General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. One of the hallmarks of a political party that seeks the privilege of being in Government is that it needs to demonstrate that it is enthusiastic and that it is energetic about leading the country. Last night I thought we saw a very good example of that at the conclusion of the 15-hour Budget debate, in what was, essentially, a vote of confidence in the Government. On this side of the House the benches were full to overflowing. It looked like the north stand at Eden Park on test day, whereas, on the other side of the House, it looked like Maidstone Park No. 4 on a windswept Saturday afternoon. Opposition members looked about as enthusiastic about being there as they would have done on a horizontal-rain day at Maidstone Park.

Why would they have that sort of enthusiasm? Not even their leader, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Little, could be bothered to complete his allotted time in the Budget debate. He could not wait to get out the door. He could not leave fast enough, because he knew he was on a hiding to nothing, thanks to a very, very good Budget 2017.

Let us go through some of the many highlights. I want to reinforce the issue of Vote Health, which has the highest vote increase in that vote for a very, very long time—$3.9 billion over 4 years, with $879 million in this year alone. I have got some advice for the Opposition spokesman on health. Dr Clark might know a little bit about existential philosophy, but I have to say his maths is absolutely appalling. A very large increase in Vote Health, which may nevertheless have been less than what the profligate Labour spenders would have invested, is not a cut. It is a substantial investment, and it is a targeted investment in the areas that have the most benefit.

Mr Robertson caught that bug as well with research and development, when he said on the TV that the Budget was silent on R & D—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Oh, this is the Rob Hosking article.

—when he knows—well, Mr Hosking actually got the memo, did he not, because there was a quadrupling—

💬 Grant Robertson: He did get the memo, because he’s definitely with you.

Well, he read the Budget, for a start, which was a great deal more than the Opposition finance spokesperson did. There was a quadrupling in the Marsden Fund and a doubling of Innovative New Zealand.

On the Family Incomes Package, of course, Mr Robertson went to great pains to try to slice and dice this and to portray it as a tax cut for the rich, when nothing could be further from the truth. Mr Joyce last night summed it up when he said: “This is a family incomes package.” We have heard examples of where some of our more vulnerable families in high-cost housing areas will be receiving more than $150 a week as a consequence of this Budget. The Greens understood it. New Zealand First understood it and supported the legislation that would give effect to that, but Labour did not get the memo.

You would think that Mr Robertson, after having had so long to think about an alternative tax policy and an alternative incomes package—8½ years to come up with a coherent alternative to this Government’s plan, and what has he got? Labour is going to give us a review. It is going to go into Government—that is its plan—and it is going to review tax policy. After 8½ years of thinking about it, Labour members still come up with no independent thought about what a tax plan could be. I actually—call me suspicious—think they have a plan; they just do not want to campaign on it. It is that typical Labour tax plan: raise taxes and spend more of other people’s money.

On housing—$100 million for the Crown Land Programme and a couple of hundred million dollars for social housing. We are seeing the benefits of the many things that this Government is doing in respect of increasing supply and reducing house price inflation, no thanks to Labour—no thanks to Labour—which opposes every measure that this Government is taking. It opposed Point England. It opposed Three Kings. It talks about housing supply, but it cannot bring itself to support this Government’s initiatives.

I have got some advice, I think, for that party, which aspires to be in Government. My advice to it is this: just do exactly what you are doing now, because if that is the case, then I think the New Zealand public will know very clearly who has the enthusiasm, who has the energy, and who has the ideas to continue to lead this country. This side, on Budget confidence, will always look like the north stand at Eden Park.

It was Hubert Humphrey, the former Vice-President of the United States, who said that the moral test of a Government is how it treats those in the dawn of life, how it treats those in the twilight of life, and how it treats those in the shadows of life—the sick and the needy. Any New Zealander who read on Sunday the story of the boarding houses of New Zealand, and asked themselves the question as to whether the Government of today is meeting the moral test of looking after those in the dawn of life, the twilight of life, and the shadows of life, they would have seen a massive failure.

Julia Alatina is 18 months old. She lives, to describe it as it is in the article, in a “shoebox-sized room” on a “foam mattress”. She lives there with fleabites. She lives there with her whole family, wondering whether they will be able to get through the night and whether they will avoid the violence that is around her. A psychologist said this about Julia’s life: “Living this way really denigrates the dignity of a person; it touches everything—their health, psychology, education, and employment. When you sleep in a room infested with cockroaches and fleas, surrounded by parties and fights each night, how can you be in the right mind frame for school the next morning? … Where’s the space, even, to do your homework?”

That is the reality of life for an 18-month-old. Is that the dignity that we want to offer New Zealanders today? In a country that is relatively wealthy—a country that has prosperity—there is a Government today that says that is acceptable. When that question was put to Bill English today, when his moral leadership was tested today by Andrew Little about what should happen for Julia Alatina, he said it is the Auckland Council’s fault. That is what he said today. That is not leadership. If he is not ready to lead on that, move over, because Andrew Little is ready to lead on that, and the Labour Party is ready to lead on that. David Bennett thinks it is more important that he gets a tax cut than it is that Julia Alatina gets a safe place to live. That is the moral code of David Bennett and the National Government—that it is OK for New Zealanders to live in squalid conditions, while he gets a tax cut.

