General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. So we have had a 2-week adjournment and we are back in the House again to reflect on what has happened over those 2 weeks and on the busy news cycle. A lot is happening in New Zealand and overseas, and what is Labour focused on after 2 weeks of news cycles? It has worked itself into an incandescent rage over the totally unacceptable situation that our Prime Minister knows people! My God! He knows people, and, sometimes, the people he knows actually come and talk to him. What an outrage! What an outrage! We have got a popular Prime Minister who actually goes around the country talking to people about what is on their minds. I mean, how do we stand for it? What an outrage! I am surprised there has not been a commission of inquiry. Perhaps it is just that, actually, the Prime Minister knows people, they like him, and they want to converse. Perhaps that is so foreign that Labour members do not see that as a normal state of behaviour.

While Labour members are working themselves into their little apoplexy over there, this Government is focused on getting on with building and delivering what will be Bill English’s eighth Budget. What I can tell this House is that it will be another Budget that shows this is a prosperous country with a sensible, moderate Government with a plan for success for everyone right across this country. Already we have seen some of the signs of that, have we not? We have seen the Prime Minister announcing today $124 million over 4 years into Pharmac. And, as the Prime Minister noted today in question time, that takes Pharmac’s budget, under our Government, from $650 million to now $850 million, making sure that year on year our investment in health and access to medicines has continued to climb and will continue to do so.

We have seen the announcement in the last week or so from the Minister of Revenue about the $184 million small-business tax package. I can tell this House that I know that in my electorate, where small businesses are absolutely the engine room of the economy, this has been hugely well received. I think it shows very, very clearly why this Government is so well connected to what is going on in real New Zealand. We are out talking to people, we do listen to the people who come up to us and tell us what is going on, and when small business said to us that it needs a bit of help to come up with a tax system that works better for it, we sat down and made a way for that to work—$184 million into the small businesses of New Zealand, and I can tell this House that there is much more to come.

When the eighth Bill English, National Government - led Budget is delivered later this month, it will be another sign of what is setting New Zealand apart from countries we compare ourselves to. Just look at Australia. Australia put out its Budget yesterday, and what do we know? Its unemployment rate is still higher than ours. The “lucky country” is still struggling to get its unemployment rate near ours, and it is forecasting massive deficits for many years to come—massive deficits. And New Zealand, under Bill English’s stewardship, under the John Key - led Government, is one of the very few countries that is projecting surpluses now and in the years to come, and that is a tremendous effort from a Government that has worked hard to increase investment in education, increase investment in health, support small business, and support our exporters into new markets. And, yet, we are delivering surpluses and we stand in a very, very good position.

The only policy we have heard out of Labour while we have been getting on and making things better for New Zealanders who are actually driving the employment growth in our country is that it wants to move universal superannuation to 18—at 18 it is going to start. At the last election, Labour wanted to make the superannuation age 67. That did not work, so it said: “Let’s roll it out at 18. Let’s make every single New Zealander eligible for universal, blanket superannuation from the age of 18.” What a genius idea! And there was not one costing anywhere in the policy—not one costing. We know that this could be $54 billion a year. So all you are seeing from Labour, frankly, is a whole lot of nonsense—uncosted, unfunded. At least its members wrote that one themselves and it was not plagiarised from anywhere. No one else would write it.

In the meantime, Anne Tolley is getting on with overhauling our Child, Youth and Family system—a system that has been broken for years—and it is one of the most important things we can do to fix the social system in New Zealand. The work that Anne Tolley will lead in Child, Youth and Family is the biggest thing we can do to improve the lives of vulnerable young New Zealanders, prevent the crime of the future, and help to ensure that the brighter future we have been building for 8 years now is truly there for every single New Zealander. I cannot wait for Budget day.

That last speaker, Amy Adams, should pay more attention. She did not realise that her party has nicked our provisional tax policy, which we put out a year ago. It has drummed it up and called it its own. What I can say is, of course, the Government’s is hardly as good as ours.

The real question right now, because character is important in leadership and Government, is: when will the prevarication, the dissembling, the dancing around the truth really end for this Government and this Prime Minister? Yet again we have seen exactly where this Government’s priorities lie: it is concerned solely about those at the top. Why will the Prime Minister not just be straight about his conversations over foreign trusts? The reason why this issue about foreign trusts is important is that they are a device for those who own them to avoid paying tax in their home countries. We should not be part of it.

It all started off with the Panama Papers, where, I think, for most New Zealanders, we found out for the first time that there are 12,000 foreign trusts in New Zealand—12,000 people living overseas with trusts here, avoiding their responsibilities to their home countries, and most New Zealanders are horrified by that and think it is disgraceful. We also learnt that there are 60,000 references to New Zealand in the Panama Papers. We know there is another dump due soon, so we will see what that means. But when it comes to the close personal adviser to the Prime Minister and his role in the foreign trust industry, then it gets very interesting.

At the end of 2014 the Inland Revenue Department said it was going to conduct a review of foreign trusts, no doubt because the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department has a good reputation for having a tax system that is one of integrity. That is why the department wanted to review it. It was concerned about it. On 2 December 2014 Mr Whitney wrote to the Minister of Revenue, after having spoken to the Prime Minister, saying that the Prime Minister had told him that the foreign trusts would stay protected, and he asked for a meeting with that Minister. Eight hours later—8 hours later—the Minister of Revenue replied and arranged to make a time to meet. They then met less than 2 weeks later. The Minister received a briefing about foreign trusts, then he had a meeting with Mr Whitney, and the undertaking was given that there will be no review of foreign trusts—there will be no review of foreign trusts.

