General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Yes, well, what a week it has been for the primary sector. Just today Statistics New Zealand is out there saying fruit exports are up 51 percent over the last 12 months, meat exports are up 24 percent, and also beef, leading the charge, is up 40 percent. Is that not fantastic? Is it not fantastic that the New Zealand primary sector is helping underpin economic growth in this country?

Of course, last week and the week before that we had Labour out there saying it is a crisis in the primary sector, we should be moving to plan B, and that we are not doing enough to help the dairy industry. We had the Green Party over there confused. It was really confused. James Shaw was saying that we should be out there doing more to help dairy farmers, then, of course, we had Catherine Delahunty saying we should be having a moratorium on dairy farming and we should stop the expansion of dairy farming, and then we had Steffan Browning up the back there talking about how we are not doing enough to support organic dairy farming. So I suggest they get together in a bit of huddle up there in Bowen House and gather around Mr Browning’s vegetable patch and get their lines correct.

But let us focus on one thing. It is right to raise in the House this afternoon that it is a pretty tough time for the dairy industry, but we have been through this before. The average price from 2002 to 2006 was $4.14. Of course, then, when Labour was on the Treasury benches on this side, we did not hear anything from Labour members—not a whisper from them—but, of course, now it is a crisis. Well, of course it is not a crisis, because our dairy farmers have been there before.

We on this side of the House realise it is tough for our dairy farmers, but this is a worldwide issue. There is more milk in the world, more milk being produced and exported from the US, Russian sanctions are meaning the European Union products are looking for a new home into some of our modern traditional markets, and, of course, the China slow-down and a little bit of stockpiling of product. But the positive was that last week the global dairy trade increased by 14 to 15 percent.

Our farmers are out there doing the hard work at the moment in the mud collecting their calves, producing a fantastic product—

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: They don’t know what work is.

The Opposition members are still working out what the definition of work is—you are right, Mr Joyce. They will need to go and cut and paste a few other reports from around the world on that one. We realise what work is all about. Our dairy farmers realise what work is all about, and we back them.

What is also important is that our horticulture industry is growing fantastically. Let us think about kiwifruit. The industry has grown on the back of Psa, which nearly crippled it. Now its exports are about $1 billion. Think about the wine industry—$1.42 billion of exports. That is absolutely fantastic. Also, we should not forget forestry as well. It is pretty tough for the industry with the China situation at the moment, but there are some bright lights on the horizon for it to export into the US. And, of course, we should not forget about the boom in housing in Auckland and also in Canterbury as well. So we are doing a huge amount to support and promote our primary sector.

This article was handed to me by Anne Tolley today. Look at this. In her local paper it says: “Gisborne economy looks up”. The second line says: “Beef prices drive improved income forecast”. Beef prices in Gisborne on the East Coast are underpinning that economy. That is not acknowledged by those on the other side of the House. It is all about a crisis—it is all about a crisis—and a confused message from the Green Party, which just cannot work it out.

Then we think about what those on the other side of the House want to do to the primary sector. They want to bring in an irrigation tax. They do not support the Primary Growth Partnership. We hear that every day from Damien O’Connor. What they also want to do is bring biological emissions into the emissions trading scheme, which means animal emissions going into the emissions trading scheme quicker than they would anywhere else around the world. They do not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Labour cannot work out at the moment whether it does or whether it does not. Of course, we on this side of the House know that that would mean a huge amount to the primary sector and regional economies of New Zealand.

On this side of the House we back the primary sector. Just in the last couple of weeks we opened the Central Plains Water irrigation scheme. That is a fantastic initiative with about $1 billion of stimulus into Canterbury. That side of the House does not support water-storage projects. We will do what we can to support regional economies and support our primary sector.

Just when the nation and the agriculture sector were looking for an expression of confidence from this Government it puts up that member, Nathan Guy, to give the speech. The agriculture sector is terrified—terrified—about what is happening because it knows that this Government abandoned it long ago. The Government could not care about the border security and biosecurity at the border, it could not care about looking after the farmers through the most difficult period, and it has got a Minister who, like most of these Ministers, has been asleep at the wheel for far too long. The reality is this: this country is facing some major economic headwinds, and the one thing that the people of New Zealand are looking for is a Government that demonstrates through its leadership that it understands what is happening, that it is realistic about what is happening, and that it has a plan of action to respond to it. So far, on all three counts, New Zealand has heard nothing—nothing—from that Government.

Well, no, that is not quite true, there is one thing: sell everything—sell everything. The message has gone out from John Key and Bill English: “We don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t have a plan. We’ve got to pony up some more cash very quickly. Let’s just put everything on the block.” So it started with the State houses, and what an absolutely shambolic mess we are now in. The most vulnerable in our community have for generations looked to the State to provide them with a safe, warm, dry house. We have had successive Governments investing in our State houses to look after our most vulnerable, and what does this mob do? What does this mob do? Its only plan is to run the houses down and sell them off.