Once upon a time the National Government told us that it was ambitious for New Zealand. Well, I will tell you what. I am ambitious for every New Zealander to live a life of dignity, a life with security, and a life with hope. Right now, today, tens of thousands of New Zealanders are living without those three things. If we go to any suburb in Auckland at the moment we will see homeless people, we will see people in boarding houses, living exactly those kinds of lives that I have just been describing.

What we are ambitious for, on this side of the House, is that every New Zealander gets security and opportunity. It will not happen with the tired, out-of-touch National Government. We need a fresh approach that says that after 9 years of poor moral leadership it is time for this country to take a new path. That is one where we say collectively that we understand it is our job as leaders in New Zealand to give every child the same shot at success that we would wish for our children and our grandchildren. Government members cannot stand up in this House today and say that Julia Alatina is getting that kind of shot at success.

A Labour Government will prioritise investment in quality housing, in healthcare that everybody can access, and an education system that gives Julia that chance. We will prioritise that over tax cuts for wealthy New Zealanders. That is what this election will fundamentally be about—the moral test of a Government. I am proud that Labour Party members know where Labour stands when it comes to providing lives of dignity, security, and hope. The National Government has failed Julia Alatina. It is time for a change of Government.

I want to congratulate the Hon Steven Joyce on his first Budget for this National Government and, in particular, I want to focus for just a moment on the Government’s $2 billion per year Family Incomes Package, which will make changes to tax thresholds, changes to Working for Families, and changes to the accommodation supplement that will help Kiwi families get ahead. Yes, we are for a brighter future for all New Zealanders.

The package increases the $14,000 income tax threshold to $22,000, and the $48,000 tax threshold to $52,000. Those are significant changes that will mean money in the pockets of New Zealanders. The family tax credit rates for young children increase for those children aged 16 to 18. That is significant for New Zealand families. The accommodation supplement maximum amount is rising to reflect 2016 rents and makes some changes to accommodation supplement errors. Those are significant changes. Those are for the benefit of New Zealand families.

I want to talk today about New Zealand business and the impact that this Budget has had on New Zealand business. But what do other people in the business world have to say about our Budget? Moody’s commented: “New Zealand’s budget … demonstrates very strong public finances, underpinned by ongoing fiscal discipline and robust economic growth prospects, providing the government with significant fiscal flexibility to buffer potential shocks.”

Well, I believe that the biggest risk to our economy is Labour, New Zealand First, and the Green Opposition, because as a small, open economy the biggest risk to New Zealand’s economic outlook is rising protectionism, closing down international borders, preventing us from selling our products on the world stage. Unfortunately, we see that thinking all across the Opposition. They are renouncing free trade. They want to slash immigration. We have employers who cannot find good workers, and that has got a direct impact on productivity. They want to increase barriers rather than backing our exporters and backing our businesses to succeed. But we want to support small business, and we do.

The Budget outlines the strong economic performance of New Zealand, especially compared with other countries, with growth at over 3 percent and 200,000 more people in work compared with 3 years ago. Our books are in surplus. We are investing in public services. We are investing in infrastructure. We have a strong and stable Government, and that is what allows business, and, in particular, small business, to survive.

I want to talk about Callaghan Innovation. There is more budget into Callaghan Innovation this year—$14.5 million invested into making business grow, to provide mentoring workshops, information, and advice on funding to New Zealand businesses to help them to grow.

I want to talk about Topflite Seeds, based in Ōāmaru, North Otago, which took advantage of training vouchers from Callaghan Innovation and has grown, over the course of 5 years, from a woolshed-based birdseed operation to now supplying all around New Zealand—hugely, hugely successful.

I want to talk about the boatbuilding company I visited in Whanganui—metal boat fabricators. Brian and Jodi have exported six emergency response boats to the United Arab Emirates. It was a huge, huge contract for them. When I congratulated them on becoming exporters, they went: “Yes, I suppose we are.” Guess what? They want to keep on exporting their products out into the world, because they know that that is how we will be successful. This is just one of the many small businesses that get on with doing what they do best, knowing that they have a Government that supports them, knowing that they have a Government that will provide the right economic conditions—a stable Government, for them to get on doing what they do best, productivity, jobs for themselves, and prosperity for all New Zealand. Thank you, Steven Joyce, for a great Budget.

Our outdated drug laws need to change. Now is the time that we should be legalising cannabis and making medicinal cannabis available to those who need it, and not at a cost of over a thousand dollars a month—that is ridiculous. If we want to minimise the harm associated with drug use we should treat it as a health issue, because that is what it is. It is not a criminal issue. Looking at the National members sitting in the House right now, you would think that they had not realised that the Law Commission delivered a report on this very issue nearly 7 years ago, recommending a fundamental change to our drug laws, so that we treat it as a health issue, not a criminal issue.

