in its long-term plan that all aquaculture farms go to being a discretionary activity. In the past they had not been under that regime, and that will mean that their consents all run out in 2024. There is some doubt that the council will actually have the resources to deal with it and, even if it does, it is going to cost those marine farmers $20 million just to go through the process when 98 percent of those consents would more than likely just roll over anyway.

Those are the sorts of things that we need to have a really hard look at to ensure that we are not just wasting ratepayers’ money and stopping businesses from developing. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

I am going to get straight into it. We all acknowledge in this House that trade is critical for New Zealand’s future—there are no two ways about it. The whole House has talked about critical industries, existing primary industries, and in the select committee that I have attended in the past week or so, industry has talked about the need and the want to get into what we are seeing as the 40 percent of global trade that is represented by the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. We know that big business is looking out for the interests of big business, but I ask this Government: who is looking out for small to medium sized New Zealand business and the New Zealand people, because it is supposed to be the job of the representatives of this House, is it not? In fact, more specifically, it is the job of those who would presume to call themselves the Government. We are coming ever closer to the outcome of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Our Government, or, more particularly, a select few Government Ministers, has been remarkably silent as the endgame gets into full swing in Washington. This Government seems to think that its trade negotiators are not up to the job—they cannot negotiate. It seems to think that as we negotiate our way into global markets, the endgame is all in or not at all. We have to be all in or, apparently, we cannot be part of this global trade opportunity. We disagree.

Around the world we have seen sovereign countries—developed, advanced economies—looking to remove the Investor-State Dispute Settlement clause from their supposed, and from their own, free-trade agreements. It is, without doubt and with absolute fact and certainty, costing sovereign nations around the world millions, and even billions, of dollars as international corporates sue sovereign nations for the apparent inconvenience of having to be, for example, environmentally compliant or because they are being asked to pay the country’s minimum wage. Big business, it would appear, does not care about another country’s environment or the rights of workers if they compromise its projected profits. These international corporates are then suing, and they are suing big time. I can, and always will, support a business’s right to recourse in law. If its contracts are broken or if, for example, the Government acts in an anti-competitive manner, then even big business deserves the right to seek redress in law.

But here is what I do not think my National colleagues understand about what this agreement is looking to introduce. These international corporates are suing outside our domestic law, their domestic law, and even agreed-to international law. Law, as we know it, does not even come into the equation. They are suing outside any legal framework that we would call common or decent. They are using what we would call dispute resolution tribunals. A UN senior official has just recently called for talks between the EU and the United States to be put on hold. He spoke of his concerns because of his analysis of other free-trade agreements around the world and what he has seen happening, particularly around the Investor-State Dispute Settlement clauses, where major corporates, as I have said, are suing sovereign nations in these secret tribunals. It has nothing to do with our legal system; nothing to do with, say, America’s legal system.

The National caucus, as well as the New Zealand public, has been assured that there will be safeguards in New Zealand’s Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. But, members of this House, I assure you that the evidence shows us that all around the world lawsuits against sovereign nations have been growing in number and they have been growing in size, and, despite these apparent safeguards, the lawsuits are succeeding and the safeguards seem to have no bearing on whatever it is that takes place in these tribunals. Now is the time for members of the National Party—

Order! The time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.