General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I bring news from the political front lines. The leader of the Labour Party has been in office now for nearly 9 months—nearly 9 months—and he has stamped his authority on the party he leads. Well, he has made a lot of policy pronouncements. Can you remember them all? They have been fantastic policy pronouncements. The first one is that he is going to leave the 90-day period for new employers, small employers, in place—except he is not. He made a decision later that day that it would need to change. That was his first announcement.

He has also announced that he supports a referendum on the flag, but he does not now support a referendum on the flag. He also made a speech in which he floated the idea of means testing access to superannuation. That was a goodie. Do you know how long that lasted? Two hours—2 hours and it was gone. Yesterday he said there was too much foreign investment in New Zealand, and 1 hour later, do you know what he said? We need more foreign investment in New Zealand’s regions. This man is on fire. This man is throwing policy out there like there is no tomorrow. He wants to change the national anthem. [Interruption] No, he does not. So, actually, all his pronouncements so far have disappeared, with alarming efficiency, within hours—except for one.

There has been one announcement that continues to grind on, one contribution so far by Mr Little to political discourse, and that is—his favourite and ours—the Future of Work Commission. That is a beauty. He sent out his trusted sidekick Grant Robertson to find out what work is—[Interruption]—yes, OK, not trusted—and what is work’s future. It is a little ironic, I agree, that Grant Robertson has been selected for that task, but it is a personal journey for Grant as much as it is a political journey. He wants to know what work is, so he can get on with some. He has been sent out there. The last work he did, by the way, was winning the seventh form debating prize, and we continue to hear him repeat that success in the House every day.

So let us look at the product of the Future of Work Commission. The first report is out and it makes for interesting reading, although sometimes perhaps it is a little obvious. Nevertheless, it says: “Work done in entirely new technology businesses, the huge range of knowledge and media endeavours, the factory floor, and even family businesses have been reshaped by new pathways to information and new ways of selling goods and services.” You might think you have heard that before, and you have because that is a direct quote from the Pew Research Center. How do I know? Because one of Labour’s disaffected members decided to fisk this particular report and discovered not one, not two, not three, not four, but five or six direct lifts from The Economist, from the Business Insider, from a whole range of reports. It is plagiarism.

That is the future of work. The future of work is plagiarism, according to Mr Robertson. But that is OK. He has snuck out another report. You will notice that it is going well, the Future of Work Commission, when they release their reports on a Friday afternoon. This report is a new one that talks about the security of income and work. I decided not to read this one because I might have read it before. I thought I could save myself the time. I thought I would read Vernon Small’s article on it. At least you can be confident that Vernon wrote it originally, even if you could not be confident about the Labour Party. Anyway, it raises a very interesting thing. It talks about the flexicurity “golden triangle”, which involves “flexible rules for employers when hiring and firing”—this is the Danish model apparently—“alongside a guaranteed unemployment benefit at … up to 90 per cent for the lowest paid workers …”. So why would you work if you get 90 percent of the money for not working at all? There you go—90 percent.

So I think we have discovered that Grant Robertson’s future of work, so far, is copying other people’s work and now no work at all. Copying other people’s work and no work at all—that is Grant Robertson. Actually, when you think about it, it all makes sense: copying work and no work at all; Grant Robertson—the circle is complete. The circle is complete. The inquiry is over. Grant Robertson has described himself. He can now report back to Andrew Little: “Mission accomplished!”.

I just want to talk about the flow-on effects of this Government’s decisions of late. I want to talk about the flow-on effects of the actual foreign economic downturn. The National Government seems to be the only group in society that is still in denial about the situation that is facing this country. I want to say to its members: “Let’s talk about it, National. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s actually acknowledge that there are problems. We are heading in the wrong direction, and your go-to answer is apparently that dairy exports are only 20 percent of the export take.” Then we heard the Minister today having to resort to talking about other nations’ economies and how well they are performing. It just does not seem to make any sense.

Let us face some facts. Fonterra has slashed its forecast payout for the season to $3.85 a kilo—far below break-even point for many of our farmers. Farmer debt, New Zealand dairy debt, has trebled to $34.5 billion in the past 10 years—$34.5 billion in the past 10 years—and the National Government has made it worse. It has made it worse. It was happy to encourage New Zealanders to put all of their eggs in the dairy basket, and so players in the dairy industry expanded. Young New Zealand couples went into the dairy industry hoping to partake in that growth market without realising the realities of the market, because this Government misled them.

Last week Fonterra said that it would pay dairy farmers only $3.85 a kilo for milk solids—the lowest payment since the 2005-06 season and well below the estimated $5.40 break-even costs. What does this mean? It has already led to consequences in New Zealand—in our regions, in particular. We now have the number of mortgagee sales jumping nationwide in the past quarter, as lower dairy prices have already hit provincial New Zealand. Support industries are already shutting down. They are already shutting up shop or laying off staff in the hope of seeing the downturn through.

💬 David Bennett: OK—tell us how many.

I will tell you how many in a minute, Mr Bennett. Experts are warning of more foreclosures outside of Auckland’s surging property market, as financially strapped homeowners in regional New Zealand start defaulting on their mortgages: 149 people lost their homes in distress sales—149 in the past 3 months.

