General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Two issues today highlight the solid, sensible approach that this Government takes to environmental issues that will let us build more houses, get more jobs, develop our regions, and get infrastructure. One is the introduction of the significant, 200-plus page Resource Legislation Amendment Bill that came into Parliament last week. Our approach is also reflected in the very sensible position and the leadership that the Prime Minister and Tim Groser are giving to this country in those important negotiations that are going on in Paris.

I want to say, particularly on the issue of fossil fuel subsidies, that the Government is showing that it understands the connectedness between the economy and the environment. Getting rid of subsidies of fossil fuels would result in a 12 percent reduction in global emissions—that is, over a hundred times more than New Zealand’s total emissions. It is to the credit of Tim Groser and the Prime Minister that over 40 countries have signed up to that initiative, and I want to acknowledge how hard Tim Groser has worked, going around the capitals of the world promoting that position and securing that support.

I also want to note the increased investment announced by the Prime Minister in terms of agricultural emissions, which is crucial not just for New Zealand but actually for this issue globally. This was an initiative that was announced in Copenhagen. I heard a statement that said that actually the best thing that came out of the Copenhagen negotiations was the research alliance around global emissions. That extra $20 million going into that programme shows that this Government is serious about addressing the issue but is also serious about marrying together good environment policy with good economic policy. There should not be a single member of this House who does not understand the importance of those agricultural industries.

I also note with some irony that during the time of the previous Government it was actually subsidising fossil fuels. The previous Government, with the support of the Greens, actually spent taxpayers’ money on building a new oil-fired power station at Whirinaki and a gas-fired power plant. What has happened under this Government? Apply a sensible price through the emissions trading scheme and you will change behaviour. Is it not extraordinary that under a National Government Genesis has announced the closure of New Zealand’s biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions at Huntly—something that should be celebrated—and it shows how this Government is capable of actually marrying together good environmental policy with good economic policy.

That brings me to the Resource Management Act. If there are any parties in this House that are genuinely committed to job growth, to housing development, and to infrastructure, they will support the Government with that large and important Resource Legislation Amendment Bill. I have heard from Labour for 4 years that the Resource Management Act has got absolutely nothing to do with housing, and I almost fell off my stool last week when I heard Phil Twyford finally say that actually the Resource Management Act was the root cause of the housing problem. I welcome his conversion, his road to Damascus moment, at the last moment, and look forward to Labour’s support for the bill.

The last point I want to make is that I had a letter on housing passed on to me and it was from Mr Little. He was asking constituents for solutions around housing. I cannot blame him for that. He is not going to get many from his spokesperson. What was interesting in the letter from Mr Little to a resident in Ōtaki is that it was asking about how he might solve the housing problems in Masterton. Well, I know things are a bit of a mess opposite, but at the end of the year, Masterton, Ōtaki—he cannot find his way around the country, let alone lead a party.

The progress on the Resource Management Act and the sensible negotiations and leadership going on in Paris show we have got a Government that is serious both about economic growth and responsible management of our environment.

I seek the leave of the House to table in the House the letter from Mr Little addressed to a constituent in Ōtaki asking them about housing problems in Masterton.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection? There is objection.

The Hon Nick Smith and I are, I think, the only two members to have attended the 1992 Rio conference, which produced the original framework convention. I am not sure that our paths have converged too much in the intervening 23 years, but hope springs eternal. I invite the Hon Nick Smith to reflect on green policy over the next few years, because the Government does need to take on board green policies. Mr Smith advanced the usual claims about New Zealand’s initiatives in global climate change. Unerringly his Government focuses on what other countries should be doing, while New Zealand’s emissions continue to increase.

I will be on the plane in a few hours’ time, heading to Paris. I am looking forward to interacting with the Hon Simon Bridges and Tim Groser and others in a constructive way, but it will be constructive criticism that we will be bringing to bear on this Government’s policy.

Let us remember that the Paris agreement will not, in fact, be the first global agreement, which is how it is being described. That was in 1992. The Rio convention called for emissions to stabilise, to prevent dangerous climate change. It has taken 23 years for all Governments to agree to submit national targets. We should all be ashamed that it has taken this long. In 1990 annual global emissions were 38 billion tonnes. Today they are 53 billion tonnes. Had we stabilised by, say, 2000 or even if the developed world had stabilised, as the Rio convention had called for, we would be safe, below the 2 degrees. The Paris agreement will succeed in being the first protocol of Rio to require a commitment from all parties to cut or limit emissions. But that should have occurred in Copenhagen 6 years ago. Back then global emissions were 49 billion tonnes—4 billion tonnes less than today. We keep losing precious time, taunting the gods.

