General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. The Labour Party, ironically and unwisely, chose 21 October as the day it announced its deputy leader. That was ironic and unwise because 21 October was the official Back to the Future day. That was the day that was supposed to be so far in the future that everything would be completely different. And, of course, the world is completely different—apart from the fact that Mrs King is still here. But in one weird, wacky, tiny little enclave, the world has not moved on. And that is the New Zealand Labour Party.

So as Labour delegates move towards Palmerston North this weekend for their annual conference—held in the seat of King’s College old boy and closet aristocrat, Iain Lees-Galloway—it is timely to revisit notes from Labour conferences past. What better place to start than the last time the Labour Party held its conference in Palmerston North, back in 1991? That was an occasion of searing self-examination for the party. I have here the official notes from that 75th conference in Palmerston North, and I am happy to quote from them. It says in those notes that the Labour Party “Council received an audit of the 1990 Election. … An analysis of [questionnaires] gave familiar phrases. … we declared ourselves disunited and under that label came all the comments”—on caucus, the party, and musical leaders—“despite declaring our policies inappropriate we also declared that we had lost our direction. … our policies were both wrong and nebulous.”

It is indeed back to the future for the Labour Party at Palmerston North this weekend. I wonder whether Dunedin South communications and strategy expert Clare Curran will take a breakout group, perhaps updating us on international politics. She might like to update Labour Party members on her 13 September post where she said: “Now the UK has Jeremy Corbyn. And I feel a greater sense of hope … This is good news.” Yes, resident hipster Jacinda Ardern will still be mixing the decks, and bloke’s bloke tighthead prop Grant Robertson will be trying to give everyone a rundown on the Rugby World Cup, but, in actual fact, nothing has changed.

But wait—there is one small announcement. Deputy leader Annette King tells us that she will be saying something small about health policy. Mrs King, why not make it absolutely huge? Why not blow the budget like you did in the mid-2000s when you poured more and more money into it and delivered less and less? That is the way to go. Because she has had 7 years to come up with a big idea—why make it a small one?

Meanwhile, back on “Planet New Zealand” the rest of us are celebrating a great Rugby World Cup win—and what a great win it was. I had the privilege of being over there at the Rugby World Cup. There were thousands of Kiwis there. I met only one Kiwi there who was a passionate advocate for Labour Party policies, and that was Andrew Little himself. But, apart from that, people were saying that not only was it a lucky escape from the Springboks but a very lucky escape from a Labour Government. Kiwis are very grateful that that mob over there is not in power. They know what its tax and spend policies would do to this country.

When you look at our 7 years, it is a record of solid achievement. The average wage is up $10,000 in the last 10 years, ACC levies have been reduced, and, of course, record low interest rates mean Kiwis are able to borrow money at a lower cost and get on with their lives. There are more people in jobs. The future is looking up. If you look at the health system—I was down at Canterbury yesterday, at the rebuild of the Burwood Hospital there. That is $1 billion the Government is putting into the rebuild in Canterbury in terms of health, and an extra $16 million of revenue poured into Canterbury yesterday.

💬 Hon Annette King: They only needed $46 billion.

There are 5,500 more doctors around the country, 60,000 more appointments, and 50,000 more operations per year. Mrs King would pour money in for fewer results and blow the surplus. That is what would happen. There is no sense, over there, of an overriding fiscal strategy.

So if anyone is at a really loose end this weekend, pull on your vintage Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union t-shirt, get to Palmerston North, and party with Grant and Jacinda like it is 1991. Kia ora.

In 2009 New Zealand recommended, as a high priority, that Australia sign up to the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture. Despite agreeing to the recommendation, Australia has yet to sign the agreement and New Zealand needs to ask why. On 9 November the Australian human rights record comes under scrutiny as part of the Universal Periodic Review. New Zealand needs to call out Australia on the indefinite detention of New Zealand citizens in conditions that are tantamount to torture. When I was over on Christmas Island, checking out the human rights abuses being perpetrated on New Zealand citizens by the Australian Government and the Australian system, where was John Key? Where was the Prime Minister? He was on Radio Hauraki talking about playing with himself and peeing in the shower.

I was absolutely disgusted to hear that while I am over there checking out abuses on New Zealand citizens, here he is being a clown and pulling his own political stunt. If he wants to talk about that sort of stuff, when New Zealanders are suffering in detention—indefinite detention—then he needs to have a good look at what sort of a Prime Minister he is. We do not need a clown who is just going to manage our economy. What we need is a leader to start standing up for New Zealanders. It does not matter whether the New Zealanders are here in New Zealand or whether they happen to choose to live in Australia. If they are being abused—if their rights are being abused—then we need a Prime Minister who is going to stand up and look after their rights and their interests.

Those men in the detention centres—they are scared, they are hungry, and they are traumatised. They are full of despair. They are empty of hope. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for them, simply because there is no light and there is no tunnel. All they can see are walls and wires and electric fences. I know—they went to prison because they committed a crime. But in New Zealand we have the right not to be punished for double jeopardy. These guys are being punished for the crimes they have committed, and they are at the lower end of the scale. They are not, as Peter Dutton, the Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection says, all rapists and murderers. The guys whom I met have offended at the lower end of the scale. They do not deserve then, as they walk out of the prison and walk into the prison car-park, to be picked up and detained indefinitely. Some of them have been detained in the detention centres for longer than they were in prison. Not only that, if, at the end of the detention they are actually deported, then that is triple jeopardy. We have got New Zealand citizens who are being punished three times for one crime. If they do need to be deported, I have got no problems with that. But if you happen to detain somebody, detain them in conditions that are humane and at least have a bit of compassion. But these people are being locked up, they are being beaten up, they are being starved—the conditions are tantamount to torture.

