General Debate

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. More and more, New Zealand First and the New Zealand public are beginning to see that the battle against the National Government is, rather, a battle against its sponsors. The National Government avoids issues of national significance and puts them aside, and, in fact, it denies that they even exist.

I want to talk today in this time slot about the Government not talking about Silver Fern Farms. In fact, it is very clear that it would rather disavow any knowledge and claim that it does not know what is going on. The reality is, though, that this highlights its lack of commitment to the rural community and to our farmers. But we know that for 23 years New Zealand First has stood up in this House and supported and backed marginalised New Zealanders, and, more and more, we are beginning to see that it is the rural community and New Zealand farmers who are actually being marginalised by that Government across the House today. The Rt Hon Winston Peters has never been afraid to stand up and take a battle to the powers that may prevail at any given time, but the Government refuses to acknowledge that there is even a problem. It either cannot be bothered, it is not interested, or it has a self-interest in denying that there is a problem.

The Newshub article from last week was an opportunity for the New Zealand public to finally see that there is a fundamental flaw within the regulatory framework and oversight of this country when it comes to the Financial Markets Authority. These concerns arise particularly from Shanghai Maling’s current application for the so-called joint venture with Silver Fern Farms—New Zealand’s largest meat exporter and a code-listed company here in New Zealand. It is now clear that Silver Fern Farms did not advise its shareholders correctly or honestly on its current levels of debt, and, most particularly, claims to the shareholders that it could not get forward projections for more than a year have been proved to be demonstrably false. I say this because the evidence that New Zealand First has does prove conclusively that the statement was false, and shows that there were forward projections, but those 4-year projections were actually given to the potential overseas investors and not the shareholders and the farmers of New Zealand.

Critically, we now know that 574 pages of documentation went to the overseas investors but this same information was withheld—and I say it again: withheld—from the shareholders. In fact, New Zealand First laid complaints over the sale of Silver Fern Farms with the Financial Markets Authority. We actually supplied the documentation so that the authority could follow up, but it failed to do this. Actually, it did not even call us once to follow up on the submissions that we made to it. It did not include an accurate chronological order of the financial accounts, which would be critical to any meaningful investigation. The Financial Markets Authority failed to send anyone into Silver Fern Farms’ head office to actually ask questions of the management and the board—not a single person actually went to have that conversation.

This so-called National Government needs to be held to account. New Zealand First does not intend to let highly paid public officials get away with anything less than, at the very least, competent performance. It should consider itself here now warned that we will be holding it to account. New Zealand First has new information that will reveal the truth to the New Zealand public, the shareholders, and the owners of the Silver Fern Farms—serious documents that could construe serious fraud. This is a dirty deal, and one that speaks to the aspirations of the National Government and the tenants whom it calls farmers in New Zealand.

That would not be the first time that someone from New Zealand First has stood up and given us a speech in this House about some amazing intrigue that they have managed to uncover somewhere—some sort of double-dealing, some sort of slippery activity, etc. But here today we have no questions in the House about this matter; just one of its backbenchers standing up and spraying his allegations all over the place, trying to besmirch the reputation of the New Zealand Financial Markets Authority, which actually may not have any jurisdiction in this case whatsoever. So all I will say is this: put your evidence on the table, Mr Fletcher Tabuteau, let everybody see it—let everybody see it—and then if there is something in it, then, clearly, the law will take the appropriate course.

But the real question here is: how can New Zealand First have the audacity to stand up and claim to be a friend of the farmer? The first point is that it fails to recognise that it is now the main Opposition party. Labour and the Greens, with their little deal last week, where they are one and the same—Greens-Labour or Labour-Greens; spit it out and either way it is the same thing and they are finished. New Zealand First is now the most prominent Opposition party in the House, and it claims to like farmers but will not vote for, and does not support, the best trade deal that New Zealand could ever get for our primary product. See, there is a party that actually believes in insular New Zealand—that a tiny little locked door surrounded by a Donald Trump wall would be a much nicer place to live, where everybody could be so much more prosperous if we just traded with one another. If we could take our 60 million sheep and just sort of sell them to one another over and over again, we could all be wealthy. It is the sort of protectionist rubbish that Winston Peters has been on about for years, the sort of protectionist rubbish that got us into trouble and that led to the reforms of the 1980s, and the sort of protectionist rubbish that New Zealand voters will continue to reject because today they are a lot smarter than your average New Zealand First backbencher.

