General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. There is no doubt that the last few weeks have been a test of whether the Labour Party has any confidence in the New Zealand economy and in New Zealanders, and no one will be surprised to know that it has failed that test. It cannot be better summed up than in its contradictory attitudes to the dairy industry. We have been lectured for years that New Zealand is too dependent on the dairy industry, because it has been so successful. Now we are finding out that if there is one thing that is worse, apparently, in the Labour Party’s world than a successful dairy industry, it is an unsuccessful one. So it was wrong when the prices were too high, and now it is wrong when the prices are too low. That, I think, sums up the shallowness of, particularly, the Opposition finance spokesman, Grant Robertson, which is such that when the dairy industry is going well that is bad, and when the dairy industry is going badly that is bad.

Actually, if you want diversification, then—if you want to be a bit cynical about it—there is no doubt that low prices in one industry encourage people to go and invest in another one. That is how diversification actually happens in an open capitalist economy. But, of course, I made the mistake of thinking the Labour Party believes in an open capitalist economy, but clearly it does not. If we were to follow the advice of the Labour Party, we would open the paper and see that the Global Dairy Trade milk powder auction price was down and we would order up another industry—one that had high prices this week, instead of low prices. Well, you might be able to do that in a student union, which is where he learnt his economics, but actually in the global open economy you cannot do that.

We have confidence in the New Zealand economy, the dairy industry, and New Zealanders’ resilience. Yes, dairy prices are low. That will have an impact on the broader economy and on the Government’s revenue, but not quite as big an impact as most people might assume, simply because in the broader economy the New Zealand dairy industry is significant—it has been successful—but it is less than 6 percent of the total output of the New Zealand economy. In any case, it is a resilient industry. It has been through downturns before. It has been through some very high prices, of course, too, which most farmers handled sensibly by reducing debt and improving the quality of the operation of their farms. That is how most New Zealanders understand it. They know that there are economic cycles. It is just the Labour Party that does not understand that.

So we are on track for sustainable, moderate growth. The balanced picture of the New Zealand economy will tell you that, yes, the dairy industry is under pressure, but others are not under pressure. In fact, others are quite successful, particularly in light of the fact that the automatic stabilisers that go with lower commodity prices are operating—they are operating. The New Zealand dollar was NZ88c against the United States dollar just 3 or 4 months ago. Today it is NZ65c, and that means that exporters who are selling in United States dollars, which most of them do, are getting significantly bigger New Zealand dollar margins on their products, and that will encourage investment. That is a much stronger signal for diversification, for growth, and for more employment than anything that the Labour Opposition finance spokesman might cook up in his office.

So alongside those price signals the Government is pursuing a programme, under the excellent leadership of the Hon Steven Joyce, that is working with a whole range of industries, more of which are becoming more successful as the months go by and as they start to see the pay-off from Government investment in research and development, Government support and investment in their skills pipelines, and the Government’s assistance for them in overseas markets. So we are seeing a range of industries growing reasonably strongly, and no doubt the Minister will want to talk about that.

The other features of the economy that are underpinning growth are, for instance, strong migration. I know that is unpopular in the Labour Party. The Labour Party is the party that supports—

I think Auckland families on very low incomes will feel so inspired by John Key telling everybody in the country that he believes that low-income families can buy a home. What an aspirational goal he has for the country.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: How would he know?

He believes that low-income families can buy a home—and my colleague over here asks how he would know. Well, that is a very good question, because not only does he believe; it is a conditional belief, as he set out today. It depends on how much money you earn, the interest rates, where you want to live, the cost of the mortgage, and how much deposit you need. It is a conditional belief, so let us not get ahead of ourselves on this. I think Auckland families who are on very low incomes, who are part locked into Generation Rent, who are struggling to put food on the table, who are struggling to make sure their houses are warm and dry enough to keep their kids well—I am sure they are terribly inspired by John Key’s belief. Because the reality for these families is that they are locked out.

John Key proves over and over again just how entirely out of touch he is with the real lives of New Zealanders, because although John Key might believe, Auckland families know that they are locked out of the housing market. Eighty percent of the homes sold in June this year cost more than $500,000—half a million dollars—in Auckland. There are suggestions that it could get to a million dollars in a year or so, the average price. Values are rising by a thousand dollars a week. Wages are nothing like that, so families simply cannot keep up. They are locked out and John Key is totally out of touch.

Low-income families, from the research that we have been able to get from the Parliamentary Library, have an income of around about less than $700 a week—about half the median income. They simply cannot afford to save the $90,000 that is needed for a deposit, let alone then repay the mortgage payments of more than half their income. Those people are locked out. They are the abandoned generation. They are Generation Rent.