💬 David Bennett: So 149 farms?

It is a jump, Mr Bennett—who does not seem to care—of 56 percent on the previous quarter. Five of the nation’s 14 regions recorded a jump in forced sales.

New Zealand First and New Zealanders are saying that the National Government must act now to stop the sale of our land to foreign buyers. Foreign buyers have swathes of cash that New Zealanders do not have. New Zealanders will lose large amounts of land to foreign ownership, as overseas buyers snap up what we anticipate will be cheap dairy farms. Kiwi farm owners do not want to sell their land, but when the banks are forced to act—and they will act—the people with the most money to spend will, unfortunately, not be New Zealand residents. Overseas investors looking to build up their capital while the going is good will mean that our future generations will lose out. It is intergenerational theft.

The last quarterly review from Westpac suggests that GDP will fall to 1.6 percent next year. It is also expected that unemployment will rise and wage growth will slow down even further. I beg the National Government to stop denying the facts. We now face the worse rate of unemployment in New Zealand since 2000—more than double the number that it was when National took office. Stop denying the facts. Let us have an adult conversation about this. National needs to come up with some real solutions, but, first of all, it actually needs to acknowledge that there is a problem. That is the first step in identifying how we can create a solution for New Zealanders. Thank you.

This week we have heard Opposition parties rail large about the effect of the drop in dairy prices and the outlook for our farmers. We have heard two themes coming through that I want to touch on, and the member who has just resumed his seat, Fletcher Tabuteau, certainly repeated some of them.

First of all, you hear Opposition parties saying that somehow National is not backing the farmers. Suddenly there is a river of crocodile tears coming from the Opposition benches for the farmers. Well, I think that Nathan Guy said it exactly right in the House today: if you are going to stand in this House and talk about supporting farmers, let us look at the track record. First of all, which party in this House actually has farmers in its caucus? National. Does New Zealand First? No. Do the Greens? No. Does Labour? No. National is the party that has supported farmers for a long time.

Where are the Opposition members when we are talking about reforming the Resource Management Act? Where are the Opposition members when we are talking about backing water storage? Where are the Opposition members when we are talking about sensible, moderate water standards that allow farmers to continue to farm? They oppose all of that. They oppose all of that, and yet they have the barefaced cheek to come in here and pretend that suddenly they are the defenders of the farmers. Well, farmers are not simple folk, even though the Labour Opposition, the Greens, and New Zealand First seem to think so. They have got long memories, and they know which party backs them.

Nathan Guy said it today, did he not? How can the Opposition parties protest on the steps of Parliament against free-trade agreements, against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, against removing tariffs to our economic exports, and then come in here and say: “Oh, the poor farmers. Oh, the poor farmers.”? We want you to pay 300 percent tariffs into your markets, but: “Boy, the poor farmers.” There is a word for that that starts with “h” that I am not allowed to talk about.

Then there is the other great fallacy that we have heard from that bunch of people who have variable positions, depending on the circumstances—I say that so as not to offend the Standing Orders—and that fallacy is that somehow the National Party has been blocking a diversification of the economy. Let us look at the track record there. I can tell you that this is the party that backed rolling out digital infrastructure and digital skills across this economy, and the results are paying dividends.

We know that phase one of the broadband programme alone is worth $33 billion to this country, and Labour opposed it—Labour opposed it; it voted against it. We know that even going back to that last issue, that programme alone is worth $9.1 billion to the dairy sector over 20 years—$9.1 billion to the dairy sector, and Labour voted against it. We know that it will create 100,000 extra jobs with highly skilled, highly paid workers in our economy, and the Opposition voted against it. This is the sector—the information and communications technology sector—that is our third-largest export sector. You will not hear the Opposition talking about that anymore, because Labour knows it blocked that programme.

Information and communications technology is our third-largest sector, and last year its services were worth more than $23.5 billion—10 percent of our GDP and 3 percent more than a few years ago. In fact, exports in this sector rose 23 percent last year alone. You have got the information and communications technology sector exports going up 23 percent in 1 year, year-on-year growth across the sector of an annualised 9 percent over the last 10 years, and a sector where information and communications technology stocks now make up 10 percent of the value of all the listings on the NZX. Five years ago it was just 1 percent. So 5 years ago 1 percent of our stocks were for information and communications technology, and now it is 10 percent alone.

We on this side of the House recognise that this is because we have innovative, hard-working, imaginative Kiwis out there doing it. But the difference is that we have rolled out the infrastructure, the skills, the training, the research and development, and the free-trade agreements to allow them to do it. I say to the Opposition parties: do not come into this House and cry crocodile tears about diversifying the economy and supporting farmers when you block it at every opportunity you get.