There are hundreds of houses sitting empty, boarded up, perfectly habitable, but the Government will not put anybody in them, and then it claims that it does not have the right houses in the right places. Then it says it is going to flog them all off. Well, the problem with that little plan is it cannot find a buyer, and so it has been trawling the world. Who is going to pick up these houses? Who is going to pick up these houses? And now it has found Serco—“Oh, Serco will do.” It picks up every other mess the Government has created, why not give it this one? And that is what it has done. That is what it has done.

It cannot find a buyer for those houses, but now it is trying to put other things on the block as well. So what did the Minister of Finance do? He started talking down one of the most successful State businesses Landcorp. It has got a strong balance sheet, is diversifying, and is doing tremendous things in the agriculture sector, and what does the Minister of Finance do? He starts talking to the markets saying that maybe it is not all good, and maybe they have to look at it. Maybe the Government is going to manage it like it did Solid Energy and run it into the ground, because, if there is one thing about its track record that it has proved very successful at, it is running good businesses into the ground. Those members are not the great financial and economic wizards that they have long claimed to be. They are a disgrace when it comes to economic management. It is hands off, sit back, let everybody else do the work, and when it turns to custard blame the Government of 8 years ago. That is their only plan—that is their only plan.

The tragedy about it is this. With so many issues, so many serious issues facing our country, what we realise now is that we have a Government with no moral compass, a Government that just does not care about the most vulnerable. It does not care about the most vulnerable who look to the Government to provide them with a warm, safe, dry house. And now it turns out it does not even care about those people, former wards of the State—young kids—who were abused, beaten, and treated horrifically as wards of the State, and who are now making legitimate claims. There is a Minister who says one thing in written answers to Parliament and another in oral questions. How can you trust a Minister like that?

What is very clear is that we have a Government that does not care about the most vulnerable—the small number of people in our community who come to the Government trying to get justice and trying to get fairness. The Government just does not care. Well, it is time that we had a change. We do not need a Government that repeatedly displays the sheer arrogance and the contempt that this Government repeatedly has. It does not care about people—it does not care about people. It is out of touch and arrogant and has no plan on how to help people, whether they are the most vulnerable or whether they are those looking to the Government for a bit of leadership. It has stopped giving leadership. The support parties are no better, I might add. They sit over there smugly looking at us. They do not provide anything better either.

They had the chance. They had the chance to make sure that we had world-class health and safety laws. They blew it, and have undermined confidence in it. It is time for a change. The change is coming. It is going to be better, and we will have a Government that looks after people, that looks after all New Zealanders, and that makes this a great place to live again.

Well, what do we think? Do we think that speech by Andrew Little has shored up his leadership ambitions for the future? What do we think about Jacinda Ardern’s supporters at the moment? They will be grinning from ear to ear, I am sure, after that effort.

I want to concentrate on the reasons that would give this side of the House cause to panic. What would the reasons be for this side of the House to start panicking? Well, let me think: interest rates of nearly 11 percent over a period of time, or a current account deficit of nearly 8 percent? Would we start to worry if we increased State spending by 50 percent and the results that we were getting were going down—if the statistics were poorer, not better? Would we start panicking? I think that we probably would. If during global good times before a global financial crisis this country was already in a recession—a technical recession—would we panic? Of course we would. We would have every cause to. But that is the legacy of the time that the Labour Government was in office—for 9 years.

Let me talk a wee bit more about Labour’s legacy. The Prime Minister has been talking about it today. The Prime Minister has talked about the cold, damp, and mouldy housing stock that was left for this Government to fix up, and it has been a large task. Are we there yet? No, we are not, and we know that we are not. We know absolutely that there is more work to be done. We have done it during a period of a global financial crisis, when revenue has been down, but this Government has been showing true stewardship of taxpayers’ money.

On that side of the House, we have panic merchant Mr Winston Peters, who lends his voice to the panic that is rising on the other benches as well. So if ever our business people were thinking about getting worried, they most certainly would be worried if they listened to the Opposition. If they believe in this Government and the work that we are quietly getting on with—supporting businesses and supporting the economy—and if they understand how New Zealand fares in the global situation, they will see, when we look at growth, that our growth is looking to be about 2.6 percent, which is so much better than richer but similar nations to ourselves.

We also know that our unemployment rate of 5.8 percent is so much better than in many other countries, and it is predicted to go down into the 4 percents. We know that we have tools at our disposal should things go really badly in China and should the rest of the world be impacted by that. Should that impact on Australia, it does not have many tools in its tool box at the moment given the state of its economy. We do have tools. We can adjust interest rates, and, because of the current economic state, the Government can put stimulus into the economy. We are in a good position, but we are not going to be complacent about that. Over the months ahead, this Government will be rolling out an even more ambitious Business Growth Agenda to add to what we have already achieved, and the rest of New Zealand will see that we are looking for more ways to diversify our economy.

