General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. The question is that the motion be agreed to, and the question is going to be answered very firmly on 23 September. But before I get into a bit of a reality check for this outgoing Government, I want to, on behalf of my colleagues in New Zealand First, thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank all of the parliamentary staff for the wonderful support that they have given us, whether they are in the Parliamentary Library, whether they are in security, or whether they are the messengers in the House. And we are mindful and thinking of those staff who have departed the Parliamentary Service over this last triennium. I also want to specifically thank the wonderful New Zealand First staff up in the offices right now listening to this contribution.

It is ironic that on this day in 1930, in the United States, President Hoover gave a press conference where he announced plans to combat drought and economic depression. Last week, New Zealand Labour leader Jacinda Ardern gave a speech where she announced plans to create a drought and cause economic depression. So it is food for thought. Is Labour’s food and production tax on water an economy-crushing $100 a cubic metre, as Stuart Nash told a meeting in October 2015? Is it a $500 million increase in food prices, as per what Mr Parker told Radio New Zealand last week, suggesting 10c a cubic metre, which actually raises $583 million? Is it “perhaps one or two cents” a cubic metre, which Grant Robertson told The Nation 4 days later, which increases food prices by $58 million, to $116 million a year? Or is it, in fact, all of the above?

💬 Hon Member: We don’t know.

We do not know. Like questions for comrades, done at the behest of the Australian Labor Party, Labour here is in a tangle of its own making, and thoroughly deserves to be so. It gives Coca-Cola a free pass but wants to make milk more expensive at the counter. It is probably appropriate that it wears the same colours as Coke, being the party now, we know, that says: “Let’s do this.” We are saying that it is really the party that says: “Let’s tax this.”

So what about the incumbent Pepsi of New Zealand politics: the National Party—although some would probably want to call it the “International Party” because it seems more interested in other people offshore making oodles of money in this country than in hard-working New Zealand business people and workers. Some might actually call it the “Globalist Party” because it represents everybody on the globe except people here in New Zealand.

The “Party of the brighter future.”—well, that did not work out too well, did it? Now it is the “Party delivering for New Zealand.” The question is: delivering what? Since December 2008, merchandise exports—after big words about free trade, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement cul de sac, and export booms—have grown only 1.5 percent in real terms after 9 long years of this Government. This proves that Mr Joyce is now the Basil Fawlty of finance Ministers—whatever you do, do not mention the imports. In December 2008, national median house prices stood at $330,000; in July this year, they blew out to a whopping $518,000. In December 2008, migration was 3,814—that is net—but this year in June it exploded to 72,304. People are totally hacked off with open-door immigration driving up house prices and creating infrastructure chaos, which negatively impacts on the regions, as we now know in Woodville.

So while National walks around praising itself as an economic genius, saying “real after-tax wages have risen 19 percent under their stewardship”, it omits to mention that inflation over this period was 14.4 percent. There is a lot more we could talk about here, but my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau will. We are so looking forward to 23 September, when the people will get a chance to pass judgment on these statistics.

There has never been a better time to be a New Zealander. This is a country moving nicely towards the top of its game: confident, internationally competitive, outward looking, and looking to build on the foundations of 9 great years of achievement and growth. The economic settings are right, and it is vital that the country continues to move forward.

“Unrelentingly positive.” might be an election slogan for some, but on this side of the House, it is about the culture and the mind-set that has carried us through some of the toughest times in New Zealand’s history. It got us back on our feet after the global financial crisis, it got people back into jobs, it got us back to surplus, and it meant we were able to tackle the natural disasters that the country was faced with. The challenge now is to sustain that growth, build the growth, and act for the people most under pressure. It is still a fragile and a difficult world out there economically.

Voters want stability, they want leadership, they want that proven track record. They are wary of political parties that cannot manage themselves. The country needs planners not plotters. It needs parties focused on the issues that matter to the electorate. Getting ready for Government takes hard work. You need to get around the sector. You need to produce the discussion documents. And I tell you what, when the work has been done, the evidence is plain to see. So where are the Opposition discussion documents? Where are the policies informed by years of hard slog? They are nowhere to be seen. They are grabbing stuff off the shelf. They are pulling stuff out of David Parker’s brain and serving it up as the complete product.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: It’s like scrambled eggs!