If ever there was an image to sum up the lazy, incompetent, complacent economic management of the National Government it was this image here from the front of the Westpac quarterly Economic Overview, released yesterday: a boat run aground, an economy run aground. That image got me thinking of another group of castaways from my childhood: a group marooned on an island who week after week tried to find their way off the island. Surrounded by opportunities to move themselves ahead, they failed consistently week after week. I speak, of course, of Gilligan’s Island. In them we see the National Government and its approach to the economy, led by the skipper, John Key. The skipper, the happy-go-lucky captain of the SS Minnow, drifted along completely unaware of and unable to control the chaos around him, distracted by irrelevancies—does that sound familiar—and completely unable to lead his team. But do not worry, the erstwhile skipper has his first mate: the bumbling, accident-prone, incompetent Gilligan, or, as we know him, Bill English. He is a man whose head is so firmly in the sand he cannot get that boat off the island and he cannot take the opportunities that are in front of him.

If people want to recall the general plot of Gilligan’s Island, each week the castaways tried to find a way to float the boat again, to find the opportunities that were there, and they would fail every time, missing the opportunities because Gilligan did not know what to do. He had no idea. But he had some assistance on the island, as Bill English does from Steven Joyce, the Minister for Economic Development—or Thurston Howell III, the bewildered millionaire who found himself washed up on the island, constantly thinking of new schemes that he could do to lift their spirits, and he completely failed. There were others on the island as well, whom people may not remember. There was Mary Ann Summers, who, for me, is summed up by Paula Bennett, the Associate Minister of Finance, who is just a little surprised—just a little surprised—at her role as the Associate Minister of Finance.

We have in our Government the Gilligan’s Island crew, completely unable to work out that right around New Zealand there are opportunities—Judith Collins is laughing, but I am coming to her—that could take them off the island. It could be investing in our regions, diversifying our economy, or adding value to products—getting that boat and lifting it from its becalmed state and taking it out there—because right around New Zealand there are businesses and there are communities that want to be part of this. There is the Ōpōtiki community, which wants its wharf to get an aquaculture industry going. There is the Wairarapa community, which could have a wood-processing industry right there right now, today, if this Government was prepared to take those opportunities on, but it is not. But do not worry, because week after week on the island there was somebody there to look out for them: Ginger Grant. We on this side of the House know that it is not up to Gilligan, it is not up to the Skipper; it is up to Ginger Grant—Judith Collins—to come to the rescue of the National Government. That is how they will get off the island.

The Economic Overview from Westpac shows unemployment going up over 6.5 percent, it shows growth going under 2 percent, and it shows the Canterbury rebuild peaking. This Government built an economic stool with three legs: the Canterbury rebuild, which is falling off; Auckland housing prices, for which the bubble will come to an end; and dairy prices, which have collapsed. There is no plan B. Plan A is not working. Government members are marooned on Gilligan’s Island.

My goodness, that Grant Robertson is good, is he not? He is good. He is so good. Why is he not the leader of the Labour Party? He has tried three times, and three times he has been rejected, and I think it is because he will never make it with women, because he calls me “Ginger” when clearly I am blonde. The man just does not get it. Really, he is good though, is he not? He is so funny. He is so good that he is helping Andrew Little with his strategy, and it is all going so well. In fact, I think Grant Robertson is one of those people who has shown some resilience. He has tried three times to be the leader of the Labour Party—

💬 Grant Robertson: No.

No? It is two—twice? Oh, sorry; I have pre-empted the third time. You see, everyone says I can see into the future.

What I have been able to say is that resilience is something that we are seeing in the dairying industry, that we are seeing in the country, and that we are also seeing in industry. I guess I feel very strongly for the dairying industry because I come from a family of dairy farmers, for generations, and I know that people are going through really hard times, particularly those farmers who have bought the neighbour’s property or have actually gone and upskilled and done all sorts of things to actually build their business. But I would say to them this: this is a temporary issue. It is not going to destroy the economy. It is going to be really hard for some individual farmers and they are going to need all of that resilience, but do you know what? Resilience is a great thing. I am apparently quite qualified to talk about it. I have heard that. People keep telling me I am resilient. My other good friend Shane Jones—he is resilient. I am looking forward to him coming back to New Zealand First and taking over from Mr Winston Peters, and I can see Ron Mark is looking forward to that too, but not as much as my friend Tracey Martin. We are all looking forward to resilience coming back. Resilience has a time of coming back and just doing you over, but it should be fun.

What I want to talk about today is the fact that this economy that we have in New Zealand has shown real resilience. Dairying is important, but it is actually 5 percent of our economy. It is not the 95 percent that you would think it is if you listened to “Radio Albania”, also known as Radio New Zealand National—

💬 Hon Member: Oh, is that racist?

—but it is actually a much smaller part of the economy than it used to be. And, no, that is not racist; it is actually true. Actually, it is a nice compliment to Radio New Zealand National, because it is so ethnically diverse.

I thought that what we would want to talk about today in terms of resilience is the meat industry. The meat industry now is at the highest level of exports it has ever been—$2.8 billion of exports of our red meat. That is so much better than it was maybe 10 or 20 years ago. This is an industry that has been in decline, and now it is improving. Look at the kiwifruit industry. Wow! You just have to read the Sunday Star-Times article I wrote the other day.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Come on, stop trying to get into Cabinet.

It is an industry that has gone from strength to strength. Talking about resilience, let us look at the Hon Trevor Mallard. By goodness, is he not resilient!

💬 David Bennett: The worst Speaker ever.