There have been some great stories already. More than 3 million people are coming to New Zealand for tourism’s sake. There are fantastic results in the wine sector, as the Minister has said already. We have $1.42 billion worth of export sales, up from, I think, only $800 million in 2008. So there are some great stories out there. This Government is not in charge of a one-trick pony. This Government is absolutely supporting many businesses to succeed, and that includes tourism. Large swathes of the primary industry sector are going exceptionally well, but we are putting more emphasis on training in order to make sure that those sectors have the skills that they need. We need 25,000 more people in the primary industries. This Government is not resting on its laurels. I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, members of this House, we are not panicking. We are getting on with business.

Like many residents of Wellington, I was delighted last Friday when the High Court ruled that the appeal by the New Zealand Transport Agency against the flyover around the Basin Reserve was to be rejected, and I want to say to the New Zealand Transport Agency right now that this is the time to drop this crazy idea. I have been concerned, along with many people, that since the court ruling the New Zealand Transport Agency has been eerily silent on whether, in fact, it will appeal further. This is the time to stop the nonsense. It was a crazy scheme when first envisaged. It was rejected properly by the board of inquiry and now by the High Court, and not even the New Zealand Transport Agency can hold itself above the law in this regard.

What this incident demonstrates is that we do have an agency here that, in my view, is now out of control. Only a few weeks ago we heard revelations about the number of speeding offences by New Zealand Transport Agency - owned vehicles over a 9-month period. In fact, had that level of offences been committed by any other New Zealander they would most certainly have had their licences cancelled and in some cases would have been imprisoned. But no: the New Zealand Transport Agency says that it has simply changed its procedures. In my own electorate, the New Zealand Transport Agency seems hell-bent on pursuing two roading projects that have been rejected by the Wellington City Council, rejected by all of the territorial local authorities bar one, and rejected substantially by the Greater Wellington Regional Council. And yet somehow the New Zealand Transport Agency, comprised of unelected bureaucrats, seems to think that it can defy all of those opinions, and apparently, in the former case, the High Court as well, and proceed as it intended all along.

It may be coincidental, but I note that the chief executive of the organisation has resigned effective from the end of the year. I want to say to the Minister of Transport that I think this creates an opportunity to restructure the New Zealand Transport Agency to make sure it becomes far less of an arrogant, we-know-best organisation, and more of an organisation that works closely with the local authorities and the people that it represents and serves, and that implements solutions that meet the community’s needs, not the aspirations of the engineers within the New Zealand Transport Agency. I think that the opportunity will be there, with a new chief executive, for a change of direction, and in the interests of a number of communities around New Zealand I urge the Minister to take that course.

What the flyover decision showed in Wellington was that the presumption that this phenomenon built around the edge of the Basin Reserve could resolve all our problems was completely ill-founded. In fact, the city council’s proposition some time ago of looking at a light rail link with a tunnel through the Mount Victoria area linking through to the airport makes far more sense, and I believe that the rejection of the flyover now opens the door to reconsidering that proposition, along with the spine approach that the regional and city councils have previously put in place for transport in Wellington. But they need the New Zealand Transport Agency to be an effective partner in that process, not the independent, we-know-all arbiter that decides from its lofty status what the best solution could be. When you have an agency that loses so consistently in the court of public opinion, and now in the courts of law and with local authorities, and yet still seems to think that its view is right and needs to be proceeded with, then you have an agency in crisis.

So although it is not appropriate to comment on the detail of the court decision, it is appropriate to say that that court decision now provides an opportunity for the Minister to restructure the organisation to make it more responsive to community needs and for the Government’s transport priorities to now be able to be implemented in a way that more reflects the best interests of the communities that they seek to serve, not the best interests of those who play with desktop solutions within the New Zealand Transport Agency day in and day out. This has been a complete disaster. We need to learn from it and move on.

It is my pleasure to be speaking today. I have been watching developments over in the UK Labour Party with interest. Having failed with the union darling Ed Miliband at the last election, and having veered to the left, it now looks likely to choose as its new leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is an unreconstructed lefty who believes in massive taxes on entrepreneurs, in nationalising industry, and that no problem can be solved except by spending more money. So it will be very interesting to see the chaos that unfolds over in the UK when that happens.

Actually, the same sort of thing is happening at the moment in the US Democratic Party, where we have got an elderly gentleman from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who is a representative of the far left of the Democratic Party and who is looking like he may cause some trouble for Hillary Clinton. I see the recipe for disaster that lies ahead, because a majority of voters in those places recognise that the world is connected, that the world is a competitive place, and that countries cannot expect to prosper, to generate the sorts of incomes that people want, and to create jobs if they refuse to face reality or if they build walls and expect to tax and spend.