The main problem that will come out of Paris is the ponderous formality of the peer review mechanism—the so-called global stocktake. This will commence only after the Paris agreement has entered into force—in fact, not until 2022. That is too late. It must start in 2016. Peer reviews will not do it. I have had experience with international peer reviews, having defended the New Zealand aid programme before the OECD in Paris two decades ago. That year our official development assistance was 0.28 percent of gross national income. What is it today? It is 0.28 percent. A peer review of inadequate voluntary targets that starts several years after the scientists say global emissions are meant to peak virtually guarantees failure to stay under the 2 degree threshold.

Meanwhile, our Prime Minister has told an unsuspecting world that “While New Zealand’s emissions are small on a global scale, we are determined to make a strong contribution”. It clearly depends on what we mean by “strong”. Our current emission projections for 2030 will make a strong contribution to a 3.5 degree world, which is described by the World Bank as catastrophic. Mr Key reminded the world that “New Zealand faces unique domestic challenges in reducing emissions.” So, of course, does every other country. That is why we have the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Part of the unique New Zealand challenge is that we are one of the highest per capita emitters in the world, and we bear disproportionate responsibility for historical emissions. The Prime Minister does not include this in his structured world view of climate policy.

He then said: “Our emissions trading scheme … remains our key policy tool in reducing emissions.” Those present were too courteous to laugh, but the fact is that emissions have soared, not reduced, under the emissions trading scheme since he took office 7 years ago. The Prime Minister rounded off his contribution by concluding that “New Zealand … is determined to play its part and make a real difference.” That too is an epic statement.

I wonder whether anyone has whispered to the Prime Minister, asking what percentage reduction might be required of New Zealand to play its part in sharing the global carbon budget for a 2 degree world. That is closer to 70 percent—70 percent, not 11 percent. May Paris be a success, but let us not delude ourselves over the magnitude of this challenge.

I am enormously proud to be part of a Government that is both encouraging and enabling the building of more houses, more businesses, and greater infrastructure. I want to take a moment to just acknowledge the extraordinary work of the Hon Dr Nick Smith in bringing the next phase of the Resource Management Act reforms to the House. It is about supporting business owners. It is about supporting homeowners. It is about supporting our councils to actually ensure that we are able to get the level of development in cities and towns from one end of New Zealand to the other. This Government is very much clearly focused on reducing silly rules, reducing bureaucracy, and actually making it easier for councils to put together consistent plans that support their work in their communities.

We have heard endless examples as we have spoken with constituents and councils alike about the obstacles that have been in their way, and reforming the Resource Management Act will make a significant difference to enable them to really get things moving. It is about greater consistency. It is about more responsive planning, simplified consenting, and—equally important—better alignment across other pieces of legislation.

This Government has focused on delivering Better Public Services. It is also around enabling better local services in local government, and, as we know, the performance of local government is absolutely critical in regional economic development and the quality of everyday life. One of the things that I spoke about last night at the launch of the civil trades is that in the next 10 years we are expecting that central government and local government will spend approximately $11 billion each year in infrastructure. We have a responsibility to enable that to occur quickly and efficiently, so this Government has really been very deliberate about finding more ways to support local government in responding to the significant challenges of infrastructure and also those of building more resilient communities and growing their local economies.

Some of the work that we are doing is looking at what other opportunities there are to improve local government. There are some fantastic examples up and down the country of how regions are working together across councils. We have got great examples in Northland, Waikato, and Canterbury, but it is actually about how we go further to enable shared services to have a look at the functions and structures, to enable greater collaborations to actually enable the constituencies—our taxpayers and ratepayers are the same people—to get some of those savings and better local services delivered in our communities.

We have had the Rules Reduction Taskforce—goodness me, some of the absolutely loopy rules that both homeowners and business owners talked to us about were absolutely horrendous. So that is another piece of work lining up the Resource Management Act reforms with the rules reductions, which actually makes a significant difference for local government and local government’s customers. It is significantly about reducing costs and it is about reducing delays, because we know on this side of the House that when businesses are trying to grow we have actually got to get some of these things out of the way for them.

We had great results from the first round of Resource Management Act reforms. I think this piece of legislation might be even thicker than the first one, but at the end of the day it is about making New Zealand go faster, it is about growing our economies in small towns as well as our large cities, and it is about building more houses and building them faster. So I am enormously proud of what we are doing in local government, and hats off to my colleague for the Resource Management Act reforms.

Last month marked 7 years of this Government, and I say with no irony “7 long years” because if you asked any member of the public what it is that this Government has achieved, as I have done in recent times, you will be met with a certain degree of silence before they might come up something like “Well, they’re trying to change the flag.” What if you reflect then on Government members’ achievements around the area that they campaigned on most clearly? If you were to try to pick out something that they tried to campaign on it was just simply this mantra of the economy—no particular goals around the economy just the economy. Well, look, if they want to put that up as their measure of success I am happy to use it, because if we look closely at what they have achieved in that regard we have got markers like the fact the debt under this Government has increased by $60 billion. I will say that again: debt under this Government has increased by $60 billion.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Thanks to the Labour Party. What happened to public spending under Labour? Tell us about Government spending under Labour.