Criminalising cannabis has not stopped it from being widely used. It just makes more harm, by making people criminals. It is ridiculous. The New Zealand Drug Foundation estimates that between 2007 and 2011, which is 4 years, we spent $60 million on imprisoning people for minor drug convictions. What happens after that? How are those people supposed to turn their lives around, after spending that time in prison? That does not even include the amount of money that was spent on police, on courts, on everything else. An amount of $15 million a year could go a long way to helping people with drug issues, and the last thing we should be doing is locking up people for minor offences, when the activity they are engaging in does not even cause harm to themselves or anyone else.

I know it will come as a huge surprise to National members sitting opposite, but these laws were never evidence-based in the first place. If you go back, in the 1930s medicinal cannabis was being prescribed by doctors in New Zealand. It was actually international pressure, pushed by completely uninformed bureaucrats—very ideologically driven bureaucrats from the United States—that forced New Zealand to change the law and impose the drug law we have today, which is horribly, horribly out of date.

I know the Green Party is usually a little too far ahead of its time, and certainly way ahead of this National Government. The reality is that the evidence has shown we were right about climate change. The evidence has shown we were right about a capital gains tax when we argued for it in 2002. The evidence has shown we were right about public transport, and now pretty much everyone—even the people voting for the National Party—understand that the only way to solve Auckland’s transport problems is to invest in public transport. Above all, evidence has shown that the Green Party was right about drug law reform. We have been leading on cannabis law reform for a quarter of a century now.

💬 Hon David Bennett: Yeah, that is why you never got in.

Yeah, a few decades ago people were laughing about it, but now look who is out of date. New Zealand is decades behind other jurisdictions, which are demonstrating that treating drug abuse and use as a health issue is far more effective at reducing the harms associated with it. Nearly half of the states in the United States—more than half the population live in states where medicinal cannabis is now legal, or cannabis itself is legal for recreational use. Portugal has taken a completely health-based approach to regulating drugs, and I have to commend the Hon Peter Dunne for recommending that we adopt that same approach here in New Zealand.

It is really unfortunate that 15 years ago the Hon Peter Dunne, as part of his supply and confidence agreement, actually blocked progress on drug law reform, which many people had been advocating for. But I am happy to say that, 15 years later, now that he is the Minister responsible, he has seen the evidence and he is trying to get this Government to take some baby steps in the direction of an approach that would actually help New Zealanders.

But it is not good enough. The minuscule moves in this direction are not going to help the very sick New Zealanders who could really benefit from being able to use cannabis to relieve their pain or their nausea or to help with sleeping. The reality is, and the evidence shows, that cannabis has very low side effects—much lower than the opiate-based pain relief that they are being prescribed. Yet the medicinal cannabis products that are available to them cost over a thousand dollars a month.

This graph shows that cannabis has a far lower chance of dependency and risk of side effects than many other substances that are legal. The Green Party will continue to lead on this issue, and we will make drug law reform a priority because we know it will benefit all New Zealanders. It is time—it is time—to legalise cannabis. Thank you.

I did not think that we could get any more gifts than we got from the Green Party, but that speech from Julie Anne Genter was just up there. They are talking about legalising cannabis. The one thing that the Green Party walked away from in the last two elections, because it knew that the New Zealand public would not support it, was to legalise cannabis. Now we hear it is back on the Green Party agenda. The best part of that speech was to see the face of the Rt Hon Winston Peters when he saw what a potential coalition partner of his was going to be doing, and that is to legalise cannabis. The gifts keep coming from the Green Party. Let us give them more time in this House to tell us what they would actually do for New Zealand, because it is madness, what will come out of the Green Party. Everybody knows that, the public knows that, and that is why it has never been given the mantle of Government.

But the Green Party is not as bad as the Labour Party. The Labour Party—we had Grant Robertson come in here, and he spoke like a true academic: “It’s about my moral compass. It’s about, you know,” all these things that academics, left-wing—get in the real world. Go out there, get a job, and let us not be in a world where we have been paid for through our whole lifetime to sit behind a desk and tell other people what they think. That is what Mr Grant Robertson was all about today. It was all this left-wing waffle about how Labour is going to save the world, save everything. We have got the saviours of the world in the Labour Party, who are holier-than-thou and have no understanding of practicality or reality. When there is money going into the hands of New Zealanders, they vote against it. When there is money going into the hands of the people most in need, they vote against it—not once; they have done this a couple of times now while we have been in Government. The Labour Party does not care about New Zealanders. It cares only about its academic vitriol in this House.

But it gets worse. It gets worse. We have got a New Zealand First member who is going to stand up soon. They are going to be next up here, and they are going to be saying it is all the fault of the migrants. That is what it is going to be. That is what New Zealand First is going to be saying. At the same time, that party is going around the country trying to pander to every migrant group, trying to get votes off them. That is what is going happen. That is the next speech we are going to hear. It will be: “Oh, migrants are causing the problem in housing.” Well, we do not need to go back to 1955. We do not need to be a Trump-like party of New Zealand politics that is against trade, that is against having an open, free country, and that is against having New Zealanders attain and go for their strengths. That is what you would get out of New Zealand First. Those members have actually got the brains trust now confiding—the four of them are getting together. Poor old “Ronnie” Mark is not there, is he, because he knows what is going to happen in a few weeks’ time when Shane Jones comes in. He will not be in the brains trust at all, then.