This is happening in Australia, a country that we say is—and it is—our closest ally; our trading partner. And yet here it is abusing not just New Zealanders but all manner of people, such as asylum seekers. There are any number of accounts of asylum seekers who are so at their wit’s end that they are self-mutilating. In fact, today I received a 134-page document describing when the Australian forces staff have used force on detainees. One of the main reasons that they use force in these centres is to stop people from self-harming. We have to ask ourselves why they are self-harming in the first place. Why is it that they have no hope in their hearts and the best way out for them is to actually kill themselves? Let me talk briefly about a New Zealander Czarian Strang. The riot squad charged into his cell. He was in segregation, which basically means isolation. The riot squad put the shield on him and whacked him about with the black pill, as they call it. The black pill is the baton because, I bet, the baton actually cures a whole heap of ailments. They whacked him, they tried to immobilise him by twisting his limbs, they ended up popping ligaments. He was denied medical treatment. He was hosed down in his cell. He was made to sleep in wet clothes for two nights. The only way he kept warm was by turning on the hot shower during the night, until the water ran out. New Zealand needs to do something to help these New Zealand citizens.

Seven years the National Party has been in Government—7 years with one leader and one deputy leader, providing consistency, certainty, and aspiration for all of New Zealand. Compare this with the Labour Party—five leaders trying to oppose our leader John Key. Helen Clark—remember the good old days, Labour? Phil Goff—what happened there? Mr Shearer—“Snapper Shearer”—and Mr Cunliffe. Those were the days. And, of course, now Mr Little. One deputy leader under National while we have been in Government, and I do not know how many deputy leaders under Labour. I was trying to write them down before. And, of course, there are all the wannabe leaders, all the wannabe deputy leaders—Mr Parker, Mr Robertson, Mr Jones of course, and, of course, Mr Nash and Jacinda Ardern. It seems like half the caucus over there, perhaps even more, want to be leader or deputy leader. The factions are still alive.

New Zealand is just so much better off—so much better off—for having had a National Government in power over the last 7 years. Under every single measure, under every single metric, New Zealand is in a better place and a better space than it was when we inherited government from the previous regime. We continue to have solid and consistent support across New Zealand because we engage, because we consult, because we do what we say we will do, and we do not do anything that we do not take to the electorate—from economics, economic growth, a Consumers Price Index of around zero percent as opposed to 5 percent under Labour.

Our economic growth has been one of the best in the OECD in recent years. We have a lower taxation environment, moving from PAYE to consumption taxes. Education attainment is much, much improved. Welfare reform is providing incentives for our people. The Better Public Services policy is driving reform through Government, getting a better deal for all New Zealanders, and particularly taxpayers. We are coming into surplus. We do not hear Labour talking about that any more. The list continues.

And, of course, exports. There are free-trade agreements opening up markets for New Zealand—the Taiwan closer economic partnership, the Korea free-trade agreement, and of course the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Why on earth Opposition members do not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership I do not know, but they seem to be very quiet on the potential for a free-trade agreement with the European Union. Let us see if they support that one. As Helen Clark even said, how on earth could a New Zealand Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition wake up one morning and not be part of an agreement for 40 percent of the global economy, or 800 million potential customers? How on earth could Labour reverse a long-standing bipartisan position? How could New Zealand be left out?

Speaking of being left out, Mr Nash is making a bit of a play, I see. He has resorted to blogging to try to get his points of view across for Labour. Apparently the most pressing issue in New Zealand right now is Mr Nash’s thoughts to the Labour Party members, which is actually pretty good advice. Quite why they ignore him, I do not know, but he is doing the “Playbook”—he is doing the “Playbook”. He has got a profile up. He investigated organising and forming another political party. He has got a book under way, I understand. I hope all Labour Party members read that book. I am having a lot of fun working out what the title to Mr Nash’s book might be.

We have had 7 years of consistent, certain leadership for New Zealand; five leaders under Labour over the last 7 years. New Zealand is now a confident, positive, aspirational place—a Rugby World Cup - winning country, by the way. It is confident and ambitious for our future, our people, and we do not accept—we do not accept—the rose-tinted glasses of how socialism once apparently was under previous Labour regimes. If they only read Mr Nash’s advice, perhaps then their fortunes might turn.

They say that bad news comes in threes, and for New Zealand’s farmers—actually, for our agricultural sector as a whole—it seems that under this Government there is no end of threes to work through. What farmers cannot do anything about are the things that affect all of us. They cannot do anything about international commodity prices, they cannot do anything about the exchange rate, or the cost of imported feed and the cost of imported machinery, and they cannot do anything about the weather, which is the single most important variable affecting farming. So they cannot do anything about the weather but, apparently, they can do something about the climate—or so Minister Nick Smith seems to think.