Rather than sitting here and saying that he believes they can do better and they should all feel aspirational about that, what we need from John Key is action. Phil Twyford just said today that there have been only 300 homes built in the special housing areas. It is an inadequate response, given this Government has known since 2010 that this country then had 70,000 too few homes for the population here. What is the Government doing? It is not bothering to really invest in a State house building programme to increase supply; what it is focused on is selling off those State houses. It is selling off those State houses desperately. It will sell them to anybody, including to anyone from Australia, including to UK agencies—desperate to sell them off. What the Government needs to be doing is making sure that those homes are available to the families who need them—first and foremost, the most vulnerable families, who have the lowest incomes and who need to be housed securely, and warmly, and dryly.

But, also, if the Government does want to see New Zealanders owning their own homes, particularly low-income families who struggle to save for a deposit and get access to a mortgage, there is an alternative. It is called progressive ownership. The Green Party has long been proposing progressive ownership as a rent-to-own scheme for low-income families to buy the house that they live in—the State-built house that they live in. Do not sell the State houses to an Australian agency. Sell them to New Zealand families—low-income families who desperately need them. If you want to sell off the homes, sell them to the families who need them.

Progressive ownership means that a family does not have to get a mortgage, so they do not have to save for a deposit. They do not have a debt. They have a relationship with Housing New Zealand, with the State, and with the Crown that enables them to pay off that home over time, just like you would with a mortgage, but without all of the stress of debt and the deposit saving, and it means those families have a safe, secure home to live in.

But no, this Government does not want New Zealanders to have access to their own homes. It wants to sell off the State houses to other agencies so it can wash its hands of the needs of vulnerable families. There are Auckland families—New Zealand families do not need John Key’s belief; they need him to act as a Prime Minister for everyone, and not be so totally out of touch. Thank you.

You have to start wondering I think, not for the first time, who are the strategic geniuses in the Labour Party headquarters. I think it is not the first time we have been worrying about this in the last 7 years, but you do have to worry about it.

Fresh from the strategic success of last week, there was the great project: all people with Chinese-sounding names must be foreigners. That was last week’s success—all people with Chinese-sounding names are foreigners. Those members have been casting around for this week’s strategic success. Well, they tried the flag. They ran that up the flagpole, but nobody saluted today, and that did not work. They also flirted with the idea of looking at the pie awards. I do not know whether you have seen this, but there are some very Chinese-sounding bakers who have won the New Zealand pie awards this week. So those members thought maybe about a campaign of getting back all our pies from the foreigners.

But they actually decided that what they might go with is something along the lines of “National’s not diversifying the New Zealand economy.” They thought they might give that one a go. Still, they were having a discussion—“National’s not doing anything to diversify the New Zealand economy.” They were talking it around, and then somebody said: “Well, that’s not quite true, though, is it, because National has actually lifted quite a lot of research and development spend in this country—that’s true. So, aside from research and development spending, National is doing nothing to diversify the economy. Well, actually, there is Callaghan Innovation. National set that up. And there is the Primary Growth Partnership. National set up that. But, besides the Primary Growth Partnership, besides the lifted research and development spend, and besides Callaghan Innovation, National has done nothing to diversify the economy. Well, actually, National has done the ultra-fast broadband as well—that’s true. That’s broadband, but that helps to diversify the economy.

Oh, well, there’s also the investment in tourism marketing. But aside from tourism marketing, education investment—because it is doing international education—the Primary Growth Partnership, Callaghan Innovation, and a big lift in research and development spend, it is doing nothing to diversify the economy. Well, that is just not quite true, because as well as the broadband, there are the roads of national significance, linking our regions to the big ports. So it is doing that. So, you know, we’re a little bit concerned about that.”

They said: “You’ve got to park the infrastructure, you’ve got to park the research and development, you’ve definitely got to park the tourism marketing and the education, but aside from that—aside from that—there has been nothing that National has done to diversify. Well, actually, there has. There is the Korean free-trade agreement. Oh, there’s that. And there is the World Trade Organization global procurement agreement for manufacturers—so it has done that. So we have to give it that.

We have to give it the ultra-fast broadband, we have to give it the Korean free-trade agreement, we have to give it the information and communications technology students—the investment it has made. We have to give it the engineering investment to create more engineering students—so we’ll give it that. And we’ll give it the tourism, and we’ll give it the investment in international education. We’ll give it the Primary Growth Partnership, we’ll give it the research and development, we’ll give it the broadband, we’ll give it Callaghan Innovation. But, aside from that, what has National done to diversify New Zealand’s economy? Absolutely—absolutely—nothing. Let’s send Robertson out with that. Let’s send Robertson out with that. Don’t tell him that there’s a few things that National has done; just send him out and say it has done nothing to diversify the New Zealand economy.” And those members wonder why New Zealanders think they are shallow and they do not do any work. Thank you.

