General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. It is a great pleasure to speak at this particular point and ask the question that is on the lips of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders every day, and it is this: what is it about the housing crisis that this Government does not get?

Unlike the Minister of Finance, I get around a lot of New Zealand and a lot of places. Just in the last couple of weeks, hundreds of people turned out at Tauranga, and hundreds turned out at Whangarei—200 at Clyde last week alone. Everywhere I go, everyone I speak to, and everywhere I look, people are saying: “Why is it this Government does not get it about the housing crisis?”. Everyone is now affected by this Government’s neglect and negligence and dereliction when it comes to housing. It is not just about the out-of-control house prices in Auckland; it is also now about rents and rentals. It is not just rent in Auckland; it is rents right across the country, as people are finding. Hard-working New Zealanders are finding they cannot afford to pay their rent any more.

What a damning statistic—that we now find just 2 weeks ago that the average working family finds that what little pay increase it got last year was almost entirely eaten up in extra housing costs. So New Zealand families last year were, on average, better off by—would you believe it—$2 a week. Just $2 a week, and that is before inflation. That is before the rising cost of food and other costs that households have to meet. No wonder we have people living no longer just in cars and garages but now in caravans. And now it turns out that schools are so desperate they are going to teach kids in caravans. I do not know what it is about this Government and caravans, and jamming people into places where they cannot live and cannot learn.

You know, this Government boasts that it is the social investment Government, and it says: “We look at figures and we look at information and we have all the best data and we make a decision that answers the problem that we see.” Well, what is it about the information about housing that this mob does not get? What is it about the one in five working New Zealanders who is now paying more than 50 percent of their take-home pay in accommodation that does not compel the Government to want to do something serious and meaningful about housing? I ask what it is about that figure about household incomes simply not keeping pace with the real rising cost of living that does not force it around that Cabinet table to say: “You know what, Nick? You’ve got to do something else. You’ve got to do something better because what is happening now is not working.” What is it about 41,000 New Zealanders—at least—who do not even have a home they can call their own that does not make the Government want to do something different?

Well, Labour is going to come to the rescue. Labour has got the plan. Labour is here and we will build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 years, and we will build the workforce to go with it, and we will work with the landowners and the property developers, and whoever else we have to, with our Affordable Housing Authority, and we will build those homes. We will get stuck into the speculators—the people who live overseas but want to own a home here because New Zealand is a fantastic place to own a home even if you do not want to live in it. We are going to get stuck into them and we are going to do what many of our counterpart countries do around the world and say: “If you want to own a home here, you build a new home.”

And then we are going to go after those who get the tax break called negative gearing and we are going to say: “You ain’t having that tax break any more.” We are going to do something about that so that first-home buyers, those struggling and striving to do what every New Zealander who has grown up believing they could do—that if they do the right things, work hard and save hard, they can buy their own home. They are going to get a look-in, for once. They are going to get a look-in, because right now there is one party that is listening to New Zealanders right across the country. Whether it is Tauranga, Whangarei, Clive, the Botanical Gardens here in Wellington—everywhere I have gone there is one party that is listening to New Zealand, and it is the Labour Party.

New Zealanders are saying: “We want our dream back. We want our kids and our grandkids to have the opportunity that we had to own our own home, to have our own place, to put down our anchors, to have a place where we can raise our children with confidence, be part of strong communities, raise a strong family, and live in the great prosperous, bounteous country that we are.” That is the Kiwi Dream. It is the Labour dream, and we are putting it in place in September this year.

I heard the most amazing revelation on breakfast TV this morning with reports that the New Zealand city with the highest rate of growth in traffic congestion is Dunedin. Would you believe that—a 28 percent increase in peak travel time. Tempting though it might be for me to rush along to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance and ask for a roads of southern significance infrastructure—I have to reflect on the fact that, actually, the impact of that is that the travel time from home to my office has gone from 6 minutes to 8 minutes.

💬 Hon Members: No!

I know, it is tough. It is really tough in paradise. But statistics can be used in many, many ways. If you want to paint a positive picture, you can; if you want to paint a negative picture you can.

The harbingers of doom and gloom and negativity have to be the Labour Party members. Here is an inconvenient truth about housing: the Auckland house prices are dropping. They have tapered off and they are now starting to drop. That happened in Christchurch 2 or 3 years ago when there was a supply crisis of a different reason that was solved by the building of houses, and there are more houses being built now in this country and in that city than at any other time in this country’s history. There are opportunities for New Zealanders to get into the housing market outside of those cities. The low interest rates, the KiwiSaver HomeStart grants, and the other issues that we have are certainly helping people into houses.