I think that one of things that has really surprised me in the last couple of days has been the complete turn-round in attitudes over the way in which the House seating plan works here in Parliament. Post the election we had New Zealand First saying that it was the third-biggest party in the House, and, therefore, it should sit on the cross benches—that is over there where the Greens are. The Greens, legitimately, as the second-biggest Opposition party, should have been where New Zealand First is now. But the Greens Party put its foot down and said that there is no way that it wanted to sit so close to Labour because it had a memorandum of understanding with National and therefore, it had to take these seats over here. Now, of course, we have got the coming together, the holding of the hands, the big embrace, and the great race for what will be electoral oblivion for both of them, and those parties are not prepared to sit next to each other. Not only have they ended the marriage, they have also signed the terms for the divorce on election day. I want to know why New Zealand First is not claiming its right to sit in the cross benches as it properly should, being the main party—

💬 Richard Prosser: I’d like to sit over there where you are. You’re just keeping the seat warm, Gerry.

Well, it is not a good thing to break the speech to acknowledge an interjection, but Mr Prosser just said that he wants to sit over here. Well, one day, Mr Prosser, when you are an old man and you come back as a tourist, they might let you sit on one of these seats. But it will not be happening by virtue of the ballot box, I can assure the member of that. I could go on about that, but taunting the Opposition is never a fair or reasonable thing.

I just want to say that I am absolutely stunned that in the House today, when we had the announcement this morning of a $20 billion plan for the future of the New Zealand Defence Force, that same party that is now obviously the most prominent Opposition party had no question on the matter in the House—most disappointing. What is fair to say is that over the next long period of years, the New Zealand Defence Force will be able to plan properly the way in which it acquires the equipment it needs and the way in which it structures its force to be able to deliver in the best interests of New Zealand security.

The one thing that surprised me today was the Labour Opposition asking the question: “Is it affordable?”. Well, it is 1.1 percent of our GDP, which is pretty good relative to other nations. Yes, there will be plenty of people in here who want to say “Spend more.”, but it is pretty good going.

The member’s time has expired.

The most disturbing aspect of National’s housing crisis is, as reported by RNZ last Friday, the fact that children as young as 11 are sleeping under bushes in South Auckland. I want to pay tribute to the journalism of John Campbell at RNZ and Mike Wesley-Smith at TV3’s The Nation, who have run stories in recent days that have brought to the tearooms and the kitchen tables of New Zealand the scale of homelessness and the plight of the homeless under National’s housing crisis. New Zealanders do not like it; they are profoundly disturbed by the social crisis that is homelessness in this country today.

So what is the Government’s response to that social crisis? Paula Bennett is pre-booking motels for homeless people and charging them for the pleasure of it. That is this Government’s response. She is making homeless people pay the debt racked up after they have been in a motel for 7 days and is taking it out of their benefit. She even refuses to collate the data on the debts. She knows—she knows how many people have got debt, because it is on their files at Work and Income. She could add it up at the drop of a hat, but she refuses, because she does not want the public of New Zealand to know the scandalous debt that is being exacted on homeless people on her watch. How is that for cynical?

For Paula Bennett and John Key, homelessness is not a social problem to be solved; it is a political problem to be managed, which is why the Prime Minister said a couple of weeks ago that Ministry of Social Development (MSD) officials had gone out with the Salvation Army to knock on the car doors of homeless people—a complete fabrication. It was made up. It did not happen. They—John Key and Paula Bennett—embarrassed one of our most respected social agencies into publicly correcting the Prime Minister.

This was classic Paula Bennett. She was feeling the heat over the Government’s total failure to respond to the housing crisis, and what did she do? She did what she always does, and that is try to turn the tables and blame the victims of her failed policy. She told the Prime Minister that MSD officials had gone out at night with personnel from the Salvation Army to try to help homeless people, but according to Paula Bennett, they did not want to be helped. What a disgraceful fabrication—a lie designed to caricature the victims of National’s housing crisis and blame them for their plight. That is typical Paula Bennett.

You see, Paula Bennett and John Key got the benefit of a generous taxpayer-funded welfare system—of State housing designed to put a roof over the heads of people who needed it. It was OK for them—for the Prime Minister and Paula Bennett—to get that kind of help to get a start in life, but under this National Government, the homeless and people who need a hand up are caricatured as the undeserving poor. That is how this Government rolls.

If Paula Bennett’s flying squads were not enough of an insult to the public’s intelligence, then think about this: her big policy that she announced the day before the Budget was that Paula Bennett was going to pay $5,000 for people to get out of Auckland so they could find a house. Never mind that the Government is also paying people who need a job $3,000 to move to Auckland. Never mind that in places like Huntly, there are not any empty State houses for them to move into.

If children are growing up sleeping under bushes in this country, if they are living in cars and garages and campgrounds, how will they ever, ever grow up to be good citizens in this country? How will they ever get the opportunity to be healthy, to be educated, and to have a decent crack at the good life in this country? The fact is that they will not, and National members’ negligence in allowing the housing crisis to spin out of control, their refusal to do anything meaningful about the scale of homelessness in this country, and their cynicism in trying to spin and divert and distract public attention from the failure of their policy is a betrayal of those children.