Nick Smith wants to bring agriculture in from the rain and bring it under the umbrella of the emissions trading scheme. Well, that is clever, is it not, Dr Smith—on the back of a drought, on the doorstep of what is apparently going to be the worst El Nino since El Nino records began and after an absolute shocker of a year for dairy prices. Only just last night while we were sleeping—while all of New Zealand apart from the farmers who cannot sleep with worry were sleeping—the global dairy trade auction was taking place and dairy prices were taking another tumble. On the back of all that, Minister Nick Smith wants to hit our farmers with yet another whammy—he wants to bring agriculture into the emissions trading scheme and the beleaguered farming sector gets hit with yet another stack of costs. Well done, Dr Smith. Prices are down, returns are down, farm incomes are down, the rain is drying up, farmer suicides are at record levels, and Dr Smith thinks this is just a perfect time to hit the farmers and the provinces that depend on them with yet another tax.

You know, this might be what Dr Smith is ordering, but it is certainly not what the doctor ordered. Why? Why is Nick Smith calling for this? What is he hoping to achieve? Well, it is all about being seen to be doing our bit. It is about looking good in front of other countries. We have to slash our emissions because everyone else is doing it—supposedly—and we do not want to be left out. We do not want to look like we are not doing our bit or pulling our weight. Nick Smith wants to be able go to Paris and hobnob it with the rest of the world’s climate change jet set. My word, there is an oxymoron if ever there was one—all these people being terribly concerned about their carbon footprints but they are flying all around the world in huge fossil fuel - burning aeroplanes to tell each other about it, to express all their concerns about the environment. Dr Smith wants to be able to crow to the rest of the world that little old New Zealand is right up there on the moral high ground slashing and burning our emissions.

Except that we really do not have any—apart from agriculture, of course. And so we are going to include agriculture in our emissions trading scheme because we have to have something in there and we really have not got anything else. No one else in the world has agriculture or food production in their part of the climate change game because they have other industries that they can pick on. Countries that produce far more than we do in terms of agricultural output, and countries that have far larger dairy production and many times as many livestock do not have agriculture as part of their carbon tax schemes. They are not carbon taxing food production. Other countries have factories, they have mills, and foundries, and refineries, and shipyards, and other things that produce lots and lots of emissions, and they can play the game of climate mitigation using those. But we do not and so back in 2008 Helen Clark decided that agriculture should go in the emissions trading scheme because she had to be seen to be doing something and there was not anything else she could do.

Then the next Government, the incoming National Government, decided to put it on hold because back then National was still paying lip service to the idea that it was the party of the farmers, that it was the party of the provinces, that it was the party that reflected and upheld the values of the heartland. Well, not any more. Today, National is the Queen Street party. It is the party of bankers and financiers and overseas ownership. National members are perfectly happy to chuck the farming sector and provincial New Zealand under the bus for the sake of looking good in the eyes of the international climate change jet set. It is a status symbol. Putting agriculture into the emissions trading scheme is nothing more than tokenism and it is nothing more than a status symbol for Nick Smith just as it was for Helen Clark.

What is a status symbol? A status symbol is something that you do not need and do not want, bought with money you have not got, in order to impress people you do not like. Nick Smith wants this status symbol and he wants New Zealand’s farmers to pay for it: $863 million—that is 50 times more than what this Government spends on research into reducing emissions. No one else is doing it. Other countries do not have agriculture in their emissions and they are waiting like everybody else—like New Zealand should be—for somebody else to be the first cab off the rank. The big producers—the United States, China—have all set targets but they are not doing anything about just yet and Nick Smith wants us to be first. He wants the farmers to pay for it.

Well, we say enough. New Zealand First says that New Zealand should be a follower here and not a leader. We produce less than 0.2 percent of the world’s emissions, and we should be the last cab off the rank. So we challenge Dr Smith. We challenge him to come out and guarantee that he will not dump this new additional tax on an already struggling agricultural sector at the worst possible time for the most pointless of reasons. Thank you.

That was a very interesting contribution by Richard Prosser from New Zealand First talking about the rural economy—from a party, the New Zealand First Party, that has consistently over the last few decades refused to have any support for reform of the Resource Management Act, which is an important part of the economy. It has always opposed any reforms, never voted for reforms, and so I do not have any time for its views on helping get the New Zealand economy ahead.

This is an exciting time for the New Zealand economy and for New Zealanders as a whole. This is an exciting time. If you look back over New Zealand history, you keep being told about the time back in 1951 when New Zealand was the third-wealthiest country in the world, and it has all gone downhill since then. That was one of the times, of course—it was a very unusual moment—when most of the developed world was still sort of recovering from the Second World War. So it was the most unusual moment that you could possibly pick out, but the main point of our prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s was the fact that we had an open door to the UK market, and the UK was one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

That was taken away from us in the 1970s, when the UK joined the European Economic Community, and since then New Zealand has been wandering in the wilderness in a tough world where nobody has to take our produce and nobody has to be kind to us or not put up tariffs and make life difficult for our exporters. We have struggled in that difficult environment for 30 or 40 years, and New Zealand’s living standards have fallen. We have slowly, over the years, been piecing together a way to get back into global markets, and we made great success in the 1980s with CER in Australia. We ground our way through the World Trade Organization processes over a long time, and great progress was made with the free-trade agreement with China, which has greatly boosted our living standards—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Thank you to the Labour Government.