I will tell you, Tim Macindoe, if you want to hear about Labour: net Crown debt went down to zero—down to zero. Now there is an increase of $60 billion of debt. If we pick another measure, perhaps unemployment, well that has got to 6 percent and it is potentially going to hit 7 percent by the end of this year. A third measure—because I want to be fair to this Government let us pick a third—is this: exports. Exports as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest point since 1997—since 1997—and it is probably not a coincidence that 1997 was the last time that we handed the keys, as Mr Robertson said, to Bill English to manage the economy. So on any measure that the Government set out for itself we have seen absolute failure from this Government in terms of leadership on the economy.

And I would add a fourth measure, child poverty, because under this Government, a Labour Government, you will see every single Budget a report on child poverty because what is GDP—trade and debt levels—if we are not factoring in the impact that all of Government policy is having on children. There are 305,000 children living in poverty under this Government up from 260,000. That is dire on anyone’s measure and on any account.

I do not blame the general public if they do not know about all of those dire statistics. I do not—and why? Well, not actually because there is any kind of fabulous spin machine in the Government. That has always existed. What is new in this situation is that we have an increasingly gutted fourth estate. They are the ones that we rely on—not just the Opposition; not just the Opposition—to tell the story about this Government. But we rely on a decent fourth estate and what have we got in that regard in recent times? Well, we could reflect simply on what has been hitting the headlines. MediaWorks is about to enter a phase where TV3 has no current affairs—none; no investigative journalism for one of the most prominent television stations in our country.

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: Take it up with them.

Should I take it up with Mark Weldon, the Prime Minister’s very dear and loyal friend perhaps? I will let the public draw their conspiracy theories about that. But putting that aside—the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage does not seem to think that this is a problem—perhaps we should look at the areas where Ms Barry has some control: public broadcasting. Under this Government the Television New Zealand charter has gone, TVNZ 7 has gone, TVNZ 6 has gone, and Radio New Zealand and NZ On Air are in dire straits in terms of the static funding that they have received.

In fact, public broadcasting is at the lowest level of any modern budget in this country. Compared internationally, with any comparable democracy, we spend some of the smallest amounts on public broadcasting. Why am I raising this? Yes, this Government’s record is dire, but the problem is much worse than that. The public deserve to know what is happening in their democracy, and the voices we rely on tell that story are being gutted by the Government as well. The combination is a threat to our democracy and is a threat to the future of this country.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have the privilege of representing constituency seats, particularly in rural and provincial New Zealand, often hear from constituents who use words like “inefficient”, “cumbersome”, “inconsistent”, “slow”, “inflexible”, and “bureaucratic”—and they are not talking just about the Opposition. They are talking about words that describe our resource management legislation. Those words are used to describe the Opposition and our resource management legislation. Tomorrow in this House the member who represents the Nelson electorate and is also the Minister for the Environment, the Hon Nick Smith, is going to introduce phase two of this National Government’s reform of the Resource Management Act. That is going to be wonderful legislation. It means that a solid, pragmatic, and sensible approach to Resource Management Act reform is going to be finally introduced into this House, and it is much needed and much overdue. We had wanted to introduce this phase two legislation some time before in this Parliament. The announcement came last week, and it has been interesting to see that across the country there has support and encouragement for this legislation being introduced. It has been welcomed by a whole range of interested stakeholders, not least of which has been local government, which has, in fact, responded incredibly positively to the introduction of this legislation.

The first reading of this legislation tomorrow shows how effectively this National-led Government relates to, organises itself with, and engages its partners across the House. So I want to thank and encourage members of the Māori Party and the ACT Party MP who are going to support us in this bill. I was pleased to see that belatedly the Labour Party has decided to, in fact, support this bill at its first reading, and I take that as a very positive sign indeed. But one thing that we will be wanting to watch with particular interest tomorrow at the first reading are the intentions of New Zealand First. Less than a year ago up in Northland the Rt Hon Winston Peters was campaigning to the people of Northland in a provincial rural seat, a seat where people do get complaints about the Resource Management Act. Winston Peters was campaigning in that by-election and was saying he would support sensible Resource Management Act reform. Winston now has an opportunity to come to this House tomorrow and encourage his party, his supporters, on behalf of the people of Northland, who will benefit from an improved resource management legislative environment.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Will he do it?

Will he do it? Will the proof of the pudding be in the voting tomorrow? We are yet to see what that will be. Tomorrow we expect that, because the people of Northland will be the sort of people who will benefit from this legislation, New Zealand First and the Rt Hon Winston Peters will, I am sure, be supportive of this legislation.