Well, I would never say that, Mr Bennett. That is a terrible thing to say.

Of course, I always look at my electorate of Papakura, an electorate that is going from strength to strength, not in—no, actually, that is in no small part because this Government is actually leading the country. This electorate has special housing areas for Africa, frankly—oh, I must not offend New Zealand First members; they will get upset. There is $280 million for the widening of the southern motorway between Hill Road and Papakura. We have the electrification of railways going through. We have a huge increase in population. In the Papakura electorate we are looking at 160,000 people going in there in the next 20 years. That is Hamilton coming into our area. This is a massive opportunity for the Auckland south area. It is an electorate of resilience and of a hard-working MP. I would say look at tourism. There were 3 million visitors last year from overseas. That is a record number.

This economy is resilient. It is moving very well. It is actually continuing to go ahead, and we should not let a significant part of the economy pull everything else down. This is a country with promise, hope, and a future, unlike the Labour Party, which is utterly hopeless.

Rock star to rock-bottom, led by the hundred-billion-dollar man—$100 billion. One thing I will say about Muldoon is that he borrowed only $19 billion. That is a pretty poor effort when you have John Key, who has borrowed $100 billion in 7 years. He is the trader, the “Smiling Assassin”, the PM who likes Hawaii. He likes hair and he loves himself. He said that he wanted Fonterra shares to be traded. He said that New Zealand should be the financial hub of the Asia-Pacific region—until he found out it was going to cost a whole lot of money and Treasury advised him not to go down that path.

He is a guy who does not have a vision. He has not developed a plan. I do not agree with my colleagues who say “Where’s plan B?”, because there has never been plan A. If I can quote Mike Hosking—and I have to say he is one of the greatest cheerleaders of the Prime Minister I have ever heard. He is usually full of it, but what he said yesterday is: “… what worries me about this country is our view is so short of term.” Well, he is right, and his mate John Key has been in charge of this country for 7 years without any plan being developed for our future. Bill English’s constituents must be horrified. What will the Diptonites think down there of their conservative Bill coming to Wellington and raking up $100 billion worth of debt? I think they will think he has gone to Wellington, and so has his sense of reality. I know that they would certainly not be voting him back in.

Where does that lack of a plan leave our economy? We have the dairy industry facing some huge challenges. It was the star of our rocky economy, but now not so. Because there has been no vision, no strategy, no plan for where we may go, and no diversification, that failing to plan has meant that we have planned to fail. Fonterra itself must take some responsibility. It set up a global trading platform that has simply driven the price down. It is the only New Zealand producer of dairy products on that platform, and there is only one other company selling. It is not an internationally recognised global trading platform, and so it is only giving indicative prices for dairy products.

Can I say that John Key has been determined to see the dairy industry on the stock market. He provided that through Trading Among Farmers, and now we have a company that is split between the loyalties to its shareholders or unitholders and those to its supplying farmers. That dilemma has distracted the directors. Can I say that on a day that the ASB has announced a record profit of $859 million, one of its directors sits on the board of Fonterra. I think when 500 staff at Fonterra are going to come under scrutiny, so too should the directors. There are three directors of Fonterra who sit on the major trading banks of this country that have, effectively, lent $34 billion to dairy farmers. We are told by cheerleaders for the Government not to call this a crisis. I say to you: put yourself in the gumboots of the farmer who has been encouraged to borrow money to grow his business, to grow the exports—double the exports, this Government has said—and now faces not only declining equity and a lack of viability but, in fact, a very, very bleak future.

It is not looking too good. Our rock star economy has got to rock-bottom. Yes, there are some stars—the beef industry temporarily, the wine industry, and the horticulture industry—but our No. 1 industry, dairy, is on its knees at the moment and it is going to be a big, big effort to get it out. We have seen no direction, no support, and no help from this National Government. What we say is that it will once again take a Labour Government to get the dairy industry out of the doldrums. It started in the 1930s and happened again in the 1950s, in the 1970s, and when we formed Fonterra and we made the hard call to take off subsidies. We are always prepared to make the hard decisions, show the leadership across the agribusiness sector, and make sure that this economy goes forward. At the moment we face a very bleak future, because the National Government has failed to plan and, inevitably, will plan to fail. The one person responsible is the trader over that side of the House, John Key, who came into this House wanting to sell off everything—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It is a wonderful world for some in this country. It is a wonderful world for some. For example, if you are one of the people in this country who, after taking a profitable organisation and within a 12-month period taking it to a $3 million loss, then resigns and gets a payout package, it is a great country to be in. It is a great country to be in. No wonder—no wonder—everyday New Zealanders are shaking their heads and trying to look around themselves to see how they can get on in this country that is New Zealand under this National Government, when that is the sort of headline we get.

I wonder how many of the staff at Lincoln University also shook their heads when they saw Mr West, who we understand was escorted from the premises a week before he handed in his resignation. He handed in his resignation but then had a lovely conversation with the council members to make sure—and how did the council members say this—that we manage this in the terms that Andy West wanted to achieve for himself. I wonder how many of the permanent staff who were fired and who had their jobs disestablished, and so on and so forth, had a conversation as they were ushered out of Lincoln University about how we manage this in terms of what they want to achieve for themselves? And why were they ushered out of Lincoln University? Predominantly because there was a $5 million cash-in-hand amount when Mr West got there and now that Mr West has left, there is a $2 million to $3 million deficit on the books.