Along with other members of the House, I want to acknowledge the passing of Sir Graham Latimer, a great New Zealander. I remember him very well from the early days of some of the litigation that the Minister of Education referred to, with his lawyers David Baragwanath QC, as he then was, and the late Martin Dawson. They fought great fights for the New Zealand Māori Council and achieved a great deal for their country.

I noted with interest what Mr Paraone said about the fact that Ngāti Kahu has not settled. Well, there are two words that answer that completely and they are “Margaret Mutu”, but I hope that one day soon there will be a settlement with Ngāti Kahu, as there has been with the other Te Hiku iwi.

I suppose it is necessary to make some ritualistic comment about the Labour-Green memorandum of understanding, but, frankly, I cannot be bothered because there are some very serious issues that need to be dealt with.

The first one, which was obverted by Mr Brownlee, is the all-important core responsibility of Government, which is to protect a nation’s borders. He deals with it as the Minister of Defence, and that is why there is the white paper that has been published to deal with some of these important issues. But I also deal with it as the Minister responsible for the GCSB. The common issue that Mr Brownlee and I—and also the Minister for Communications—are very worried about is the issue of cyber-security. I look at Mr Paraone—and he would be an aficionado of the James Bond movies, probably going back to the first one—and he would remember very well some of the cyber-security incidents that occurred in those films. Frankly, they all seem to be fantastical and totally unreal, but it is with us now.

I refer, for example, to what happened to the Bangladesh Bank a couple of months ago when someone hacked into that bank and, suddenly, well over $100 million was transferred to some accounts in Hong Kong. We all know what happened with Sony when it offended a certain head of State of a certain nation in North Asia. We do know that it is possible for people to hack in and not simply steal money out of accounts, but to play with systems and cause mayhem. These are very serious issues that should engage all members of Parliament and are ones that greatly concern the agencies for which I have responsibility. This is why we have established a project—which is becoming more well-known now—called Project CORTEX, which is designed to provide security assistance for medium- to large-scale companies and also Government departments to make sure that these sorts of attacks do not happen. We all know what happened to the Australian Parliament a couple of years ago when there was a cyber-attack on that: I think it was shut down for a couple of days.

As we prepare the intelligence legislation for debate in this House, I hope honourable members will realise that these kinds of incidents are not isolated; they are very, very serious. Mr Brownlee is dealing with them as the Minister of Defence to protect the kit so that it can defend our shores; I am dealing with them as the Minister responsible for the GCSB; and, of course, Mrs Adams mentioned just a little while ago the appointment of the Computer Emergency Response Team to ensure that businesses get some guidance on how to deal with these issues.

I very much look forward to the forthcoming intelligence debate. These are big issues, and I hope all members will join in that debate with the interests of our country at heart.

Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I have some questions, because yesterday in the House during question time David Seymour asked the Prime Minister whether he had checked to make sure that people were actually homeless instead of just renovating. The Prime Minister responded and said: “No, but, you know, perhaps we should have a policy for checking to make sure that people are not renovating and are instead homeless.” The Prime Minister rolled around and laughed with it, joked around, and so did most on the benches, actually. So I have some questions, and I would like to know whether, given the Prime Minister’s behaviour and joking response in the House yesterday to a question around homelessness, he will apologise to New Zealanders for not taking the issue seriously.

I have quite a few questions. I would like to know whether the Prime Minister will apologise to the 11 year-old girl who loves school, particularly maths, reading, and languages, also Beyoncé and kapa haka, looks forward to school and wants to do well, but is failing in her schooling a bit because she is living in a van with her family of eight. She is definitely not renovating. I would also like to know whether the Prime Minister will apologise to the disabled mum with children who has been shoved out of her rental property because her community is now unaffordable and out of her reach, and she is finding herself at the back of the line, trying to rent another property, in a another, cheaper area, and trying to find an appropriate house. That mum is not renovating. I have another question, and wonder whether the Prime Minister will apologise to the family of 15-day-old baby Mereana, who was welcomed to Te Puea Marae just very recently because her family was living without a home. Baby Mereana is not renovating.

I would also like to know from the Prime Minister whether he will advise his Ministers to go and visit Te Puea Marae as a first step, and as part of the Government’s commitment to urgently addressing this housing crisis. There is one renovation that Te Puea Marae needs to do because one of their buildings—where they are storing mountains of clothing donated by generous and also poor-income people in their community—has been filled up, and there are no lights in there at night. When I was working in that room with the marae we could work only until 5 o’clock before it got dark. It is quite possible that Te Puea could do some renovating.