Planning processes under the Resource Management Act are, we all know, occurring at glacial speed. They occur incredibly slowly. They occur at a speed that prohibits development and that actually disincentivises people from making development decisions for progressing their businesses, growing their enterprises, creating jobs, and creating a growing economy. What the legislation seeks to do is streamline and smooth out some of those processes. We had an operation going through the country a month or 2, or 3, or 4 ago, led by my colleague and friend Jacqui Dean, called the Rules Reduction Taskforce. It published a great paper about loopy rules, and I am pleased to say that many of those loopy rules are going to be fixed by this piece of legislation. The Rules Reduction Taskforce has done a very, very good job. Standard planning templates will be introduced as part of this reform. Just to give the House some idea of some of the benefits that will come from this, I told that currently there are 242 definitions as to what could be described as a commercial zone. That certainly cannot create certainty in the environment that we want to be part of.

So I am looking forward tomorrow to the first reading of this second phase of our Resource Management Act reform. I am looking forward to support across the House from parties like Labour, like the Māori Party, like ACT, and, certainly—hopefully—like New Zealand First. It will be good legislation. I am chairing the select committee. Bring it on. It is going to be a great bill.

You know that this is a Government out of ideas when the whole of this debate is focused on a piece of legislation that the Government should have brought to this House more than a year ago—a piece of legislation it is bringing back to the House in a watered-down state. When that is the best that Government members can do in this debate, you know they are out of ideas. No wonder Scott Simpson’s constituents are coming to him and saying: “You’re inefficient, you’re cumbersome, and you’re working at a glacial speed.” It is no wonder they are saying that—seriously, is this the best they can do?

Their whole debate has been about a piece of legislation that they could not even bring to this House in the form they truly wanted. That is the best that this worn-out Government can do. But this year they have spent their time doing those sorts of things. They have been facing down so many scandals, and trying to bring in so many distractions that they have forgotten to get on with the things that New Zealanders really need them to get on with. They have been focused on fighting off the Saudi sheep scandal. They have been trying to make people forget about the ponytail pulling. They have been trying to distract from the things that have gone wrong for this Government, because they truly have lost their way.

I think that one of the pinnacles of this—[Interruption] Well, in the Northland by-election I think the people really started to give them a signal that they had had enough of that sort of behaviour. Also, John Key rolled over on the issue of human rights for New Zealanders being deported from, and detained in, Australia. If Richie McCaw had rolled over for Australia in the same way that John Key did, we would not be holding the Rugby World Cup; we would actually be saying instead “Oh gosh, we lost to Australia.”, because John Key was too weak to actually take that issue on.

But Andrew Little was the one who showed leadership on this issue. He was not prepared, and is not prepared, to see New Zealanders being treated in that way. He went over and he confronted the issue; he did not run away and hide. That is the sort of leadership that this country needs, and, instead, what are we getting?

Well, in the Waikato—in the region that I come from—unemployment has gone up 34 percent in the last quarter alone. Unemployment is up in the Waikato by 34 percent. So it has gone up in the last quarter, from being 5 percent to being 6.7 percent—just in one quarter. That represents the loss of 3,800 jobs to people in my region—3,800 jobs, just in 3 months. And that is before we lose 200 jobs from Ruakura Research Centre next year. That is right. In the heart of agricultural New Zealand, in the Waikato, that Government is sacking scientists in the agricultural area, from the heart of agricultural New Zealand—200 jobs are being lost. And so when those jobs go, the unemployment rate is going to look even worse.

Huntly mines: the Government completely mismanaged State coal, and Huntly miners have lost their jobs. The 3,800 jobs lost, in just the last 3 months, you can multiply that several times for the number of family members who will be hurt by those jobs being lost, by the number of local businesses that will lose income because those jobs are being lost, and the poverty—the increased poverty—that our children will face in that region as a result of that.

So at the same time as jobs are being lost in their thousands in the Waikato, what else are we facing? The Government’s failure this year to fix the Auckland housing crisis means that housing prices and the cost of renting in Hamilton are going through the roof. So we have got the perfect storm under this Government. We have got increasing housing costs—an 8.5 percent increase in rental costs in the Waikato in the last year alone. And I can tell you that is just the tip of the iceberg. Aucklanders are marching down, over the Bombay Hills, because that Government has refused to do anything about the housing crisis. It has been warned for years about that developing housing crisis, and it has done nothing about it. And now Aucklanders are coming to my city, buying up in Hamilton, forcing the housing prices up, and continuing to work in Auckland because they cannot get jobs in the Waikato because unemployment has gone up by 34 percent. Can you imagine what that is doing to family life for those people?

So that is the fate under this Government. That is the brighter future that it has delivered after 7 years—rising unemployment and increasing costs at the same time that people can least afford to pay those costs. It is damaging our society, it is damaging New Zealand, and it is time for the Government to reconsider its position or just vacate Government. If it cannot do the job, then just get out of it and let those of us who have got the ideas get on with it.

