General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the teachers, the principals, and the kids and their families who have contributed to the highest National Certificate of Educational Achievement results we have ever had. Up and down the country we have hard-working Kiwi families who have contributed to the increasing strength in our economy. That, in turn, has allowed this Government, with a very strong investment focus, to put the money that we have prudently husbanded into places where it will make the most difference, both in short-term investments but also in the medium to long term.

Everybody in this House knows that a good education gives more choices. Those choices properly executed will mean that we will see greater strength in our economy and the ability to grow well and to invest in the options that people want that characterise their quality of life, and by that I mean to be able to travel, to be able to purchase the houses they wish to purchase, and to be able to have their children educated in the way they wish to have them educated. Under this Government we have seen growth under very difficult times. This Government has not resiled from that. We have seen more jobs created, we have seen the average income go up, we have seen unemployment go down, and we are seeing skills and qualifications growing through the very targeted investment we are making in education.

For the first time Vote Education is over $11 billion—$11 billion. That is a shipload of money that this Government considers—[Interruption] Oh, a shipload—please. Please, it is a little pun—do not get all upset about it. That is going into education, and we are seeing the results of that. We are seeing more young people participating in early childhood education. We are seeing more do better with national standards. We know how well kids are doing each year. We do not have to wait, as the previous administration did, till they get to year 12 to find that kids are not literate or numerate. Every year under national standards—in fact, every week or every month—teachers are able to see how well kids are doing and to make the next learning step or investment.

This Government, using its social investment approach for the first time in Budget 2016, has said that rather than have a universal operations grant across the education sector, it will target those kids whom it knows from data are most at risk of not achieving. That means that although the overwhelming majority of schools will get some investment, they will get different levels according to the intensity of risk that is in their schools. This approach reflects our Government’s approach to using data and investing taxpayers’ money where it will make the most difference. It reflects our respect for taxpayers, who are the ones who grow the economy, which this Government understands. It is not the Government; we are just the middle people.

💬 Hon Member: You’re saying “taxpayers”?

I said “taxpayers”—that is right. We respect those people. We want to make sure that the investments we put into education or science—this Budget also provided for a $761 million investment into the space of technology, science, and engineering because we know that that is part of a 21st century modern economy.

Last week I was out in “Technology Valley”, otherwise known to some people as the Hutt Valley. Chris Bishop, the energetic list MP based in the Hutt, ensured that I attended the Technology Valley Awards. There was a celebration from the youngest learners there to the entrepreneurs and the innovators in recognition that knowledge and new knowledge is important for New Zealand’s place in the world. New Zealand understands its role as an international player.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: The same day you fired 14 scientists in the Hutt.

Not only are we concerned to ensure that New Zealand citizens get the best education possible, but we are also prepared to give that opportunity as part of our international role to those who cannot get it elsewhere. That member can shout away over there—

💬 Hon Annette King: You’re shouting. Shh!

—but the people in the Hutt know he does nothing but shout. I am matching the shouting from your colleague, Mrs King. I am excited about “Technology Valley”. I am excited about the investments made there by the Hutt City Council. I am excited by the energetic Chris Bishop, who is the first time they have seen energy in the Hutt Valley. It is the investing in education—yes, Mr Speaker—that will make the difference for more young New Zealanders. Thank you.

The National Government’s mismanagement of housing in New Zealand is now chronic. It is not just a housing bubble in Auckland; it is a housing crisis nationwide. It is causing a firestorm of economic, health, and social issues throughout the country that will drag New Zealand down for decades to come. If you look at the results in Auckland alone you can see the magnitude of the problem. First of all, ordinary people simply cannot find a house within their price range to buy, and too few are being built. We need at least 13,000 houses a year in Auckland alone, but what we find is fewer than half of that are still being built per year in New Zealand. The National Government has known that for years and has done little or nothing about it.

First-home buyers, even if they can find a house to buy, cannot afford to purchase it. They are forced into long-term rentals. That is why the term Generation Rent has been applied to them—applied for the first time in New Zealand. The problem is, of course, that they cannot afford to rent those properties, either, because of the huge rent increases that are actually driven by the increase in house prices. So they have to move down market and down market, trying to find lower and lower rents so that they can afford it, and to make things even worse, immigration at a net 70,000 a year, most of whom actually go to Auckland, greatly exacerbates the problem.

The root cause of this is that successive Governments have failed to plan for housing needs over decades. They have never developed a genuine long-term strategy, they have let the so-called market reign, and most people know that in New Zealand the market will never cope alone. The Government has penny-pinched wherever possible, fobbing off housing issues—especially social housing issues—on to other organisations, most of which cannot cope either. The Government has always failed to integrate housing provision with resource management, immigration, transport, and social security policy.

New Zealand First says that we should be taking a long-term view and that there should be direct Government investment in the housing market; not the zero-investment policy that this Government has taken. That is contrary to the approach that needs to be taken in New Zealand. So New Zealand First calls upon the Government and all parties to support the establishment of a housing commission so that we get a non-political approach to solving New Zealand’s long-term housing problems.