But I will give Mr Little credit for this. He is consistent on his housing message. Regardless of the reality, he continues to talk the housing message up, which is not really what he is doing on superannuation, because what he said a couple of years ago was: “If there is one thing that scares the bejesus out of me, it’s the looming cost of superannuation.” He backed that up with Mr Parker’s earlier comments that said: “I’m willing to deal with the age of eligibility for superannuation. This is not populist politics.” But the doozy for me is this: “Politics can’t be just about making decisions that anger the least number of people. It has to be about doing the right thing. Labour’s view that superannuation should be lifted is one we think needs to be phased in.” That was that new princess of the Labour Party, the anointed deputy leader, Jacinda Ardern. So it is OK to hold a message regardless of the facts on one level but also to flip and flop.

Well, here is what we did. We gave certainty to people in the toughest of times, through the global financial crisis, and then we signalled that it was time for a reset, long after Mr Peters has dispensed with his need for superannuation. It will be long after the people who are reliant on that and who do not have time to prepare for it. This is a Government that is prepared to change when the circumstances change and to make the bold decisions—decisions to increase where necessary and to invest where necessary, and we have already made some significant announcements in that regard such as 1,100 new police. It is not just a number but a place and an expectation about the way in which those fine staff will be deployed with expectations for reductions in crime in specific areas that concern the public.

There were great announcements on phase two of the Rural Broadband Initiative, and I know that is going down really, really well in places like Stuart Smith’s electorate and Todd Barclay’s electorate—

💬 Hon Jacqui Dean: And mine.

—and Jacqui Dean’s Waitaki electorate, where they are so interested and invested in making sure that they can trade and communicate and avoid the tyranny of distance that has previously been the case in some areas. That is going to be another significant development in this election year.

I also want to draw attention to some of the things that are about to happen on 1 April. We are now 2 weeks away from what I think are very, very important issues for New Zealanders—that is the increase in the minimum wage again, several times the rate of inflation, to make sure that everybody gets the benefit of a growing economy, and significant levy reductions for ACC levy payers, both workers, employers, and motor vehicle users—

💬 Tracey Martin: You people put them up and now you’re gonna take credit for lowering them.

What? There is another reinvention. There is a statistic that I have not actually seen; not only are they being interpreted but they are now being invented. This is a Government that does not shy away from the hard decisions. It has energy. It is bold. It will take ideas into this year’s campaign, and I think that is a very good thing.

What finger did that Minister lift? What hard decision did that Minister make when, in his own backyard, the Cadbury factory closes down and 360 jobs disappear from his community—not a whisper, not a mutter, not a finger lifted.

The only real surplus we see from that Government is a surplus of spin—an absolute surplus of spin. All it gives us is a surplus on a piece of paper. That is all it is worth—the paper it is written on. The surplus they keep referring to means nothing to real-world New Zealanders living week to week. New Zealanders across this country have watched for nearly a decade as that party has cut, as it has slashed, and as it has burned. Week by week, month by month, and year by year those National Party members have lost touch with real-world New Zealanders. They do not know what is going on in the real world.

That pursuit of a piece of paper surplus has meant, for example, that mental health issues have risen, suicides have risen across the board, and we still have the highest teen suicide rates in the entire world. All the while that that is happening, this Government, in the pursuit of a piece-of-paper surplus, has slashed the budget for mental health and suicide prevention. That is what a surplus means to that Government. People now see that this paper surplus has led to longer waiting lists at our hospitals, although, to be fair, you have to wait on a waiting list to get on the waiting list, because the numbers are so bad now.

Even the current promised increase in police numbers—and we have not heard anything about that lately—does not bring the level of police up to the level they were at when that Government took control and had power over the books for the Police. Even the promises do not bring us back to the start of when they took over. It is an absolute farce and it is wrong to suggest that they are doing something for our regions and people in their homes. Literally—literally—people are less safe in their homes, and drugs, especially P, have spread rampantly throughout this country.

I was informed only last week from the Police that gangs and their memberships are growing like weeds across New Zealand at historic numbers, and that comes back to our police numbers and the opportunities that those gangs now have. Across the country, station after station is closing down and the wait that people are forced to endure is getting longer. I have been told that in Northland, with the current staffing provision, even if a policeman or policewoman is dispatched immediately on a call, the wait can still be 40 minutes—40 minutes in a person’s time of crisis.

Contributions to the Cullen fund were stopped to achieve that paper surplus. The opportunity cost of that short-sighted decision has meant a loss of $22 billion to that retirement fund—$22 billion. For nearly 10 years the Government not only has done nothing about Government debt but has grown it exponentially. It now exceeds $100 billion. This National Government’s paper surplus has destroyed lives and families. It has been overshadowed by the largest debt this country has ever seen. Aucklanders are now spending 4 weeks in traffic every year. And that is because—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: How many?

Four weeks in traffic every year, because this Government just lets in the equivalent of the population of Rotorua every year and does nothing and spends no money on infrastructure. Auckland, and, actually, the rest of the country, is choking up. It is absolutely choking up. This Government needs to stop talking about its paper surplus and acknowledge the real world and real families. Bill English needs to own the fact that his—his—term of cuts has led to, and will lead to, even greater poverty not only in our homes but in our businesses. Thank you very much.