On television news yesterday, Paula Bennett refused to give Te Puea Marae and other marae like Manurewa, who are now setting up to help the homeless, any official status as emergency housing providers. She refused because she said that year after year after year the marae would just keep having to help these homeless people. The Minister for Social Housing admitted that her Government cannot actually solve the housing crisis, and instead wants New Zealanders to accept that this is normal.

Most New Zealanders—kind, compassionate, ordinary New Zealanders—do not accept that this is normal. They understand that this Government is doing its best to do as little as it can, rather than all it can, to ensure that families are in warm, dry, affordable homes. When the Greens are in Government, I look forward—and I understand that New Zealanders want us to do all that we can and use all the tools and resources that we have—to ensuring that all New Zealanders are living in a warm, dry, affordable home, and are not just renovating.

I am not known to shy away from a bit of a fight, but the thought of the Greens being in the Government is actually enough to get me going, and, in fact, I am thinking that if that ever happens we will all have to leave the country.

I am a huge fan of the Rt Hon Helen Clark. I think everyone knows I am much more of a fan now she is in New York and not here, but I am actually a fan of hers because I like the fact that she has got some courage and she says what she thinks, and also she had to deal with all sorts of issues in her own party and she brought them together with a moment of unity in the years that she was in charge. I think that she was incorrect in one area—well, many actually, but one in particular—notable today, as I recall her describing New Zealand as being in a benign strategic environment.

Do you know what? You could not get more wrong now. If you travel overseas, you start to see just how not very benign at all our strategic environment is. You stay in New Zealand, you get involved in areas like police, or even corrections, defence, the security agencies—you get to realise pretty quickly that it is not that benign anymore. The fact is that we have a very difficult presence in the world. Sometimes it is called IS, Daesh, all sorts of other things, but it is actually about violent extremism, and that is an area where I have a role as the leading Minister in countering violent extremism.

It is very fortunate, having been Minister for Ethnic Affairs and actually meeting and knowing many people across the whole spectrum of religions and ethnicities in New Zealand. But, of course, violent extremism is not limited to people of ethnicities other than the dominant ethnicities and population base in New Zealand. It can be across everywhere. This is actually a huge issue, which is why I was really pleased with the $20 billion modernisation programme for our Defence Force, because it is incredibly important that our Defence Force is able to assist New Zealand and promote New Zealand’s interest, but also that it can, in fact, defend itself against cyber - intelligence and attack—so, too, the New Zealand Police. The New Zealand Police holds a tremendous amount of information. I do not think most of us here would want to see that compromised by any lack of attention. We also have, of course, our Special Air Service. This Government funded and promoted the battle training facility in my electorate of Ardmore. That is a tremendous facility, and I was able to be there for its opening, and it is, yet again, another example of our commitment.

We are currently ranked, I understand, 18th in the world for cyber-attacks, and last year, when I had slightly more time on my hands than I do now, I travelled to New York and met with one of the world’s leading insurance brokers to talk to them about what they saw as the growing trends in threats to countries and to business. The No. 1 threat by far is, in fact, cyber-attack. They saw this as something that is very, very difficult to insure against. It is very difficult to do anything about it, there is also so much ransom, and so many attacks go on that never get any publicity. Obviously it is a huge issue for banks, insurance companies, and all sorts of businesses, particularly those trading and with intellectual property. This area should not ever be discounted, but I understand from these people that it is, actually, often used as one of the ways in which terrorism is financed—that and oil and other things like that.

We need to look no further than to what the UK has had to deal with, even recently. Recently I was in the UK. They told me that they had 300 violent extremists in their prisons. We have got probably two. This is an issue that is coming our way. This review—this white paper in defence—is well on time. It is appropriate and it is something that we will no doubt need to consider as time moves on. Thank you.

In the course of the Queen’s Birthday weekend, the Labour Party and the trade union movement buried a Pacific matriarch. Her name was Filiamata Fiu. Filiamata Fiu’s husband died about 25 years ago. She had one child, who was dead at the time of her death, and she had no other children. At 79 years of age, this woman owned her own house from the 1970s, when she was supported through the Government scheme of the day and was able to get a loan guaranteed by the Government at 3 percent. At 79 she owned her own home, and she helped people with the little social security she got.

Fili spent all her life fighting for social justice and fairness for workers. She had worked at Auckland Hospital and lived her life believing in the principle of solidarity. To Fili, the principle of solidarity meant that she paid her taxes so the kids down the road would be able to get an education. She paid her taxes so that the Government of the day would provide health care and social welfare for the protection of the vulnerable, for the unemployed—all the people whom New Zealanders have traditionally paid their taxes in order to protect. That is what Fili did all her life. She lived the principle of solidarity and paid her taxes, to ensure that the people who could not afford to buy their own house would be able to rent a house and be supported through that.