We need to revamp New Zealand’s housing market with a number of objectives, and the first is residential and land homeownership affordability. That is the fundamental problem—also social housing supply, security and affordability; planned Government investment in land development; and low-cost first-home purchase finance, which is also something that is desperately needed in New Zealand at the present time. In addition, sustainable housing objectives including energy sustainability and efficiency are also required, as well as housing quality generally. We also need integration of new housing developments with sustainable transport systems. That is something that really does not happen in New Zealand anywhere and should do so—that is what is happening overseas.

New Zealand First also believes that it is very important that overseas purchasers should not be able to buy residential property in New Zealand. We believe that they should be ineligible and that they should have to apply to the commission of which I spoke for a permit to buy a house in New Zealand. That should be granted only if they can demonstrate a genuine need; that should be difficult to do. We would also reduce immigration to sensible and sustainable levels, which are not what we have got in New Zealand at the present time. Immigration needs to be aimed at meeting genuine skill shortages in New Zealand instead of being the open slather we now have.

You can say one thing about New Zealand First members: they are nothing if not predictable. Yesterday we heard speeches in the motion of support for the people of Orlando in the wake of that tragedy. I want to touch on a couple of them. The first was from Kevin Hague, one of the most compelling interventions I think I have heard in my time here, expressing condemnation at the act and aroha and support for the LGBTI community and for the Muslim community.

Then we heard another speech, without doubt the most vile, spiteful, hateful, and ignorant intervention I have heard in my time in this Parliament, from the leader of the New Zealand First Party, Winston Peters. I reckon it plumbed a new low, even by that member’s standards, by drawing a nexus between a United States citizen born in that country and this country’s immigration policy. Frankly, his call for some kind of Anglo-Saxon values statement to be signed by new migrants absolutely epitomises how ignorant and out of touch that party is.

Today I hosted the annual World Refugee Day function here at Parliament. I challenge Mr Peters to go along to functions like that and listen to the speeches that we heard today from a 16-year-old Syrian and from an 18-year-old Rwandan, or to go to the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre and go to a pōwhiri and see the energy and support for the values that we hold dear, the values of freedom and peaceful coexistence, of harmony and diversity, and then stand and tell this House that we need some kind of values statement. Pauline Hanson has got nothing on Winston Peters. I wonder, actually, whether he is Ms Hanson’s older brother, because they certainly sound very much the same.

At the World Refugee Day function was a fellow by the name of Yahya. Yahya has the distinction of being the first Syrian refugee to arrive into New Zealand under the emergency places response this Government put in place a couple of years ago. He spoke at the World Refugee Day event last year and, rather cheekily, put his hand up and said: “I am good at what I do, I have worked in a warehouse in logistics, I speak pretty good English—does anybody have a job for me?”. And, actually, there was an approach that day by a very large organisation in New Zealand that was trying to see if it could help. Sadly, that did not come about, and I met Yahya again today a year later, and he tells me that he is still looking for paid employment. I was very sad to hear that, but not that surprised, because that is a typical story we hear around the country. Oh, were it the case that every refugee we take could tell the same story as the speeches that we heard today. That would be great but, unfortunately, that is not the case.

Despite being held up as one of the world’s best at settling refugees, we still have fewer than 40 percent of those refugees in paid employment 10 years after they arrive. Their children do not do as well at school as ours. Immunisation and other health services are not taken up at the same rate. We need to do better, which is why the New Zealand Refugee Resettlement Strategy was put in place 3½ years ago. It is working. Progress is being made, but it is slow and we need to do more, which is why I am really pleased this week, in addition to the announcement of a significant increase in the quota of one-third—

💬 Dr David Clark: Double the quota.

That member says: “Double the quota.” Well, he can go and ask his colleagues who were in Parliament from 1999 to 2008 why they did nothing—not a thing. Why would they say that? Yes, we have 60 million displaced people in the world. When the Labour Government was in power there were 42 million people displaced, and it did nothing. There was no strategy, no increase in the quota—more lion in Opposition, but pussycats when in Government—no money, and a decaying facility, which the Prime Minister will reopen on Saturday.

So I am very proud of the response and the announcement that was made this week to raise the refugee quota by a third, and we will redouble our efforts to make sure that every single one of those refugees settles well, thrives, and is independent from the State, but, more important, is free of the vile, disgusting rhetoric that we heard from Winston Peters and the New Zealand First Party. It is a speech and rhetoric that we have heard long enough, going to a smaller and smaller cohort of New Zealanders—and I think that is a good thing.

I challenge Minister Woodhouse to double the quota of refugees. I was out on the parliamentary forecourt this afternoon where people made the point that that Minister and his Prime Minister have not visited a refugee camp themselves. The last Labour Government took refugees when there was a crisis. When I was a child growing up there were Cambodian refugees taken in by New Zealand. The people want to have these people in the country—the churches and the community groups pledge that they will help. They are doing it in Dunedin; we can do it across New Zealand. New Zealanders are big enough people to do more than we are currently doing, and I think that the Minister knows that.