And how did we get to that? Well, through some really interesting decisions. But to start with, let us go to how Mr West was appointed. Let us go to 26 July 2013 and let us go to a statement by Mr Steven Joyce: “At Lincoln University and the University of Canterbury I am using an unusual number of appointment opportunities to implement a strategy that will encourage collaboration and cooperation across the two councils. This strategy will also strengthen the high-level financial skills available to councils in their deliberations as these institutions recover from the Canterbury earthquakes.” Well, that did not work, did it? That did not work, did it? So there you go: Mr Joyce; a high-level appointment; he is going to make it all right; and Mr West is then appointed, not by Mr Joyce, agreeably, but by people whom he put in place. Then there are some consultancy companies that were established—in April 2013, it looks like—so that they could deliberately get contracts handed out by Mr West in May 2013. And it goes on and it goes on. I do not have the time to go through everything, but believe me, this will not go away.

In the last few minutes, I want to talk about Salisbury School. I want to talk about Salisbury School, where I was on Monday. This school will be 100 years old, and it caters to young women with high, high special needs. It went to court in 2012 to stop this Government from closing it down. What has happened to it since? This Government has almost strangled it to death. Four years ago it had 80 students, catering for 80 high-needs students in a beautiful environment; an environment that provided excellent teaching, one-on-one learning, and peace and tranquillity for those students who need it. They boarded there and gave their families respite. How many students does it have now? Nine. How many students will it have next year? Two. Is that because there is no need? No, it is because the Intensive Wraparound Service is blocking these students. And how do I know that? I know that because our offices have had to work with students from families that are under extreme pressure—under extreme pressure—because of a philosophy that Lockwood Smith railed against when the Labour Government said that it was going to put it in.

So what has happened to the National Government philosophically so that it refuses to support these high-needs female students inside this incredibly intensive environment? We will not stop. We will continue to make sure that the families out there contact our offices, and we will fight this Government from shutting down Salisbury School and the special needs that are required for these young women. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa i tēnei ahiahi. About 2 or 3 weeks ago it was Māori Language Week, and I wanted to offer some reflections on Māori Language Week. Can I thank all members for their efforts around pronunciation of Māori names during Māori Language Week. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou.

Mr Speaker, can I thank you. I have got to say that on that Tuesday when you came down the aisle here I am pretty sure everybody was watching you and you had plenty of eyes on you. You went up to your platform and you started with our karakia. So koinei te mihi ki a koe. I want to say thank you. Although you took your time over it, it was brilliant that you set the scene for the House. I want to say congratulations for that. Maybe next time relax a bit, only because I think everybody was watching. I just want to acknowledge you for your efforts. Thank you so much for setting the scene for the week. The hope will be that we take it up and not have that focus for just the 1 week but indeed offer our karakia up in Māori throughout the year. I just ask you to give some consideration to that. But I do appreciate you setting the scene because that set the scene for the rest of the House, although I think we have fallen backwards a little bit over the last week.

Māori Language Week—I should thank the whole nation because the whole nation came behind that whole campaign. Broadcasters attempted speaking in Te Reo. I had a hui with Government agencies that said that they will give bilingual signs a go. I want to acknowledge the father of the member Peeni Henare. His dad, Ērima Hēnare, was honoured out at Waiwhetū for his work for Māori language. He was one who was hugely passionate about our language. But I suppose, in the end, I have got to ask the question: what are we going to do to look at increasing the number of speakers? “What do you really need to do, Te Ururoa?”, I was asked. I said: “Basically, it’s all about a heart thing. You can teach people as much as you like, but unless your heart believes in it, it isn’t going to happen.”

We thank the Black Caps for coming out with “Aotearoa” on the one-day cricket shirt. That is pretty awesome, and they are thinking about having a bilingual website shortly. In my office, we raised about $30 from those people paying fines for speaking English in our offices. So just know, everybody, that if you visit the Māori Party, there is a Māori-speaking zone there. I want to pay tribute to Finnian Galbraith, the young boy from Kāpiti College who set the web alight by asking everybody to give consideration to pronouncing Māori properly.

When I started my teaching career in a place called Kaikōura, all of the children I taught said “Kaikoura”. Their parents said “Kaikoura”. Their grandparents and great-grandparents said “Kaikoura”. I was a Māori language teacher. Was I going to turn that tide round? Probably not. But what it did do was remind me that what we learn as kids is likely to be the way that we will stay, generation after generation after generation. So even 2 weeks after Māori Language Week, I have been sitting here listening, and I have heard the word “Wairarapa”, I have heard “Taranaki”, and I have heard “Papakura”, and I am saying to us, as members of Parliament, that if we can do it for 1 week surely to goodness we can do it on a daily basis so that Papakura is Papakura, so that Papatoetoe is Papatoetoe, so that Taranaki is Taranaki, and so that Wairarapa is Wairarapa. So I ask members to think about that. It is not too hard. If it is good enough for Finnian, then it should surely be good enough for all of us.