I regard it as a gift to be able to follow that speaker, Sue Moroney, in this general debate and to say how proud I am to be part of a Government that is focused on the things that matter to New Zealand, that is focused on the economy, and, in the instance that I want to talk about today, that is focused on reform of the Resource Management Act. And it was truly a gift—truly a gift—for that member to cry crocodile tears about her view that this Government has taken no action on the housing crisis, so-called, in Auckland when, in fact, Minister Nick Smith has done little else over the last 2 years but focus on the issues around strong economy and strong growth in Auckland. The number of measures that that Minister has taken, together with this Government, to tackle the need to provide for more housing is legion.

But I just want to focus on one aspect of that, and it is in this second tranche of Resource Management Act reform, which will, in fact, provide for planning processes to allow speedier, more effective consenting to provide for housing in district plans. And that, Mr Speaker, and members of the Opposition who do not quite understand the Resource Management Act, will go a significant way into providing speedier, more cost-effective consenting and the provision of land designation to allow for housing to be built in Auckland. And that is on top of the other provisions that this Government has brought in for Auckland housing, like special housing areas, which are beginning to bear fruit.

You see, one of the problems that Opposition members have with housing is that they seem to think they can just say “We’re going to build 800,000 homes in the next 10 years.” and they think if they click their fingers and wave their magic wand, it will be so. Unfortunately, in the real world, planning conditions have to be placed around that. We have been faced with a local authority that has been determined to impose a city limit. It has imposed so many restrictive covenants on development in Auckland that it has been a large body of work to enable the planning framework that then, in turn, enables the consenting and construction of housing, let alone the work this Government has entered into in the realm of social housing, which also has been significant.

I want to return to the Resource Management Act and the second tranche of reform that this Government is introducing. I want to refer, also, to what we fondly called the The loopy rules report: New Zealanders tell their stories, which was a large body of work undertaken by a group of New Zealanders who travelled the length and breadth of New Zealand; who consulted with thousands of people, many sectors, local authorities, and industry groups; and who discovered, when listening to New Zealanders, that the Resource Management Act comprised about a third of the complaints we heard around how difficult it was and can be to do business in New Zealand because of what they told us were loopy rules. The loopy rules report recommended 10 top fixes, amongst our many recommendations, and some of those related to the Resource Management Act. I am so pleased that this Government, under Minister Nick Smith, has picked up on those recommendations made in The loopy rules report.

We did recommend that, as part of the Resource Management Act reforms, the Government eliminate the need for resource consents for minor and technical breaches, which cause so much consternation for homeowners and property developers. I am so pleased to see those provisions picked up in this Resource Management Act reform bill. We recommended the introduction of faster, more flexible processes for changing plans under the Resource Management Act. I am so pleased that this Government and this Minister have chosen to pick up on that recommendation and have proposed two new ways of plan changes and of streamlining the planning processes. I am pleased to see that a collaborative planning regime is going to be brought in by this Government.

I know from the work that we undertook on another piece of work, in the Mackenzie Agreement, that collaboration works. It is a bright beacon for the future, and it should be supported by this House. I am very much in favour of the Resource Management Act changes. I think it is a good piece of work by a progressive Government.

I do note from the Trans Tasman that the previous speaker, Jacqui Dean, got a rating of two out of 10.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: What? How much?

Two out of 10—two out of 10. But on to serious matters here. Today New Zealand First asked a hapless Minister of Immigration questions about the rort being visited on this nation through lax legislation and an indifference of this National Government, which is blinded by its desire to simply make money, regardless of increasing and overwhelming evidence that its new darling child, namely the export education sector, has become a people trafficker’s paradise and an extortionist’s dream, characterised by fraud, corruption, and exploitation of the vulnerable and young.

New Zealand First has submitted written questions and Official Information Act requests, and the Rt Hon Winston Peters has raised this matter on numerous occasions—we know a couple of things about the export education sector. Young people are coming here from developed countries all over the world with the sincere objective of getting a high-quality education, paying their full way, and leaving and going home. We also know there are those who are coming here from undeveloped nations, hell-bent on using it as a pathway to residency and citizenship, and then to enjoy the tax benefits and the subsidies of the New Zealand taxpayer. We also know that in January Independent Tertiary Institutions admitted that incentives existed to work and gain residency in the export education sector. We know much about the Government’s policy of encouraging these people to come here.

I want to put it to you that New Zealand First believes the New Zealand Government has a duty of care towards these foreign students who come here. We have a pastoral responsibility to ensure that they are not exploited, they are not extorted, they are not manipulated, and they are certainly not lost in the labour force as slave labour. But does this Government care about that? Not one bit. We warned in January—in fact Winston Peters, our leader, warned back in January 2015 that student visas were being sold as a back door to New Zealand residency. On 19 November Pattrick Smellie—of course a card-carrying member of New Zealand First, as we all know—wrote saying: “Immigration officials are warning that New Zealand’s reputation is at risk. There is widespread evidence of fraud and corruption, of exploitation in the workplace.”