I want to speak a little bit about the way that the odds are stacked against middle New Zealand under this Government, because we have a Government sitting there opposite that has just put through a Budget that has absolutely nothing in it to solve the housing crisis, an education budget that has frozen the operations grants for schools and is going to see parents fork out more in voluntary donations, and a health budget that does nothing to address the $1.7 billion of underfunding that that Government has brought in over the last 6 years. It is busy working in the interests of the ultra-wealthy and not in the interests of most New Zealanders.

You can see it clearly every time an issue comes up. On the Panama Papers, the Prime Minister’s first response was: “That’s going to be $24 million that the industry misses out on.” A short-term monetary response—not looking at New Zealand’s international reputation and not showing any values that New Zealanders could identify with. We see it with the Skycity deal—done behind closed doors with big corporates. We see it with the housing speculators. This Government has done nothing to curb housing speculation. That is because it is more interested in the interests of the ultra-wealthy than the interests of middle New Zealand. When an issue does arise that hits middle New Zealand in the pocket, the Government runs a mile.

I am going to talk now about the great salary stuff-up, the issue of payroll in New Zealand—the great salary stuff-up. It is not the cock-up that catches out a Government Minister; it is the cover-up. That is what I want to say to the Minister for Economic Development today, because this Government has covered up something that has been going on since 2009, unchecked, in this country. It did a review of the Holidays Act back then, it found that there were some inadequacies in the Act, and it changed the law, and it has only made it worse. Then it buried the issue. Since that time, the Government’s estimate says that up to $2.2 billion in debt—

💬 Hon Member: How much?

—up to $2.2 billion—in debt has accrued to employers because this Government has failed to address this payroll issue.

That is not just a matter of that big figure; this is an issue affecting middle New Zealand. The Government says that up to 763,000 New Zealanders—up to 763,000 New Zealanders—may have been underpaid for the last 6 years. That is one in three working people in New Zealand who may not have been paid correctly. People do not know it yet—people do not know it—because they themselves have not checked whether they have had the right pay cheque. The Minister is not making it easy for them. He is not releasing the list of payroll providers that are carrying people on their books who have not been paid correctly. Most employers do not know that they have done it. Employers, in my experience, act in good faith. They want a clear set of rules and they want to do what is right by their employees. They do not want to short-change them. They are doing what their payroll suggests—they are following the automatic settings. They are doing what they think is right, and this Government has failed in its oversight of payroll in New Zealand and allowed that liability to grow.

The Government has been covering up this issue for the last 6 years and allowing those New Zealanders to be underpaid for all of this time. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment estimates that most people affected are missing out by between $250 and $500 a year. That adds up over time. Over 6 years that means that some people will have been underpaid by $3,000 and they do not know it yet. The Government’s low-end estimate, actually, is that nearly 200,000 people have been underpaid. People out there watching this today will not yet know that they have been underpaid. The Government should release the list of those companies that are carrying people who have been underpaid, and if it is not going to do that, we will release the list on this side of the House in due course, because we cannot let this continue.

This Government’s cover-up is going to cost it. When an issue comes up that affects middle New Zealand, it does not stand up and make sure that middle New Zealand is looked out for. It has not looked to correct this issue; it has put employers in a difficult position—they are underpaying employees in New Zealand, and this is to the tune of billions of dollars. The Minister needs to take some accountability. This issue is going to affect so many New Zealanders. Check your pay cheques out there and watch this space, because there will be a lot more to come on this one.

That was the best speech from that member, David Clark, in 50 years. In fact, it was not—it was not even the worst speech in 50 years; it is just another speech that he has been making for 8 years. For 8 years that member and his colleagues have been coming to this House and trying to tell New Zealanders that this is the worst country in the world. New Zealanders get it—they know that is not the case.

Take education, which he passed over very lightly. What a fantastic speech by a passionate Minister of Education. The only people more passionate about education in this country than Hekia Parata are our teachers. This week we can actually turn round and say thank you to our teachers and to the people in our schools who have worked so hard to increase outcomes in all of those schools and in our high schools. They have done it with the absolute support of this Government over 8 years. We are spending more money than ever before in education. They have done it with the absolute support of two hard-working Ministers of Education in this Government over the last 8 years, who have backed teachers and recognised that students can get ahead when teachers have the tools that they require. This year $11 billion has been committed in the Budget to education.

So what did we hear from the Minister for Education? Well, statistics—and they are very important. The highest level of achievement in National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) levels 1, 2, and 3 than ever before. In NCEA level 2, a 16.6 percent increase in achievement of pass rates over the last 8 years since we came to Government. It is a fantastic outcome. It is actually not about the Government doing a great job; it is about 16.6 percent more young people in New Zealand who sit NCEA level 2 achieving, doing well, and having a brighter future under the support that we are giving them. In NCEA level 1, 74 percent of young people who sit NCEA level 1 are passing. It is an amazing achievement on the part of those young people, with the hard work of our teachers and the great work of our schools, and they know that they are supported by this Minister and by this Government.