New Zealanders have a choice. They have a choice between a reasonable, rational Government that delivers for people in their time of economic need, a Government that has prudently managed the economy to deliver the infrastructure to grow our country and our cities, and at the same time has delivered for people when they are most in need—or we can have a party that just wants to smoke pot all day, we can have a party that wants to stop people coming into the country all day, and we can have a party that wants to psychoanalyse itself and make itself feel good about itself. That is the choice New Zealanders have got when it comes to the election. It is a great choice. It is an easy choice for New Zealanders.

There is a reason the Labour Party will not tell you what it thinks. There is a reason the Labour Party will not actually go out there and say anything. We all know what the Labour Party is doing in its secret files in its offices. In its secret files, there will be tax increases. There are tax increases. At this moment in time, it is working through whether it brings in a capital gains tax—the very tax that it said it would never bring in. It is in its files—I bet you it is in its files. And there are death duties. That will be the other thing in its files. It is looking at those things now. It is going to bring them in. It is being very silent to New Zealanders. The leader of the Labour Party said 12 months ago that there would be no increases in taxes under the Labour Party—there would be no increases. He has changed his mind. He has left the door open now and said there will be increases in taxes under Labour, just like the Greens have changed their minds on legalising cannabis and gone into this election proposing cannabis. Labour will increase your taxes, hurt New Zealanders, and hurt the economy, and for those guys—

The member’s time has expired.

It is always a pleasure to follow such greatness of oratory in this House—a truly stunning speech by David Bennett, which was bettered only by the Hon Jacqui Dean’s channelling of May before that. “Strong and stable leadership”—it seems that Crosby/Textor is offering a discount package to parties around the world on slogans. Well, I have got news for you. Only a few short hours ago the strong and stable advertising bus blew over on a UK motorway. That is right—it toppled over. That is the kind of strong and stable Government we can expect from this crowd. The Hon Jacqui Dean might also like to google that slogan. She may find that all the newspapers in the UK are abuzz with the fact that Crosby/Textor did not only offer a discount package to “Worldwide Tories Inc.” What it did is it grabbed that and lifted that slogan straight from The Forsyte Saga. That is right—the writing is all about corruption and privilege, and that is where that slogan was pulled directly from.

There is a clear alternative to the strong and stable Government that topples over on a motorway somewhere in the middle of New Zealand or the UK. The clear alternative we have on the side of the House is Andrew Little, a leader who, yes, does have a moral compass and does not think it is a left-wing conspiracy. Andrew Little is a man who knows right from wrong. It was a privilege for me yesterday to attend a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and see a man who was prepared to stand up for what he believed in and tell the Secretary of State what the withdrawal of the Trump administration from the Paris climate deal meant. He did not shirk away from bringing up that issue with the Secretary of State. That is the kind of leadership that I want to see in this country.

Andrew is a father who wants his son to be able to afford to buy a house. Andrew has experienced the health system, and he knows how important it is that people and New Zealanders have access to that health system. Like all of us, he is worried about education for the next generation of New Zealanders and whether or not we are planning ahead for that. The Budget that we saw from this Government delivered a shortfall in those areas so that those members and we could get tax cuts. While we will hear a whole lot of rhetoric about how it is helping ordinary New Zealanders, the reality is that I get a tax cut of between $20 and $30, but a single person on the minimum wage will get a tax cut of just $1 once they lose the independent earner tax credit of $10 off their $11 tax cut. This is not the kind of country I want. I do not want this kind of country, where we have the kind of mental health crisis that we see in Christchurch.

Things are so bad with the mental health situation in Christchurch that the Minister responsible for Christchurch regeneration trumpeted a report that came out in the last couple of days that showed that one in 20 Cantabrians has poor or extremely poor quality of life. That is not acceptable to me. And who is most likely to be in this statistic—of the one in 20 who has poor or extremely poor quality of life? Well, they are more than likely not to have their insurance claim settled, they are more than likely to be undergoing a re-repair on their Earthquake Commission repair, and they are more than likely to not have been able to get on with their lives. This is not acceptable. What we do know about mental health in Christchurch is that we do have a crisis. This Budget does not even begin to plug the gaps or to serve the people that require its help. Instead, we have a Government that wants to trot out tired old lines that are being used by parties overseas. What I want to see in this country is real leadership—real leadership with fresh ideas that is willing to face the future and chart out a better course for New Zealand. That is what Labour can deliver, it is what Labour will deliver after 23 September, and it is that kind of leadership that I celebrate.