Business leaders have been saying, and are now on the record as saying, that deflation is being credited because of cheap foreign labour being imported through the student education scheme. We know that Lincoln Tan wrote this month, saying that the Immigration Advisers Authority and Munish Sekhri from Licensed Immigration Advisers for New Zealand both raised concerns about this matter. But what do we hear from the Minister of Immigration today? This Minister says: “Oh, if they have got problems, they should go to the authorities.” Is he dreaming? Is he on “Planet National”? Does he not know that these foreign students—

💬 Alastair Scott: Why don’t you just send them back to the countries where they came from? Go back to where you came from. Like you do with all the immigrants—send them home.

—do not know their rights, do not know who the authorities are, and have had their passports taken by unscrupulous employers? And the member for Wairarapa had better button it because he knows that there is a petrol station in Masterton right now that has been accused of doing this. But he would not know; he does not live there—he does not live there. He has not got a clue. [Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member but that level of barracking from that member Alastair Scott is completely unacceptable. If he interrupts again, I will be asking him to leave the Chamber for the remainder of the general debate.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The member for Wairarapa does not know; he does not live there. People say that consistently—that is why they come into my office now.

But we know that this is a serious matter. New Zealand’s reputation as a quality provider and as a good nation of good people is at risk because the Minister of Immigration today refuses to accept that we are, through our international export education sector, allowing extortion, allowing manipulation, and allowing people to be treated like slave labour. And what did he say to that mother whose daughter lost her job? Well, he actually did not give a toss, and the whole of the National Party laughed. Look it up, it is going to be on video on Facebook: the National Party laughing at the plight of that woman Ludwina Maybin—at her daughter. Watch the video. The National Party members did not give a toss and do not care. That is the mark of this Government. That will be the mark of its reputation. Unfortunately, it will be the mark of New Zealand’s reputation unless they sort it out, and sort it out they must.

I just apologise to the young children in the gallery of the debating chamber this afternoon who had to sit through and listen to that negativity and cynicism, because, on this side of the House, we are positive. The first thing that I would like to do, as we draw an end to 2015, is acknowledge the hard work of all New Zealanders. It is New Zealanders who have brought this country back to a surplus, it is New Zealanders who have caused this country to have the highest workforce participation on record, it is New Zealanders who have allowed this country to have forecasted positive GDP growth that is the envy of all other OECD countries, and it is those New Zealanders who we are supporting through these Resource Management Act reforms. On this side of the House, we back New Zealanders, and we know that they can do more, and we want to support them.

First of all, before I go on, I want to thank this National Government, on behalf of all Waimakariri residents, for the new Rangiora Hospital, which was opened last week. It was an honour to have the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman come and open the new North Canterbury Health Hub, which will be seen as the gold standard in health services across rural communities. It must be embarrassing for people like the Hon Annette King—and for Clayton Cosgrove, who was the Labour candidate at the time—who stood outside the old Rangiora Hospital and said: “This will not go ahead. This Government is not going to fund the Rangiora Hospital.” Fast forward to less than a year later and we are opening up this fantastic world-class facility for regional New Zealand, for North Cantabrians.

This is part of a bigger picture. We are rolling out $900 million in the biggest hospital rebuild programme that New Zealand has ever seen, building Christchurch Hospital, Burwood Hospital, and Rangiora Hospital. What we are doing is backing Canterbury post-earthquakes. As we know, the Canterbury recovery is one of the top four priorities. We have got the earthquake recovery Minister at No. 3, and our next Canterbury Minister is at No. 7. What does Labour do when it has a reshuffle? Its first Canterbury MP is No. 10—that is what it thinks of Canterbury. It is the second-biggest economy in the regions and the second-biggest by population, and it puts its first Canterbury MP at No. 10. Labour is not sticking up for Canterbury, and it is not sticking up for Cantabrians’ recovery.

What we are also doing is supporting housing, and there are a lot of lessons out of the earthquake recovery. We know that with the land-use recovery plan we freed up land, and we increased supply, and that equalled demand. As we know, with the Treasury forecast we are heading towards a housing surplus in Canterbury. These are real lessons that are informing this resource management bill. If you look at annual house price inflation across New Zealand of over 10 percent, Canterbury is at about 5.5 percent and Waimakariri is at 3.5 percent. We are the third-fastest growing electorate and the third-biggest populated region in the South Island, but we have only 3.5 percent annual house price inflation. That proves what the Productivity Commission said—that tight regulation of land increases house prices.