I want to take just a moment to recognise Rotorua Boys’ High School in my electorate, which this week received the Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award for excellence in leading—an amazing school, a great principal, and very hard-working students who are supported by their parents. That school recognised that there were groups of students who were not achieving well enough, and it actually worked extra hard to raise those levels of achievement. That school is as good as any school in this country, with the support of this Government and the hard work of those teachers. I want to thank the teachers of that school and every other school in the Rotorua electorate for the work that they do.

Just briefly, that $11 billion sounds like a lot of money—well, it is. But it is going to go into better school buildings and more school buildings where they are needed, supporting at-risk students, special education, and just driving up achievement and success throughout the education system. Do you know what this means? Hard-working, young New Zealanders have a better education, better outcomes, and they get to go and trade that education for high-paying jobs in a global economy.

This week we have 500 delegates and 500 negotiators from 16 countries representing the ASEAN Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, a trade negotiation that New Zealand is at the heart of. This week, as host, we are driving hard to make sure a high-quality outcome can be delivered for the 3 billion citizens of those 16 countries, which represent half the world’s population, are almost 35 percent of the world’s economy, and spend $23 trillion on GDP every year. We want a higher achievement for them so that all New Zealanders and all New Zealand companies can benefit.

I would say to those listening that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a high-quality agreement that will deliver significantly for New Zealand, but RCEP has the opportunity to be significantly larger because these economies are closer to us, they are growing economies, they are developing economies, and we have agreements already in place with 14 of them. One we do not is India, and India will be a big prize. Our negotiators are pushing hard so that New Zealanders can have a very, very good outcome. It will take some time because we will not settle for less than we should—that was the case with the TPP—but those 500 delegates are welcomed to New Zealand, and I am glad that we can play our part to drive for greater liberalisation of trade openness so that those hard-working students, who are achieving so well under Hekia Parata and this Government, can use this great New Zealand education and exchange it for a higher-paying job in a global economy that wants Kiwis to do well for it. Thank you.

There is a housing crisis. There is a housing crisis. There is a housing crisis. I say it three times because this Government says there is no housing crisis, yet it has allocated three Ministers to this housing crisis, and the way it is going it will need to allocate another three, because it is going badly—it is going really badly.

Today we had the really embarrassing spectacle of Paula Bennett having to apologise about a smear campaign out of her office against Hurimoana Dennis in Te Puea Marae, a man who has led the charge on homelessness. Paula Bennett, after 3 weeks of this marae functioning, fled through the other day—fled through, went through, barely stopping to meet anybody. She should be thanking Te Puea Marae, not trying to put those people in their place and smear them. That was a long list of problems.

Yesterday, as well, Paula Bennett got asked about the housing problem and some of the temporary mobile housing that is coming up, the prefabs. She said she knew nothing about it. They said: “But Mr Key just talked about it.” “Oh,” she said, “Oh yes, yes, that is right—they will be ready in April.” This Government is all over the place—all over the place. It is sending people down to the provinces with $5,000 in their pockets because it cannot put them into houses in Auckland. It is putting people in motels and then asking them for the money for it. These are beneficiaries who have done nothing wrong except failed under this Government’s policy, and they are being put in motels and asked to pay that money back. It is a disgrace.

That is only one housing Minister. The second housing Minister is Nick Smith, and do you believe him—do you believe him? Homelessness, he says, is a figment of people’s imaginations. Do you believe this? He tells us about consents, but everybody knows that consents do not keep out the rain. You cannot shelter under a consent—you want a home. He also says that houses are more affordable under National. The average house has gone up by $500,000 under Nick Smith—$500,000—and Auckland is heading towards a million-dollar average. Who can get into a million-dollar house—who can get into a million-dollar house? It has decimated the dream of young New Zealanders wanting to buy a house. It is disgraceful. He is a mistake of a Minister. It is an appalling legacy that this Minister is leaving for the people of New Zealand.

Housing Minister No. 3, Bill English, is the so-called economic guru of New Zealand. His credentials are taking a dive. He is saying that speculators are no problem, yet we know that 46 percent of all houses bought and sold in Auckland are done through speculators. We have now racked up a level of half a trillion—half a trillion—dollars of debt in New Zealand. Half a trillion dollars—that is beyond anything we have ever seen before. Fifty years ago, under Muldoon—my God! That was nothing compared with this. We have got $90 billion of debt under this Government, and we are now being fuelled by credit.

Just to tell you how out of touch this Government is, we have the banks finally saying: “No. We’re not going to lend to foreigners.” This is Labour Party policy, I will have you know. We should not be lending to foreigners. But that Government has never had the intestinal fortitude to even be able to stop foreigners from treating our housing market like they do the New York Stock Exchange. Selling pork bellies on the New York Stock Exchange is exactly what it is doing here in New Zealand with our housing market. It is a disgrace. This Government has had three housing Ministers to do the job, and none of them—none of them—have been able to do anything that can give us any hope.