Let us remember what the Prime Minister said of his close personal adviser. He said the reason why he uses him is that he is highly ethical, and the Prime Minister said: “I don’t deal with people unless they are highly ethical and they do things well.” Well, surprise, surprise. What happened to Mr Whitney? He got tied up in a court case where he has been involved in setting up a trust for a bankrupt so he can conduct business without the oversight of the Companies Office. He set up a sham trust for a property developer, and then Mr Whitney failed to disclose it to the authorities who were investigating the bankrupt. When he was asked whether he thought it was a good idea to set up a sham trust for a bankrupt, this is what Mr Whitney said: “Oh, no, not particularly. It’s a common thing for people to do. It may not be morally as white as it could be, but it is normal practice.” This is the world of foreign trusts. This is the world of the greedy. And this is the matter that goes to character. That is why the Prime Minister needs to be straight about his conversations and what happened and about why the review was ditched. This is an important issue, and it has now tied up the Government and tying up this Government and New Zealanders’ trust and confidence in it.

I want to tell you about what Labour is focused on—what our priorities are. They are about looking after real New Zealanders who have real problems. We do not need 42,000 children going into hospital each year because of bronchial conditions and health issues caused by unhealthy homes. That is why I will be proud to give an introduction speech on my bill tonight and talk to it—to give a guarantee to those children and their families that they can have healthy homes if the Government has a will to support it. That is what New Zealand is about: looking after those who do not have much, who ask only to have good, healthy standards and a warm, safe, dry home to live in so that they are not having to trot off to hospital and every other taxpayer has to meet the cost of it.

That is what this is about. We are focused on the priorities for making New Zealand a great place for every New Zealander, not just on looking out for those at the top.

That was an interesting speech from the Leader of the Opposition, who accuses this side of the House, and the Government, of being concerned about the people at the top and who then spends 4½ of his 5 minutes talking about people at the top. I say to that member: look in the mirror—look in the mirror.

The Opposition members are the only ones who are talking about the people at the top. When you look at what this Government is doing, you see that last month every beneficiary with a family with children got an extra $25 a week in their benefit. It is the first time in 43 years that that has happened, but that is what this Government is delivering to New Zealanders, because this Government understands what is actually happening on the ground. This Government is not involved in scandal and in relaying the time lines of who said what to whom among people whom, actually, the average New Zealander does not care about, like Mr Whitney—absolutely. I want to talk about—and this Government is focused on—those children who continue to be abused in this country, whether it is physically or sexually, who are neglected, and who are, in the worst circumstances, as we have seen in the courts this week, killed by the very people who should be the ones who love and nurture them.

Last year I appointed an expert panel to lead a complete overhaul of the Child, Youth and Family system so that we can get better results in the lives of those young people. The panel’s first report gave us some dire statistics that absolutely laid out why this Government needs to focus on the long-term outcomes for those children—because the statistics are horrendous. The panel looked at a group of children who were in a care placement and who were born in the year from June 1990 to June 1991, and the panel found that of those children who had come into care—that is, the State became their parent—almost 90 percent were on a benefit by the age of 21. Around 25 percent were on a benefit with a child, almost 80 percent did not have National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2, more than 30 percent had a youth justice referral by aged 18, almost 20 percent had a custodial sentence, and almost 40 percent had a community sentence. That means the system is not working for the very people it was set up to keep safe and to lead successful lives.

We are going to change that system. We are going to take it apart and put it back together in a different way—a way that is focused on meeting the needs of those young people, a way that gives those young people a say, and a way that focuses on five core services rather than just crisis management. We want to work with those children and their families, from prevention through to the transition into independence. We want a system that recognises that the child’s needs for safety and love and stability have to come first. They have to come before the adult agendas, and we have to ensure that it is a system that takes the voice of the child into account.

The new model needs to have the ability to purchase services that that child needs when they need it. I have to say I have been amazed at people who use ideology to argue that those children should remain on waiting lists for State services rather than have a private provider provide the counselling or the therapy when that child needs it. Who would believe that people would be willing to see that happen for an ideological thought or belief and put children’s lives at risk? That will not happen in the new system. The new system will also be—

💬 Jacinda Ardern: Who said that?

Yes, there are people who have said that. The age of care will be raised, initially to include 17-year-olds. What parent in their right mind expects a child to cope on their own at age 17? But we are also going to look at what care needs to be provided for these young people up to age 25. This system is going to change. It has to change. These children deserve nothing less.

Martin Hames was sick and knew he would get sicker. He took his own life alone, not wanting to implicate anybody else in his death. He did it much earlier than he would have liked, because he knew that the advancing condition of Huntington’s disease would prevent him from later taking such action. People like Martin Hames find themselves ill and beyond the help of palliative care, and the Supreme Court of Canada describes them as having two options: they can take their own life prematurely, as he did, often by violent or dangerous means, or they can suffer until they die from natural causes.