Today I have to talk about the ongoing scandal at Serco. Today I am calling for a police investigation into the death of Nick Evans. Today the Minister of Corrections has confirmed that Nick Evans was treated at Mt Eden prison before he was transferred up to Ngāwhā prison. Yesterday it was all about: “Put up or shut up, Kelvin Davis. Put up or shut up. You don’t have any evidence.” Well, today, exhibit A is the Minister himself on Sean Plunket’s show, when he said—where he admitted—exactly what he denied yesterday, which was that Nick Evans was treated at Mt Eden prison before he was transferred up to Ngāwhā.

What sort of organisation, I ask, transfers somebody who is so ill? He had a ruptured lung. Imagine the pain that man must have been in. When he got to Ngāwhā it is alleged that he was so ill he could not walk. It is alleged that it was just obvious he was damaged goods. What sort of organisation allows a person to be transferred for 3 or 4 hours in that sort of condition? According to my sources, there is no way that those injuries could have happened in transit, but they would have been exacerbated in transit.

New Zealanders around the country have been horrified to learn about what is going on at Serco. My in-box has been inundated. My texts and my Facebook have been inundated with people who want to tell their story or the story of their son or daughter who has been inside under Serco.

Today I would like to reveal new details about life on the inside, given to me by a former inmate who is one of my many sources. In fact, today at the Law and Order Committee I tried to get answers by asking the select committee to invite the head of Serco to give us a briefing around his organisation. That was blocked by National. The New Zealand First member tried to get an investigation into what is happening at Serco. That was all blocked. This is the National Party being soft on Serco.

But let me tell you what I have been told today. The former inmate said that gang violence—and I need to say this because the Minister himself does not know what is going on in his portfolio and in the prisons that he is responsible for. This former inmate said he believes the gang violence and the droppings are isolated in two units primarily. The Delta unit is where the accused are held on remand. He said: “I’ve spoken to other inmates who tell me that as soon as they enter the unit they are dragged into a cell and beaten and extorted for information about assets that they have on the outside.” Alpha unit—he said that is the gang unit. It is supposed to be the worst unit in Mt Eden. He said: “I know a lot of the dangerous criminals are put into segregation units when they are not supposed to be.” People who are vulnerable go into segregation, but he said that “some of the most dangerous criminals go into segregation. They don’t qualify for segregation but they put them there anyway.”

Charlie and Foxtrot units are both segregation units, and by all accounts they are completely safe, but the mainstream units are operated by gangs. He said: “The Killer Beez run all the gang units generally, and as soon as the door opens they line up and drag the inmate into a cell.” I asked him: “What do you mean ‘as soon as the door opens’.”? He said: “The main door to the unit opens when new prisoners come in, and the inmate is just pushed in”—and these are his words—“and left to the dogs because it’s just too unsafe for the screws to enter. They never use their take-down team. They just let the unit run itself.”

Get this—he said that invariably you can hear banging all night from two storeys below, from Delta unit, because down there the inmates are getting drunk. He went on to explain how they actually make their alcohol. He explained how they get drugs. He explained a whole heap of things. And this is going on in the Serco prison. Yesterday I was told to put up or shut up. Like I say, my exhibit A was in fact the Minister on Sean Plunket’s show on Radio Live today, where he basically admitted everything that I alleged yesterday. Thank you.

I think I would like to clarify one thing just before I start. Steven Joyce, on behalf of the Labour Party, apart from everything you are doing, you are doing nothing, OK? That is pretty much what it is. Apart from all of the interventions that you are implementing through the Business Growth Agenda—

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Apart from all of them.

Apart from all of them, really, there is just nothing, and there is no diversification. It is as simple as that. Also, to the rest of New Zealand, on behalf of the Labour Party, the regions are completely broken, it is all going to hell in a handbasket, and it is absolutely terrible out there.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: It’s true. It’s absolutely true.

It is absolutely true, yells the Opposition.

Well, I would like to stand here and say that I am offended on behalf of those who live in the regions, who are working hard, who are innovative, who are employing people, who are getting jobs themselves, and who are getting ahead. I tell you what. I will be offended on behalf of pretty much the entire South Island, which has an unemployment rate of 3.6 percent—3.6 percent—compared with the national figure of 5.8 percent. I ask people in Southland, which has an 11 percent growth rate, how they feel about it.

Let us go to the Waikato, or let us go to Marlborough, both of which have 10 percent growth rates when you actually start looking around it and seeing where they are. The Bay of Plenty, Tauranga—boy, that Tauranga is doing appallingly, is it not, with its—

💬 Alastair Scott: Kiwifruit.

—growth rates and the kiwifruit that is coming back on and how fantastically it is going? [Interruption] Oh, my colleague Alastair Scott is sitting behind me—the wine industry. Oh, yeah. I would not know much about that; I would not want to talk too much about how fantastically the wine industry is actually going in this country.