Under this John Key - led Government, children are starting school better prepared to learn and are leaving school better qualified to earn. We are getting it right. We are seeing the results of young people getting higher levels of attainment and achievement, and we are seeing results that are the best ever achieved by our students. As the Hon Hekia Parata said, congratulations not only to the students but to the teachers, the principals, and the parents. There will be parents right throughout this country, right now, who are absolutely stoked, absolutely thrilled, and absolutely feeling as if this Government is making something work for them and their families.

That is a very, very important thing. This is great for New Zealand. We need an emerging workforce that understands what it is to face challenge, to work hard, to persevere, and to succeed. Passing National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 1, level 2, and level 3 is all of that. It is not just about the content and having a fact file. It is about developing personal tools of discipline and perseverance, personal tools of learning, and being able to become educated and engaged in the bigger world that is outside the doors of the school. The OECD Policy Forum on the Future of Work, which I know members opposite highly revere, says that the world is in flux as a result of digitisation and the development of the digital economy. We all understand that, but the future of work is today—it is today. It is people who today are leaving places of training, needing to find employment.

What we can say, from this side of the House, is that we have been focused on that. We have wanted to build a great foundation for companies to prosper and succeed. We are wanting to have very high-quality international agreements, where we can have greater opportunities for export, and those export companies can flourish and also they can employ more New Zealanders. Two hundred and eighty jobs are being created a day—that is what is happening in our country today. These are graduates from tertiary institutions and from high schools who are leaving their training, going out there, and seeking employment. We want to have a workforce that is highly skilled and earns a good wage. We are seeing this happen here, in this country.

We have got this trend happening. Here in New Zealand we cannot swim against the trend, against the current. We have to continue, as a modern economy, to adapt and change and be adaptable. One of the things that we have done in this last number of years is make sure that we are able to engage digitally, not only across our nation, but across the world, with our ultra-fast broadband. Right now 1.2 million New Zealanders have the opportunity to connect, and many of them are doing studies and transacting business across this amazing network. We have made sure that our schools and hospitals have been online first. It is a great thing to do and a great thing to see.

The proportion of 18-year-olds achieving NCEA level 2 qualifications has increased. Four years ago it was 74 percent; today it is 84 percent. That is a phenomenal increase. That is phenomenal. You would not find anybody in the country saying that that is not a good thing. Even across the House, those members’ muted silence is an agreement that this is a good thing—84 percent—they will not stand up. [Interruption] So you are going to say that is a bad thing—84 percent. Since this Government took office in 2008, level 2 achievement rates have risen, as Todd McClay said, by nearly 17 percent. That is phenomenal.

What we have seen is 200,000 jobs being created, and another 170,000 in the next 3 years. We know that Treasury is forecasting 3.2 percent and 2.8 percent increases in terms of economic growth in this country. This place is in a really good shape.

It is great that in the midst of all of this we are even seeing crime rates come down. Is it not amazing that we are seeing youth crime come down nearly 40 percent? That is a great indication that young people are finding a future that is positive, that is engaging, and that is bringing them into employment, and bringing them into a future. I think that is a marvellous thing.

When you look at this Government, at what we have done, around 100,000 families with children are financially better off, with a real increase in benefit rates for the first time since 1972. That is a great thing.

Once upon a time the world looked towards New Zealand as a leading light—a shining hope, and a country where prosperity was found everywhere, where kids played and families were able to raise their tamariki and their mokopuna in what was essentially a utopian society. What we can see at the moment in fact is that Rome is burning. I say “Rome is burning” because not only is there a housing bubble but inside that bubble is this Government. It is oblivious to the decisions that it is making and the impact they are having on our reputation around the world.

I say that in light of a very recent topic—250 extra refugees coming to New Zealand. Well, whoopee! That is just not enough. There has been pressure from the international community on all Governments across the world to take this issue seriously. And what does this Government do? It increases the quota by only 250. And now the world is looking at us and saying: “By crikey, maybe New Zealand isn’t the leading light of the world.” Maybe, in fact, this Government is living inside the housing bubble that it has created, oblivious to the fact that the decisions it has made have had a huge impact on our reputation around the world.

I am reminded of one of my favourite songs from the 1990s, by C+C Music Factory, called “Things That Make You Go Hmmmm”—things that make you go hmmmm. The reason for that is that once upon a time Te Puea Marae was doing what the Government failed to do, and all of a sudden the Government came up with a smear campaign—things that make you go hmmmm. We asked questions of the Minister and this Government about exactly what the cause of that was and there was no answer—things that make you go hmmmm. And I can tell you for a fact is that Te Puea marae is doing a fantastic job.