As the Supreme Court said, that choice is cruel. This cruel choice is not just a legal construct from a foreign court; it is all too real for New Zealanders. Palliative care has advanced well in the past 20 years but, as the High Court admitted just last year, unfortunately it does not work for everybody, and, sadly, 10 percent of suicides by older New Zealanders are by those with terminal illnesses. There needs to be a more compassionate option in New Zealand, and it is time for Parliament to debate and vote on assisted dying legislation.

The democratic mandate for Parliament to do this is very, very large. In a Colmar Brunton poll last year, 75 percent supported assisted dying legislation. There are few issues in any political time that three-quarters of New Zealanders support, yet that is the case with assisted dying legislation. Last year close to 9,000 people signed a petition leading to a parliamentary inquiry on this issue. I hope that inquiry, currently before the Health Committee, will produce a high-quality report clarifying many facets of the issue for New Zealanders, but it cannot produce a bill that Parliament must debate and vote on.

There is, however, currently a member’s bill in the ballot. My End of Life Choice Bill is targeted towards cases of highest need and includes strong safeguards. It gives people with terminal illnesses a compassionate option. To be clear, a law change will not result in more people dying but in fewer people suffering. Evidence from Europe finds that, on average, assisted deaths shorten a person’s life by only 10 days. Crucially, this practice is already happening in New Zealand but in a far less safeguarded way. Auckland medical school research has found 4.5 percent of GPs surveyed on their most recent dying patient found that it was from a drug administered explicitly to hasten death. The End of Life Choice Bill would, instead, put the patient in charge, allowing them to make a safer choice under the protection of the law.

For many, the strength of potential safeguards will be the deciding factor in supporting change, and although the issues are complex, I refuse to believe that it is impossible for a Parliament that is as mature and functional as ours to agree on a set of safeguards for this legislation. I understand there are parliamentarians who oppose assisted dying no matter what, and I do not demand their support for the End of Life Choice Bill. All I ask is for the rest of Parliament to have the chance to debate and vote upon the issue. In the Lecretia Seales case, the High Court said that leaving the choice to the courts would be “trespassing on the role of Parliament and departing from the constitutional role of Judges in New Zealand”. It is not that the judge said that he disagreed with Ms Seales’ application to die on her terms and at her timing; he simply said that it was up to us to make that decision about what the law should be.

The time has come for us colleagues to do our job. To continue avoiding this debate would be a disservice to the people we purport to represent. New Zealanders deserve a Parliament unafraid to confront an issue that is on legal, moral, and democratic grounds critically important to them. I seek leave to introduce my End of Life Choice Bill to be debated as members’ order of the day No. 1 on the first members’ day after the Health Committee reports back to the House on its inquiry into the petition of Maryan Street and 8,974 others.

Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.

I rise in this general debate and I want to acknowledge the fact that there are members in this House who have worked themselves into a lather about the people the Prime Minister talks to. It is going to be a long lather, because the Prime Minister talks to people all the time. In fact, regularly he is mobbed around this country. People want to get into his ear, they want to ask his advice, and they want to tell him about the things that are happening in their lives, because this is a Prime Minister who is in touch with New Zealanders. This is a Prime Minister who, in fact, understands that he has Ministers doing a job, and he will send people to talk to those Ministers. It is really not that unusual.

We are approaching, quite rapidly—the days are going quite quickly towards it—the Hon Bill English’s eighth Budget. We have seen a few announcements, and I do want to cover off on those just briefly today, but those announcements will continue the path that this Government has taken. This is about advancing the work that we have been doing, about a more productive and competitive economy through our Business Growth Agenda. We have focused on delivering Better Public Services in health, in education, and in the fields of justice.

The other thing that we have done is we have been completely committed to responsible fiscal management—something that has been welcomed by the New Zealand public, particularly during tough times. They do not want to see a Government squandering money. So today, on International Firefighters’ Day, I want to acknowledge the pre-Budget announcement of a $303 million investment over 5 years to merge and reform New Zealand’s fire services. To call them Fire and Emergency New Zealand, this is something that has been welcomed by the volunteers who are firefighters around our nation, and something that is a very positive way forward.

But in order to actually understand yet another of the Budget announcements, we need to look to the vibes that we are getting back from our constituents, and I certainly have done so on the $39 million a year, over 4 years, announced for Pharmac, alongside $11 million coming from district health boards. Now at $850 million a year, it is the largest-ever budget by a country mile. In fact, since 2008 that is a $200 million increase of funding for Pharmac, and I can note that the heads on the other side of the House are way down on this one, because, in fact, they know they cannot slam that sort of support for Pharmac’s budget, for the ever-increasing demand for more and modern medications. Of course there will always be a competitive tension over which medications are funded and which are not able to be funded. Pharmac has a very difficult job, but it is a model that is the envy of many other nations around the world.

We are heading towards the Budget. No longer do people look to Budgets for lolly scrambles—under this Government, they understand that it will be careful stewardship of their money. It is not the Government’s money; it is the taxpayers’ money. Last year, of course, what we saw was what was reported to me as “gobsmacking”: for the first time in 43 years, a $25 rate increase for those who were relying on benefits—families with children. It was something that completely stopped the traffic on the other side of the House. It was a beautiful sight—it was a beautiful sight. What we know about the Budgets that this side of the House puts together is that they are carefully analysed. We know that we are investing in New Zealanders, and that the whole social investment idea is something that is quite new to New Zealand and certainly was never comprehended by the other side, which threw money after votes—threw money after votes.