It does not go well for that story that talks about how, actually, the regions are doing so poorly when growth is the reality for so many of them. I just spent the last couple of days at the Local Government New Zealand conference with mayors from throughout the country, and they are the ones who have good stories when you start talking to them about the growth that is happening. [Interruption] Well, they actually do. They live in the regions. They are the ones who are living it every day and going there.

So let us be clear: there are areas within New Zealand and within some of those regions that are doing it tough. Actually, there are some areas within Auckland that are doing it tough, and some suburbs that we, by all means, would say are seeing their own set of challenges. We know the streets that are; we know where those small areas are. To actually go out there and talk about the regions as if they are one, to talk about a region as if it is just one holistic region and that is all it is—a homogeneous sort of group, and that is it how it goes—is absolute rubbish. There are patches within New Zealand where we are the first ones to stand up and say work is going on in a considered way across education, health, economic growth—which means real jobs, by the way. You know, you can cut it down to everything, but it means supporting a business so that it can employ someone else, which gets them into an opportunity to get ahead in life and buy the very houses that one of the members was talking about a bit earlier. It is about supporting those areas of growth, but also those who can get into their own small businesses.

Tourism is one area that is particularly close to my heart, having that portfolio. In the last 12 months $8.3 billion was spent within tourism, and over half of that went outside the three main cities—so over half of that was actually spent throughout New Zealand. Its opportunities are huge and significant, not just for those who can work in the sector across accommodation and food and beverage—across those very big operators—but equally for those who can start their own businesses and see those kinds of opportunities that are happening everywhere.

I would like to take a moment here, as you do sometimes when you have left a portfolio but can look back, to say that part of whether we hit surplus, and when we do, will be because of the savings that we are making as we see more and more people coming off benefit and off welfare and living real lives. Members opposite do not like to talk too much about the 42,000 children who are no longer in benefit households, but, significantly, it is they, throughout all of New Zealand, who will see a change, and the savings from that mean that the Government is, obviously, spending more where it wants to. You can see it in social investment. This is a fantastic country with awesome opportunities. New Zealanders are getting ahead. It is a National plan that is working.

Well, having listened to those paltry contributions from the Government members it strikes me that probably “paltry” does indeed sum up the flap that this Government is currently in. This is something our MP from the Wairarapa, Alastair Scott, is in, who, incidentally, used to run a chook farm and who is now infamous, given his chicken run from South Wairarapa young farmers, when he told them that foreigners buying up farms ahead of Kiwi couples was a good thing—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who said that?

Alastair Scott. He actually told young farmers that, and I thank him for that because I got all of their votes, Alastair—thank you very much for that. But that is right. That is Alastair Scott, our Wairarapa commuter MP who last night referred to the Wairarapa people, his constituents, as “the locals” in Wairarapa. I am told he also thinks Wairarapa Bush is a forest somewhere out the back of Carterton.

Of course in recent days poultry has figured high on the menu for Ministers such as Nathan Guy and Amy Adams who tasted something that I have never had the opportunity to taste, in the form of kererū. If anything, judging by the fact that they were deep-frozen roadkill apparently and the fact that the Ministers are still with us, it perhaps proves that our food safety laws, Minister Adams, probably may be a little bit overcooked or maybe undercooked, depending whether you are Māori or not Māori—but there you go.

It is interesting—the views of Dame Tariana Turia of the Māori Party on kererū. She has our party wondering whether we will see a launch of a new iwi-fried kererū brand featuring a kererū Double Down, but obviously only for a limited time because, as we know, this view was supported by Te Ururoa Flavell when he went out to bat for his former co-leader, saying a kererū could be eaten in some circumstances. I quote from him for the benefit of the National Party members who support this sort of thinking, especially Minister Maggie Barry who is sitting over there. I quote Mr Flavell “You know, we have our customs, our own tikanga about ensuring the preservation of kererū and within that ground I then—ah—we could understand that it’s OK by our people to take responsible decisions around that.”—responsible decisions around that. I guess it is one rule for Māori and another rule for everybody else. What we would like to know is what the Minister Maggie Barry’s rule is.

It is interesting also when you look at the flagging polls of ACT and the Māori Party. Maybe they should join up because it was Gerry Eckhoff from the ACT Party who wanted to farm kiwis and create the kiwiburger as well. It would be interesting to see—a Māori Party - ACT alliance—but Maggie Barry might have a comment on it.

But, seriously, tomorrow the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates as the economy cools and the debt chickens will come home to roost, but only New Zealand First has a bill to help stop farmers from being crushed by foreign banks. We know right now that the banking vultures are circling above our dairy farmers and young farming couples who are struggling under a debt burden. We know that as land values fall and as stock values fall on these dairy farms those banking vultures will move in. The only thing standing between those young couples farming and the banks, the foreign-owned banks, is New Zealand First and our debt mediation bill. Is it not an irony that the very people who seek to stop us from rescuing those farmers from the banking vultures who are circling are the National Party, the National Government, and the Wairarapa MP, Alastair Scott?