—and has carried us through the global financial crisis and the recession so much better than we would have been otherwise. And I do congratulate the Labour Government on its foresight and its contribution in that way. That is why I grieve that Labour’s commitment to open economies and free trade seems to have altered.

So for now we have had the great success over the last few weeks of the agreement around the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would give New Zealanders access to the largest economy in the world and 40 percent of the global economy, and what a marvellous opportunity that will be for New Zealand. We will be well and truly back in the game internationally with access to China, access to the largest economy in the world through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and now, on top of that, we have got Mr Groser doing his excellent work in the EU, and we have prospects of getting into that very difficult market. So I have great optimism, looking ahead to the next couple of decades, that New Zealanders have the opportunity to do so well, and I back New Zealand businesses to do well in that open context.

In my area, just today or yesterday we announced some work in the geographical indications side of the wine industry. The New Zealand Winegrowers Annual Report 2015 shows that New Zealand wines actually have the second highest average value, after the French wines, internationally, and that all, ultimately, comes down to the strength of the stories that lie behind our wine industry and our places—a Marlborough sauvignon blanc, and Martinborough, and all those places like Gimblett Gravels and places that I am sure members will know quite a lot about. This piece of legislation will help buttress and strengthen that brand and that story behind the New Zealand wines, and it will enable our winemakers to defend that in the New Zealand market. Also, once you have a geographical indicator signed off in New Zealand that makes it a lot easier to get that recognised internationally.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that New Zealand came second in the world for the World Bank Group’s ease of doing business index out of 189 countries, continuing to do well—first in starting a businesses, first in protecting minority investors—and we continue in so many ways trying to make it easier for New Zealand businesses to do well. The patents bill, which I introduced just yesterday, brings a single trans-Tasman patent regime—just another way to stop having to duplicate your patent applications. But the most important thing that a Government can do is actually provide that strong, stable environment and be fiscally sustainable, such as having a Budget that is back in surplus. When you have that sustainability that leads to confidence, and when you have confidence in the economy that leads to investment, and it is only investment that leads to growth and jobs, and that is how we raise our living standards in New Zealand.

I am very interested to see who invited Jeremy Corbyn to be the guest speaker at the Labour Party conference this weekend. I think it was Mr Little. Why should it not be time—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

Under this National Government, we have a tale of two sectors. On the one hand, there is one sector that is the Government’s sweetheart—it includes companies like Serco, Warner Bros, Skycity, and individuals like the Saudi businessman Al Ali Khalaf. Of course, they are given the sweetheart deals and the sweetheart five-star treatment. On the other hand, we have the Public Service and the people who provide those services, such as the people who work for the Department of Conservation. About 1,500 of those people are taking industrial action this week—minimal industrial action. They are working to rule simply for a pay increase, and what have they been offered—0.4 percent. These are the people who are charged with protecting our precious flora and fauna, who fight for our endangered species, and who are working harder than ever before because of constant redundancies, restructuring, and funding cuts. Actually, they are almost becoming an endangered species themselves.

What happens when we underfund the Department of Conservation? Well, we risk our “clean, green”, 100 percent pure reputation. The destruction of our Northland conservation estate is one example, which my colleague Kevin Hague touched on yesterday during question time. He never got a straight answer from the Minister of Conservation about whether the department is using a multi-pest approach to try to conserve our wild places. That is just one example of underfunding. Another area is the use of volunteers, who are really cheap, of course, and it is good to have communities involved, but when you have the slaying of four endangered takahē during a cull on Motutapu Island because they were mistaken for pukeko, you have to question whether it actually makes financial sense.

The people who work for the Public Service do so because they care about the country and they care about the people of New Zealand, but that commitment is hardly recognised—and certainly not for Department of Conservation staff. Tomorrow 1,000 Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment staff will also be taking industrial action. They will be going on strike. These are the people who deal with immigration and with passport control. They are the people who give advice to businesses who ring up asking for advice on minimum employment standards. They are the labour inspectors who actually enforce minimum labour standards. These are the people who are at the front of our industrial relations advice; yet these people are having to take industrial action because they too are not getting a pay increase.

It is not just the lousy pay they are striking about; it is also the culture of mistrust that is so prevalent at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. I guess that is not surprising given that there has been constant restructuring in the superministry since it was formed only a few years ago. At the same time that that has been happening, there has been crazy spending on things like TV screens, signs, hair straighteners, and goodness knows what else.

The chronic under-investment of public resources under the National Government is a false economy, and it has done it simply for a meaningless surplus in the Budget. And that underfunding includes $1 billion missing from the health sector. It has underfunded the labour inspectorate so that we have only one labour inspector for nearly 54,000 New Zealanders, which is less than half of what you would get if you were in Australia. And it means that there is more exploitation of workers, like the group of workers at Masala who were paid $2 an hour—and it took years to process by labour inspectors. You also get bridge collapses and maintenance short cuts at Department of Conservation sites because of that underfunding.

The people who work in these places are struggling. There has been a 14 percent increase in house prices and a 4 percent increase in power prices over the past year, and wages are not keeping up. Certainly, there is competition for jobs now, which also forces wages down, with 151,000 people currently unemployed. So how would the Greens fix it? We would fix it by redirecting money from those sweetheart deals to the people who deserve it, and those are the people who provide our public services.