💬 Pita Paraone: And she had her faith.

Absolutely! She had her faith.

I want to come back to the final words that Fili gave to a member of the Government, in her final week. We saw the Budget introduced last week, where this Government attempted—failed, I would say. The Government failed to address the key issues that face our people. It does not fix the housing problem at all. It underfunds health, it underfunds education, and though it predicts some economic growth in the years to come, it also lays out that the 5.6 percent unemployment rate—146,000 people—will remain the same next year. For Māori it is 12 percent unemployment. For Pasifika it is 10 percent unemployment at the moment.

Although the Budget predicts economic growth, the economic growth would benefit those at the very top of our income ladder, rather than those at the bottom. I say that because economists have said that most working people would have a reduction in their income—a reduction in their economic share—of 1.3 percent. That means that every worker would lose $400 per year, per person, in the next year. That is what the Budget fails to do. It fails to fix the housing problem. It fails to properly fund health and education. In fact, one of the habits of this Government is that it continues to underfund the increases that come from inflation and population growth, and then it calls it more funding.

Infometrics research showed us last year that the Government underfunded health by $1.7 billion, and, again, that is done in this particular Budget. Infometrics research said that this Government has underfunded health by $1.7 billion in 6 years. In fact, it was the professional medical specialists who released a report last year, saying that the funding of this Government in the health sector is based on misrepresentation.

If we are to believe what this Government has said—that it is fixing everything, that it is doing all it can—why is it that Te Puea Marae in Māngere has had to step forward and take on 54 families who were living in cars? If things are so good under this Government, why is it that even though Te Puea Marae took on 54 families who were living in cars, so that it can provide them with decent accommodation during the winter, there are more and more people in homeless situations? The Auckland City Mission today released its report, saying that homelessness in Auckland City has more than doubled in the last 3 years. We have had this Government for the last 8 years. Despite what National said at the very beginning when it took office, when it promised every New Zealander a brighter future, that is not the case today. More and more people than ever before not only do not own their own home—for Pasifika it is 16 percent—

I am sure I am not the only member in this House who cringes with embarrassment when words like “Chinese-sounding names” are used as a measure of the same issue that that the previous speaker, Su’a William Sio, was talking about, and has done so repeatedly over some months, as if having a Chinese-sounding name is somehow something to be ashamed of. Well, I am ashamed when I hear members judging New Zealanders by the sound of their name. I am also hideously embarrassed when there is discussion about Indian chefs, as if that group of people were also a group of people to be ashamed of. And of course Thai metalworkers have now joined that category of people in New Zealand of whom we should be ashamed.

Well, I will tell you who should be ashamed. The Opposition—the Labour—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Stop making things up.

Yes, you see, they are reacting now because they should be ashamed. They should be ashamed that they are showing a misogynistic tendency, which says that you are OK if you have got a New Zealand - sounding name, but you are not OK if you have got a foreign-sounding name: “Do not come to New Zealand. We do not want you. We want only New Zealanders in this country.”

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Misogyny has nothing to do with race.

Well, come on down—misogyny, and xenophobia as well. Well, I mean, that is true, by implication.

Here is an invitation to members of the Labour-Greens/Greens-Labour—well, who would know and who would care? But here is an invitation to some of those members to come on down to Central Otago and have a look around at the skills shortages that we deal with on a daily basis. I would like them to come on down to places like Alexandra, to Wānaka, and to Queenstown. Come on down to Roxburgh and Cromwell.

In fact, David Parker, sitting there on the other side of the House, had a brief time as MP for Otago and he did a pretty good job of it, actually. He changed the immigration settings around Queenstown, providing for a very quick turn-round for those people coming from overseas who needed work permits. It was David Parker who did that. Imagine how embarrassed he feels now, at the current attitude of the Labour-Greens/Greens-Labour-New Zealand First unholy alliance, where they are, effectively, shutting the door on people coming into New Zealand with the skills and labour that we need so badly. So how do you imagine Stuart Nash feels? He represents an area that is strong in pipfruit and strong in wine. What does he think, when his own party and his potential coalition—God willing it will never happen, because New Zealanders certainly will not accept it. How would he feel, along with his colleague David Parker, having represented in the past those areas of New Zealand that need skilled workers?

We have skill shortages in the regions. I often go to a meeting in Alexandra. It is called the Central Otago Labour Market Governance Group. Again, I am sure that when David Parker was the member for Otago he also would have attended those meetings. There are representatives of the growers, of course, but also the Ministry of Social Development and Immigration New Zealand are represented, as well as Seasonal Solutions Co-operative Ltd. Pipfruit New Zealand is also represented, and I turn up as often as I can, along with the mayor and councillors. It takes that kind of combined effort to put a case to Immigration New Zealand to get Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme (RSE) workers into the region.