It is great to be a part of a fiscally responsible, busy Government that is future focused. In the last few months alone, our Government has announced half a billion dollars, in terms of Police; we have announced a new superannuation policy; we are delivering hundreds of millions of dollars in new schools and new roll-growth classrooms; our education budget has gone up 35 percent since 2008—and you compare this with the Opposition. I think the phrase that I would give New Zealanders is: you have got one party of substance with significant initiatives delivering for New Zealand, compared with a superficial cosmetic facelift.

I want to talk about the deputy leadership of the Labour Party. We lost Annette King. I want to acknowledge Annette King. She has been a brilliant member of Parliament. She is someone who has huge respect across the House—and we got Jacinda Ardern. Now, I have been based in Auckland Central for 8 years. I struggle to name anything that Jacinda has done. What I can say is that a great example is when Kevin Hague and I developed an adoption law reform bill. We spent a year on that bill; we put it in the ballot. Jacinda Ardern did a one-line bill telling the Law Commission to write the law for her.

On her first day in the job as deputy leader, on one of the biggest issues confronting our generation, Generation X and Generation Y—on the issue of superannuation affordability—where was she? She had made a whole lot of statements previously about the importance of raising the age, and Jacinda Ardern was nowhere to be seen. She had cut and run on the biggest issue facing our generation, and that is another example of what is a whole lot of photo ops—yes, she will be across every billboard, but she absolutely failed our generation on her first day on the job.

This is a common pattern across the Government. From our perspective we are out there announcing hard policies—Future Focus, Predator Free 2050, superannuation—looking ahead. We are incredibly busy in our third term. Then you have this Opposition that not only had a very small number of policies before but now has Andrew Little, across the country, trying to erase that small number of policies that they had. We heard the other day that he is not going to raise taxes if he becomes Prime Minister. Memo to Andrew Little: you have to form a Government—on the current numbers, which have been the numbers for the last 8 years—with the Green Party. So does anyone out there in New Zealand really believe that the Labour Party will not be raising taxes? It used to have a capital gains tax. Where has the capital gains tax gone? It has gone.

This is a Labour Party that thinks the only way that it can get into Government is to totally get rid of all of its policies and to make sure that has got some nice fancy new billboards and some photo ops—compared with a Government that is prepared to make the hard decisions, that is investing in infrastructure, and that is investing more than a third more in schools. We are doing things in terms of our most vulnerable. We have got more significant investment than ever in terms of social investment. Anne Tolley is doing a great job in terms of some of our most at-risk and vulnerable children. We have got significant reform, as I said before, in law and order. We are going to have a whole lot more police on the streets. You have got ACC reductions happening—we took that out of a very difficult situation that we were handed.

Generally, you have got a situation in terms of the Government’s books where we were staring down a decade of deficit. Now we are in surplus. You have got significant investments happening across social housing, and you have got a Labour Party—the main Opposition—that thinks the way that it can win is to have no policy, to have a superficial facelift, and to have another person on the billboards. I do want to acknowledge that this election will be fought on some of the big issues for Generation X and Generation Y, and in my view it is this side of the House that is confronting those issues and that side that is failing.

I am rising to talk about the Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. Recently, Consumer New Zealand and Horticulture New Zealand announced a poll of more than a thousand people. They found 71 percent of those polled wanted mandatory country-of-origin labelling, and only 9 percent were opposed to it—only 9 percent. In 2007 the Green Party had a 39,000-strong petition calling for mandatory country-of-origin labelling—right back then. In 2014 Russell McVeagh reported that a recent consumer survey found that 35 percent of New Zealanders then always or often considered a New Zealand - made product first, and more than 50 percent were prepared to pay a bit more for it. There is not even an issue of costing more for consumers if we go down the mandatory country-of-origin labelling path at this point. So we are after all parties in this House to support that member’s bill when it comes up next month.

Around the same time, in 2014, the seafood industry had a document Country of Origin Labelling and the New Zealand Seafood Industry. Again, most New Zealanders said they would support it: 53 percent wanted more on their labels, and 42 percent wanted more country-of-origin labelling and manufacturer information. As I say, here we are in 2017, and Consumer New Zealand and Horticulture New Zealand, which, I might add, represents 5,500 growers, find in a very reputable poll that seven out of 10 Kiwis want mandatory country-of-origin labelling. They say 65 percent of shoppers look for labelling information on fresh fruit, but less than a third always find it—just 32 percent always find that when they are looking for it—and even fewer, just 29 percent, find it on vegetables.

New Zealanders deserve to know where their food comes from, and they want to. They want to know. They want food they can trust. They want labels that they can trust. New Zealand Pork reports that almost 60 percent of the pork consumed in New Zealand at this point is imported pork, but do we see labels saying “Pork; product of Canada”, “Pork; product of Australia”, or “Pork; product of China”, or wherever? We do not. We are lucky if we see some that say “Product of New Zealand”, but consumers deserve and want to know where their food comes from. It seems to be increasing. Voluntary labelling, as is used in part by two of the main supermarket chains, is not good enough, and it is really not working. One example for me was just around the new year in a supermarket in Amberley, and it had capsicum—“Product of New Zealand/Australia/Holland”. Which country did it come from? That is voluntary labelling for you, and there are far more examples than that.