Seven years ago the people of New Zealand made a great decision, and that was to vote in a John Key - led Government. National received 45 percent of public support. In 2011 it was 47 percent, in 2014 it was 47, and on 19 October it was 47 percent. Nothing has changed. Here we are, we are in Government, we are looking after the people of New Zealand, and they are supporting the John Key - led Government.

And what do we see in the Opposition? We see a confused group of people who do not know who they are, do not know what they stand for, and have to have all these people from offshore come and tell them who they are. The people of New Zealand absolutely state, in their lack of support of the Opposition, that they have no confidence in a Labour-led Opposition.

It is quite interesting. Just in Taranaki in these last number of years the number of Treaty settlements that we have progressed is quite phenomenal when you compare that with what was not done under the previous Government. This is the Taranaki region that suffered for many years—raiding parties from Waikato. But what we are experiencing these days is raiding parties from Wellington. We have Andrew Little come up and we have Grant Robertson come up trying to undermine the great work that the National Government has done in our region.

Recently, there was a headline in the Taranaki Daily News that read “Labour big wigs”—I am not sure whom they are referring to—“visit on regional reach-out”. We know that this is work that they are trying to do. “Taranaki hosted two Labour tours of the province on Thursday as the party continues their reach-out to regional New Zealanders.” Grant Robertson, Stuart Nash, Damien O’Connor—they all came up. They went out to the Contact Energy power station at Stratford. “Robertson said there was an increased interest in the Stratford power station since Contact Energy had shut down their Otahuhu power station for good on September 30.” This is the person who is the spokesperson on finance on the Labour benches, and he said: “However, the power station, like other regional infrastructure, was in desperate need of upgrades to bring it into the 21st century,”. I find that quite unusual, and I find it quite interesting that that was said. I guess what we can see is that Labour is out and busy finding out about what is happening in the regions. That is what Robertson said—that a desperate upgrade was needed to bring it into the 21st century.

So needing to understand his sublime commentary on energy generation infrastructure, I wrote a letter to the editor seeking the paper’s wisdom. “Sir, in Grant Robertson referring to regional infrastructure [needing a desperate upgrade], I wasn’t sure which of the Contact Energy power stations in Stratford he says needs upgrading. Could it be the 377MW station that Contact describe as ‘a large, efficient and modern plant, being one of the largest gas turbines in the world housed in a single building, constructed from special metals and featuring advanced cooling systems.’ ” Was that the one? Or, perhaps, it was the other power station needing to be brought into the 21st century. “Could it be Contact’s 200MW gas-fired peaking power station in Stratford—the one that Hekia Parata, Chester Borrows and myself accompanied the Prime Minister to, which the PM opened on 31 May 2011?”. So I am not sure whether it is the modern one with fantastic 21st century metals or the one the Prime Minister opened in 2011 that Grant Robertson refers to as decrepit infrastructure that needs bringing into the 21st century.

What I do not understand is how Labour members can go to that place, say that stuff, get it quoted in the paper, and have people think that they are credible. This is one of the reasons why people do not support the Labour Opposition, because there is a lot said without credibility. There is a lot of rhetoric, but the facts speak for themselves. The facts are that this Government has, for 7 years, supported this nation, has supported people who have struggled, has supported businesses through the worst economic times in this world, has supported Christchurch, and has supported the people of the west coast. We have stood strong and we stand strong by the regions of New Zealand. Thank you.

Today is a blue-letter day. Today is the day that unemployment hits 6 percent, that dairy prices are down another 10 percent, and that 6 years after the global financial crisis, in the middle of a new global credit boom, the New Zealand economy is going backwards.

Craig Foss—Hawke’s Bay’s answer to Rip Van Winkle—was crowing about National’s leadership conveniently forgetting Bolger to Shipley, Shipley to English. Well, that did not go too well, so what about Don Brash? And then who jumps ship at the last minute? John Key. To hear Craig Foss, it reminded me of the Lego movie. Remember the theme song, “Everything is awesome”? Everything is awesome—oh, actually, it is more like Monty Python with “What have the Romans ever done for us?”. Well, what those Romans have done for New Zealand is higher unemployment, lower economic growth, more families in crisis, people being unable to afford their own homes, and Kiwis losing hope. So why are the Romans still in Rome? Why is the National Party there? Well, it cannot be Steven Joyce and his talent for inflatable sheep; it cannot be John Key peeing in the shower and the pockets of the All Blacks. It has got to be more important than that, and it is.

So I want to just reflect on the means of control by this Government, because, in rugby terms, it is very simple. It is not that it has a faster back line, it is not that it has faster forwards; it just screws the scrum. Here is how it does it: creeping influence in the media, undermining Public Service neutrality, politicising community groups, and threatening those who object to it. And, of course, there is the legendary National Party dirty-tricks machine.

It is a standing joke that prime-time TV is a choice between right—Paul Henry, National candidate—and righter, the irreplaceable Mike Hosking, irreplaceable because he pops up just about everywhere. If you do not believe me, just ask John Campbell, Carol Hirschfeld, Julian Wilcox, Brian Rudman, John Drinnan, and so on and so forth. Contrary independent voices that have been removed from prime-time TV and newspapers and have taken refuge in the ark—Radio New Zealand. Well, I wonder what is going to happen to Radio New Zealand given that New Zealand On Air is controlled by the Prime Minister’s electorate secretary. Is the Government going to stop funding that broadcaster that is run by a former National Prime Minister’s chief media adviser? Tell me it is not screwing the scrum, ladies and gentlemen.