It appears that my time is too short and is nearly over, so I leave the House knowing that everyone will be looking forward to Bill English’s eighth Budget.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Our rivers are not canals. Our rivers are not concrete structures for intensive agriculture. Our rivers are life. Our rivers sustain life, they create life, they sparkle when clean, and they are the centre of our identity as a country when we look after and protect them. That is the Green Party’s commitment: swimmable rivers. So it is somewhat sad to hear, as I did in the House yesterday, the bizarre description of rivers by yet another Government Minister who is ecologically illiterate, when the Minister for Primary Industries described rivers when they are not used for storage—when water is not used for storage—as simply running out to sea. Newsflash: that is what rivers are for, and that is what they do. Our rivers run to the sea, and in that process they sustain life, they sustain the land, they sustain the life within the rivers, and they give us a place where we can experience what it is to be natural and wild.

Instead of that, the Government intends to create yet another dam, the Ruataniwha Dam, which it is supporting and which the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is supporting, which will actually damage yet another river. If our rivers are to be sustained in this country, we have to understand their function, and it is pretty disturbing to see that people with decision-making power, at both regional and national level, do not understand that rivers are life. They do not understand that rivers are the whakapapa of the tangata whenua, the home of the tuna and the remaining tiny percentage of native fish, the source of joy to so many, and the future for our mokopuna. Instead of this, we have the Ruataniwha Dam, and because they cannot find investors for it, they are spending $80 million of ratepayers’ money in the Hawke’s Bay and now are trying to persuade ACC to front up with the rest. No one wants to invest in a white elephant—except, it seems, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and this Government. This is because they do not have any concept of what a river is, and they are prepared to sacrifice the Tukituki and other awa across the motu for the sake of a form of agriculture that is not sustainable.

Even more extraordinarily, we are going to see this Ruataniwha Dam managed by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, which, I have reason to know from going and seeing a tiny dam in that area, the Waihī dam, it could not manage. It has allowed the private company Eastland Group, since 1979, to have a water right with no modern resource consent, which it breached, and it allowed that river, this summer, to turn into a drain full of silt, at the expense of local farmers, who have lost their pumps, and at the expense of local community, who had their summer stolen. That is how it was described to me when I went up to Wairoa and I saw what Hawke’s Bay Regional Council had allowed Eastland Group to do, with no consequences, no penalties for breaches of that 1979 water right. So how can we have confidence, if that is how the council deals with a tiny dam, in how it is going to deal with a vast irrigation project? And that is with the full backing of the Government.

This Government fully believes in damming rivers and creating canals, because otherwise it is just water running out to sea. But the Green Party has a vision, which includes changing the national policy statement to go from boatable and wadeable to swimmable rivers. We have a vision of recognising that agriculture can be totally successful without being so intense that thousands of—millions, now—dairy cows will keep producing diffuse nitrogen that runs into our waterways and fills them up with nitrates. So the issue is nitrates. It is not that rivers are a problem; it is that nitrates are a problem, from intensive agriculture. It is the problem in Canterbury, it is the problem in terms of the Tukituki River, and it is the problem in terms of Ruataniwha—in that we cannot keep treating our rivers like drains or pretending they should be canals. They are a source of life, and if we cannot understand that, we cannot make good decisions about it. The Green Party will restore the 62 percent of monitored rivers that are too polluted to swim in. We will stand up for life, we will recognise life, and we will love and protect our rivers. Kia ora koutou katoa.

Earlier today the report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the treaty of—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Ni hao.

Thank you, Mr Cunliffe. Gong xi fa cai. Earlier today the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee’s report into the treaty examination of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was presented to the House. That report was a culmination of 2½ months’ worth of hearings—650 oral submissions were heard and a further 6,000-odd submissions were received and considered by the select committee. It is by no means as much of a feat as those who negotiated the agreement, but it was quite an effort, and I acknowledge the chairman of the select committee, Mark Mitchell, who is here at the moment.

The committee considered many, many aspects of that treaty, and ultimately came down to the view that the TPP is of considerable benefit to New Zealand and considerable benefit to New Zealand exporters. It is going to be a trade agreement that will go down in history as being a leader around the world for trade for the world. It is a trade agreement that covers a third of world trade. It is a trade agreement that covers 800 million people living within the countries that are there, and 40 percent of the world’s total economic output goes to the countries that are part of the TPP.

Throughout the hearings it became clear to us that there was a huge amount of misinformation being peddled by groups around the country. The largest group that was peddling misinformation, I believe, was the New Zealand Labour Party. A party that has had a proud history of supporting trade and supporting exporters in this country has abandoned New Zealand exporters and has abandoned those people trying to produce products to export around this world. I see Mr Cunliffe, Mrs King, and Mr Parker in the House, who were Ministers in the last Government and who, quite rightly, should have been proud to stand on their feet and support the free-trade agreements that Labour supported, but they have abandoned New Zealanders in this case.