What are Labour, the Greens, and New Zealand First going to do about those? What is their policy around RSE workers coming into New Zealand? Do they still support those workers or, if it is in line with their current words around the immigration of workers, are they going to turn their backs on them? I can tell you that we need those workers. If we do not have them, we will not get the grapes picked. If we do not have those skilled workers coming from overseas, we will not get the apples picked. For many, many years Roxburgh growers tried really hard to get apples into Australia. Their industry was shaky. We now get the apples in; now the problem is we need the workers. Shame on you, Labour. Shame on you, New Zealand First. Shame on you, the Greens. Your xenophobic attitude is hurting the regional economies of New Zealand.

Moe mai rā e te rangatira Tā Graham Latimer, nui te aroha ki tōna whānau.

[Rest there, esteemed one Sir Graham Latimer, and much empathy to his family.]

In September 2015 New Zealand, along with 192 other UN member States, adopted the sustainable development goals (SDGs). They applied from 1 January this year. The first goal that the House may be interested to know is that there would be no poverty. We want to end poverty in all of its forms everywhere. Our Prime Minister went—he attended on our behalf—and at the General Assembly he committed not only New Zealand but our Government to these 17 SDGs. By 2030 we are supposed to reduce, at least by half, the proportion of men, women, and children living in poverty.

I think that no group of people in New Zealand more exemplifies those living in poverty than the homeless. By definition, the homeless are people living in severely crowded homes, in motels, in boarding houses, on the streets, or in cars. Between 2006 and 2013 homelessness in Aotearoa New Zealand increased by 25 percent. So I would like to say congratulations to the National Government! You have increased homelessness in New Zealand by 25 percent. That is over 41,000 New Zealanders who are living in a homeless state. So rather than reduce poverty, this Government is actually increasing poverty. That will mean that every year 2,000 more New Zealanders will be homeless. By the 2018 census that will be over 51,000 people. This is National’s legacy and John Key’s legacy as the leader of our country.

What did Budget 2016 deliver to address poverty? What did it deliver? Well, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, the Salvation Army, the Auckland City Mission, Te Puea Marae, and Manurewa Marae, it actually delivered nothing. That is what this Government has delivered to reduce poverty in Aotearoa. This Budget does not lift one person out of poverty. This is more than a “get stuffed Budget”, actually; this is a “you’re not important, you’re a liability, you’re undeserving, you’re invisible and unworthy of our help Budget”. National just does not care. In fact, its solution—which is its solution for everything—is that there is no problem that tax cuts cannot fix. We all know that that is what the agenda of this Government is.

Tonight at 6 p.m. at Manurewa Marae the community is gathering. We have responded to the call of Te Puea Marae, which has responded to the people across Tāmaki-makau-rau who need somewhere to sleep, somewhere to get a hot meal, and also a place where they can have a shower and wash some of their clothes. Actually, it is great that Minister Tolley is here in the House this afternoon, because my office has contacted the Clendon Ministry of Social Development office. We are hoping that the Ministry of Social Development staff will be involved in a triage process, and that that is going to enable us to identify the people who come to Manurewa Marae and who need help.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Why don’t you get up to date? They’re already there.

Su’a William Sio, my colleague, talked about the 53 families who are at Te Puea Marae. There are going to be over 50 families coming to Manurewa Marae, so it is wonderful that the Minister for Social Development has committed to her staff being there to help in the triage process, so that we can have a plan of action that is going to address the needs of every single family and every single child who lives in homelessness and who wants to come to Manurewa Marae, not just to seek refuge for a night, not just so that they can have a place to sleep and something in their belly, but so they can actually have a sense of calm in their life and not live in a stressful situation where they are living in a car. It is wonderful that the Minister has committed to her staff being there to help the community.

Who cares about the homeless in New Zealand? Te Puea Marae, Manurewa Marae, the Salvation Army, Auckland City Mission, and the people and the community groups who are knitting blankets, who on Saturday will meet me at 11.30 at Manurewa Marae. They are going to collect these blankets from rest homes around Tāmaki-makau-rau, because they know that there are people in need who are cold. Those are the people who care about the homeless. It is philanthropy that cares about the homeless, not that Government. Shame on you.

Firstly, I would just like to start by acknowledging the Hon Gerry Brownlee, our Minister of Defence, who launched our defence white paper this afternoon with the Prime Minister, the Chief of Defence Force, and with our Secretary of Defence, Helene Quilter. I would also like to acknowledge the Minister because he very kindly extended an invitation to both me and the Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Little, to accompany him recently up to Iraq and Camp Taji to go and visit our troops up there and have a look and see how the mission was going. I am going to come back to that.