It is. It is like an omelette: scrambled eggs and nothing backed by substance. So I am not surprised, because they have just not got their act into gear.

I am very proud to be the Minister of Health in this Bill English - led Government. This is a portfolio that really matters to New Zealanders, because the health system touches pretty much everyone across the country in any given year. It is really interesting to have a comparison of the records of National and Labour over the past 18 years. What did Labour do around first specialist assessments? It cut 30,000 patients off waiting lists. Meanwhile, we have increased first specialist assessments by 150,000 per year—a rise of 37 percent compared with 2008. If you look at emergency departments (EDs), I well remember, as MP for Northcote, going to North Shore Hospital and seeing people waiting on trolleys under the harsh fluorescent lights. We brought in that emergency department target: everyone in and out of the ED in 6 hours. And do you know what? That has saved 700 lives per year. There is the research to back it, so these are not just arbitrary political targets; these are targets that have made a real difference to the quality of care and that have, literally, saved lives.

What happened with elective surgery under Labour? There was a minimum, minimal increase in elective discharges. Under National, we have made elective surgery a priority. We have set that target of a 4,000 uplift per year, and we have increased elective surgeries by 40 percent—by 50,000 operations per year since 2008. Going to your GP: what did Labour do to increase access to general practice? Nothing. It did zero. It took a National Government to bring in free under-13s GP visits and prescriptions, benefiting 700,000 children. Cancer care: what did Labour do? It sent 700 people to Australia for basic care. We took a structured approach with our $63 million cancer plan, which has seen the international gold standard set as the target: everyone treated within 62 days after the first serious suspicion of cancer. What did Labour do on bowel screening? Nothing. We are now rolling out a comprehensive programme. What did it do on pay equity? Zero. We have delivered a pay equity settlement that is going to benefit 55,000 of the hardest-working people in New Zealand. What did Labour do on immunisation? It had Third World levels—67 percent. Under National, the target of 95 percent of 8-month-olds—we are reaching that target. A serious achievement.

So you can see that this Government is delivering for New Zealanders. We are getting on with the decisions that make a difference to the lives and quality of life of citizens across the country. In the end, when you look at what people will weigh up on 23 September, that is what is going to count.

So flat—Jonathan Coleman spelt “wary” wrong. It has got an “e” in it when he uses it. On the other side, look at them. They know the end is nigh. They are even hiding their polling, their internal polling, from their own caucus because they do not want to depress them further.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is Parliament, not the Comedy Club.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: And that is certainly not a legitimate point of order. It has always been a robust debate, and I am looking forward to the contribution.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. You know, that intervention—that is another example. National has the unmistakable smell of a dying Government. There is nothing those members can do about it. The game is up. No matter how many billions they spray around and no matter how much scaremongering they do, they know it is over. They know there is a new Government coming that is excited and energetic. It is a new Government led by Jacinda Ardern, who represents the future—the future—not the past.

To voters, the contrast shouts out every day. Every day, they see burnt-out and tired Ministers lashing out in desperation and frustration, but it is not working—it is not working. The tide has turned. There is nothing they can do about it. They are like King Canute—the tide is going to run over them.

After 9 years, National has had a good run. It has had a good run, and we should thank those members for some of the good things that they have done. But it is inevitable—the end is upon them. We should be thanking them for their service, and everyone should now be preparing for the new Labour-led Government and the new New Zealand that Jacinda and her team will build.

The only thing that National members have left is fearmongering and scaremongering. Just like their hero Muldoon, who came out with the dancing Cossacks and was flinging around the bribes and the falsehoods—just as that did not save him at the end, it is not going to save them, either.