Shortly, the Te Reo Māori bill will be coming into the House. It, hopefully, sets the framework around strategies for Te Reo Māori in this country. But strategies are just strategies. It really does come down to what we believe in our hearts and our minds.

In wrapping up, I suppose there are some things that rest with me as a Māori. On our marae, we need to take up the challenge to speak our language there, because you have to feel safe about what you do in utilising the resources around you. But Te Reo Māori is from this land. It belongs to me, it belongs to you, and it belongs to all of us. I enter this plea in Parliament this afternoon: that the catchphrase for this year is whāngaia te Reo Māori ki te whānau—feed the language to our children. And it cannot be hard for us to start doing that with our children and our grandchildren, because what we learn as young kids will stay with us when we become parents and become grandparents, and if we start now with our own, in our own families, that will set the scene for the country. If people are looking at us in this Parliament to set the scene, I think it should not be too hard for us to follow on. Having said that, I thank all members for their efforts during Māori Language Week. Tēnā koutou katoa.

One of the key themes that have been coming through in questions and through the talk today is the economy and how it is being run. I would definitely say that in this Government’s hands, it is being run very well and strongly, and a big part of that is that we on this side of things actually recognise—

💬 Dr David Clark: More debt than Muldoon.

Gosh, those members are already attacking Rob Muldoon, you know? I mean, that is absolutely desperate. He is well respected still in the wonderful place of Tāmaki. I think I have got that pronounced right—I am a bit nervous now. But one of the great things about this Government is that we actually recognise that economies go up and down. There are times when things are going really well and there are times when challenges kick in, and instead of holding up pieces of paper and trying to do—as was noted earlier—sort of seventh form or maybe fifth form rhetoric and debating, this Government gets on with the economy and supports Kiwis where it matters. It is very easy to just sort of make these statements, but I thought something that would give some example to it all is what is actually happening in Tāmaki, after some of my journeys of late, and around the country.

One element is that question of diversity in the economy, and I am happy to report that we actually have a very strong economy, well beyond dairy. That is obviously a big part of it, but I think of friends of mine who are involved in the gaming industry, of all things, who are producing remarkable new technologies and gaming systems for people, not only for fun but for education. More recently I visited the faculty of medical and health sciences at the University of Auckland. You will forgive me for not remembering exactly what the ophthalmological condition is, but they have created a game there that actually helps correct your sight, and that can go out to Kiwis for their treatment. Again, that is really neat stuff.

I think that if I can continue with the medical theme, I have visited in recent weeks those involved in digital health, everything from Vigil Monitoring to Orion Health to Simple IT. An amazing array of Kiwis are developing technologies that are not only going to help us—and, in fact, are already helping us in ways that most members probably do not know about because it just happens—but, equally, this intellectual property is product that we can sell, and are selling, overseas. There is some fantastic stuff happening there.

But also diversity, when I think of my own electorate, is manifested in the new businesses that have started up in recent weeks in my area. I think of John and his—it is called Tinman. It is a wonderful little vehicle down on Felton Mathew Avenue—

💬 Tim Macindoe: Mathew Felton Avenue.

Yes, I know. Well, this is a great one for spoonerisms, really. It is absolutely fantastic coffee. There is a really neat new place in—

💬 Tim Macindoe: There used to be an Icebreaker down there.

There did, indeed. But, no, that has gone now. But thank you, Tim. We will continue this dialogue here as I try to address the nation. You have got something called The Local Coffee House, which has started in the St Heliers Bay mall—a great new cafe and business—and then just further up the road you have got something called The Honest Food Co., which is working very much in the paleo and sugar-free diet area. That gives you just three examples of new businesses starting out in the electorate.

But all of that also sits, I think, on having a strong education system. As we have heard in recent weeks, particularly from the Opposition when those members have been plagiarising material, first and foremost, there is not the originality of ideas, and, secondly, they have not learnt the basic art of referencing one’s work.

Education is important, and in Tāmaki most recently it was very pleasing to see that 40 new classrooms have been announced for schools within Tāmaki at the likes of St Thomas School, Ōrākei School, Selwyn College, Tāmaki College, and Glendowie College. There are 40 new classrooms, plus five further classrooms that are being renovated. So this is going to start happening over the next 18 months, and it is something that I have been very keen on and very aware of when talking to the boards and the teachers, and the parents as well. There is a growing need for these classrooms.

Yesterday, I think it was, there was an announcement of $156,000 going into Tāmaki, and not just into Tāmaki but it is $156,000 to facilitate the learning of Asian languages, which I think is tremendous. Again, that is benefiting quite a range of our schools—St Thomas School, again; Churchill Park School; St Heliers School; Kohimārama School; and then our two colleges, Glendowie and Selwyn. The value, or the diversity, if you will, of languages is, well, almost incalculable. We know from the research that a child learning whatever language at a young age—it does not matter whether it is English, Māori, Samoan, Tongan, Latin, Greek, or Mandarin—is actually going to have real cognitive abilities. I am slightly biased. I have learnt six languages in my life. Whether it has helped me or not, I am not convinced completely.