In fact, I want to share some of those numbers, if I can. Over 60 assessments have been completed within 2½ weeks. They have housed, within Te Puea Marae, 91 people—over 10 families and over 50 children. And although this Government talks about these great achievements for education, I can tell the House that of the 50 children inside Te Puea Marae, nearly 30 percent have only now gone to their first day of school this year, in the week just gone. What does that tell you about the ignorance of this Government and the failure of this system to actually take education seriously, and to make sure that the children who are finding themselves, not by choice—because children do not choose to live in cars. Children do not choose in garages. Children do not choose to not go to school. Sadly, what we are seeing at Te Puea Marae is over 30 percent of the kids who have gone into Te Puea Marae have attended school for the first time in the week just gone. That speaks to a failure of this system.

Eight long years of this Government—8 long years. Kids born while this Government has been in power have fallen through the gaps. They have fallen through the gaps. Sadly, what this Government cannot do—it has appointed all of these Ministers to look after these issues, but what it has failed to do, in fact, is actually connect all the dots. What a housing crisis is a part of, what a poor education system is a part of—all of these things speak to poverty. They speak to poverty. This Government is not taking poverty seriously. I challenge any of the members on that side to come to Tāmaki Makaurau. Come along with me and I will take you to Te Puea Marae, but leave your grubby politics out of it. Leave the grubby politics out of it, and let the marae do what it has done in the past 2 weeks, filling the holes found in this Government’s policies. I listened to the Minister over there and I say this: she thinks she forced her staff members to help Te Puea Marae. She is, in fact, wrong. It was I who called those staff to make sure they got to Te Puea Marae. I challenge her to show her phone records—I will show mine—to see who made the phone call first.

So I finish by once again congratulating Te Puea Marae on the great job that it has done in filling the holes found in this Government’s policies moving forward. I want to say to Huri and the board, kia kaha.

Can I first of all give a huge thankyou to the whips for allowing me, once again, to speak in Auckland’s drive time. I said to the senior whip that it used to be Auckland’s drive time when he let me speak around 4 or 4.30. In Auckland right now, it does not matter what time in the House you speak, it is Auckland’s peak drive time, where you are stuck in traffic. But I do thank the whip for that.

I want to entitle my speech today—because I think every good speech should have a title—and the title of my speech today is going to be “Peace for Our Time, version 2”. I am reminded of “Peace for Our Time, version 1”, and that was by a man called Neville Chamberlain coming back from Germany, arriving in England. He said: “I have in my hand a piece of paper—just one piece of paper—and this is going to give us an agreement. It is a sort of memorandum of understanding with the other side, where we can work together cooperatively.” I have never ever been more reminded of that than last week, or the week before, when I saw Andrew Little out in the foyer of this building with a piece of paper in his hand saying: “We have got an agreement.”

I have never seen a piece of paper worth less than that piece of paper—including the one Neville Chamberlain had—because it did not say anything. It did not say anything. He said: “We’re going to work together, Labour and the Greens.” I actually thought they had been doing that for a decade or more. They had to put it down on a piece of paper, a memorandum of understanding. They said they would cooperate more and be nice to each other—I thought they already were. I already thought they were. God knows what they were doing beforehand if they needed to get a memorandum of understanding for it.

But when any two organisations merge—and before I came to this place I saw a number of airlines merge. They had to get agreement on what was this part of the service that they would drop and what part would another one pick up, and when they went to the public with their offering, the public knew what they were getting. The public knew exactly what they were getting and said: “This is quite good.” But we do not have a clue what this two-headed—and it has to have more than two heads, we have already been told. Andrew Little told us—he told us. It is not monogamous. It is not monogamous. I know that some members over that side of the House think monogamy is something you make a dining room table out of, but I know what monogamy is, and this arrangement is not monogamous. It is going to require some others in the relationship.

I, first of all, had a think about the colours, because when you are merging two things you should look at the merger. Does anybody know the chromatic scale of what happens when you mix red with green?

💬 Tim Macindoe: Brown.

No, wrong. It is not brown.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Dark brown.

Well, it is close. It is yellow, if you have a look at the chromatic scale, but it is at the Karitane yellow end of yellow. Any of you who have changed nappies over the years will know what the Karitane yellow end of yellow can look like. That Karitane yellow heads towards the brown scale only if you tip a bit of black in it. And that is what will probably have to be added to it in order for it to be of any value.

When I see the policies that are so divergent between them, I ask the poor old voter of New Zealand to think what it is that they would get. What is it we would get if we voted for this memorandum of understanding? Would we get those who are supportive of free-trade agreements like David Shearer and Phil Goff and that, who think free-trade agreements are great? Or would we get the lunatic end of the Greens who think free-trade agreements are evil and disgraceful and wrong? Which one would we get? Or would we get a free-trade agreement that was for only one year, and then for another year it would not be, and then it would be an on and off agreement so that both parties could get it? How would the voter ever know what they were going to get? I have to say that Neville Chamberlain’s piece of paper had a lot more value to it, for his “Peace for Our Time”, than this memorandum of understanding has.

What I also want to say to Labour is that you cannot come to this House all the time criticising policies like the refugee numbers increase, where we have gone from 750 to 1,000. And yet for—listen to this—12 years in office—

💬 Hon Annette King: You used to. You did for 9 years.