How can anyone take that member, Ron Mark, seriously as far as being a decent and reasonable Opposition member? He had absolutely nothing constructive to say. All he could talk about for most of his speech was my background—my business background, my reasonable and practical background. That member had nothing to say. He just had a crack at everyone here around kererū-eating. There was no policy about business, how we are going to grow the economy, how we are going to get people into work, and how we are going to continue to focus on employment.

Last night, alongside three other MPs in this room, I spoke at a meeting of the National Council of Women, the Wellington branch of the Federation of Graduate Women, and Zonta International regarding domestic violence and the economic effect of domestic violence. I want to quote something from the authors of the report Productivity Gains from Workplace Protection of Victims of Domestic Violence, Sherilee Kahui, Bryan Ku, and Suzanne Snively: “Employment is a key pathway out of domestic violence. … staying in employment is critical to reducing the effects of violence.”

Employment is the key. It is a powerful antidote to many of our social ills: depression, alcoholism, gambling addiction—all serious issues. Employment brings pride to the family, it gives independence, and it motivates people—it gets people out of bed in the morning—and it gives a social and supportive environment to those people in employment. And, of course, it creates role models for our next generation. So high employment is a result—it is a measure of the success of an economy.

We know that we have low—low—numbers of people not in employment, education, or training. That figure is lower than ever. Unemployment is heading downwards. It will be below 5 percent within a couple of years, and we have heard Minister Bennett talk about South Island unemployment being at 3.8 percent. These are the numbers, in fact, that we want to talk about. The Opposition members have no interest in facts. They are all rhetoric and do not understand the way markets work. Having the flexible market place that we have today is sending the appropriate signals to the players in the market place. Despite the doom and gloom from the Opposition, we do have a flexible and resilient economy.

Fitch Ratings has just given us a re-rating of “stable and positive” going forward. So, despite the drought and despite the low dairy payouts, we are still expecting growth of 2.8 percent GDP over the next 4 years. That is because the dairy farmers and the businessmen and the people on this side of the House understand how markets work. We understand that prices go up and prices go down. Dairy farmers understand that there are price fluctuations. Winegrowers understand that there are price fluctuations. Since 2009 the oil price in US dollars has doubled and halved. This is what happens in the real world. Dairy prices have gone up, and now they are coming down. This should be no surprise. There are no surprises on this side of the House, but it is all news to the Opposition.

This flexibility in the market place is important because it allows the economy to reallocate resources to where they are required. The markets are working, as is demonstrated by the lower New Zealand dollar. The New Zealand dollar has weakened on the basis of the strong US dollar, and today the exporters of any of our products, whether it be sheep and beef or logs—those producers also understand volatile markets. Those producers are also now receiving 25-odd percent more for every foreign dollar earned. That is a good thing. That is the way the market works: flexibility and resilience.

From the other side those members are saying: “Do something, do something, do something.” But what practical, reasonable, and understandable policies do they have? Not a single policy change, not a single option—subsidies, tariffs, growing money on trees. Money does not grow on trees; it must be earned.

Well, New Zealand should be very nervous after hearing that speech from Alastair Scott, because that was a National Party member exposing that the party just thinks that the market fixes everything, that National members can sit there and do nothing, and be the do-nothing Government that they have been, and they plan to continue to be, and she’ll just magically be right. Well, New Zealanders are looking for leadership and they are looking for a plan. That speech exposed that the Government has neither leadership nor a plan for fixing the growth in the economy that we need to get going, so New Zealand is going to have to look to this side of the House for that.

But I want to speak about something that you will not hear the Government members speak about any time soon but should be speaking about, and that is the ACC motor vehicle levies. That should be a good-news story for the Government. It should have been one where they said: “Hey, isn’t it great! Everyone’s got a cut in their levies.” But it has been a slow-motion car wreck instead, and that is why you will not hear them talking about it.

The truth is that their shambolic model has meant that the owners of a million vehicles are paying on average $40 more a year than what they would have if the Minister had left the system alone and not meddled with it. But, boy, has she ever meddled with it, and she has meddled with it in a way where it is in complete and utter chaos. Already, within the first week of it being implemented, 22 different makes and models of cars have had to be reclassified and have their levies dropped as a result, and that is just in the first week alone.

In order to get that change, the Minister—this is Nikki Kaye—had made such a mess of bringing the regulation in that she had to take it back through Cabinet and get the Governor-General to agree to every single one of those 22 models being changed. And she is going to have to do that time and time again, because now already that has increased to 24 models and I confidently predict that it is going to climb from there.