Submitters came to the committee and talked about the need to allow the Government to legislate in the public interest. The TPP does not stop that. Submitters came to the House concerned that the investor-State dispute settlement provisions would harm New Zealand. In fact, they protect New Zealand investors. They do not harm New Zealand at all, and there are a lot of protections built in there. Submitters were concerned about the Pharmac model being threatened. Well, the Government protected the Pharmac model. They were concerned about the Treaty of Waitangi having an issue taken with it. Well, the Government protected the Treaty of Waitangi. They were concerned about jobs potentially being lost. Well, there was a very poor report produced that was hung on to by many submitters, but, in fact, we can say with our hands on our hearts that through trade agreements that Governments have negotiated in the past, it only leads to more jobs, more growth, and more opportunity for New Zealanders, and the TPP will do that as well.

There were a number of minority views submitted. I acknowledge the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party for their very principled minority views, but there were some inaccuracies in some of the reports. The biggest inaccuracy in the minority view from the New Zealand Labour Party was a statement that said: “The Labour Party is the party of free trade.” That is the biggest inaccuracy I saw in any of the minority views. After the introduction, the first five paragraphs of the Labour Party’s minority view were not about economic gains or about trade, but about housing. The second two paragraphs after the housing paragraphs were about process. It was not until the ninth paragraph of the Labour Party’s minority view that it actually talked about trade. Labour Party members have abandoned the country on trade, and they no longer support exporters. In fact, to stand up in the House and write into a report that they are opposed to $2.7 billion worth of economic gain because the National Government did not negotiate the ability for them to, in the future, ban foreigners based on the sound of their last name is terrible.

They say in their report that they have a long-held Labour policy of banning foreigners, but it was not so long held that they were hanging on to that when they were in Government and started the negotiations on the TPP. But they are using that to say no to hundreds of millions—in fact, billions—of dollars’ worth of export opportunities for this country. The select committee did a good job in considering many of these matters. It is undoubtedly in New Zealand’s best interest to ratify the TPP, and I am pleased to be on the committee that supported it.

I would like to say that all of us in this House—all 121 MPs—are fortunate because we all have a roof over our heads. Having a roof over your head, or a house to call your own, to house your family, is a basic human right. However, it is unfortunate that not all of our families in Aotearoa New Zealand have this basic human right. I see way too many families, way too many people, coming to seek assistance from our electorate office just because they do not actually have a house.

I know that the Hon Nick Smith has made various statements, including that Auckland does not have a housing crisis and that, apparently, it is just a housing challenge. Let me say this on behalf of the many families we see in South Auckland, as well as across New Zealand: when you do not have a house, when you do not have a home that you can call your own, it is not just a challenge—one is actually homeless. Our families do not just wake up one day and think: “Oh, I’d like a challenge today. I’d like to choose to become homeless, just so that I can know just how challenging life can be. I would like to choose the challenge of living in a car, in a caravan, or in someone else’s garage.” That is not a challenge; that is called homelessness.

Professor Asher, the head of paediatrics at the University of Auckland and a respiratory paediatrician at Starship Children’s Hospital, has led research that shows that New Zealand is at triple jeopardy for preventable disease and mental illness, the causes being (1) unhealthy housing, (2) inadequate basic health-care, and (3) poverty. Unfortunately, I can tell you that South Auckland has won this trifecta. We have all of these issues.

The health of many children in South Auckland—children who are the future of our good country—depends on this Government giving them a great start in life. They are at risk because of the disgraceful state of the houses that they live in—cold, damp, mouldy housing that is linked to increased levels and rates of respiratory disease such as asthma, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, and rheumatic fever. The name Emma-Lita Bourne—a little girl from Ōtara, in my electorate—is one that has become well-known in Aotearoa New Zealand for all the wrong reasons. A defenceless toddler, her death was linked by the coroner in part to the condition of the house that she lived in, which was cold, damp, and mouldy.

I am pleased to say that Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) is coming to this House to be discussed today. This is a bill that will have an enormous impact on the health and educational achievement of our children. Some of New Zealand’s rented homes are damaging for our children, and this is inexcusable in a country like ours. Bronchiectasis—which is scarred, dilated airways—is caused by repeated or severe pneumonia, and it is eight to nine times more common in New Zealand than it is in the UK and Finland.

I would just like to say that I have met one of the kids who actually has this condition—a child who was born healthy. This is a child who was in and out of the neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital for many, many months of her life. For most of her life, she was homeless, but I am glad to say that our office was able to assist her to have a home for the very first time. I visited this family just 2 days ago, and the mother was really quite emotional and actually saying: “Thank you not only for the assistance to actually be placed in a home but also for the fact that for the longest period of time of this child’s life, since March”—which was when she went into this house—“until today, she has not had to be readmitted into hospital and into the neonatal intensive care unit.” Thank you.

In this House we often commemorate momentous events and occasions, and I just want to place on record my regards to you on this Star Wars Day—May the Fourth be with you, Mr Speaker. We have emanating from the Labour Opposition, which is the “evil empire” of New Zealand politics, led by the archetypal “evil emperor” himself, the “Palpatine” of New Zealand—Andrew Little—a veritable stream of appalling policies coming out of its sarlacc pit of bad policy.