Now I have my colleague saying “No, it was only 9.” No, no. They made the change in 1987, so from 1987 to 1990 and then from 1999 to 2008—that is 12 years—they did not change it. I have to say, and the public in New Zealand say, what crocodile tears. What a shipload of rubbish that is to—

The member’s time—[Interruption] Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The previous speech was that voice of jealousy and fear that comes when something happens that the National Government cannot control and that it knows is welcomed by the country. I am glad that the previous speaker, Maurice Williamson, felt he had to devote his speech to us, but, actually, we are here for other reasons, and we have got things to talk about that are not based on jealousy and fear.

What we want to talk about is clean water. Imagine that a child was born 10 years ago next to a river, and in that child’s life over the last 10 years, that child has never been able to swim in that river. I am talking about the Waikirikiri/Selwyn River, where a child has grown up in a beautiful area with an amazing coastal lake and an incredibly significant river, to find that they can never swim in it. Every summer there is a sign saying that it is temporary, but you cannot swim in this river. That is 10 years of a child’s life, and 8 years of a Government that has completely failed to fix the problem. That is the legacy for that child at the Waikirikiri/Selwyn River.

Imagine being a man in his 60s at the Wairua River in Tai Tokerau who gets up every day, gets into his inflatable boat, and goes up and down the Wairua River taking photographs of the cows destroying the banks and polluting the water. The industry has impacted so heavily on it that he, as a volunteer, has to devote his life to cleaning up that river. All his photographs get sent to the regional council, and yet it is not listening. Neither the regional council nor the Government is listening.

Imagine if you were living in the middle of a city next to a creek that was once full of kayaks and annual swimming events and that the Minister for the Environment says no one wants to swim in, and you belonged to a community group that has been fighting for that creek, and you heard the Government say: “Oh, no one wants to swim in Lucas Creek.” Imagine being a member of those groups that are still fighting because they believe our children have a birthright to swim in those rivers.

Imagine you come from the Waikato and you are a farmer in the lower Waikato, planting, fencing, and desperately trying to clean up water quality while the Government and the regional council refuse to turn the tap off at the top of the catchment. Dairy conversions across the volcanic plateau are pouring diffused nitrogen into your river as you try to fix it. The tap has to be turned off. The Government and the regional council do not have the political will to do so.

Imagine you are the young people from my rohe, a youth group called Te Mātauranga Tira, which is a passionate group of young people who came to me and said “We want one thing for our river.”—this one is the Waihou. “And what is that?”, I said to them. They said: “We want to be able to swim in it. We cannot swim in our river. Our whakapapa tell us this is our river; we cannot swim it.” The Waihou goes into the Hauraki Gulf, Tīkapa Moana, and is full of dairy effluent day after day after day.

Imagine if every time a person got up on their marae to do their pepeha, to talk about their mountain and then their river, their river was the “Black Drain”—Tarawera, the most polluted river in the Bay of Plenty, where the pulp mills have had free reign at putting their contamination into the river. When the mills improved the colour, they added to the toxicity, so although the river looks cleaner, it is just as toxic in recent years as it has been for quite some time. Those of us who fought for the clean-up know what it means to those people whose whakapapa is still the “Black Drain”.

Imagine if you came from Waitara and you stood up against sewage and backflow up the Waitara River, and you were sued by your regional council. I am talking about Rob, Fiona, and Pikikore, who individually are being sued for standing up for clean water. That is the legacy of the last 8 years—a person can be sued for standing up for clean water in Taranaki.

The Manawatū, the Ruamāhanga, the Mataura, and more—we have so many rivers that need to be swimmable, that can be swimmable, and that the Green Party will fight for, alongside community groups. We believe in fresh water. It is not a choice; it is a necessity. We believe in swimmable rivers. The Minister Nick Smith believes that there are too many birds and too much volcanic ash. That is a joke. That is just completely out of touch. We can have swimmable rivers and, with us and our leadership, we will.

It is just 5½ months into this year and we can see this National Government is working hard for New Zealand. We are building on the great work that we did in 2015. For example, we made GP visits free for our young people under the age of 13. That was to see that our young people are able to achieve 100 percent, 100 percent of the time.

Look at the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) results. Are they not great? Since this National Government came into office in 2008, NCEA level 2 achievement has gone up by 16.6 percent. Here we are talking about thousands of children. So these thousands more children are now able to get into higher education, they are able to enter into the workforce.

We want to see more and more children achieving better results. That is why we are investing in Communities of Learning. I am really delighted to see a number of schools in Mt Roskill are now part of Communities of Learning. We want to see that the system revolves around students, not students revolving around the system. In Mt Roskill I have been working with a number of schools that provide for children with special needs, so I am really delighted to see $15 million for teacher-aides for schools that provide for special needs. I believe disabled students also deserve to have the opportunity to do well in their lives.