So when we come to the New Zealand situation, we see that the New Zealand Labour Party has been ahead of the international trend. Originally, it started off with Phil Goff, who shared his centre-right credentials as leader, roared from the left, and came a cropper in 2011. Then we had Mr Shearer, another good centre-right sort of person originally, who shifted massively to the left as leader and came a cropper. He was replaced by Mr Cunliffe, who also came a cropper from the left. And now the unions have installed their selected candidate in the form of Andrew Little. The funny thing, though, and the difference in what we hear in the rhetoric coming from the Labour Party in New Zealand, is that it has not really promised anything, actually, in terms of what it would do or what it would not do in terms of where it is coming from. Whether it is going to be a reformer or whether it is going to be veering to the left or to the right we are not actually clear. All that Labour members actually do is pick a few complaints. But people can see their intent, and they know that their intent is likely to be one that veers off in a different direction.

It is not surprising that we are already seeing speculation rising about new options in that party, and we look down the front bench and we sort of see who has been making an impact and who has not. One of the preparations, presumably, for being the Leader of the Opposition is to be effective in holding the Government to account. You will run down the front bench and you will struggle to find anybody in that category, but we look forward to the opportunity to continue to engage.

What New Zealanders know is that this Government has been working to a sensible plan in a challenging world, and it is a plan that is working. It does not make us immune to the ups and downs and the hurly-burly of the global markets. We do have to deal with what we have got in international terms, but it does put this country in a stronger position than so many around us, and it puts us in a strong position to respond to whatever comes our way. The fact that we are still growing at around 2 percent and have good growth in this economy, the fact that we are still creating jobs, the fact that we are on track to surplus—we may well be in surplus; we will find out in the next few months—give us fiscal headroom if we need it. We also have room on interest rates. We are not down at 0 percent interest rates. We have not been printing money. This economy has got through a very difficult period. We have been disciplined in our spending—very disciplined about new money in every Budget for the last six Budgets. We are back on track, and we now have the capability to respond if and when and as the situation arises.

In my area, I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that next week will be Money Week. The Commission for Financial Capability is going to be holding a nationwide awareness-raising week aimed at changing behaviour around personal finance. That is a very important issue for all of us in New Zealand. There is no part of New Zealand that could not benefit from thinking and talking about its money skills and looking to improve them, and from having a national conversation about getting our money fighting fit, which is the tag line or theme for the year. We will kick off with an event at Britomart in Auckland this Monday, where I will be, and we will be talking about whether it is trimming debt, building savings, or just getting money matters in order and on the table and discussing them that is very important for New Zealand. It is part of a wider effort by this Government to encourage New Zealanders to think about improving their money skills and to strengthen financial markets generally.

That speech by Paul Goldsmith said it all. When we have international economic difficulties, that speech was a mixture of a blast from the past and looking across the water to other countries and other political elections, and then it resonated back here to a theme that ended on the theme of Money Week. Well, I say to that member, if he looks, for instance—and the agricultural Minister led off the general debate—at the Primary Growth Partnership, which has been around, I believe, since about 2009, it ain’t Money Week; it has been “Money for Years” for National Party mates. That has been evidenced by the Auditor-General who said the following in respect of the Primary Growth Partnership: “It has no significant economic benefit.” I will repeat it for Mr Goldsmith: “It has no significant economic benefit.” And many of those projects are halfway through.

This is a Government that confuses lethargy with strategy. It is lethargic. This is a Government whose political plan is to not react—whose Prime Minister gets up so relaxed that he is horizontal and says: “Don’t worry; it’s all under control.” He said the same thing about Solid Energy. No reaction. Disaster. I remember when this crew said the same thing in the 1990s and tried the same thing in respect of Solid Energy, to flog it off, and in respect of Landcorp, to flog it off. When we inherited them in 2008 they were almost a basket case. We proved them up and we told those State-owned enterprises to get on with the job. Solid Energy was an export award-winning company. Landcorp was doing well. National gets in, and it is at it again. No reaction. Lethargy with strategy is the confusing symbol of this Government. Do not react. Even when you are warned, do not react.

We have a dairy problem. The Minister for Primary Industries held up a headline saying all is great in agriculture. Well, here is a cracker from senior agricultural journalist Tony Waugh. The headline says: “… Where to now for dairy industry?”. “… Where to now for dairy industry?”: that is what he said. The dairy industry is in difficulty—economically and internationally in difficulty—and the Government’s view is: “Let’s just taihoa.” Well, I wonder: if certain farms go to the wall, which New Zealand farmers will be in a position to pick those farms up? Whilst they are in debt up to their eyeballs, whilst they are struggling with a low milk powder price, I would wager—and I will take a bet with anybody, maybe Mr Muller, ex-Fonterra himself, learned gentleman—that the boys over the water, in New York, in Tokyo, and other places, will be licking their lips to come over here and grab those farms. And the National Party—its strategy? No reaction, just let it happen—just let it happen. And the Prime Minister, of course, I think in 2010, worried and lamented publicly that he did not want to see New Zealanders become tenants in their own land.