We have heard those members’ answers to the problems faced by the New Zealand economy. Their answers are simply appalling—a universal basic income, putting everyone over the age of 18 on the dole, at a cost of probably billions of dollars more than we would actually raise in taxation revenue each year. That is not a policy to make New Zealanders wealthier and better off. Rental warrants of fitness, which are well intentioned but in real terms put up the cost of rental housing for those at the very poorest end of the spectrum—the most vulnerable New Zealanders—are not an answer to the housing crisis in this country. Another policy is free tertiary education—well, “free” tertiary education—delivered many years hence, and, of course, nothing is life is free. You have to significantly raise taxation to give away a service like that—at no cost to the accountants and lawyers of the future but at considerable cost to the plumbers and builders and roofers and painters out there. These are not policies that will make New Zealand an economically stronger country.

I have been looking at recent results in the household labour force survey, and I thought it was interesting to note, having just returned last week from the United Kingdom, where under the Conservative Government the economy is actually performing better than the European average, that New Zealand is actually outshining the UK, Australia, and the United States—some of the countries we compare ourselves to. We have 65 percent participation in the workforce, whereas in the UK, the US, and Australia only 60 percent of the population is working. We can compare this with 52 percent, the European Union average, which shows that the policies adopted by this Government are having a very positive and practical effect on the lives of all New Zealanders.

What does this mean in real terms? It means that our Minister of Finance, one of the Jedi knights of the front bench of the National Government, has been able to deliver a Budget increase to Pharmac’s budget, something that will have very real positive impacts for the people of Wellington Central, the constituency that I am very pleased to live in and to work on behalf of in Parliament.

What will this get James in Karori? James, who is suffering from advanced melanoma, will have access now to Nivolumab, a crucial melanoma medication. Aroha in Kelburn will be able to access Harvoni and the Viekira Pak, which are treatments for hepatitis C infection. They are highly efficacious. We heard today from the Minister of Health that they are 90 percent efficacious treatments for hepatitis C. Ling in Te Aro will have access to Azithromycin, which is for bronchiectasis in children. That is the widening of the bronchial tubes, leading to increased risk of infection. Maria in Brooklyn, who has a brain tumour, has access to Temozolomide. I am sorry for my pronunciation of these Latinate words; I wish the pharmacy companies would come up with simpler terms. Dee in Mount Cook will get Rituximab for nephrotic syndrome, which is kidney disease.

So there will be very real benefits to this economy, which this Government—Bill English, and the Prime Minister in particular—has created policies to support and underpin. We have got a strong economy here in Wellington, and we can look at small companies. I recently visited a company, an entrepreneurial start-up, Swibo, which makes balance-board games. You fit a mobile phone, a smartphone, into a balance board and it creates a video game that also helps with rehabilitation, from stroke patients through to those who suffer from sporting injuries. These are the sorts of innovative, creative industries that underpin our local economy, which this Government is working very hard to back, and which are creating jobs and employment, which, in turn, leads to better lives for all New Zealanders. For that reason I am very proud to be part of this Government.

The pleasure one could take, addressing the ridiculous comparisons made by the previous speaker, Paul Foster-Bell. Just to answer him, I ask this one question: who comes to mind when I say the words “Jabba the Hutt”? Who is Jabba? But my point is a serious one. This is it: after 6 years of secrecy, after a public-relations signing stunt here in New Zealand, after a truncated travesty of a select committee process—basically, after years of unbridled arrogance on the part of the National Government—with the insults still coming, I have to take 5 minutes out of the general debate to speak about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. That is all I get in order to speak about the trade agreement itself. There is nothing else in this House to speak about in terms of the substantive part that is the TPP itself. That is an absolute travesty of democracy and an indictment on that Government.

Despite Government arrogance, despite running roughshod over experts in international trade, and despite ignoring experts in international law who spoke against this agreement, the Prime Minister still seems to be nervous. Apparently, he is still trying to sell it. I heard last night that he spoke eloquently, apparently, in a speech about this partnership agreement. But this is the commentary from some of the observers: “Few speeches have been so simplistic in their lack of understanding of history both here and abroad, or the stark reality staring them in the face” here in New Zealand. The Prime Minister said that there is no worldwide conspiracy to take jobs from New Zealanders or to suppress wages, or to buy all of our homes. Only someone knowing that that is exactly what is going on—what is happening right now—would use the occasion in order to defend the lack of economic and social planning and the mess that is developing around him. Others claim not only that it was simplistic but also that the message itself was dishonest. He would have everyone believe that the opposition to the TPP is opposition to trade, full stop.

Ninety percent of submitters prefaced their submissions with the statement: “We support trade.” But this is not a trade deal. New Zealand First, in its founding principles, has always said that we must be a trading, export-based nation. But we know that this is a partnership agreement, not a trade agreement. Most New Zealanders now see that there is a very big difference between the two, and they do not like it one little bit. We know, despite the spin from National, that to oppose this deal is not to oppose the benefits of trade; it is actually to oppose the 1 percent—to oppose locking in corporate entitlement. It is opposition to empowering foreign corporates ahead of good Kiwi business. That is what we are opposing today.

For 6 years—

💬 Brett Hudson: Fortress New Zealand.

I cannot even remember your name. For 6 years, National has got away with secret negotiations. Over the last few months, National, in its role in Government, has undermined the select committee process, and it has undermined democracy. It has shown contempt for everyday New Zealanders, experts in international trade, and experts in international law who came to submit before the select committee. The fact is that the unnecessary, inappropriate, and undemocratic time constraints meant that the Government was writing its report while it was listening to submissions. That is wrong. We cannot accept that.