We know that it is up to local councils, under this Resource Management Act bill, which will allow them to match the needs of residential growth with land needs. What we know with the KiwiSaver HomeStart package is that in the first 6 months 122 families in my electorate qualified for that and have gone on to buy their first home—over $550,000 worth of grants from that scheme are going into young families in the Waimakariri, and that should be celebrated. This has been incentivising builders to build houses for under $450,000, which is the cap, and to deliver affordable housing. It has been a great year in the Waimakariri: new beginnings, openings, and milestones. We have opened the Rangiora Town Hall, the Oxford Town Hall, the Ruataniwha Kaiapoi Civic Centre, the hospital, and the Ashley Bridge. We have started $300 million worth of roading improvements. It is going great guns. On behalf of all Cantabrians, thank you to all New Zealanders for supporting us through this difficult time. With your indulgence Mr Speaker—[Bell rung]

The member’s time has expired.

This last weekend, or just ahead of the weekend, we heard that there was a new antibiotic-resistant form of campylobacter through at least three of the four main poultry suppliers in the North Island. The Green Party says that the Government needs to investigate the links between that antibiotic resistance and the rampant herbicide use in New Zealand as well as in the imported feed to that poultry and in other feedstocks.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and a number of other glyphosate-based herbicides, is commonly sprayed on genetically engineered soy crops internationally, and that is the vast volume of soy that is brought into New Zealand animal feedstocks. There was a quarter of a million tonnes of soy imported in 2014—nearly double that from 2010—and we have been battling campylobacter right through that time. Not so long ago Professor Jack Heinemann of Canterbury University and an international group came out with a research result that showed, over three different herbicides and a range of different antibiotics, levels of resistance or amplification in effectiveness of the antibiotics, depending what. But it showed that there is a connection and a there is a change in antibiotic effectiveness from herbicide use.

We are soaking in herbicides in this country, our food chain is soaking in herbicides in this country, and chicken would have to be one of the worst. I remember a few years ago when Inghams Enterprises was busy advertising its chicken as containing no GMOs and no synthetic additives, etc. We showed, through the Commerce Commission, that it was totally out of order because at that stage at least 15 percent of its feedstock was genetically engineered soy, and it will have risen since then. So too have all the other feed producers carried on using this sort of product.

The Environmental Protection Authority here has approved 60 substances containing glyphosate under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, and the Ministry for Primary Industries, with the agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines group, has active registrations for 89 glyphosate products. We know that glyphosate is affecting the gut microbes in chicken and in other livestock, and yet we have got this major risk to our health, our consumers’ health, and, actually, to our export markets. We know how critically important it is when there is something going wrong in the dairy industry that affects our markets. We knew, when we thought there might have been a risk of botulinum, how serious the ripples were that went out in our exports. Yet, botulinum is a likely problem because of our increased use of glyphosate and others, because of the suppression of beneficial microbes in the gut of both our ruminants and, of course, in our chickens. Glyphosate—as I wrap up—probably causes cancer. It is genotoxic at sub-lethal concentrations as a hormone disruptor. It is a reproductive negative and it contributes to digestive illness, gut disruption, and nutrient deficiencies.

We need this Government to look at this seriously and not go around with its head in the sand in terms of how we are treating agriculture. There is another option; we must take it. Let us look to organics and, seriously, agroecological systems of farming, moving away from pesticides.

The member’s time has expired.

Can I just say how proud I am to be a part of a well-balanced Government that is aspirational for New Zealand and aspirational for New Zealanders. As I have sat here over this last 12 months of my first term of Parliament, one of the big cries that I have heard from the other side of the House is that National is concerned only about its rich mates. It is an accusation that is often made, and so I thought I would have a look back over my past year here in Government. I had a little bit of a look at the pieces of legislation that I have had the privilege of speaking on—there have been 30 of them. There have been 30 different pieces of legislation, and that is just my share—the ones I have spoken on. I want to look at some of the themes of that legislation that I have had the privilege of speaking on.

Some of them have been in the justice sector because that aligns with the Justice and Electoral Committee, which I am on. We have had the Harmful Digital Communications Bill, which has sought to protect young people, in particular, from online bullying and the like. We have had the public protection orders going into place, which are going to help protect victims of crime from further victimisation; extended supervision orders; and the like. In the social space, we have got the Support for Children in Hardship Bill, with the bills arising from it having their third reading tomorrow. It is a fantastic piece of legislation, raising the benefits in real terms for the first time in 40 years—that is not just “looking after your rich mates”. We are seeing the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill, which is going to help our most vulnerable teen parents and high-risk young people.

This is a Government that is doing all sorts of other things as well, not just the things that I speak on. We have seen some great initiatives in the environmental space, with the expansion of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary, which will now be one of the largest ocean sanctuaries on the globe. We have got a whole bunch of other things going on. In the health space, we are seeing waiting lists for elective surgery coming down as well—that is not just “looking after your rich mates”. But we have also been focused on the economy, and I know, in my home patch where I come from in the Manawatū, we have been privileged to have a regional growth study done that has been a partnership with the local councils, with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and with the Ministry for Primary Industries. It is a fantastic document, which is going to lead the way forward for regional development in that region. It is going to see more jobs. It is going to see people doing a whole lot better. So we are seeing that happen in the economy space. Then financially of course, against all odds, we have got a Minister of Finance who has delivered a surplus for the New Zealand Government.