I just want to speak very quickly about the defence white paper because I was heavily involved in the consultation phase of this, and I was very happy to hold and host three meetings—one with the Warkworth RSA, one with the Wellsford RSA, and we also went up to the Kerikeri RSA. I just want to acknowledge the Chief of Army, Major General Peter Kelly and also the Deputy Secretary of Defence, Tony Lynch. They both attended these meetings also, and I think that highlighted just how important the consultation phase on the defence white paper was.

Obviously there was a lot of detail and a lot of the submitters wanted to talk about capital investment and equipment, which is important and has been captured in the white paper document, but the one thing that did come through very strongly and I just wanted to highlight in the House tonight is just how important the men and women in our New Zealand Defence Force are now and into the future. To highlight that I would just say that one very, very common thing that came through from all of the submitters and all the meetings that we held was that the personnel within our Defence Force are the most important capability that we have. Without well-trained experienced people who are motivated and committed to the organisation, no capability will ever reach its true potential. That is very true, and therefore today, in my general debate speech, I just want to acknowledge all of our Defence Force personnel, whether they be at home or whether they be serving overseas. And I want to acknowledge their families as well, who also make a sacrifice when they are away.

I would like to refer very quickly to our mission in our Taji. I personally was very interested in this, because I was involved back in 2005-2006 in the initial training programme that was established for the newly formed Iraqi security forces. We would be naïve not to acknowledge and say that there were some big challenges in Iraq, in terms of the quality of personnel that are available, the different loyalties and where those allegiances lie, and a central government that has to be able to deal with those things. But that should not stop us from constantly working and trying to increase the support, and the level and the quality of those troops who, ultimately, are tasked with going out and meeting this threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or Daesh.

The one that I noticed is that—we were very lucky while we were in Taji—one of the divisions that had been on the front line had just returned from the front line in Ramadi, and had actually just liberated Ramadi, which is a very important strategic town in Iraq, and they had pushed Daesh out. They had been very, very successful. This was a combat division that had come back to Taji to get some further updated training and also have some junior leadership training delivered by our Anzac mission with the Australians at Taji.

The thing that struck me was this: No. 1, they were just very pleased to be back—their attendance numbers were up. Back in 2005-2006 when the Iraqi troops turned up—and let us take the tactical support unit, for example, which was more or less a special forces unit, even they would turn up pretty ragtag—they would not have uniform footwear on; often the footwear that was issued to them would disappear. They would not have a standard uniform that was issued to them. The one thing that I noticed about the troops who were coming back into Taji was that they were very, very well presented and well turned out. I use that as a bit of a meter for me to say: “You know what, the Iraqi security forces are getting better. The quality of the training is getting better. The way that they deploy is getting better.” That could be judged off the way that they actually turn themselves out and the pride that they take in their own appearance.

The one thing that was highlighted through all of our meetings—and I have to say that I was actually very proud of our own defence Minister and the way that he presented and advanced our own interests and stated our case, in terms of how we feel the deployment in Iraq—[Bell rung] Am I out of time?

Yes. Your time has gone. You had 5 minutes.

I rise proudly on behalf of New Zealand First to take part in this debate. I want to say that it was interesting hearing the Minister of Defence’s speech here today, trying to convince the House that the National Party is the only party that understands rural provincial New Zealand, and using as an example, to quote him, his “deep knowledge of farming”, and telling us all that there are “50 million sheep in New Zealand”. Well, there might be 50 million sheep who follow the National Party around, but let me assure of this: there are only 29 million sheep in New Zealand right now, Mr Brownlee. So if that is an example of how connected the National Party is today with the rural sector, then it is a—buzz!—fail, big time.

The other point is that he lamented the fact that he never got a question from me on the defence white paper today. Well, how bizarre, because Mr Brownlee spent 3 minutes of his 5 minutes attacking Mr Fletcher Tabuteau—someone who seems to scare him more than the Taliban, I might add. He only devoted less than 1 minute of his speech to his defence white paper himself, so push it off to one side.

New Zealand First would argue that there is no party in this House more committed to a strong Defence Force. The defence of our nation, the defence of our sovereignty, of our flag, of our way of life, and the protection and enhancement of our Defence Force capabilities and our Defence Force personnel are chiselled in stone here, because we have fought the battles on behalf of the Defence Force at a time when the National Party would have us believe that Defence Force members did not need a pay rise, because they got free dental care. And that was a quote from Jenny Shipley, actually, back in the 1990s.

New Zealand First would like to think that on a matter of defence it is of such importance that we might see some attempt to form a political consensus across the House when producing a white paper and when making policy of this nature, to prevent the debacles and the reversals that we have had to sit here and witness in this House through successive Governments, be they National or Labour.