Before I say my bits, I would like to make a comment to Dr Megan Woods, the member who just took her seat. There is a saying in the Korean culture that when you get accustomed to the good life, you cannot have the bad life. You know, in the 9 years that this National Government has led and delivered for New Zealand she has become so accustomed to the good life that she is complaining about certain waiting lists in the health system. I remember when there were people lined up in their emergency departments and cancer patients were sent overseas, across the Ditch, because the Labour Government could not deal with those situations. How terrible it is that those members forget their bad performance and are remembering only the good things that this Government has delivered for them. Sometimes, you know, we have the ebbs and flows of our services, and they are now complaining. So it is true that when they have got it good, they complain about little things.

You know, when we are in this debating chamber, often when we are debating it sounds like we are having an adversarial kind of relationship, but I want to talk about the positives that actually happen within this Parliament and also when we go overseas. I often talk about the parliamentary delegation that we go overseas with—I talked about it yesterday—and the relationship that we have with those parliaments across the Ditch, as well as overseas. It is quite interesting that when members of different parties go overseas, we are, in fact, in complete agreement on the performance of this country and this Government. I am not going to go into detail and I am not going to say who, but it is really interesting that the kinds of complaints that we hear in this debate do not actually happen outside this Chamber when we are overseas.

New Zealand has a strategy for international relations, and this Budget 2017 contains an amazing plan to support New Zealand’s goals in international trade, international security, and the economy. New Zealand is at the forefront of international relations and is pushing above our weight, actually, on the world stage. We are a competitive and innovative country with great trade relations around the world, and we are working to help support peace and freedom for all people across the globe, regardless of race, religion, and ethnicity.

Just a few minutes ago, I posted a Facebook post that says that New Zealand is second after Iceland in the Global Peace Index. Peace is really, really important, and New Zealand contributes greatly to world peace. Our commendable Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gerry Brownlee, and Murray McCully before him have worked tirelessly for the emergency flood relief support in Sri Lanka, the landmine clearance in Afghanistan, and the famine aid in South Sudan and central East Africa. We in New Zealand are continuing to punch above our weight when it comes to helping people globally.

You know, some countries actually benchmark their success by the things that they can do for other countries. For example, my birth country, Korea, used to be, after the Korean War, an aid recipient. I think World Vision was created as a result of the Korean War in 1950, when there were so many orphans who needed to be housed. It was really fantastic to actually hear how these countries benchmark their success. When they go overseas to help Third World countries, that is how they see their success. They see that they have actually become a successful country when they are contributing to the global economy as well as global aid, when they are able to help people. I can say that when we go to these global parliamentary gatherings, we are often seen as a world leader by these countries.

We are a very positive Government, filled with a belief that New Zealand is on a prosperous path with a growing economy and a bright domestic outlook. We should share these goals and our beliefs with the international community. I just want to quote Deloitte’s CEO, Thomas Pippos, who emphasised how well New Zealand is doing among the international community. He said: “Compared to many other countries, most notably the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, New Zealand is in an enviable position able to invest [in] its initiatives around its Family Income Package, Infrastructure, Social Investment, Public Services, Growing Economy package, while reducing debt as a percentage of GDP.” These are the sorts of things that this Government is actually delivering for the people of New Zealand. I feel very proud to be part of this National-led Government.

Yesterday, Minister Brownlee met with US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, here in Wellington. Both Ministers are responsible for the foreign policy of their countries. A few weeks ago, Mr Brownlee, quaintly, explained to a concerned public that he was learning on the job—coming to grips, as it were, with the language of diplomacy.

This morning, with the media, he continued the lesson. Mr Brownlee said that yesterday’s meeting was a good meeting and that the US reaffirmed that it will keep up its presence in the Pacific and have a great interest in its well-being. Beyond that, we can only surmise what the Minister said to the United States.

Here is what he should have said: “Mr Secretary, welcome to New Zealand. Aotearoa is the Māori name of our country. Māori is an official language. It is frequently spoken in our Parliament, often accompanied by waiata and haka and tears.

“Your country is a major power; ours is one of the smaller States. We enjoy sovereign equality with you, but yours has the largest military known to history. You spend $850 billion on what we all call ‘national defence’. We spend 0.3 percent of that. We do not think you have purchased greater security for your people than we have, and certainly not for others.

“The responsibility to use your power in the globalist interest is immense. The use of soft power, as US adviser Joseph Nye used to say, is more effective. Hard power is legitimate when it is harnessed to, and subordinated to, soft power. By ‘soft power’, Joseph Nye means global leadership earned through moral integrity and political wisdom—the kind that people such as Barack Obama and Sadiq Khan have displayed. ‘Soft power’ means a readiness to respect the rule of international law, such as accepting the jurisdiction of the World Court when other States have taken cases against larger ones for blockading or mining their harbours—Britain, France, the US, or anyone, really—and joining the International Criminal Court to show that all men are created equal, and women too. They are equal before the law, including international law and including individual liability for political leaders.

“In the interests of humanity, New Zealand, on behalf of small States, respectfully proposes that you convey to your President the need for genuine global leadership in the following areas:

“(1) Reform the UN Security Council. Listen to those appealing for reform, including France—circumscription of the veto power and more transparent procedural decision-making. Do not be defensive. Make the United Nations great again.