So what this National Party’s strategy is, is lethargy plus no reaction. And then we have, of course, a thing that has come out recently in a Treasury paper called asset recycling—no, sorry, capital recycling. I had better get the jargon right. The Government is after $1 billion to $2 billion of capital recycling. In English, to the uninitiated, that means it is trawling around to sell anything it can. It came a gutser with Solid Energy—the Government wanted to sell it. Now that it is a fire sale, the Government is going to sell it all right. It is burning very, very quickly and the taxpayer is up the wazoo to the tune of $389 million—$389 million and hundreds of jobs gone. Then we have Landcorp. Landcorp is doing pretty well, it is doing its thing, making a pretty good contribution. Oh no! Suddenly we have talk that it could be in trouble. Either this is some sort of Academy Award - winning ruse to make it look like that for once, in terms of the State-owned enterprises, the Government may well be being proactive—whereas Tony Ryall, I do not know, he was maybe attending piano lessons or something, got confused for many years, got distracted, and just let Solid Energy fall into a hole. Suddenly either this is an Academy Award - winning performance, with the Government actually looking closely at a State-owned enterprise, or, I would wager, probably a credible agenda from this mob to try to flog it off. That is where the real agenda is—to try to flog off parts of that.

I started by saying this: I think I have identified the strategy. One, there is none—but what a lethargic, lazy, indolent, and negligent lot we have over that side whose only strategy is no reaction and “She’ll be right.”

Well, if ever there was an Academy Award - winning performance, that might have been it from Clayton Cosgrove. In fact, later on today we are going to be talking a little bit about the game—not the beautiful game, as soccer is referred to, not the game of kings or the sport of kings, which is racing, but the game of all New Zealand. In fact, we are going to be talking about rugby.

I want to talk about a different game. I want to talk about the game of politics, because certainly over the last few weeks, as we have debated the Health and Safety Reform Bill, we have seen game playing in this House by all parties. I want to say this: Mr Little spoke today about the moral compass. I am wondering what moral compass he is referring to. Is he talking about the moral compass where Labour Party members use bullying strategies to try to bully the support partners of this Government to do their dirty work? Because those people have done nothing. Mr Little says that the Māori Party is all over the place with its thinking on this Health and Safety Reform Bill. I want to tell you that the only people who are all over the place are the members of the Labour caucus who come running all over the place up to our office to do their bidding when they cannot do it themselves.

The arrogance of some people to think that they can then blast us with a computer programme sending 5,000 emails overnight in the hope that that may do something—the same lines over and over again 5,000 times to ensure that we may support their stance and vote down the bill. Vote down the bill to do what? To do nothing, because in this country under the Labour Government people died. They died under the Government when Labour was in and they died under the Government when National was in, and what did they do about it? At the time they did nothing.

So this health and safety reform legislation that we now have coming through the House is better than nothing, which they want to go back to. They want to go back to health and safety legislation under which these people suffered and died. How do they want to get change? They come to our office and they ask us to use our influence to ensure that we can get changes through, and when we do get those changes through, how is that greeted? That is greeted with further wavering of moral compasses and disrespect from the Leader of the Opposition.

I sat next to Mr Little on Saturday before his appalling interview on The Nation, and he did not take the opportunity to speak with me about his concerns and did not take the opportunity to express his concerns about the Health and Safety Reform Bill. He ignored it completely, but later criticised us for our wavering stance. Well, we have been very clear. We have been very clear.

Yes, we think there are things that could be strengthened. My husband, the shearer—shearing should have been in there. So what did we do? We used our influence to produce the high-risk industries so that we could see what was going to be high risk. We used our influence to ensure that a Supplementary Order Paper supporting families to be able to take their prosecution seriously at the end of that time was supported through. We used our influence to—

💬 Peeni Henare: To ignore Māori.

—ensure that the Government heard us. To ignore Māori? That is ridiculous. Because I will tell this member that when the forestry deaths were being politicised in this House, who was the party that got the review to happen? The Māori Party ensured that there was a forestry review. Who do I ask? I ask our family members whether forestry regulations have been strengthened. They tell me and the ones who work in the forest tell me that they are safer now than they have ever been, and why? Because we care and because we work with them to get a better outcome than just voting the legislation down and making sure that nothing would be any better if that happened.

We have been hearing a lot about the economy in the House this afternoon. We have been hearing what a great job the Government has done in providing us with a robust economy to be able to deal with whatever comes at us in the future. That is what we have been hearing. This afternoon I want to question who has been benefiting from that economy, because the household income survey that came out last week showed that a third of households in this country, 33 percent, saw no rise in income in the past year, that 45,000 more children are now living in poverty—in just 1 year—and that around half the children in material hardship in this country are in working families. It is clear that the economic success of this Government is an economic success that is being shared with only a few. It is not being shared with everyone in this country.