There are at least 1,000 food outlets in this country that do not have voluntary country-of-origin labelling. There are plenty of stores that do not have it. Australia has had it for years—it seems like for ever. It was in 2005 that New Zealand opted out of the Australia and New Zealand Food Authority food safety agreement in terms of this issue, country-of-origin labelling, and Australia has only strengthened it since then. It has come out with quite a new label at the moment that has at least the proportion in there. This bill is a very simple bill for single ingredients—fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, meat, grains, oils, that sort of thing. I am calling on all parties in this House to support the bill. Thank you.

It is with great pleasure that I rise to talk about this Government’s proud track record and echo the sentiments so eloquently expressed by my friend and colleague the Hon Nikki Kaye, who has bounced back with a vengeance. She absolutely nailed it when she talked about the superficial cosmetic makeover, really, that the Opposition has done by changing its front bench and having a deputy leader who has achieved almost nothing that anyone can name. This is the quality of person who is replacing Annette King, who has served loyally and well, and that is the punishment that she gets for doing what she has done. To me, that appointment and the nonsensical “Angry Andrew” diatribe that began this debate characterises why it is that Labour is lost in the wilderness. It does not have a hope. It does not have policies. It does not have people who can enact them. It is a waste of space as an Opposition, and then it joins forces with the Greens. So we have a double-whammy of ineffectiveness.

Rather than dwell on the nonsense that we have been hearing and the lack of substance, I would like to talk in my call about the significant progress that this Government is making. At-risk children and family violence: the work that has been done in this area—and I commend my colleague the Hon Anne Tolley, who has worked extremely hard with Amy Adams to do what no Government has done before, and that is to bring together a very large group of Ministers, ministries, and officials to really look hard at the fabric and substance of what we can do to deliver in an area that has really become more and more of a problem. I know from my own seniors portfolio that the reported cases of elder abuse and then social isolation are really the thin end of the wedge; we really need to be able to address them, and we are doing that.

We are knowing and identifying that family and sexual violence affects children. It affects people of all ages and stages, including the elderly. It has devastating impacts on individuals, their families, and communities. Family violence, it is estimated, costs New Zealand more than $4 billion a year, and the total annual cost of sexual violence crime is estimated at about $1.8 billion. These are serious problems, for which we have policies, new ministries, and different ways of addressing. I think that the work that we have done will change the face of New Zealand, and make it a much safer place for all New Zealanders.

In superannuation, with the changes that have been signalled, I am very proud to be part of a Government that is supporting older New Zealanders, treating them with respect and understanding that they expect and are entitled to only too well—a level of support that we need to be able to give them and guarantee that we can give in perpetuity to our older New Zealanders. By gradually increasing the retirement age from 2037 from 65 to 67 years of age, we will much more fairly spread the costs and the benefits of superannuation between generations. It is something that we have heard and we have acknowledged. We are giving people the opportunity and the time to plan ahead and to adjust. This will of course not affect anyone born before 30 June 1972.

We have a very strong track record, as a Government, in the past 8 years, of supporting our superannuitants. The weekly payments have increased by 35 percent after tax, while inflation has increased by 14 percent. We are very much committed to the universal nature of New Zealand superannuation. We will keep it pegged to 66 percent of the average wage, which—under the great work that was done by our now Prime Minister and is being carried on by our Minister of Finance, Steven Joyce—is making this a strong economy, so that we are able to continue to deliver. And the average wage will rise, and with it, superannuation entitlements. As well as that, we are not means testing. We are ensuring that our senior New Zealanders are well looked after.

Some of the things that have been exciting me, as the Minister of Conservation, are around Predator Free 2050, which I would like to dwell on as a final part here. Tomorrow, the Prime Minister and I will go to Dunedin to sign a memorandum of understanding with that city, along with Wellington, along with Picton, and along with a lot of communities around New Zealand that are now embracing the vision that by 2050 we will be rid of the top three pests: rats, stoats, and possums. We are addressing other pests as well; the war on weeds is going very well. We are trying to ensure that kauri dieback is addressed, along with other real threats to our conservation and to the glorious landscape that, I think, as New Zealanders, we all identify with strongly and feel proud of. Predator Free 2050 is at the heart of it. It is a vision that is being embraced throughout the country, and I am proud that our leader, the new Prime Minister, has such faith in it as well, and that cities around New Zealand are embracing it. Thank you.

I am very delighted to rise and speak today after my colleague the Hon Maggie Barry, and what she has talked about is very significant for New Zealand’s future. It is always a good thing—it is a great thing, actually—when external reviewers can back up what you have been saying for some time. That means that people who are objective and who are outside of whatever system you operate in can verify through their external measures the validity of your statements.