Debacles, reversals—let us talk about a couple. Let us talk about the debacle of the light armoured vehicle purchase where New Zealand First tried strenuously to stop the Labour Government doing that, but it went ahead, and now we are stuck with what we have got. And the NH90 purchase, which has got massive shortfalls in respect of its marinisation, something that does not appear to be getting addressed in the defence white paper—

💬 David Shearer: Actually, that’s rubbish.

It is not rubbish, Mr Shearer.

💬 David Shearer: It is rubbish.

Read the reports. So we will move on.

💬 David Shearer: Read the reports, Ron.

Touched a nerve over there.

The reversals—let us talk about the decision by a National Government to purchase F-16 fighters, promptly overturned by an incoming Labour Government. Promises from the National Party—and I can quote Simon Power word for word in his speech at a hall in Bulls—that the National Party “would reinstate the air combat capability, mark my words” were backed up by the ACT Party, which said “it will happen in a National-ACT coalition Government.” And what did we see? A complete abandonment of that promise by the National Party. In this defence white paper today is there any mention of re-establishing the air combat capability? Not a mutter, not a murmur, not a syllable—nothing, neh, nyet, zipper, zero.

What New Zealand First would like to see is some commitment to give stability and security to the Defence Force personnel whom the honourable Mark Mitchell just applauded. I have to say, if there is one person who does understand Iraq and does understand the issues it certainly is not Mr Brownlee; it is certainly Mr Mitchell. I applaud that, and I thank him for his comments.

We would say this to the National Party: we are working on a white paper, which we will release in time, and in doing that we have uncovered some things. We have looked at the white paper produced today—I have to say to Mr Brownlee, it is a bit hard to debate your white paper when you are briefing the media and you are holding a press conference, and you have not seen fit to put the paper up on the website so that the rest of Parliament could access it. What was it—1 o’clock in the afternoon when they finally put it up? Or was it just short of 1 o’clock? That is absolutely appalling behaviour by the Government.

If one wants a debate on it, then tell the Speaker to give us an urgent debate; if one wants a debate on it, put the paper out in a timely manner at the same time the Government gives it to the media. I rest my case on that. But if one wants to have a look at the very issue that Mr Mitchell raised, the personnel issue, have a look at this diagram here. Over successive years, between 1984—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Kia ora, e Te Mana Whakawā. As the final speaker in this general debate this afternoon, and hearing a lot of the to-ing and fro-ing, I think one of the most important things to me, as someone who went away overseas for 2 years but stayed 24 years and travelled extensively right across Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, and then into the Middle East, is the fact that you need to go away from this country in some ways to really appreciate what we have actually got here. I just hope that we can all sort of come together across the House, particularly when we are talking about the defence of Godzone—the defence of this country.

I want to come now to the Defence White Paper 2016, which was released this morning, just to sort of talk very briefly about certain aspects of that white paper. Being overseas, you do actually see how insular we can be here in New Zealand, but when you look at that white paper and look at the threats that have been identified, particularly over the last 5 years, they are something that we need to take note of. This is really the essence of why we actually need this white paper: it is identifying those threats.

The major ones there—there are actually seven of them. The first is that increase in activity and operations in the New Zealand exclusive economic zone, in the Southern Ocean, and also in the Pacific. The next one, No. 2, is the increased likelihood of a terrorist attack here in New Zealand, keeping in mind that the risk is still actually quite low. The third one is the increase in the military spending right across the South-east Asian region. The next one is the increase in turmoil since the Arab Spring of 2010, particularly in North Africa and also in the Middle East. The other one is very much around the rapid evolution of the cyber-threat, and that has been well highlighted here today. The final one is the degraded relations between Russia and the West. They may be a long way away, some of those things, but they are things that really need to be identified and that we need to be aware of. So that is the first thing: threats.

The other thing is the talk, particularly with the consultation process, around people. He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people. When we look at our Defence Force, one of those things that was highlighted was about our people. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Māori influence and contribution that have been in our defence forces right across our history. When we look at these things, particularly around Māori, I am so proud that we actually see that our culture is embedded in the Defence Force.

The final thing is something about this paper that I actually think is really important. It is around civil defence. The actual assistance that the military had given—I go back to the Christchurch earthquake in 2011, particularly around the emergency. What we saw come in was the navy, was the army, and was also the air force. They came in, and as soon as we saw them—as people of Christchurch, as people of Canterbury—well, then we felt safe. It was a safe haven there. That continued all the way through.

So in saying that, particularly talking about this white paper, one thing is that, yes, it is $20 billion of investment, but it is an investment that is real. It is an investment that we are going to need to take us through, looking at the next 25 years. Let us get across and really talk and work together, because the defence of God’s own country, New Zealand, is what it is all about in the end. On that note, it is about defence, it is about people, and it is about acknowledging the threats. Kia ora.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.