New Zealand First has been vocal and strong in our opposition to this partnership agreement. We have stood in this House and decried the secrecy. We have decried the lack of consultation and meaningful engagement. We have decried the investor-State dispute settlement process, and we have said that the claims made around the supposed trade benefits are absolutely farcical.

I have been subjected to a select committee process that has undermined democracy for the sake of an imaginary race to be the first to ratify. I say “imaginary” because everyone here knows that in the United States you have every frontrunner in the presidential race saying no to the TPP. They, like New Zealand First, know that the TPP will actually cost jobs and will simply mean more money for the 1 percent. I stand here proudly in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.

What a great day for the Bay of Plenty—what a great day for the Bay of Plenty. The household labour force survey is out today. Unemployment is down to 5.1 percent in the Bay of Plenty. This is the greatest drop anywhere in the country and is now the lowest unemployment rate in the North Island. We have had just under 8,000 new jobs over the last year. This is not some aberration. This is not something that has occurred out of the blue. It is part of a deliberate and planned approach by this Government to build a productive economy. What we have seen in the Bay of Plenty over the last 8 years is a significant change in circumstances for our community. Let me just talk through some of those.

Firstly, under export markets, the Government has an absolute clear objective to improve access to export markets. We have just heard a superb outline from Jami-Lee Ross of the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—that is $6,000 per kiwifruit grower in the Bay of Plenty. In the free-trade agreement with Korea it was $8,000. That is $14,000 per grower—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: What about Psa costs?

There are some—including a curmudgeon from the north—who will say that $14,000 per kiwifruit grower in Northland and the Bay of Plenty is not sufficient, but in my experience, having been part of the community for 40 years, it is real and it is something that should be embraced. Not only are we talking about trade in terms of building and export markets but also when you look at infrastructure—a key component of our Business Growth Agenda—what a story we have got to tell in the Bay of Plenty.

There has been huge investment in roads. The Tauranga Eastern Corridor link, which links the Hon Anne Tolley’s area with mine, opened a year ago. The Tauranga Northern Link was announced a week ago. This is a Government that understands that you need underpinning infrastructure to set free the people’s aspirations in a community, and that is what is going on in Tauranga at the moment. We have the greatest population growth, we have the greatest employment growth, and we have a Government that is committed to putting the fundamentals in place to enable you to succeed. For all of those on the other side who constantly carp and constantly see the world through a negative lens—

💬 Grant Robertson: How are the avocados?

TODD MULLER:—including you, Mr Robertson—get out of Wellington and come up to the Bay of Plenty and meet people who are making a difference. Meet people who are making a difference and who are actually succeeding. What you will find when you go and listen to them is that they actually have quite a different set of ambitions and aspirations to most of the people who sit on the other side of the House. You are lost in a time warp. [Interruption] You go and talk to these people who are working hard and delivering for their families in their communities, particularly in Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty, and you see people who are succeeding, who are aspirational, who see opportunities—and you have tin ears to their aspirations.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I sort of let it run for a while because I thought that the member might listen to the interventions that he has been getting from across the House. I think that if he can stop using the second person and get back to speaking within order, it would be a good idea.

Labour and the Greens and New Zealand First have tin ears to the aspirations of the people of the Bay of Plenty, and I am very delighted to be able to support what we are doing as a Government.

In terms of infrastructure, a couple of months ago we announced the completion of broadband. It is fantastic. There is already a 23 percent uptake of ultra-fast broadband in Tauranga, about 25 percent above the national average. Again, we are talking about a community that is connected with the global market and understands the importance of underpinning infrastructure to enable it to happen.

But, of course, there are challenges. We understand that there are times when we need to acknowledge that housing is under a bit of pressure and that we have got families who are struggling, particularly in terms of the domestic violence context. I want to acknowledge the work that this Government is doing to talk honestly and openly and “real-ly” about some of those challenges, and is putting plans in place to make a difference. I want to acknowledge people like Heather Beddie, who is the family violence coordinator in Papamoa, Trish Ives, and Colin Gardiner from It’s Not OK in Papamoa, who, as NGOs, walk alongside this Government’s commitment to make a difference—it is not just rhetoric—and actually make a difference with structures, investment, and a commitment as a whole-of-Government and a whole-of-community response to issues that have bedevilled this country for decades and have had terrible impacts in terms of individual families. I want to acknowledge today—

New Zealanders have been thinking for a while and feeling in their guts that there is something just not right with this Government—that it is arrogant, that it is increasingly out of touch, that, more and more, it is looking after the mega-rich, not most Kiwis, and that it stands for the influence of big money and not for the Kiwi Dream of ordinary New Zealanders. Then, once or twice, along come some little nuggets where the average Kiwi can say: “There, that’s what I have been feeling. That’s what I meant. That’s what is wrong.” And this week we have seen two of them.

Very briefly: the Prime Minister said to his personal trust lawyer “Go and fix it with Todd McClay.” around the enduring secrecy of foreign trusts. He did that, and the very next day Mr McClay went cap in hand to see the same personal lawyer of the Prime Minister. Did the Prime Minister recuse himself from that? No. Did he declare it? No. Did he maintain the standards required? No, he did not. Now we find that the same trust lawyer has been donkey deep in dodgy deals, defending known bankrupts, and, effectively, witnessing documents that were not even signed in New Zealand. That is the sort of thing that ordinary Kiwis say is just not right.