Just toward the end of last year New Zealand was ranked first in the world in 2016 by the Legatum Institute’s global prosperity index. That means that this nation and this Government have been transforming our national income into social gains, effectively and efficiently, better than anyone else. That is what the external reviewers said. They covered 149 nations, totalling over more than 104 different measures. This is their quote—this is what they said. They said that New Zealand has been the best deliverer of prosperity in the world for the last decade, and so strong is its prosperity delivery that it ranks first in the prosperity index above 26 countries with greater wealth at their disposal. Twenty-six countries have more money per capita than this nation, yet we surpass them all in terms of prosperity of our citizens. That is because this Government is efficient, this Government is effective, and this Government has great policy settings that benefit the people of this nation.

We determined to have better public services for our people. We determined that the end user, in a sense, the general public, is going to receive the greatest benefit of what this Government is able to produce. The institute said that there are challenges in the world. We know that Donald Trump wants to make America great again. The truth is that American prosperity has stagnated over the last decade, and even countries that were less badly affected by the financial crisis, like Australia, have seen prosperity decline over the past decade.

That is why many New Zealanders are coming back from Australia, into New Zealand. They see that this is a country where they can get ahead, where they can find employment, and where they can find a future for themselves and their families. New Zealand’s vital signs of health are strong. We are rated first in the world for prosperity, first in the world for ease of doing business, first equal for anti-corruption, and second for quality of government, and we intend to make that a first.

We are on track to reduce Government debt to around 20 percent of GDP by 2020, when we can then resume contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. We were one of the first developed countries to get back into surplus after the global financial crisis with a $1.8 billion surplus posted last year. As the Hon Michael Woodhouse said, on 1 April we are seeing the minimum wage increase and we are seeing ACC levies decrease. That is more benefit. That is more money in the back pocket of hard-working New Zealanders. This Government is proud of that. We want to see the benefit come through to our people.

Prosperity is a state of being wealthy, of having a rich and a full life. Let me just bring some quotes that have come out in this last week that give us the reason why New Zealand is increasingly becoming a prosperous place. We have the provisional result of 85.2 percent of 18-year-olds achieving NCEA level 2 or equivalent in 2016, which is an overall lift in achievement of 11 percent since 2011. We are doing far better in our educational achievement than ever before. So that is congratulations to students, to teachers, and to parents on the hard work that they are doing.

But the standout achievements in Māori and Pasifika communities have to be noted. An estimated 74.7 percent of Māori achieved NCEA level 2 or equivalent—up from 57 percent. It is a 30 percent lift. In the Pasifika community it is a 22 percent lift. We know that higher educational achievements are very much part of the pathway of success for people as they come into employment and a lifelong career in the workforce. In my closing remarks I say that this Government is doing a great job for New Zealanders, and the world sees it.

What a great couple of speeches we have heard—firstly from the Hon Maggie Barry and now from my colleague Jonathan Young, who have made contributions to this debate.

This time last week my electorate of the Coromandel was being drenched by one of the most severe rain weather events that the region has had to succumb to for many, many long years. This time last week there were houses that were in jeopardy, slips were occurring, roads were closed, and there was a lot of surface flooding around the region. Farmers were having to put up with moving stock. There was some very serious concern that the weather would continue over the weekend, and that the situation would get worse.

This time last week most of the emergency first responders—who are almost always, in my part of the world, volunteers—were out around the electorate, ensuring that people, property, and communities were safe during a very stressful weather event. I just want to acknowledge the contribution of all of those people who assisted last week—the civil defence people, the contractors, and the people from the New Zealand Defence Force, who were ready, willing, and able to assist, should we have needed them. I also acknowledge the very good work of the district councils, the regional council, and of course private citizens who went about their work of supporting each other—neighbours supporting neighbours, communities supporting communities—and showing the very best of what the Coromandel has to offer, even in adverse weather conditions.

I have been talking to the Minister for Primary Industries, the Hon Nathan Guy, because I am very aware that there are a number of farms in the Coromandel that have suffered an impact that is beyond normal weather event impacts, and there is some serious work yet to be done. So I am hopeful that the Minister, who will be visiting some of the flood-affected areas today, will be in a position to get a first-hand view of what the situation is on the ground and apply himself to the situation that those people find themselves in.

This is a National Government that I am very proud to be a member of. It is doing terrific things for regional, rural, and provincial New Zealand. In my electorate of the Coromandel there are several terrific examples of how this is impacting in a positive, tangible, real, and meaningful way that brings positive change to people in my communities.

Just yesterday the Minister of Transport was able to confirm that the New Zealand Transport Agency has committed to a long-awaited, much-wanted, and much-needed bypass on State Highway 2, through the very beautiful and important township of Katikati. This is going to be part of a $520 million roading safety improvement package for my region. I see the member for the Bay of Plenty, my colleague Todd Muller, nodding. This roading improvement will go through my electorate, through Waihī, through Katikati, through the Bay of Plenty electorate, and into Tauranga. It will strengthen roading networks, make them safer, and make them better for the people who use those roads and who live in those communities. That is a very, very welcome decision by this Government, which is committed to rural and provincial New Zealand and ensuring that good outcomes are achieved for people in those communities.