I want today to specifically congratulate Simon Collins from the New Zealand Herald on his story on the cost to families of going back to work. This Government has put so much of its credibility on the line when it said that getting families into work is the answer to poverty. This article in the paper tells us very clearly that getting into work is not an answer to poverty in itself, and that some families, when they get into work—when parents go back to work—are worse off than not being in work.

In this article Simon Collins points out that New Zealand’s childcare subsidies are the most tightly targeted towards low-income families of all 30 developed nations, and that for a Kiwi couple with two children aged 2 or 3 where one parent earns the average wage and the other parent earns around two-thirds of the average wage, for every dollar earned by that second parent, they lose 97.9c in the dollar. So for every hour they are working they make just over 2c. That is extraordinary, and that is the result of this Government’s policy setting. It is not fair when we have such a problem with working poverty in this country.

We need desperately to give these families a fair go so that they are able to look after themselves and look after their children, and that needs a change in policy settings. New Zealand has the worst outcome on those measures of the 34 OECD countries listed. Also, the outcomes are worse for sole parents when compared to the OECD averages. The Government has been busy making it worse, not better.

The Working for Families tax credits used to be indexed to the cost of living, but since this Government changed it in 2011 families have to wait until inflation reaches 5 percent before there is an increase in their Working for Families payment. This change in policy by this Government, which was not floated as something significant, is estimated to have saved the Government $1.1 billion since 2011. That is $1.1 billion that could have helped families put food on the table and secure a roof over the heads of their kids. It is all going towards this nebulous goal of attaining a surplus for this Government. The priorities are wrong. We need to ensure that our families are the priority.

The 2015 Budget package will actually make this even worse because the Government is increasing the Working for Families abatement rate by 1.25 percent and has dropped the threshold at which it kicks in. So a family that is earning the minimum wage working 60 hours a week, on $46,000 a year, is about $2,225 a year worse off in real terms by the Government’s child hardship package, which is supposedly meant to address child hardship and support families. The Government is actually going to make life tougher for a group of vulnerable families that are working and trying to do the best for their kids. The Government’s rhetoric about investment and well-being is hollow when it is making life so much harder for so many people in this country.

Over the past week the robust debate in the House has been about the health and safety reforms. There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing around what the most hazardous occupation is. Well, it is official. As of today, the most hazardous occupation is neither worm farming nor the harvesting of lavender flowers; it is actually being Leader of the Opposition, which is the Labour Party. It is official because the New Zealand Herald DigiPoll survey of Labour supporters states it clearly: the Prime Minister is up ahead, at 63.7 percent.

But here is where the challenge lies—with Mr Little, at 13.3 percent. This is where the challenge lies. He has finally risen above single figures. He is now in double digits. He feels like he is a little bit safe. But what is happening? Hot on his heels is Miss Jacinda Ardern, at 3.9 percent. That is right. We know now for sure. The evidence is in. Phil Twyford—he is the numbers man. He is the one who rolled the numbers on David Shearer. He knows it. He is not looking across here, but he will tell you that this is the truth. He is the numbers man who is working out there. We know that that is happening. There is trouble. They are worried. They know that this is going on.

But we have had some inside knowledge. We know that Mr Little is now trying to raise himself to a point of relevance. What has he done? He has been working on a song. Actually, it is not a new song; it is a song sung by Joe Cocker called “With a Little Help from My Friends”. He is using these words. He is practising them himself. It starts like this. Here is how the verse goes:

What would you do if I sang out of tune?

Would you stand up and walk out on me.

Well, we know that that has happened. You need only look across at the “three Ds”—David Shearer, David Parker, and David Cunliffe. That Budget speech was the worst speech in this House by a Labour leader. We know; their heads were down. They were ashamed. They wish that they could have stood up and walked out of the room. The second line says:

Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song,

And I’ll try not to sing out of key.

We interpret this as saying that Mr Little is trying to be like Mr Key. That is right; he wants to be popular. He wants to be aspirational, but he is “Angry Andrew”. He cannot do the aspirational. He does angry better than aspirational. But it gets better. So he goes to the chorus. Here is the chorus:

But I get by with a little help from my friends.

It is 6.5 percent. That is right—the two and a half members who voted for him in the caucus. He is relying on them—the 2.5 percent who would support him. But it gets better:

I get high with a little help from my friends.

He is looking at the Greens at this stage, seeing whether he can get some support. He looks across but Metiria is not giving him the eye of interest, so that is gone. But then, here are the Ginsu knives. He says: “I’m going to try with a little help from my friends.” He looks across at New Zealand First. Is help coming from them? Mr Winston Peters keeps saying: “But wait, help is on its way.” He looked across. We were there during the by-election up in Northland. The Winnebago bus was going around the town. It was running.