The NGO sector has fared no better—cowered into submission. Tony Soprano would be proud. What about when the Problem Gambling Foundation was declared to be the problem? What happened to its funding? Everybody noticed. It was cut off at the knees.

You might say that at least the Crown’s independent watchdogs are better. Well, sorry, no. The High Court just found that the Ombudsman acted illegally in not forcing Tim Groser to disclose more about the Trans-Pacific Partnership background brief. It is a shocker when the Ombudsman is found by the High Court not to be defending the public interest. No wonder it has got a year’s backlog—and that is why Ministers act with impunity, not answering Official Information Act requests or parliamentary questions, because they know that by the time the appeal is heard, it will be too late. Why would it fund the Ombudsmen—it is just a nuisance. And so is the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and every other independent watchdog that has not had real-terms funding maintenance under this Government.

Around Wellington, public servants are saying in hushed tones that the Westminster tradition of free and frank advice is gone. When was the last time that you heard Iain Rennie, the State Services Commissioner, standing up for Public Service neutrality and independence? He has not said boo since the Roger Sutton debacle.

So where to from here?

💬 Hon Craig Foss: He tried to and you hammered him about CERA.

Well, what about the Serious Fraud Office—Craig Foss knows all about that, the Minister of commerce. Well, it has gone belly-up because it no longer talks about taking criminals to justice; it just wants to recover a few pennies for National’s mates, the investors. Oh yes, the last Serious Fraud Office chief executive that actually stood up for New Zealanders’ rights got garrotted by Judith Collins and Cameron Slater—Cameron Slater who was exposed by Nicky Hager, whose banking records were given to the police voluntarily by Simon Power’s bank. If that is not a scandal of top proportions!

New Zealanders are sick to death of a do-nothing, know-nothing, care-nothing Government that is screwing the scrum and running down the democratic freedoms and institutions—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

I have got some free tinfoil for the member who just took his seat, David Cunliffe. He can make himself a quality hat out of it. I would just like to take this opportunity to congratulate the All Blacks on an outstanding performance. The team is back in New Zealand. I am looking forward to seeing them here on Friday morning. They have done a great job. What we see there is a collection of individuals who had a plan, who had confidence in each other’s abilities, and who focused on the things that matter. They have brought home the cup, New Zealand’s cup.

For the last 7 years this country has had a National-led Government, a team full of bright and capable people who know what they are doing, who have a plan, and who are focused on the things that matter to Kiwis and their families. Seven years ago, almost to the day, was a watershed moment. It was the day when Parliament was sworn in after the Kiwi voters had turfed out and had rid themselves of a Labour Government that was out of touch—out of touch with Kiwis’ needs and aspirations—a Labour Government that thought that the real issues of the day were light bulbs and shower heads, and that had increased Government spending by about 50 percent for no increase in return and in quality of services or outcomes. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the Labour Government is like a baby’s elementary canal, with a healthy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. That is what New Zealand saw.

But what they saw in National at that time was a party with policies that were in step with New Zealanders’ aspirations. They could see that we were relevant to them, and they continued to see that in 2011, and a year ago when they re-elected this National-led Government back into office—a Government with a plan that saw New Zealand come out of the worst recession around the globe in decades. New Zealand came out of that recession stronger and sooner than all of our other trading nations and most of the nations in the OECD.

It is a Government that has seen about 180,000 jobs created over the last 4 years; a Government that has seen a $10,000 increase in the average wage since 2008; a Government that is seeing living standards for New Zealanders improve, with average wages growing a lot faster than inflation; a Government that understands that in order to help the prospects for its people, it needs businesses that are growing and selling more around the world; and a Government that is open to opening markets with free-trade agreements, such as the New Zealand - Korea free-trade agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, successfully negotiated recently by the Hon Tim Groser and his team. It is an agreement that opens up 40 percent of the global market to Kiwi businesses.

💬 Hon Member: How much?

Forty percent, and 800 million customers. We will see tariffs reduced over almost all of the products and services that New Zealand businesses deliver and will deliver. It is an outstanding result for Kiwis; it is an outstanding future that we have to look forward to under this National-led Government.

Outside of the area of trade and the economy, what more has the Government done? Well, we have given increased doctors’ visits—free doctors’ visits—and free prescriptions up to under-13s. We have got record levels of investment in education, particularly in early childhood education, to raise participation. We are helping Kiwis get into their first homes through our HomeStart package. We have removed about $1.2 billion worth of ACC levies, with a forecast of a further $450 million over the next 2 years. And this National-led Government is the first Government to increase real benefits in 43 years—43 years and two Labour administrations. Labour claims to be there for the working people and those most in need; it certainly did not raise their benefits in real terms—it took a caring National Government to do that.