Another excellent example of the commitment that this Government has to rural and provincial communities can be further demonstrated in my electorate by the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband to 13 Coromandel communities over the next several years. It will be starting in Thames, literally in a few weeks’ time. The roll-out of ultra-fast broadband will be crucial in changing the way people’s lives are lived in electorates like mine. So in communities like Pāuanui, Tairua, Whitianga, Thames, Ngātea, Te Aroha, and Katikati what it will mean is that once we have ultra-fast fibre connected to those sorts of townships there will be an opportunity for a resurgence of economic activity. Those towns that were, only a few months ago, being labelled by pessimistic, narrow-minded economists as “zombie towns” will actually prove to be successful in a way that those pessimistic people could never have imagined.

This is a Government that is doing great things for rural and provincial New Zealand. I am very proud and pleased to be part of a Government that has such a clear focus. This is a good Government, doing great work.

The last time that Labour was in Government we ran nine straight surpluses. Every single year that Labour was in Government, the Government was in surplus. We used those surpluses not only to invest in stronger, better public services, but also we started the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—known, of course, as the Cullen fund because it was Michael Cullen who started it—so that the Government could start saving for the future.

We also started KiwiSaver, with the incentives to get Kiwis into KiwiSaver so that they could start saving for their future themselves. And, of course, we got Government debt down to zero in net terms. That was one of the most important things that we could have done, because it was golden weather, economically. The global economy was doing well, and it was important that we did things to make sure that the Government and the country were in a good position to weather the storm when it came.

And when it came, the global financial crisis, it hit hard. But New Zealand fared well because the Clark Government, with Michael Cullen, had put New Zealand into a position where we could fare well. So even though the Government ran deficits, and even though the Government has racked up a level record of debt, it started from such a good position that now that the global economy has turned and the good times have come back again, it is in a position to actually make some choices, now that it is back into surplus.

Those choices are important. But what is this Government choosing to do? Is it choosing to save for the future by investing in the Cullen fund? No. Is it choosing to make sure that our health services are actually able to respond to the needs of ordinary Kiwis, so that people can afford to go to the GP, so that people can get their elective surgery in a timely manner, and so that we have mental health services that actually respond to the level of need that exists out in our communities? Is the Government doing that? No. Is it investing in our education system? Is it dealing with the ballooning class sizes? Is it dealing with the fact that parents are paying more in so-called “donations” than they have ever had to before? Is it dealing with the fact that our education system is stretched to breaking point? No, it is not doing that either.

What about housing? Is it dealing with the housing crisis? Can the Government members even bring themselves to say the words “housing crisis”? Do they accept that we have the lowest rate of homeownership in 60 years? Do they accept that the cost of renting is ballooning completely out of control, that we have families living in cars, that we have families living in garages, and that we have people sleeping under bridges? Are they prepared to invest in housing to deal with any of those issues? No, because this Government does not make choices that are in the interests of ordinary working people in New Zealand.

The only thing this Government wants to do, now that the surpluses have returned, is to cut taxes. The one-trick National Government pony knows how to do only one thing, and that is to cut taxes for the rich, because, let us be honest, it does not cut taxes for ordinary people. The last time it cut taxes—the income tax cuts—the majority of those went to the people at the very top. What did the Government do at the same time? Well, it increased GST, it hiked up ACC levies unnecessarily, it hiked up fuel tax, and it went ducking down the back of the sofa to tax the poor paper boys, to find every last cent it could to tax the poor so that it could give more money to its rich mates.

Those are the choices that the National Government makes. So now, when it has choices, when it has an opportunity to invest in health, in housing, in education, and to get the country saving for the future again—so that we will have universal superannuation when people who are my age get to retirement—is the Government making those long-term investment decisions? No. This is short-termism, and the Government is interested only in what it can do for its rich mates. Well, that is what people have come to expect from that Government. What people have come to expect from this side is the kind of leadership that Andrew Little offers: strong, stable, and dependable. He is focused on the issues that matter: health, housing, education, and investing in the future. That is what Labour stands for, and that is what Labour will do when we are in Government after 23 September.

I would like to bring things back a little bit more locally. It has been my pleasure this week to host an exhibition in Bowen House by Kaikōura artists Jane Riley, Wendy Smith, Susie Baker, and Karen James. It is called Kaikōura—Mountains to Sea. A lot of the artworks were actually inspired by the earthquake, and my personal favourite is the one with the supermoon rising over the warships, which was something to see. So I urge members to take some time out and go and have a look, because you will be really impressed.