But let us chew the facts. The only reason that New Zealand First won is that Labour folded. That is right. Poor Willow-Jean Prime, she folded over. She allowed her 4,500 majority to go to New Zealand First. At the end of the day, here is the telling tale: the day after the by-election, Andrew Little looked across and said to Winston “Is there help from you?”, but all that he saw on the beaches of Ahipara was footprints in the sand. That is right—footprints in the sand. There was no Winston there—that is right. There was no help—there was no help. It is a lost cause. He is looking across.

It gets worse. We heard the “Mood of the Boardroom”—150 executives right around the country. This is what they said. Yes, they still have confidence in the Minister of Finance. They still have confidence in Mr Key. But here is what they said: “Unless Andrew Little and Grant Robertson gain some credibility in the business world, there will be no hope. They must gain some credibility.” This is not happening. We know that this is not happening, because there is confidence in this Government.

It is a sad day. Mr Little is looking for friends, but they are not coming from New Zealand First, they are not coming from the Greens, and they are certainly not coming from the two and a half members in his caucus. We know that his days are over. Health and safety: we know that Leader of the Opposition—that position held by Labour—should be high on the agenda. We need to protect the Labour leader. Thank you.

The Nats go on and on about being serious about money, being serious moneymen—but it is a load of rubbish. They are rubbish at it. The reason their so-called plan is working for them is that they have no plan. It is now, because things are getting serious, that the people of New Zealand are finally able to see that the Nats have no plan and that they have no vision whatsoever. Under National there are more people unemployed than there were when National took power. There is more debt now than when National took power. There are now more, way more, immigrants coming into New Zealand than when National took power. Nearly all of them are unskilled, by the way—nearly all of them are unskilled—which simply masks the lack of a real plan for New Zealand. It is not a panacea; migrants are coming in, and instead of the Government focusing on a real plan and a real way of generating wealth in our regions, we get more and more people coming into the Auckland economy, creating this consumerist economy that completely misleads New Zealand about what is going on. It is so that the Government can talk about average GDP figures—averages. The 1 percent are getting richer but everyone else is getting poorer.

What about the balance of payments? It is getting worse. The Minister of Finance has not had a single surplus—not a single surplus—since he took the job. If this was a cricket match, this guy would have hit a maiden over by now. It is not a cricket match, but those are his own rules. Those are the rules he set for himself, and he has hit a maiden over. It is unbelievable. Where is the brighter future that this Minister promised in 2008? No one is seeing it. Most young Kiwis cannot even afford to buy a house, let alone get on to a Kiwi farm. Wages have stagnated. Where is the growth that this National Party promised the people of New Zealand? There is next to nothing if you look outside of the Auckland housing bubble, and if you look outside of the Christchurch rebuild, unfortunately, those numbers are now going in the wrong direction, as well.

But the scary thing from the global dairy trade downturn is the flow-on effects. We are already seeing the flow-on effects of our New Zealand farmers having to close their cheque books now, and the flow-on is that regional businesses are not getting the business that they once were. The books do not show that to this Government just yet. The books have not caught up with reality. So that National Government sits there and continues to deny the facts, but the books will reflect that reality very soon.

It is unbelievable. This Government took credit for the low Kiwi dollar this morning. It took credit for it, like somehow it made that happen. What a joke. Yes, the Government says now: “Yes, yes, but look at the low interest rates.” It knows they are low, because the economy is heading down the proverbial. Interest rates are going down because this economy is not performing.

Look at what the Government is focused on now in the health and safety legislation—secret tribunals taken straight out of the investor-State dispute settlement provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and now we have got school principals talking about how they cannot and are not willing to let kids play on playgrounds any more. They are not willing to let kids go on trips any more. This is from the guys who hit at Helen Clark over shower heads and pies in schools. If Labour was running a nanny State, then this is National’s nanny State in denial. Thank you.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the Chinese community’s contribution to New Zealand’s resilient and diversified economy. As we know, the Chinese immigrants came to New Zealand in the late 19th century, many of them as goldminers. One prominent figure at that time was Choie Sew Hoy. Choie Sew Hoy built the world’s very first gold dredge in 1888.

Another prominent person in those years was Chew Chong, and he, unlike many other Chinese goldminers, settled down as a storekeeper in New Plymouth, trading in fungus—basically exporting fungus to China and then selling Chinese imported goods in those years. Fungus became what we would call Taranaki wool, because it was so valuable. In some years the export of fungus from Taranaki was actually more than five times greater than the export of butter. So that was how important the Chinese community has been in terms of contributing to the New Zealand economy. Chew Chong also, later on, built butter factories and he actually installed perhaps the first freezing equipment in New Zealand’s butter factories.