This is a well-balanced Government, as I said, which is aspirational for New Zealanders and for New Zealand. To go along with this continued, ongoing balanced approach, tomorrow we will see the first reading of the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill. Again, it is a sensible, balanced approach. We would all acknowledge that a Resource Management Act should be, and it still will be, focused on protecting our environment. But our Resource Management Act has not actually been a particularly useful tool at times for some people, and we know that it has been a roadblock to sensible development. It has been unnecessarily holding up processes, which has made things difficult for businesses and for people who are going to be producing jobs in our regional economies. It stops them from moving forward, so it is time that we had some reforms of the Resource Management Act.

There are some really good reforms in particular. What I have seen in my time in local government that what was challenging for people was the amount of time that it took to get plan changes through. So there is going to be a 2-year time limit on getting those plan changes through under the new Resource Management Act. It has also been ridiculous over time that if you want to do something as simple as putting a deck on your house, you have had to get consent from not just the neighbour who is going to be most affected by it but also just about anybody else in the neighbourhood. We are going to start streamlining these processes through the Resource Management Act so that we continue to look after and take good care of our environment but also ensure that there is going to be a sensible approach that will deliver other, better outcomes for New Zealand. So, in summary, we continue to move forward with this Government in a balanced approach that is delivering for New Zealand economically, socially, and environmentally right across the board. We continue to be aspirational for New Zealanders. We continue to be aspirational for New Zealand, so that New Zealanders can continue to live more fulfilling and prosperous lives.

I have heard a number of National speakers in the last hour, and when National talks about surpluses, Labour talks about communities. National talks about GDP; Labour talks about people and jobs. National talks money; we talk about opportunity. That is the difference between a tired party that is lost for ideas, and Labour, which is energetic, hungry, and aspirational for all New Zealand—and that includes regional New Zealand. The rhetoric over there is about aspiration; the reality is so far from that. Those members have just lost sight of it.

From ponytails to plastic sheep to pandas, this Government has misfired because it has taken its eye off the ball. It has lost sight of the issues that are important to the people of New Zealand, things like jobs, like education, like decent health care—heaven forbid! I would love to hear our Prime Minister talk about what the Government is going to do to grow the economy, as opposed to his habit of weeing in the shower, and about what he is going to do for those in the provinces, as opposed to silly sideshows like Saudi sheep and ponytails. The thing is, John Key started his reign with energy, with Ministers like Tony Ryall and Simon Power, but like rats they have deserted a sinking ship, and now the party John Key leads has become tired, moribund, out of touch, and out of fresh ideas. If those members think that changing the flag will put more money into the back pockets of good, hard-working Kiwis, will lift one child out of poverty, will create one job—

💬 Jono Naylor: Who said that was the aim?

—then they are really out of touch with the majority of Kiwis and with what New Zealanders want a Government to do for them.

That member over there said: “Who said this was the aim?”. Well, what I would really like to know is what the aim is—what the aim is—of this flagship policy of changing the flag. We all know—New Zealanders know—it is a vanity project for the Prime Minister, and that is a shame, because New Zealanders want a Prime Minister who is working for them.

Labour will. Under Andrew Little, Labour has a vision for the future. It is based around jobs. It is based around employment that will put more money into our communities and our homes, put food on the table, and allow people to pay their power bills and live a life with dignity. Labour believes in the value of education and of equality of opportunity. Labour believes in decent health care, affordable for all. The year 2016 will see Labour begin to deliver a plan for all New Zealand and all New Zealanders. We will continue to engage with those in our cities, our towns, and our provinces and rural communities. Labour has started this year how we want to continue. We have visited over 50 different electorates. We have engaged with those who are looking for a vision, who are looking for a Government to actually provide solutions and not things like ponytails—not to get distracted by silly sideshows.

In conclusion—

💬 Jacqui Dean: Like leadership contests?

—National has run out of ideas and is concentrating on sideshows and silly distractions.

That member said New Zealand is looking for leadership, and I completely agree with her—I completely agree with her. New Zealanders are not looking for a Prime Minister who believes that pulling a ponytail is funny. They are not looking for a Minister who rules a department that buys $500 hair straighteners, has problems with plastic sheep, and does dirty deals with Saudis.

Labour has the energy. It has the leadership. It has the passion. It has the people to deliver, to find solutions to the issues that the people of New Zealand are telling us are important. New Zealanders are looking for leadership. They are now looking for an alternative Government, because they are tired of this one. Labour is ready to deliver for the people of New Zealand, and come 2016 the smiles of those on the backbenches will slowly begin to disappear, because they know 2016 will begin to deliver the change that 2017 will bring. Thank you very much.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.