“(2) Join the negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention that will prohibit the possession, deployment, and use of nuclear weapons for all time. Indicate now that while the US will not sign immediately on completion, it will make a declaration that it will pursue a course for the elimination of nuclear weapons from its national arsenal, as it promised to do in 1968. Make it time-bound for, say, 20 years. Make it conditional on all other nuclear-weapon States accompanying the US. Make the major powers all feel great again.

“(3) Respect the advisory opinions of the World Court, including the one on illegal Israeli settlements, and respect Security Council Resolution 2334, of December 2016. Help make Israel great again.

“(4) Accept the overwhelming advice of US scientists that climate protection requires a commitment to the current Paris Agreement and more ambitious national targets, including from the US.

Tell US voters that job security is to be found in a transformational pathway to a low-carbon economy. Help the Mayor of Pittsburgh make his city great again, and congratulate California and China on their climate deal signed today. There are other ways in which we could discuss, but I see your time in this country is already up. We wish you well. Let us help you make America great again, and when you return, the people of Wellington will just line the streets and cheer your motorcade.”

I feel privileged that I get a second day in the House, 5 more minutes, to speak about the amazing Budget that the Hon Steven Joyce announced during the Budget presentation a couple of weeks ago. I want to focus my 5 minutes on the education sector, and the reason that I want to focus my kōrero on that is that I recently went to Haeata Community Campus, which is one of the new schools opened recently by the Prime Minister and the former Minister of Education.

I went to speak to about 150 young people. They were aged between 15 and 18 years old. The reason that I went to speak there was that at the opening, the chair of the board challenged the MPs in the room to come and talk to the students about politics and about the things that matter most to them when it comes to politics. So I went to speak to this group of young people who came together, and, yes, it was a bit of a mission to start with. I had 15- to 18-year-olds, all with their own ideas about why I was there, whether they were going to listen, what it was I had to offer to them, and whether I was going to be boring. I can tell you that I left that room with no doubt that I was not a boring speaker, because I talked to them about the things that mattered most to them and I talked to them about the things that would help them to get to where they want to be in their lives. I talked to them about the power of education and my journey through the education system, and I said to them that if there is one thing, one message, that they will take home with them that day, it is that education will set them free.

When I look at the Budget that was announced recently and what it has to do with the education sector, I see more and more funding going into that sector—actually, $1.1 billion of new operating funding is going into the education sector over the next 4 years. So when I go back to talk to those young people, I can say that we are equipping their school, and all the other schools in Christchurch and throughout the country, with the funding to resource them to be able to achieve the things that they want to do within their education lifetimes. It was about making sure that they understood that education would set them free, and not to think about leaving school early—to get everything that the education system can give to them in the time that they have left.

The Budget also announced additional capital funding for schools—$392.4 million—and this additional capital is actually to help schools grow their infrastructure. Haeata school actually starts from year 1, which is new entrants, and goes right through to form 7 or year 13, but next door to it there is an early childhood education centre. This group of early childhood educators never missed out on the Budget, either. They have got an additional $386 million worth of operating funding, which will go into the early childhood education providers to help them with the operation of their organisations, which is key because it is at those early learning centres that the education of our babies, our pēpēs, actually begins and we start to grow them.

You can see their process, especially in the Christchurch East area, where you see the progress from early childhood education close to Haeata school, and then across to Haeata, right through to when they leave to go to university or head off and do some trade qualifications. That is about a 1.3 percent of operational funding in 2018. Primary and secondary schools will be getting about $458.9 million of additional operating funding over the next 4 years, so when I am able to talk with those students again, we will be able to sit down and talk about how they see working with their teachers on how operational funding will actually be able to help them.

When I look at this school—because it is a combination, it has got a lot of Māori and Pacific Island students there, so therefore we started looking at the types of languages that are being taught there. One of them is Te Reo Māori, the curriculum resources of which are going to receive $7.6 million of new investment in schools throughout New Zealand, to help with the learning of the Māori language—

The member’s time has expired.

I would like to begin by saying a thankyou to Minister David Bennett, and addressing his comments with regard to New Zealand First having connection with the regions. I would like to afford him an invitation, in actual fact, to be in Whakatāne tomorrow at 1.30, at the Liberty Centre auditorium, where Winston Peters will be addressing people from the regions. They will be wall to wall, and Mr Bennett is perfectly at liberty to come along and become edified. But that is not really what I wanted to talk about, although I do thank the Minister from Hamilton for the opportunity for, perhaps, some free advertising outside the restricted period.

The 1973 historical work on World War II entitled Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad concerned the Battle of Stalingrad. We are fortunate, in actual fact, in New Zealand that we do not have hordes of rampaging Nazis preparing to invade across our border. In the Battle of Stalingrad, of course, there was protection given by a very proactive Red Army and a couple of extremely effective snipers, and, at the end of the day, mother Russia was saved through the Battle of Stalingrad and the enemy was driven back from the gates. We are faced by an enemy at our gates that is every bit as potentially destructive and dangerous, and I am talking about biosecurity incursions. Despite the assurances, despite the protestations by this Government and by the Minister to the contrary, these incursions keep happening. The systems keep failing. We have seen it. We have seen it with pea weevil; we have seen it with the Queensland fruit fly. There has been any number of them, and the latest one, of course, is myrtle rust.