Of course, in the last week, we have talked about the Overseas Investment Office. That is the body that we as New Zealanders rely on to keep us safe from international tax evaders, scammers, and people of questionable reputation who want to buy New Zealand land and assets but in so doing would bring into question New Zealand’s international reputation. In the last 5 years, the Overseas Investment Office has approved 99.85 percent of all applications put before it. It has turned down only one solitary application, and that was after it spent weeks in the media: Lochinver Station. The Prime Minister had the gall to say that the problem with the Overseas Investment Office is that it takes too long to give the wet bus ticket and should be sped up.

Bring on the case of Onetai Station. That is the case that turned up because it was linked to those infamous Panama lawyers Mossack Fonseca in the Panama Papers—the case the Minister would not tell us about; the case that she did not want you to know about. Louise Upston would not name them, but we found them. We also found that the owners of the shell company Ceol and Muir, who bought the Onetai Station in Taranaki, actually had criminal convictions. They have criminal responsibility for the toxic waste pollution of their local river in Buenos Aires, even though environmental considerations for water purity—wait for it; it is hard to believe—were part of the consent to come to New Zealand. They had carcinogenic chemicals in their river at home, and they got a conviction for that, but the Overseas Investment Office missed it.

How did the Overseas Investment Office miss it? Firstly, it relied upon a thing called a statutory declaration. That is where the lawyer says: “My client’s clean. See, I’ve signed this.” You know what that was worth—absolutely nothing. But, routinely, that is what the Overseas Investment Office relies upon to keep us all safe. That is just wrong. Secondly, it could not even do a proper Google search. It said that it had tried a Google search. Initially, it said that it did not find anything, and later it said that a junior staffer who no longer works there found something but did not tell anybody. Well, it took the Labour Party half an hour to find those criminal convictions, which should have prevented that transaction from going ahead.

Sadly, there is more. One of the directors of the shell company that purchased Onetai Station is, according to UK companies office records and Florida court documents, associated with a director of another company that was associated with an alleged major tax-evasion scandal involving a national soccer coach, Mr Scolari. That case was settled out of court, but it called into question the bona fides of the lawyer concerned, who was one of the Panama lawyers who set up the company that bought Onetai Station. I will shortly be tabling the documents that substantiate that sorry story. Thirdly, Overseas Investment Office documents show that the Overseas Investment Office’s lawyers could not even be sure who the final owners were. That adds up to a tale of woe of an organisation that is not keeping New Zealand safe.

I seek leave to table several documents that pertain to the matters just raised in my remarks. First, I seek leave to table the Overseas Investment Office’s report to the Associate Minister of Finance and to the Minister for Land Information dated 10 December 2013, which recommended that Rafael—

We do not need the recommendations; just a description of the document and, with it, an assurance from the member that it does not come from the website.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: No. This was obtained under the Official Information Act.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): OK. Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There appears to be none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I seek leave to table a certified translation of media reports from Argentina dated 22 March and 28 March 2011, which report that the Grozovsky brothers were found criminally responsible for toxic dumping in Argentina in 2011.

I think we will make the exception, given the fact that it is a translation rather than given in Portuguese. [Interruption] Rather than just a direct media report.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: It is certified by one of the Department of Internal Affairs’ official translators.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think it will be easier for members to access the translation, so I am willing to put that. Is there any objection? There is none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Thirdly, I seek leave to table court documents from Argentina dated 12 March 2007 and 29 March 2012 that show the Grozovsky brothers were found guilty of toxic dumping, causing serious health risks, including lung disease and cancer.

Is there any objection to those documents being tabled? There appears to be none.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I seek leave to table several documents from the UK companies’ office and the Florida Southern District Court that show that Gustavo Daniel Chaves Mantaras, a director of Ceol and Muir, was also a director of Chaterella Investors Ltd from May 2005 to September 2015.

Is there any objection to those documents being tabled? There is none.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I seek leave to table documents dated 30 May 2005 that show that Mr Mantaras was appointed as a director and secretary of Chaterella Investors Ltd on that date.

Is there any objection to that document being tabled?

💬 Tim Macindoe: Can we have the source of those documents?

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: That is the UK companies’ office. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Hang on, I had better put it—is there any objection to that document being tabled? There appears to be none.

Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I seek leave to table a document dated 8 July 2014 that shows that Chaterella Investments Ltd changed its name to Inmax International Ltd on that date.

Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There appears to be none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Just before the member goes on, can we maybe do the British ones together if there are any more?

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Sure. One more British one, and that is a document dated 30 September 2015 that shows that Mr Mantaras was terminated as a director and secretary of Inmax on 30 September 2015.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There appears to be none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

💬 Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Finally, I seek leave to table a court document from the Florida Southern District Court dated 5 May 2014 that states that the Portuguese tax authorities “have reason to believe that Chaterella Investors Limited was used as a vehicle for alleged tax evasion by Mr Scolari”, a national soccer coach between 2003 and 2008. In so doing, I note that that matter was settled out of court.

Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There is objection. Are there any further documents?

That is all, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.