In the area of technology, where I come from, I would also note, with our ultra-fast broadband and rural broadband programmes chugging along, that we are going to be delivering faster broadband to New Zealanders. The ultra-fast broadband programme is already 50 percent complete. Over a million Kiwis can now sign up to real broadband speeds, either through the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative or the Rural Broadband Initiative. This is a Government that is focused on the things that really matter. This is a Government that will continue to focus on the things that matter to Kiwis, whereas with the Labour Party, in the words to paraphrase Mark Twain, no man’s life, liberty, or prosperity is safe when a Labour Government is in office. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Nei te mihi ki a koe. Last week during the adjournment, I was invited to deliver the keynote address to the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples in Sydney. While I was there, I took the opportunity to meet with groups that are providing services to those people who are disparaged, those people who find themselves homeless, those people who need assistance. And when I spoke with the community groups that are delivering those services, they told me that of the 500 meals that they deliver on the streets of Sydney in one evening, 40 percent of those people who are lining up for meals are Kiwis.

In Queensland, the highest rates of suicide are committed by Māori. They tell me that students in high schools across Australia, who are coming to the end of the year, who are sitting their exams, are deciding whether or not they should bother, because until Malcolm Turnbull had made his decision, after 14 years of waiting, to allow Kiwi students—young people who have grown up and lived their lives in Australia—to gain tertiary qualifications by getting a student loan as of 1 January next year, those students would turn up at school and say: “What’s the point?”.

Kiwis are being treated as less than second-class citizens. In fact, under the new legislation last year, and in 2001—the immigration policy—Kiwis now have fewer rights in Australia than an American tourist. That is right, and it is a shock to people. When I go to Australia and talk to “Joe Ordinary Aussie” they do not know—they do not know what is happening in the detention centres. It is not being broadcast, and, if it is, it is being broadcast as the “killer Kiwis”. A 12-month sentence in Australia could see you thrown into jail for traffic violations, for shoplifting—and for that, these Kiwis, who may serve only 8 months of that sentence, are being thrown into a detention centre, some of them offshore, as Mr Davis has pointed out. Those people have been removed from their families, having already served their sentence, and having already been deemed by a judge in a court to have committed a crime and been given a sentence that they have finished.

Some of them are released on parole conditions, and if they were released to their homes to await a decision about deportation, they would be walking into a job tomorrow. If they were released to their homes, they would be paying taxes in Australia tomorrow. But wait, it gets worse, because under that section 501, paragraph (d), you can be deported from Australia because of questionable character. Already we have a 60-year-old gentleman in Taumarunui who is there now because when he came home for an unveiling and tried to get back into Australia, he was held up at immigration and, despite having no criminal conviction in Australia, despite having lived there for 36 years and having paid taxes for 34 of those years until he became seriously ill 2 years ago—despite all of those things, because of a petty crime he committed in New Zealand when he was 20, he was denied access back into Australia, back to his family, back to his wife who had been caring for him because he is seriously ill.

This is abhorrent, and our Government needs to speak up about it. We need to be doing more than we are doing. And I have to commend Amy Adams, actually, because she has rung—herself personally—the people who have been advocating for those people in the detention centres and given them advice on how they can seek help, by sending them to the New Zealand consulate there in Australia. Well, one of those people did turn up at the New Zealand consulate and was turned away. They did not know what to do. This is not good enough.

On Monday, 9 November Australia will sit in the UN in front of the Universal Periodic Review, and we will have the ability—this Government, for 3 minutes—to put those questions to the Australian Parliament and demand answers. Lastly, we have the opportunity to oppose its bid to be sitting on the Human Rights Council, and we should be taking that opportunity to oppose it based on Australia’s appalling history of human rights abuse.

Over the last few weeks, and today as well, I have been asking one simple question of the Minister for Social Development, and that is: why has she decided to cut the funding to, and the numbers of, the very, very successful Limited Service Volunteers programme? Unfortunately, over the last couple of months, and today, the answers that we got were just rubbish. They were bereft of fact, and I think the sad thing is that the Minister does not even know that herself.

💬 Chris Bishop: You didn’t even listen to her.

When I come to the House, Mr Bishop, I bring some facts, and if the Minister wants some facts, here are some facts about the course itself. In 2013 over 1,300 trainees went through the Limited Service Volunteers course and over 80 percent graduated. Sixty percent of those moved into employment or training, and the ministry’s own research shows that after 4 years those Limited Service Volunteers, compared with any other cohort, are the ones who spent the most time off the benefit. So we have got some facts there.

Where the Minister wants to put the funding is into the Youth Guarantee scheme, and just 52 percent of those in the Youth Guarantee scheme in 2013 graduated. So the Minister wants to cut a highly successful programme from 1,500 to 800 places; she wants to close the Trentham base, which is already happening; and she wants to close the Auckland base, which is happening, but the Minister did not even realise it was happening, and I have brought that to the attention of the House.

But do not take my word for it. Let us ask Paula Bennett. What did Paula Bennett say? She said: “Actually, Limited Service Volunteers is making a difference and we have seen the numbers.” Paula Bennett: “I have seen first hand the light that switches on for young people while on LSV. They gain confidence, they learn about themselves and what they are capable of.” But let us not just take Paula Bennett’s word for it. Let us ask the Prime Minister himself: “I’ve seen first-hand the dramatic effect LSV has on young people who volunteer to go through it … I’m proud of the increased investment we have made in LSV since coming into Government …”.

Why is this Minister wanting to cut a very successful programme for our most needy youth? We have got 25,000 youth on the benefit right now. What the Minister is trying to get us to swallow is that only 800 of those 25,000 are suitable for this course, and it is absolute rubbish. Not only that, but, as I stated in the House today during question time, her own advisers in the ministry advised her not to decrease the baseline funding but to increase it from $1.1 million to $3 million.