💬 Hon Member: Yeah, “Rusty Myrtle”.

Myrtle rust might sound like a slightly humorous name—some of these things do, especially when one of the Ministers concerned has come to be known as “Rusty Myrtle”, we understand, previously known as the “Orange Roughy”. I will not name names, of course.

The official line that is being pushed about the incursion of myrtle rust is that it has arrived on the wind and there is nothing we can do about it. Well, that is true—it is a spore that can be carried on the wind. However, in all the assessments that have been done, all the years of warning that this Government has had about the potential for myrtle rust arriving, and the potential for the damage and destruction not only that it could cause but that it will cause if and when it becomes established, have been ignored. These warnings go back to 2010, when Scion gave a report saying that, yes, it was in Australia and it would arrive, so the Government needed to be prepared and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, as it was in those days, needed to have a plan to be prepared for the arrival of myrtle rust. In 2011, another briefing document said that it was going to arrive by one way or another, and that we needed to be prepared. Still nothing was done. In 2014, again—again—Scion warned of the imminent arrival of myrtle rust.

The serious nature of this particular biosecurity pest is the effect that it can have on some vital aspects of this country, both culturally and economically. It will affect pōhutukawa—it has the potential to wipe it out. It will affect mānuka. It has the potential to wipe out the mānuka honey industry, and yet for 7 years the Government has sat on its hands doing nothing, withholding the funding. In 2016, last year, finally the Government grudgingly coughed up $30,000—half of the $60,000 that was needed—to conduct an initial economic impact assessment. That was 7 years after the fact, and then, as we understand it, the money simply was not spent and got diverted to something else. Taking the attitude that it is going to arrive on the wind anyway and we cannot do anything about it would be a bit like the Red Army folding up at the gates of Stalingrad and simply allowing the Nazis to walk in. That is, effectively, what New Zealand’s totally failed biosecurity system has done. They have not even talked about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. The horse has gone, and they sit down and have a committee meeting about whether or not it is worth closing the door.

I really want to believe the Minister when he says biosecurity is his top priority, but it seems that the rest of the Cabinet members simply do not get it. They simply do not understand that pretending that they are spending money that they are not spending, and pretending that they are putting measures in place to stop the most likely pathway of inclusion from breaking through—that being that spores are carried in by people, on clothing, on footwear, on machinery, or, perhaps, introduced on plant material. It is very telling that all these incursions have not been found out in the wild, as they would have been had it arrived by wind, but have been found in nurseries. It has been introduced here through our border systems, inadvertently or deliberately, through mechanisms by which it could have been stopped. Thank you.

Moving from the Second World War to present times—in fact, to today—I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Civil Defence, Nathan Guy, who today announced $14.4 million of funding to go to the Kaikōura District Council. I would like to thank him, on behalf of the people of Kaikōura. That is a very welcome announcement. We are talking about the second-smallest council in New Zealand, with the smallest being the Chatham Islands Council.

The Kaikōura District Council is grappling with a lot of damaged infrastructure. In fact, after the earthquake, the only way domestic water was being supplied into Kaikōura was through two plastic pipes running along the top of the ground. Now they have a rather large plastic pipe, which has actually been buried, parts of it, but it is still above the top of the ground. It is going to cost that council a lot of money to get all of its infrastructure back up to speed. Its sewerage ponds were emptied after the earthquake. No one quite knows where everything went, and I suppose we can guess, but it really has to repair that now. It is quite expensive, and it is a big impost on that small council. This will be really welcomed by the people of Kaikōura.

I want to talk a little bit about WISPs, which are Wireless Internet Service Providers. I think that the day of the WISP is almost here. In my electorate, one of the typical issues that we are going to struggle with is around our internet infrastructure in New Zealand. We are talking about—it is rather difficult to get to places geographically. There are tight gullies, with very few people in them. We have done a fantastic job of getting ultra-fast broadband out. There are a whole lot of new towns around New Zealand announcing that their ultra-fast broadband is coming out in the Ultra-fast Broadband Extension, and there is an announcement soon on Rural Broadband Initiative 2, and that will reach a long way out.

But to get to that last, most difficult 5 percent of New Zealand, I think the answer will be WISPs. In Marlborough there is a very good example in the Waihopai Valley, where Creative Development Solutions and thepacific.net and Simcox Construction got together, along with the Marlborough District Council, and put a wireless transmitter, which was quite small, up on top of a big hill—a container on top of the hill—and provided Wi-Fi to homes right up in the most difficult places to get to. There was no cellphone coverage there, but now they can get a cellphone hotspot within their own home, running off that Wi-Fi. It breaks down that digital divide. I believe that that is the only way we are going to do that throughout the rest of New Zealand.