Let us look at where we are. Child poverty is a national shame. People living in vans and under bushes is a national shame. People living in pain and under the threat of death is a national tragedy. The unswimmable rivers are a national disgrace. New Zealanders know we can be better than this. They know we can do this. They know we can build houses, we can ban foreign buyers, and we can invest in our people. We can invest in our hospitals, which are overstretched and understaffed. We can clean up our rivers.

In the last week, nothing has been clearer than what those members did in respect of water. We announced our water policy, and they threw everything at it. They scaremongered and they misled. Do you know what they did? They amplified our win. They do not know what to do. They are flailing around. One week they are possums in the headlights, stuck and not knowing how to react to Jacinda Ardern, and the next week they flail around.

What did they say? The exaggeration—well, it made them look foolish. Let us list them. Nathan Guy said it would cost $75 extra for each bottle of wine. What was the answer? One or two cents. They said there would be $18 cabbages. Nick Smith said there would be $600 billion in royalties—twice New Zealand’s GDP. How foolish. Then we had the somewhat sad spectacle of the Hon Christopher Finlayson—who has a proud record on Treaty matters—scaremongering, and that did not work, either. Those members amped things up, and so did their surrogates—the irrigators and the water bottlers—who do not think they should contribute to the clean-up of our rivers. They think that other people should pay for the clean-up.

Voters are going to have a clear choice at this election. They can choose the future or they can choose the past. In the last day—under Jacinda Ardern—we have been under attack in respect of these Australian issues. We did not cause the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia to be a New Zealander, we did not cause Australians to have prejudice against New Zealand citizens, we did not cause that information to be known to the Australian media, and we did not cause Julie Bishop to overreact, but, by goodness, what another test for Jacinda Ardern, and she passed. She passed with flying colours. We are ready for a change of Government, led by Jacinda Ardern: “Let’s do this.”

David Parker, the previous speaker, was certainly excited, if nothing else. If the octave level of his speech had gone any higher, the lovely windows here may have fallen in. That is the problem with speeches like that, because they tell you a lot about what is really going on behind the scenes. That member is now leaving the seat that is actually normally occupied by Chris Hipkins. I think that Chris Hipkins has gone off to Australia to apologise for meddling in other people’s politics rather than focusing on what that speaker said the Labour Party is all about.

But it is not so surprising that he decided to come out and attack the productive part of New Zealand—our rural sector—and say that whilst this Government has been off doing trade deals to give them better access, an incoming Labour Government would tax Kiwis out of business. That is because if we think about all those years ago when he was rejected by the electorate, he said he was a very proud rural member of Parliament, and so I think that he, along with all of his colleagues, has decided to focus on the part of New Zealand that generates income for the country and that delivers jobs up and down throughout the regions, and those members have decided to tax New Zealanders out of business. That will not be the only tax we will hear about from them. There will be many, many more, and each one of them will show just how out of touch they remain after 9 years in Opposition.

This week there was good news for New Zealand, and that good news came from Moody’s, which said that New Zealand is expected to be one of the fastest-growing economies out of any triple A economy in the coming years. It will be better than Australia and Britain and the US—countries whose economies are facing challenges because of political upheaval.

Our unemployment rate continues to fall. It is now at 4.8 percent, on the back of a strong economy and a rural sector that continues to deliver up and down New Zealand. There are 180,000 jobs that have been created, inflation is low, and interest rates are low. We are the first developed country in the world to get back to not only Government surpluses but sustainable surpluses, on the back of a hard-working Government and a former finance Minister—Bill English—who got New Zealand through the global financial crisis. He was the rock that the success of the New Zealand economy is being built on.

There is strong growth in every part of New Zealand, and the regions, particularly, are stepping up. Every region of New Zealand is doing well, and the Opposition wants to tax New Zealanders out of business.

As the Minister of Trade, I am proud to represent overseas all New Zealanders and go off to fight for a better deal for them and for better access, so that when the Government backs Kiwis, we level the playing field and they can do well everywhere they go to. There are 620,000 jobs due to exports and the export economy in New Zealand. Many of those are in the rural areas, and this Government will not stand by when others want to tax rural New Zealand out of business. Within that, for the first time, we have had $70 billion worth of exports, up from $29 billion in 1995. There are 620,000 jobs that deliver for Kiwis and that provide for them and their families.