I keep getting emails from people telling me of the battles that they are having with ACC over their vehicles that they know are safer than what the levy system that Nikki Kaye has put in place would suggest. I know that she is getting those emails again. There are hundreds of people who are laying complaints with ACC over this shambles. Why are they doing that? Because it is confusing, it is flawed, and it is unfair.

It is unfair in this way. It actually penalises people who cannot afford the latest, safest model of car, and it makes them pay more. It transfers the benefit, $41 million in total, from that group of people to a saving of $40 million in total for the people who can afford the latest, greatest model of car. That is simply what is happening. It is a shift in funding. It does not do one thing to improve safety on our roads—that is the debacle of it—but it is a cost-shifting measure from one group of New Zealanders to another. So who are those groups of New Zealanders? It is actually taking money out of the pockets of our elderly people, of our youngest people, of our people who live in regional New Zealand, and placing that in the pockets of people who can afford the latest, greatest cars.

Is the National Party back up to its old tricks again? No one is fooled by it. Certainly, the writer of The Dog and Lemon Guide, Clive Matthew-Wilson, is not fooled by it. He is an expert in these matters and he has called for the whole system to be scrapped. He has called for the whole system to be scrapped. He cannot work out whether it is a dog or a lemon or it is both, but he knows it needs to be scrapped.

We have also had Fair Go do two exposés, two separate investigations, on this alone. Fair Go is a TV programme that looks out for consumers, and on two occasions already it has done exposés on how rotten this system is. Fair Go has even worked out the system. They said “Good on the Government for changing the mess that it has made so far.”, but they also said “Here’s the other models that they haven’t even got to yet: the Hyundai Getz, the Kia Sportage, the Mazda Demio, the Nissan Dualis, the Daihatsu Terios, and the Subaru Tribeca.”, and I can add on 10 or 20 more model names to those ones.

So good luck to the Minister. She is going to spend a lot of time going back and talking to her Cabinet Ministers on a frequent basis, bringing forward model after model after model that she is going to have to get them to change and she is going to have to get the Governor-General to change, and then she is going to have to account for the loss in revenue in ACC levies as a result of her botch-up.

Well, what a shambles from the Opposition members today. We heard them at question time today, when all their questions just fell flat, and then we have had to sit through a whole range of speeches this afternoon. Honestly, I am struggling with some of the issues that have been raised. What I want to focus on is not the negativity that I have heard but some of the positive stuff, and so what I thought I might just talk about are economic conditions and where New Zealand fits internationally.

We have been talking about the Budget surplus. When the Budget was announced, all these Opposition members were saying that we were not going to hit surplus, that everything was bad, and that we had broken our promises. Well, actually, at the 11 months to 31 May, our operating budget, or operating balance before gains and losses, was sitting at $1.2 billion surplus—$1.2 billion surplus. We have got only 1 month to go now and we may still get to our surplus, which the Opposition members said continually that we would not. We cannot count our chickens, but it is still a great outcome where we are.

Also, if we think about our debt position, which, again, our Opposition members love to talk about, let us talk about some facts. Let us talk about some facts. As at 31 May, the same period again, our net debt stood at just on $60 billion—$60 billion—which represents just over 25 percent of our GDP. That sounds high, but let us just have a discussion about what that seems like when you compare it internationally. Bear in mind that we have got a target of getting our net debt down to 20 percent by 2020. So let us turn to Australia. Australia’s current debt is just above ours at the moment, on an equivalent GDP basis. By 2020, when we expect to be at 20 percent, Australia will be close to 40 percent. The UK is another example. It is currently at 90 percent of debt to GDP. That is expected to fall to about 80 percent of debt to GDP by 2020. Let us think about Europe—well, actually, it is about the same as the UK. It will be about 80 percent. In the US it is actually about 110 percent at the moment and will still be over 100 percent by 2020. So our 20 percent by 2020 is looking, internationally, like a fantastic outcome, and it will position us strongly to deal with any future issues that we may have to contend with.

What about going forward? Let us talk about growth rates. In the year to March 2015, New Zealand achieved a very credible growth rate of just under 3 percent—about 2.6 percent. The Reserve Bank’s forecast over the next 3 years is that we are going to average 3 percent per annum. Let us compare that internationally, which, again, our Opposition members do not seem to do, because they do not seem to be able to get the numbers by asking the Parliamentary Library. But this is interesting. China—Mr Bill English has been there just recently—is currently sitting at about 6 or 7 percent, although there is a view that it takes inflation into account for that figure. Australia is achieving a mere 2.3 percent, and that is what it recorded for the March quarter, which is close to America’s 2.5 percent and Europe’s anaemic 2 percent. Again, New Zealand’s growth rates are even higher than in all of those main countries that we all look up to and quote.