I also want to talk a little bit about the small township of Waiau, which will not be known to many people. There are only 300 people living in Waiau, but there are 26 red-stickered homes in Waiau, so it is a significant proportion of the housing stock in that area. It is really where the epicentre of what has become known as the Kaikōura earthquake was—that is actually where the epicentre was, right under Waiau—and that has had a significant impact on that very small community. It is a great community, and those people are really trying to pick themselves up. But it is going to be a long winter in Central Canterbury, and inland from there, and it will be quite tough for some. So I just remind people about that going on there.

To move on to more positive things—or the reinstatement of State Highway 1—I would like to bring members up to date with what is happening there. There has been an awful lot of misinformation about what is going on. The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) and the North Canterbury Transport Infrastructure Recovery Alliance people are doing a fantastic job on the road. I admit their comms have not been that fantastic, but the job that is being done there is phenomenal.

I have to say, a couple of weeks ago I was there watching the sluicing on one of the major slips, which is 300 metres, or 1,000 feet, high. They had a series of helicopters sluicing up on that hill. The rocks coming down from there are phenomenal when you see them rolling down the hill, and the engineer told me that they have calculated that a 400-millimetre rock would take out a fully protected digger from that height, so it is incredibly dangerous. They have people sitting up on the top of the hill and they have people down on the beach—out the rocks, as far out as they can get them—when they are working below these slips, and if they see any movement on the side of the hill, then all the work stops. It is that sort of precaution. It is not health and safety gone mad, as some people would say; it is absolutely essential. If it was your family involved there, you would expect nothing less, and I think they have gone to extreme lengths.

I have heard people say that they are not working long hours. Well, I stayed in a Cheviot motel the other day, and the first alliance ute leaving to work on the site left at 5 o’clock in the morning. The first helicopter goes up at half past 6 in the morning to survey the site, to see what has changed overnight, and things do change overnight. A little bit of rain makes a tremendous difference. Rocks are hooked up in some scrub that is dying—there is a huge risk factor there.

Look, this is a disaster on that road, and we know that. We have got to look forward to what the opportunities are, and there are opportunities. I wrote some time ago about establishing the Coastal Pacific Trail, a cycle and walking trail going from Ship Cove all the way to Cathedral Square. That, I think, has really got a lot of potential for New Zealand. There is a group started in Marlborough that is working really hard on that, and I am urging the NZTA, when it reinstates parts of the road, to include a provision for a trail. As anyone who has driven along that road will know, it had a lot of really tight places where, despite cyclists being very brave, it was quite a dangerous situation—mixing cycles with trucks and cars. But that will be up and running by Christmas-time—in December—which will be a phenomenal achievement.

I am trying to urge the television channels to document it a little bit better than they are. This is a phenomenal civil engineering project, which is going to be completed by December, and we should be documenting it as it goes on. It is changing every week. There is phenomenal progress being made. I really tip my hat to those people.

All of the rail freight that was being transported by rail from Picton to Christchurch is now going by sea.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: No, it’s not.

Yes, it is. In fact, the coastal shipping has picked up all of it. Truck counts at Waipara show quite clearly that the truck movements are only slightly up on what they were last year—a phenomenal effort by coastal shipping. I take this opportunity to say to Kaikōura, kia kaha. Thank you.

Can I begin my contribution by acknowledging the member Stuart Smith and his constituents in the Kaikōura quakes. I wish he would stop copying Canterbury—first you had the quakes, and now you have had fires as well. It is a really hard time for you people, and you have got a lot of support from Canterbury. So I support the concluding comments that you made.

I also want to acknowledge other members of the house: Scott Simpson, Andrew Bayly, David Cunliffe, and Carmel Sepuloni, because they have been through terrible times in their electorates with floods. It is a hard thing, as a representative member of Parliament, to know what your constituents are going through, so I am sure that our thoughts are with those four as well.

We are heading into the election, and there is a bit of a tinge of nastiness that is creeping into the House. I just say that I actually do not think that New Zealand parliamentarians should bother going down that path. We should be better than that, and I am really disappointed with some of the contributions that I have heard today. We can debate on the basis of policy and facts, we can debate on different value sets and different beliefs, and as soon as we start sliding into the gutter, people turn off. I hope they turn off the people who use that approach to debating politics, and I hope their vote count is reduced on 23 September. We will face a very different choice in the leadership of our Government. We will have either a National-led Government or a Labour-led Government. We will have either a leader in Andrew Little, or a follower in Bill English. We will have very different policies and very different priorities pursued, depending on who wins the election and gets the privilege of leading the Government.

At the moment, National is teasing the public with vague promises—getting a little more concrete as we go along—of tax cuts. I have seen the tax cuts introduced by National in the past. I watched in 2009 when National cut the tax take for the highest-income New Zealanders—not the people who actually work really hard and do not get very much money, but the people who possibly work really hard and get a huge amount of money. They paid less tax as a result of National’s 2009 Budget. And National increased the rate of GST. Having had a firm promise from the then Prime Minister, John Key, that there would be no change in the rate of GST, it was increased. Who pays the price of an increase in GST? It is a regressive tax, so the lowest income earners pay a much higher price for an increase in GST. That is what National did, and that is what it is likely to do at the same time.