But the other thing I would just note is that there is $13.1 million for a cycleway in Tāmaki from Glen Innes to Tāmaki Drive. Again, great investment is going on there, and I think it is just fantastic.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Three years ago I had the benefit, I guess, of being able to spend a day in the Fukushima exclusion zone, which is the 25-kilometre radius zone round the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Within that zone created in Japan, nobody was allowed to live because of the radiation and contamination from the explosion at Fukushima. Going around that zone was extraordinary because Japan is so crowded, but there was nobody there at the abandoned rice paddies, the abandoned villages, and so forth. You got a real sense of the genuine dangers of nuclear power in that context. The German Government took note of the Fukushima disaster and made the decision that it would phase out nuclear power, which is its democratic right.

A decision to phase out nuclear power over time passed through the Bundestag, the German Parliament. This, it seems to me, coming from nuclear-free New Zealand, is a perfectly reasonable position for a democratic Parliament to take. The problem was that Germany had signed an investment treaty with Sweden that had an investor-State dispute settlement clause within it. So a Swedish nuclear power station operator decided that it would take a case against Germany for about $7 billion—an investor-State dispute settlement case. It was suing the German Government because the German Government had the temerity to democratically decide that it wanted to phase out nuclear power.

This is a classic problem with investor-State dispute settlement clauses: they give investors special rights to sue Governments in secret tribunals for very large compensation. The biggest case that we know of is US$1.3 billion, which was awarded against Ecuador. The reason why Vattenfall, the power company, was so confident in its case—this case is ongoing against the German Government—was that Vattenfall had previously taken on the German Government over a coal-fired power plant. Hamburg, where the plant was to be built, had put a whole bunch of environmental protections on the plant. It put a whole bunch of environmental rules around the new coal plant, which were designed to protect the River Elbe. Vattenfall, the Swedish power company, did not like these environmental rules so it sued the German Federal Government, under investor-State dispute settlement clauses for a little over €1 billion. The German Government settled out of court. You might say: “Oh well, that proves that Vattenfall did not win.” Well, in fact, it did win, because the settlement out of court was that Hamburg had to remove all of the environmental constraints. That is a classic example of how investor-State dispute settlement clauses undermine the ability of Governments to regulate to protect the environment. This is just one case amongst hundreds. These cases are now multiplying. There are more cases than ever every year over investor-State dispute settlement clauses.

The problem with these investor-State dispute settlement clauses is that there is no international court that you can go to. You go to a three-person panel, a tribunal—one person is appointed by the company, one is appointed by the Government, and one agreed in the middle. The decisions of these tribunals are binding. There is no appeal. The proceedings happen in secret, literally in secret. Often people do not know until some time afterwards what the decision was—how much the costs were that were awarded. So the impact of these is a chilling effect on regulation—the regulation by Governments in order to protect human health and the environment. This is why the European Union Trade Commissioner has now come out and said that these clauses are no longer fit for purpose in the 21st century, and they will not sign up to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which is the equivalent agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, if you like, between Europe and the United States. The obstacle to signing that at the moment is the investor-State dispute settlement clauses, because the Europeans are saying: “We will not sign up to these clauses, which prevent our Government from regulating to protect the environment or human health or anything else.” Let us remember that Egypt was sued because it raised the minimum wage in one of these cases.

These clauses are a fundamental constraint on democratic regulation, and that is why they are so problematic in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The clause that Tim Groser is so keen to sign up to in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is exactly the clause that the EU commissioner described as no longer fit for purpose in the 21st century. That is the clause that the EU refuses to sign, and Tim Groser is rushing in to sign it. What is it all for? Well, according to the US Department of Agriculture, if New Zealand gets everything it wants in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, all the agricultural tariffs are removed, all the agricultural trade-related quotas are removed, and New Zealand’s GDP will increase by 0.01 percent in 2025. And for that we are willing to trade our right to pass democratic law to protect the environment and human health. That is a bad deal.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. In this country, we are all either immigrants or descendants of immigrants, whether we can track our ancestry to the waka or to the sailing boats of the early part of the 1800s—whether we are of European descent or of Chinese descent. That is how long the Chinese have been in this country—for more than 200 years—and I think that it is a disgrace that the Labour Party has picked out people with Chinese-sounding names and is blaming that group of Kiwis for a housing shortage.

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: It’s a disgrace.

It is a disgrace—playing the race card and picking on a group of people that has been here for hundreds of years. Perhaps if you look at the statistics, in fact, the people who are buying more houses—

💬 Dr David Clark: Tell the truth.

I will tell you the truth.

The people who are buying houses in Auckland look more like Mr Twyford. I would be betting that the people who are buying houses in Auckland are white and male. That is what I would be putting my money on. They will be people who have chosen to live in Auckland. They will be people who have moved, perhaps from Christchurch, bringing their tools of trade, and they will be working on the large—[Interruption] They may not be moving into a very desirable place. There is lots of work going on, and they are going to Auckland for work. These are the people who are going to be moving to Auckland, and more recently, in this generation—whether it is Australians, Americans, Somalians, Afghans, Filipinos—they are all coming and choosing to live in New Zealand. They bring the skills and the finance. They contribute to our economy. They create jobs, they pay taxes, and they are welcome. In the Wairarapa, we have chefs, teachers, movie producers, and winemakers—all recent immigrants. They are all contributing to the local economy. New immigrants will now find it easier to come to Masterton to set up home, because this Government is giving a greater number of credits to those who apply to live in New Zealand away from Auckland. This is fantastic for the regions.