The other thing that I want to talk about is this diversification. For some reason Labour cannot understand this, and I do not know why it is so difficult to understand. We do have a robust economy. We have a very diversified economy. Let us get some statistics fresh from the Parliamentary Library, because, again, we seem to have a problem with this. Did you know that the agriculture sector accounts for only 6 percent—6 percent—of our GDP? When you take into account manufacturing, which I always hear Labour in particular decrying, it accounts currently for about 11 percent of our GDP. Construction is 7 percent. And when you take into account all that is normally called goods produced in the component part of our economy, it is roughly about 28 percent. The balance is made up of goods and services. And here we go. This is why New Zealand has a robust economy: tourism is 7 percent—we heard Mr Joyce talking about that earlier—retail is 7 percent, finance and insurance is 6 percent, health care—

The member’s time has expired.

Yesterday we heard in this House from the Hon Anne Tolley, who said: “… the privately run prison in Mt Eden is exceeding the record of our State-run prisons.” I want to talk about why she might think that. She is wrong, of course, and here are the issues about the Serco-run prison in Mt Eden.

I have been talking to some corrections officers, and they tell me that this has been a hot topic of conversation over the last 2 weeks. I want to follow on from my colleague Kelvin Davis and reinforce what he has said, but give information from corrections officers. They tell me that it is an unfair comparison because Serco has the ability to transfer prisoners, inmates, out of the Mt Eden Corrections Facility for whatever reason it wants. If it has a difficult inmate, all it has to do is transfer that inmate to another prison. It can transfer inmates for being injured in a fight club; it can do that. When you are giving the information that the Minister gave yesterday, that presents an unbalanced view of what is actually happening in the Serco-run prison.

Here is some more information. I am told that the ratio in low-level security State-run prisons is 1:20, in high-security prisons it is 1:15, and in the Serco-run prison it is 1:50. Serco can get away with that because it does not do everything that State-run prisons do. For example, when the inmates in the Serco prison are let out into the exercise area, the doors are automatically opened, the inmates come out, and there are no staff on the floor with them. In State-run prisons there is a requirement that the officers be in the exercise area. In that way they can see what the inmates are up to. They can monitor what is going on. This is a problem with the Serco-run prison in Mt Eden. The officers are not there to see what is going on. That is a problem that this Government has failed to address. So we find ourselves in the situation today where these things have come to light, and the Minister, who is on the back foot on this issue, is trying to manage what is happening out there in the media.

I say to members opposite that that is just not good enough for our people who are in those prisons. They deserve better. They do not deserve, as Kelvin Davis pointed out, to be dropped over a balcony unsighted because the staff are just not in that area to see it. I am also told the officers do not incident-report on everything. There is a requirement in State-run prisons that for every situation that the officers encounter, if there is a suspicion of communication with cellphones, etc., if there is a suspicion of contraband, they have to report it. It is little wonder that we see that Minister Tolley can stand in this House and say what she said, but I say to the House that it is a manipulation of the figures, because there is not a fair playing field. Thank you.

The Labour Party wants to talk about housing. Explain this to me. The annual house price percentage in New Zealand is 7.7 percent. In Canterbury we have 5.2 percent, and in my electorate we have 3.5 percent. It is 7.7 percent for New Zealand and 3.5 percent in the “Waimak”. The Waimakariri electorate is the third-fastest growing by population. The reason why is that we have freed up land and we have increased supply, and that has equalled demand. I think the people of New Zealand will be happy to know that we will not be making housing policy based on people’s surnames. It is great to live in a country that has strong economic growth. It is great to live in a country that has a strong economy. It is great to live in a country that has strong economic management.

When we look at job creation, in 2011 we forecasted 171,000 new jobs. I am happy to say we are on track to create 193,000 new jobs. That is 23,000 extra jobs. We are forecasting that by 2019 there will be another 150,000 new jobs. It is great. The reasons why are the strong economy, strong economic growth, and strong economic management. But the reason we do this is for the well-being of our people. We know we are promoting well-being. In the New Zealand General Social Survey, the biggest social survey outside the 5-yearly census, 83 percent of people rated themselves as being highly satisfied with their lives and 87 percent of people rated their sense of purpose as high. If we look at a region like Canterbury, with the CERA Wellbeing Survey, 77 percent of people rated their lives as good or very good. That is an extra 20 percent increase on last year.

We know that that is because we have a strong economy, strong economic growth, and strong economic management. We know that under Budget 2015 we were able to give low-income earners and the most vulnerable $12 to $25 more a week. That is because we care. We listen to people and we work hard for them. We are the working people’s party. We are the workers’ party. New Zealand First members did not even vote to give the most vulnerable $12 to $25 more a week. They are not putting New Zealand first; they are putting their party first.