I remember that Budget for another thing: in that Budget, National cut the home support hours for older New Zealanders. Tax cuts for the wealthiest, an increase in GST, and a cut in home support for older people. How is that for priorities? They are not priorities that I share. They are not the values that I share. I do not think that is where we should be putting taxpayers’ money or our support.

National cannot be trusted to support low and middle income earners. Its track record is just appalling. It has totally short-sighted policies—short-term gain—and refuses to look out to the future and invest now in what we need for a better future for all New Zealanders. These are things like investing in our housing stock—quality affordable housing—so that New Zealanders who are our children’s and grandchildren’s age will be able to do as we did: work hard, save hard, and buy a house. That is off the agenda for a huge number of New Zealanders now. Even Gareth Morgan—who might have a few spare dollars—said he was not confident that his grandchildren will be able to afford to buy a house.

For 8 years—8 long years—under National we have had not one single contribution to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, the fund that was set up under a Labour-led Government so that we would have money put aside to help pay for superannuation in the future. What has National said? “Oh, we’ll just put the age up.” So the generation who have paid for their tertiary education, who have not been able to afford a house—half of whom did not get an increase in their wages last year—will now have to work 2 years longer before they are entitled to superannuation.

That is not a fair society. That is not a Government planning to make New Zealand more equitable—to give everybody an opportunity to contribute to their best. I want our priorities to be values based. I want a Prime Minister who is a strong leader. I am looking forward to a change in Government on 23 September.

We do have a strong Prime Minister; his name is Bill English. I would like to concur with the previous speaker, Ruth Dyson, about keeping the tinge of nastiness out of the debate for the next 6 months. I think that is a really good idea, and I totally support that, Ms Dyson.

Look, our leader is a leader. He is not a follower; he is actually a visionary. I want to talk to the prior speaker, as well, Mr Lees-Galloway, about his comments about us National members having no investment in people. Well, our leader, Prime Minister Bill English, has a great programme of social investment going, and that is totally about investment with people. If you actually can imagine, this is taking the 5 to 7-year-olds, now, who are most at risk and wrapping the services around them. We can now do that because we have actually invested in getting the data process together, we have got technology on board, and we can identify those people—and Mrs Tolley will be able to add weight to this conversation.

It is identifying them, wrapping the services around them, and asking: is it health? Is it family violence? Is it social housing? Is it a learning disability? What is it that is wrong with these young people and what is it that we all need to do to support them and wrap around them so they do not become the next people in corrections and the next people who are being dealt with by our police? So if that is not social investment and investing in people, I do not know what is.

Also, we had Ms Dyson talking about this Government being short-sighted. We have actually just had conversations in the last 10 days about superannuation, and everyone is telling us it is too far out in the future. Everyone is telling us that we are shifting the rules on another generation. Well, we went through a generation where the age was 60—it went to 65. It just happens that, in 60 years, 12 years have been added to the age that people live to. So the age expectancy is getting higher and higher and higher. I know that. I have just had a grandmother turn 100 years old in the last 6 months. That was a fantastic occasion.

People are living longer and it is a matter of facing up to the realities. We have got to front up and face up to what is happening. We are also getting better diagnostics, we are getting better medicines, and we are getting better ways of giving people better quality of life as they live longer, so they will continue to live longer. At some point we have to bite the bullet and afford those things.

We are about looking into the future and we are about taking action. I have also heard a previous speaker, Scott Simpson, talking this afternoon about regional provincial New Zealand. In his electorate—we face a lot of the same issues, and one of them, which he talked about today, is ultra-fast broadband. I can see it: as we get the ultra-fast broadband rolling out—12 towns in that last announcement were in my electorate—people then see it as more of a choice to come and live in rural provincial New Zealand. Young people can pick up their phones and they can do exactly what they do in the city—they are connected up. It is really important that we do that so we can see some of our smaller towns becoming vibrant. What I am seeing in my electorate is my small provincial towns not turning into zombie towns. There is actually growth and there is life in those towns, and long may it continue.

The other thing that has been announced this year is around policing. It has been a struggle for some of our communities and some of our police. I was out in Te Awamutu with the then Minister of Police, the Hon Judith Collins, when our own Te Awamutu Police Station had been broken into. We were talking about policing numbers, and I am absolutely thrilled that the plan is to have 95 percent of New Zealanders no further than 25 kilometres from a police presence. I want to reiterate that that is a presence not a station. I think that is really important. Part two of that is that there is going to be a new phone number developed—we have got 111 now for emergencies. To try to get a hold of a small police station is quite difficult because the police officers are out and about. So there is new number being developed so that people can always ring the police and always get a response on the new number. I think that is a really commendable process, and it is something that is really important for our communities because they want to feel safer. Now they are getting connected and safer, the roads are improving, and there are so many big things happenings. It is my pleasure to be part of a strong National-led Government.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.