They actually recommended to the Minister to keep those numbers at 1,200 places, not 800 places, and yet she stands up here, week in and week out, and says that the reason why she is cutting it down to 800 is—what? Because she has listened to her advisers? No. She is saying that the other reason is youth unemployment. No. Those figures, which her advisers gave her, to stay at 1,200 and not 800, were based on the youth unemployment figures of today, and I have actually got those lists right here.

We have got the “neets” number from 2008, when this Government came in, and when John Key campaigned on increasing funding to Limited Service Volunteers. We had 66,000 youth unemployed. What is it today? In March 2015 the figure was 76,000. That is actually an increase. In June 2014 there were 3,000 on the youth payment and the young parent payment. In June 2015 there were 3,100. There is an actual increase in the number of people on the benefit. Not only that, but for youth between the ages of 15 and 24, which is the target cohort that the Minister is saying is reducing, in the first quarter of 2010, when the 4-year funding package for youth employment was put into place by the Prime Minister himself—$55 million—64,600 were unemployed. The figure at the exact same time in 2015, for the first quarter, was 64,000.

So what we have got here is a Minister who does not know what is going on. She comes into the House and spouts rubbish. She says her advisers are telling her to cut that number, and that the evidence she is basing that on is a reduction in benefit numbers, but that is absolute rubbish. I will tell you the real reason why this is happening. In June 2015 the building that the Limited Service Volunteers were using in Trentham was sold. The lease ran out in 2015. The funding—the 4-year funding that was kicked off in 2011 by this Prime Minister—ran out in June 2015, and the Minister wants to say that all of those things are a coincidence.

One last thing: I actually found this today. It is an article from a few months ago, and it notes what is happening at the expense of our youth. It is entitled “Govt might make surplus after all”, and guess what date that statement was made? It was in June 2015. This Government does not give a damn about those youth, and this Minister—

The member’s time has expired.

I want to join with other Kiwis today to welcome the All Blacks home, to celebrate their success, and to give them accolades, because their success is our success. To the team, the management, the coach, and their whānau: welcome home. And it is great, because we can show that as a small country we punch well above our weight on the world stage, but we need to come back home where the rubber hits the road.

There is a sobering reality here in New Zealand that the Government cannot get away from. Growing inequality and poverty are hurting the great majority of New Zealanders. I have been listening very carefully to the debate, and it goes like this. It is as if National is sitting in front of a roomful, let us say 99 percent, of New Zealanders and saying to them: “In 2008 we gave you a promissory note to be able to purchase a home, but it’s not valid until 2016, or maybe 2019. Well, hang on, just trust us. Things will get better.”

Well, many New Zealanders have heard that message, and 7 years after National sat down on the Treasury benches they are finding that that promissory note may well become null and void. Inequality and poverty are increasing in New Zealand, and unless we recognise the detrimental effects that they are having in our communities on various population groups then we are dooming the next generation to some very significant challenges. That should not happen in a country like ours.

The challenge is real, and it must be addressed, because it goes like this: there are more vulnerable children, several living in poverty, many of them in benefit-dependent households, and that does not look like it is getting better. It is getting worse, and, at the coalface, families feel the struggle in very real ways. They are going to budget advisory services and going to food banks because there are increasing fixed costs that are becoming a huge burden on families.

Let us look at the Māori population in the electorate I represent and across our country. The median Māori household income is $28,000. Well, after you take out rent and power and food and costs for the kids to go to school and costs to get to and from essential services if there is no public service network, the struggle is real. Of Māori in the labour force, 12.6 percent are unemployed. It is really difficult. When you go to faith-based services and social services they will tell you that now the profile of the demographic coming to seek assistance is actually the working poor. Why is this, that we are now having gradients of poverty? This is New Zealand, and things need to change.

Last year only 59 percent of Māori school leavers completed the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. Notwithstanding the Minister of Education’s ambition to have 85 percent of students reaching NCEA level 2, it is not being achieved. And if we cannot make a fundamental difference to improve the learning outcomes for our young people, how will this country ever benefit and gain the economic opportunities that the Government talks about? There is a significant challenge there.

But this is where it gets real: truancy remains high. There are high levels of transience in pockets of New Zealand because of housing inaffordability. There are numbers of families living in multiple-family households where people simply try to pool their limited resources together to get by. Is that a better opportunity for children or a worse one? I ask you. People will quickly say that it is actually a worse situation than ever before. We need to do better.

The whole thing about housing affordability is not just a matter for Auckland. In fact, what you will find when you go out into the regions, and even into small semi-rural towns, is that the encroachment of the Auckland effect artificially inflates housing prices everywhere. Aucklanders will buy houses anywhere else in the country except in Auckland to lump some of their ability to invest out into the regions. It makes it unaffordable for people living in small communities.

I listened to the Minister of Education during question time, and she made a very simple statement in response to questions by saying: “We are targeting our resource, the education resource, to meet those most at risk.” That is not happening. The Government has no plan to lift the opportunities for children and young people. Income inequality has not gotten better; it has gotten worse, but if we really want to ensure that the prosperity of this country transforms opportunities for everybody, we have got to address this issue now. It cannot wait.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.