Another good example of opportunity is out in the Marlborough Sounds. We have two-thirds of New Zealand’s aquaculture production sitting out there in the Marlborough Sounds. Water quality measurements, and those sorts of environmental parameters, currently are taken manually by someone in a boat. That could all be done remotely, as long as we have connectivity, and that connectivity will come only from a WISP, in my view. Putting up a half a million dollar cellphone tower in the middle of the Marlborough Sounds, to capture a few permanent residents, some baches, and some passing boats, simply will not be economic. It will not make economic sense, and it will not happen. A WISP tower, on the other hand, can be built for a fraction of that price. It is designed, really, to go out into those small places that are hard to get to, and I think that is actually where we will go, in the end.

💬 Fletcher Tabuteau: It’s an interesting topic, because I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with you.

It is really, actually, quite rich to hear some interjections coming from New Zealand First members, who voted against Rural Broadband Initiative 1 in Budget 2015, as I remember, and so, therefore, do not really care about the regions.

Actually, while I am on that, I would like to point out that in my electorate—and in most of regional New Zealand, particularly in the South Island—we are desperately short of labour on our farms, in our garages, and in lots of our businesses. We are reliant on getting immigrants into the country, who will come out and work on those properties. That is what a growing economy needs: skilled people coming into New Zealand. We do not need Luddites who will stand in the way of progress in the regions. So the party that stands up for regional New Zealand, the National Party, cares about those things, cares about growth, and that is why I am so proud to be a member of this party. Thank you.

The first speaker in this debate, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, spoke about the health system, and he sounded somewhat defensive, I have to say. He mentioned that Opposition parties have talked about cuts in health funding. There has been a debate in the media over recent days, pushed a little bit by the National Party. I suspect its focus groups and its polling are telling it that it is vulnerable in the area of healthcare because it has failed to invest in healthcare for New Zealanders.

The Minister of Health today, in front of our select committee, began with a defensive gesture. He said: “Opposition parties will tell you that there’s been a shortfall in health funding of $1.7 billion. That’s not true. We’re putting in more money than ever.” He said “We’re putting in more money than ever. How can the Opposition parties say that?”, and he concluded on a very similar note. I could see what was top of his mind.

Of course we all know in this House that to put in more money than ever, all you would have to do is put $1 more in, and we all know that every year costs go up by more than that for New Zealand families. The figure that gets put in every year matters, but what that figure is is the thing that matters the most—$1 will not cut it. We know that over the past years, GP visits have gone up, for example, from $29 to over $40. That is more than $1. Families are facing growing costs, and this Government is failing to invest adequately in the health sector.

Just today, an update from Infometrics was published that made it clear that this Government has short-funded the health sector by $2.3 billion—$2.3 billion—since 2009, and that $2.3 billion is coming at the cost of services. If you do not fund services enough to stand still, which is what that $2.3 billion represents, they go backwards, and there have been cuts. In my own area, the Southern District Health Board has announced to those NGOs that provide mental health services that they will take a 5 percent cut. I am aware of other district health boards where cuts have been much bigger than that. That is what happens when you do not fund services—they get cut.

That Infometrics report is interesting and significant because it is actually a conservative estimate of how much National has taken out of the sector. It accounts for demographic pressures. It does cost more to provide healthcare when you have an ageing population. The Minister likes to talk about inflationary pressure as though all people in the society cost the same amount in the health system. Somebody who is fit and young, like me, is not expensive in the health system as compared with somebody who is nearing the end of their life and who needs significant intervention, or compared with a newborn baby who has care in hospital when they are delivered. All of those things cost more money. Because of the shape of our population and the fact that it is getting bigger and it is getting older, we know that healthcare services cost more over time, and the Government’s funding is simply not catching up. There is a deficit in the healthcare sector.

We can see that the buildings across the sector are getting past their use-by date. That is a common feature across New Zealand, commented on by the Auditor-General. We know that half a million—half a million—New Zealanders have missed a GP visit for reasons of cost in the last 12 months. The shocking thing today, when I asked Minister Coleman about that figure in the select committee, was that he said: “I am not aware of that figure. I’ll have to check the member’s numbers.”

That is what he said in the Health Committee today when I mentioned that half a million Kiwis could not afford to go to their GP. He was all over the place. That is his report. It is his ministry that publishes those figures—that half a million Kiwis could not afford to go to their GP in the last 12 months. That is how out of touch this Government is with what is going on for New Zealand families out there, struggling to make ends meet.

Labour, when we are in Government—hopefully, I will be the Minister of Health in a few months’ time—will make sure that we lower GP fees. We are not immune to doing something about the issues in the health sector. We will make sure there are more operations. We will make sure there is access to new medicines. We will make sure it is easier to access mental health services.

If you are already one of the wealthiest New Zealanders, you should not expect a tax cut from us. Our priority is the provision of affordable access to quality healthcare, and we make no apologies for that.

Labour will make a difference in the health sector. We will fund it adequately. We need a fresh approach. We need a Labour Government that takes public healthcare seriously and that does not turn a blind eye and focus on giving tax cuts to those who do not need them—the wealthiest New Zealanders. Labour will have a fresh approach. We will make sure that that $2.3 billion is restored over time and that Kiwis can access the healthcare that they need.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.