Last week I visited North Canterbury with my colleagues Stuart Smith, the MP for Kaikōura, and Jacqui Dean, the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Tourism. We were in North Canterbury because Stuart Smith and I, as the local MPs, are working hard for North Canterbury. We were focusing on tourism. We know that last year we had 3 million tourists in New Zealand—an extra 7 percent—and by 2021 we will have increased expenditure on tourism by 48 percent. We are expecting tourism to bring in $11 billion. We know that in Waimakariri tourism has grown by 7 percent. We visited the Waimak Alpine Jet. It was great to see their ecotourism and their adventure-based tourism, using a great environmental resource like the “Waimak” to show international tourists how beautiful this region is.

We also visited the Waipara region, the wine region. It was great to hear about the vineyards and the wine tourism. We know wine exports from New Zealand are going gangbusters as well. It was great to see tourism being promoted in North Canterbury by the local vineyards. But the gem of the visit was a visit to a small organisation called Farm to Farm Agricultural Tours, which delivers international inbound and outbound farm tourism, based in Rangiora. It just goes to show the importance of our farming community across all sectors in New Zealand.

We have a strong economy, strong economic growth, and strong economic management, which are promoting the well-being of our people. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora e te Whare. It is really, really fantastic to hear that we are all so strong, but actually it means nothing if we do not have this stuff, the water. I want to talk just a little bit about two Ministers today, in my general debate speech. One Minister, the Minister for the Environment, said last week that we need to clean up water, that we can clean up water, and that the way to do it is to reduce agriculture intensification and cut nitrogen. The other Minister, the Minister for Primary Industries, is opposing the Green’s call for a moratorium and supporting more pollution of water by allowing the conversion of the farms in the upper Taupō and Waikato areas. All of this wonderful blah, blah, blah, workers’ party kōrero that we have just heard from the National Party members and how they support the workers, they are fabulous with the farmers, they are saving tourism, and it is all great—is all pretty meaningless when 60 percent of our rivers are too polluted to swim in. I am not even talking about drinking or gathering kai. I am talking about swimming.

When we get a strategy that the Minister for the Environment, quite rightly, went to Taupō last week and congratulated the Lake Taupō Protection Trust on—excellent work is happening around Taupō to reduce the pollution of that lake. It is long-term work because it takes many years to create an environmental disaster like this one, but there is good work going on. The trust is actually persuading farmers to reduce stock numbers, which is critical if you actually want to save the lake. So it is really important to listen to the Minister for the Environment—I just wish that Nathan Guy would do that. On one hand the Minister for the Environment is saying: “Let’s clean up the water, and these are the strategies.” Nick Smith said last week that chemical caps could work for other lakes—we are talking about the hydro lakes that turned pink during last summer—but, unfortunately, Nathan Guy cannot hear him. Nick Smith is saying that we need nitrogen caps, that in order to protect the waterways we really need to reduce animal numbers, and that means buying up farms to transition away from dairy—read my lips—and set caps that actually limit the number of animals people can have on their farms. He said that if the plan can work for Taupō, it can work for the rest of the country.

Well, what about just up the road? What about if you drive from Taupō, just up the road, and we find ourselves in the territory of Tūwharetoa and the headwaters of the hydro lakes and the Waikato River? If we do that we see a totally different story. This Government, through its State farmer, is promoting one of the worst environmental disasters this country has seen in a long time. It is converting forestry, which is a carbon sink—and I am not a fan of the way many pine forests are managed, but at least they store carbon. This Government farmer is cutting them down, one tree a minute, in order to create a new dairy farm, which, by 2020, will have, according to its owner, Wairākei Pastoral—for whom Landcorp, the Government farmer, manages it—43,000 more cows with their waste going into the hydro lakes and the rivers. We are already spending $210 million trying to clean up the Waikato River. We have got a solution at Lake Taupō but instead of applying that the Government is going to allow 43,000 more cows in that catchment. It is not about planting and fencing—it is great when people plant and fence waterways—it is about stopping the numbers of animals on the land. The Minister for the Environment nailed it in Taupō, but they are denying it just down the road at the top of the Waikato River.

This is an environmental disaster that is going to cost us as a nation, just as Rotorua and Taupō are costing us now. We are creating a new one. This Government is creating a new environmental disaster, from a climate perspective and from a water perspective. The farmers downstream are screaming because they are trying to live within their nitrogen limits, while the Government farmer, which is going to help to produce more methane, is undermining the very thing that keeps our entire life force and economy alive—water. Without clean water there is no tourism, no economy, and no wine industry. There are none of the things that the Government is trumpeting about. If we cannot look after water, we have got nothing. It is very obvious that the Government knows what the solution is but will not do it. So, clearly, the Minister for the Environment knows the answer but the Minister for Primary Industries will not listen. Through our petition for a moratorium 8,102 people called for this, and at the moment Nathan Guy still just cannot hear, which is going to cost us a great deal in terms of water quality.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.