The dairy sector is going through a rough patch. I can assure you, though, that the sky is not falling in. Sheep and beef production has good days and bad days. The wine industry has had good days and bad days. The kiwifruit industry has had bad days and good days. There are swings and roundabouts, and the sanctimony from the other side, treating people like they are idiots, is just not appreciated. People who are in business understand that there are risks. People understand that there are commodity cycles. People understand that there will be good years and there will be “less good” years. It is important for the Government that it creates a framework for business people to operate within—not to tell them how to operate or to subsidise their business but to create a framework that they can operate their businesses within. So that is why we have not put the agricultural sector in the emissions trading scheme, as opposed to the Opposition, which would suggest that. There is no capital gains tax, as has been flip-flopped around by the Labour Party. There is no water tax or anti-irrigation theme, which is what the Opposition is promoting. There is, I can assure you, strong research and development in the Primary Growth Partnership programme, which is all about agriculture and primary production.

Last but not least, we do support free-trade agreements. We want our products to be sold throughout the world, and we want to open up markets for our primary producers. That is the solution to increasing jobs and increasing wealth for all New Zealanders. The Government has recently announced, for the dairy sector, an investment, if you like, of half a million dollars to support mental health in the rural sector. That is something that the Government can do and has done. That is more than 100 rural-focused mental health practitioners, which is very much appreciated by the rural sector. Having a diversified, resilient economy enables us to invest in the future. I am pleased to continue to support this Government in the things that it does for the rural sector.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa, e ngā mema o te Whare nei. National members’ complacency in the face of plunging global dairy prices is recklessly irresponsible. As farmers in communities around them have said, billions of dollars disappear in front of their eyes. National cannot turn a blind eye to the crisis in dairying. Last year the economy lost $7 billion—$7 billion—from lower dairy prices. We seek to lose at least that much again. Fonterra’s dairy payout drop means that dairy farmers are $5.7 billion in the red, over two seasons, compared with a break-even payout of $5.70. Dairy farm prices are falling, down 18 percent since October, and banks are starting to foreclose on over-indebted farmers. The price of dairy products is beyond the Government’s control, but National’s policies made us more dependent on them. It has encouraged dairy conversions and subsidised irrigation while failing to invest in research and development, manufacturing, and to make sure we extract greater value from our produce.

I am the proud member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. It is 762 kilometres in length. I cover the Hawke’s Bay, the East Coast, Gisborne, Central Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, and the Hutt Valley. Our economy is very reliant on farming, fishing, and forestry. Hence the reason why, when I hear from this Government that things are doing really well, that is not my reality when I travel up and down the breadth of my electorate. There is clearly a disconnect with what the Ministers and the Prime Minister are saying in this House, in telling every New Zealander that the regions are thriving.

Can I tell you from my trips that I have both up the East Coast—around forestry, around transportation issues—and Gisborne, in terms of shipping out our logs, which are still very much raw, from the harbour there, that there are no jobs being created. In fact, when I have a look at the latest unemployment statistics for Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay—let us compare them. In 2008 we had an unemployment rate for Māori of 8.5 percent. In 2008, in quarter two, we had 8.5 percent of Māori unemployed. In quarter two, in this year, 2015, Māori unemployment is at 15.3 percent—15.3 percent! So how can we stand here in this House and say that the people of the Gisborne area are benefiting from a growing economy? Those statistics clearly say that they are not.

But hold on, let us look at gender. We see that 3.2 percent of males in 2008 were likely to be unemployed and this year it has almost doubled to 7.2 percent. Female unemployment rates have gone from 5.7 percent in 2008 to 8.2 percent this year. Clearly, the unemployment statistics are not showing the benefits that this Government, this National-led Government, wants New Zealanders to believe in.

In the short time I have to stand and speak in this general debate—there is an issue very close to my heart that aligns with this Government’s economic growth agenda, and that is around He Kai Kei Āku Ringa, the Māori economic strategy. Part and parcel of that strategy is the reviewing of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. I want to point out and raise, for all members in the House, the concerns from the four consultation hui that I attended throughout my electorate and what Māori landowners were saying. They were, basically, complaining that the review of this Act was coming in a very hurried and unconsidered way, and that the exposure draft that we were asked to comment on removed the preamble. The preamble part of the original Act talks about Māori landowners’ connections to whenua, which is around whakapapa and identity. It does not talk about utilisation of land. It does not talk about commercial gain or profit. It talks about our whakapapa to whenua. That is what is in Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, as we speak, in the preamble.

What the exposure draft presents is the removal of that and a replacement with the words “better utilisation of land”. I bring it to the attention of the House that if you ask Māori landowners, that is a real concern for many of them. The second point I want to make about the—

Order! The time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.