Today we have a much larger Chinese community, of course. Our contribution to the New Zealand economy, just like the New Zealand economy itself, has been very diverse. First of all, trade is an obvious example. Our trade with China has increased dramatically, and the Chinese community’s contribution is obvious. And tourism—tourism has contributed a lot to the New Zealand economy. It is now contributing 7 percent of our GDP, which is even bigger than the dairy industry, and it has grown fast—7 percent last year. Last year we had over 3 million visitors coming to New Zealand, and China is of course one of our most important markets. China is the second-largest source of international visitors after Australia. In the year ended in July this year over 310,000 Chinese visited New Zealand, which was an increase of over 29 percent. It is actually 29.5 percent. So that is how the tourism industry has been important and how the Chinese market has been important, and also how the Chinese community here in New Zealand has been making great contributions to our tourist industry.

There is international education. International education is now worth $2.85 billion, or 1.33 percent of GDP—$2.85 billion. It has created over 30,000 jobs in New Zealand. Against this background I was dismayed at Labour’s accusation about Chinese property buyers. This highlights Labour’s misunderstanding or lack of understanding of Chinese history in New Zealand.

There are many sad stories about Chinese names in New Zealand. In the 1860s, when Chinese goldminers came to New Zealand, many of them did not speak English. They lost their names. They did not have their own names. There was one story about a Chinese goldminer called Yu—but Yu was not his real name. It was simply his name because people said: “Hey you, come over.” So Yu became his name. Another story is from the Chinese settlement in Arrowtown. I have visited that settlement a few times. There was one place there called the Ah Lum store. No one would miss the Ah Lum store, but Ah Lum is not a proper Chinese name. “Ah” is used for a nickname in China. So it is basically part of a nickname. The sad story is that these goldminers passed away without having a proper name. Today, things have changed. I am here in New Zealand with a proper Chinese name. So this is New Zealand—this is today’s New Zealand. This is a very tolerant, multicultural New Zealand. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I want to acknowledge the Speaker’s Science Forum on housing and health, which I attended on 12 August. The focus of this health and housing forum, which Dr Jian Yang actually introduced, was to look at housing and how it contributes to the health and well-being of New Zealanders. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman, who was one of the presenters on that evening. What Professor Howden-Chapman highlighted was that in New Zealand we have 1,600 people die every year from preventable illnesses because they are living in cold, wet, damp, and inefficiently heated homes. So for the people out there, over the last couple of days we have been debating the health and safety legislation; 100 people die every year in work-related accidents. Well, actually, 1,600 people are dying every year because they live in cold, damp houses.

The interesting thing about Professor Howden-Chapman’s analysis was that, in fact, 960 children are dying every year in cold, damp houses that are inefficiently heated. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Unicef and the Child Poverty Action Group, which have just launched an initiative wanting to focus on this issue of warrants of fitness. In New Zealand, unfortunately, 305,000 children are living in poverty. Of those 305,000 children living in poverty, 213,500 children live in rental accommodation. So the relevance to New Zealand of a warrant of fitness piece of legislation is immense, I would have thought, as 61,000 of our children live in State houses and 252,500 live in rental accommodation with no warrant of fitness.

So what does that actually mean? What does that translate to? Well, in addition to the 960-odd children who are dying every year, actually, we have 40,000 children who are hospitalised with preventable illnesses. I actually think that is incredibly profound, and New Zealanders thought it was incredibly profound when in July this year a coroner, Brandt Shortland, actually determined that Emma-Lita Bourne, a young toddler living in a home—and I want to quote some of the things that were said in the coroner’s report. In winter last year this young girl died, and she was living in a home where there were buckets under a leak in the hallway ceiling. There was an unused heater in the family home because they could not afford to turn it on because electricity was too expensive, and she lived in a home where one of her older siblings had rheumatic fever. There was outrage by New Zealanders, and the media interest has been incredibly intense, because a coroner had the audacity—I do not call it “audacity”; I actually call it “leadership”—to put some blame where that blame should be attributed. This young girl, Emma-Lita Bourne, should not have died.

Now we have a scenario where Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman, an esteemed public health academic and specialist, someone who has dedicated her whole entire life to the housing sector, has told Parliament that 1,600 people—and, of those, 960 are children—are dying every year because they live in cold, damp, wet houses with inefficient heating. When I think about the whole history of housing provision in New Zealand, I do have to go back to the 1950s. In the 1950s we built 30,000 houses. The waiting list back then was 45,000—45,000 New Zealanders went on the waiting list. They wanted a State home. What did National do when it got in? Well, actually, it raised the rents. It wanted to make this programme unattractive.

What we know today is that there are 69,000 Housing New Zealand houses, technically, but only 64,000 are available. In the lifetime of the houses in New Zealand we have sold 31,000. They are in private hands, but today we have 4,541 priority A and B families wanting a home. These people are deemed at risk, with a severe and persistent housing need that must be addressed immediately. So my question to the Government is: are you going to sell 10,000 houses, like you say, by 2017—that has been your stated objective—when we have got that much need? It makes absolutely no sense. Actually, this Government needs to represent all New Zealanders, and our most vulnerable New Zealanders. What this proves is that it does not care. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.