For our economy to be more productive we want more and more people contributing to our economy, and that is why we are investing hugely in our social services to meet the needs of our growing population. Our population is growing because our economy is doing so well and, as a result, there are a number of people from all around the world coming to New Zealand. At the same time we are providing direct support to New Zealanders in need. Domestically we are doing really well and at the international level we are doing well, again.

As the Prime Minister and the Minister of Immigration announced, we are increasing the refugee quota from 750 to 1,000 from 2018. This is the first increase since 1987. Yes, the first increase since 1987, and it is this National Government that is increasing the refugee quota. It is not just 750 refugees who come to New Zealand, because there are hundreds of others who come under family reunification, then there are hundreds who come as asylum seekers, and we have already committed to take 500 Syrian refugees over the period of 2 years.

Taking refugees is not a simple process because these people come with some expectations. They are coming to their new home, and we should have resources to meet their expectations. I have been to the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre and I have seen the orientation programme and how that is implemented when these refugees come to New Zealand. They are shown a New Zealand way of life, and they also go through a series of health checks, because these refugees go through rough circumstances so we want to make sure that their mental health and physical health is good as well. It is a long-term thing. The number 1,000 is the appropriate number, and I applaud the Minister and the Prime Minister for increasing it to 1,000.

I can go on and on listing the achievements of this National Government, but if I look at the Opposition and I look at the Labour Party, the Labour Party is struggling. If I look at the Green Party, the Green Party is struggling. These parties are struggling because they have no ambition for New Zealand. They have no ambition for New Zealand, and their leaders lack direction and goals for their respective parties. These parties have realised that they are not worthy Opposition parties against this third-term National Government. That is why they have come together. There are three leaders—two co-leaders from the Green Party and one from the Labour Party—with 4.5 percent popularity, against one leader on this side, the Rt Hon John Key. The leader, the Rt Hon John Key, is on the side of New Zealand voters, on the side of New Zealand families and businesses. He is the leader who is working hard for New Zealand.

This National Government is working hard for New Zealand, and the Opposition is busy running its own parties into the ground. There is no direction, there is no stability—just desperate moves. Thank you.

I want to change the tone of the debate this afternoon. I want to celebrate the men and the women who work in the NGO sector, who work for not-for-profits, who work for community organisations in the third sector—civil society organisations. Many of them are volunteers, but each and every one of them is dedicated to the people and the causes they care about and they support. So I celebrate the work they do. They support people with disabilities to live fulfilling lives, they help parents to parent well, they support individuals and families to live violence-free lives, they teach kids how to play sport, they support mothers to breastfeed, and they house the homeless.

Speaking of people who should be housing the homeless, has the Minister for Social Housing not had a dreadful few weeks? She has had a dreadful few weeks. First, her response to the ever-increasing homelessness issue was to offer people $5,000 to leave Auckland because there are no houses in Auckland.

💬 Hon Annette King: How much to come back?

And then, when they get to these places and they find there is no work, she offers them $3,000 to come back. So we have got this amazing homelessness loop of people leaving Auckland, coming back to Auckland, leaving Auckland, coming back to Auckland. What is her next response to homelessness? Well, she is going to pre-book some motels at the princely sum of $190 a night, which the homeless will have to actually repay. But, let us face it, when the Government does not do its job, who picks up the pieces? Who then has to take up the reins? The community sector and the NGOs do. And why does the Government not rate the NGO sector higher—why does it not?

I turned on the news the other day to find out that 750 NGO groups are due to have their contracts cut in 2 weeks—in 2 weeks’ time. Andrea Vance’s report on One News the other night said that 750 NGOs are due to have their contracts expire. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD)—

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: That is rubbish.

It is rubbish. It is complete rubbish that you would treat the NGO sector in this way. Smokefree Coalition, Minister—

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: That’s not MSD-funded.

I did not say MSD; I said 750 NGOs. Listen, Minister, it might pay you to learn some things. The Ministry of Health and MSD are cutting 750 NGOs. In 2 weeks’ time they will lose their contracts. Smokefree Coalition has worked in the smoke-free area for 20 years and has a strong commitment to New Zealand becoming smoke-free in 2025, which is a Government responsibility. That is 20 years down the drain because the Ministry of Health will not continue to fund it.

Why does this Government disregard the expertise of the sector? Why? Let us look at what happened to the Problem Gambling Foundation. The Problem Gambling Foundation had the audacity to stick its head up and say: “We have the right to advocate on behalf of the people we serve, and the Government policy isn’t matching the needs in the community.” What happened to the Problem Gambling Foundation? It had its contract cut. Let us look at how the Government uses the NGO sector to actually legitimise its own policies. The Minister for Social Housing used the name of the Salvation Army to legitimise the work that the Government was doing. Thank goodness the Salvation Army actually came out and said that it was not true.

I just want to end on one note. I want to send huge congratulations to Te Puea Marae and Manurewa Marae in South Auckland on doing what this Government should do. They are the New Zealanders who care for each other. They are the ones who have the least, who give the most. They are not motivated by profit, but they are motivated by the aroha they have for other New Zealanders, unlike this Government.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.