We have an ambitious programme of work ahead of us because there is always much more to do in trade. We have set an ambitious target of 90 percent of the trade of New Zealand’s goods being covered by free-trade agreements (FTAs) by 2030. We have launched a trade negotiation with the Pacific Alliance—the countries of Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico—and agreed with it just a short month ago that we want to work hard and deliver that within the next 12 months.

The party on this side of the House, the Government, is committed to delivering for New Zealanders through the Trans-Pacific Partnership 11 (TPP11) to give access for Kiwis to level the playing field in 10 other markets—first FTAs in four countries—and, most importantly, the world’s third-largest economy, Japan. And, by the way, Japan has just signed a deal with the EU, and if New Zealand does not have access through the TPP11, our exporters will be worse off. They will not be competitive compared with the Europeans.

We are committed to launching an FTA with the UK. Its Foreign Minister was here a short while ago confirming we are on track for that. The European Union, with $20 billion worth of exports—two-way trade—is important to us. We have launched upgrades to the China FTA that will deliver jobs for New Zealand, to Singapore, and to ASEAN countries. And, finally, we are committed to working with the US to make sure that Kiwis get a fair deal there—they can get access.

Rural New Zealand is important to New Zealand. It does not deserve to be taxed out of business, and this Government will fight for it here and around the world, for jobs for New Zealanders through trade. Thank you.

The Prime Minister recently posted a beautiful photo of himself on social media. He was standing on the beach on a calm, clear Auckland night. What made this all the more remarkable was that at the exact same time the 1.3 million residents of Auckland were also experiencing one of the most violent thunderstorms in recent memory.

So just as there were two Aucklands that night, there are also two different New Zealands in our country today. There is a New Zealand of calm nights and clear skies—a New Zealand in which the National Government is delivering for New Zealanders. It is a country of economic growth and a brighter future. And then there is the country that most of the rest of us actually live in. It is a country that this Government does not like to talk about. It is a country in which private sector wages are declining in real terms, disposable household income is declining, productivity is declining, and people are working harder, for longer hours, just to stand still. There is a New Zealand that is the greatest place in the world for kids to grow up, and there is the New Zealand in which kids are living in cars and garages.

How did we get to this place in our history, where New Zealanders share the same country but live in different worlds? How? It has not happened overnight. I mean, the truth is that we have been growing apart as a country for decades now, and what is driving this division is a political and economic system that is disconnected from the values of most New Zealanders. Instead of investing in business, instead of investing in people and technology, New Zealanders’ money is inflating away in a speculative housing bubble, to the point where the value of our residential housing stock has increased by almost a trillion dollars over the course of the last 17 years. National’s trillion-dollar housing debt is now worth more than eight times as much as the sharemarket, and that is why an empty home in Auckland earns more in capital gains across 1 year than the average household income.

But the Government says everything is fine. And yet every winter 1,600 people die in New Zealand because their houses are too cold and too damp because they cannot afford to heat them. And National says everything is fine.

New Zealanders were told last week that our drinking water is amongst the least safe in the developed world—over three-quarters of a million New Zealanders are being supplied with drinking water that may not be safe to drink. Last year 5,000 residents of Havelock North were violently ill, and three died, because their water was contaminated. In Dunedin, people are boiling their water as we speak. But if private companies want to take clean water out of our aquifers, bottle it, and sell it off overseas, they can have it for free, because National says everything is fine.

Ninety thousand children in New Zealand live in poverty. Over 40,000 people are homeless, and half of those are families with children. But National says everything is fine because this Government has a brilliant plan to solve this problem: it is going to fine the parents. The mental health system has been gutted and we have one of the highest teenage suicide rates in the world, and this Government has spent all year fighting to prevent a public inquiry into the sexual and physical and psychological abuse of the 100,000 children who were raised in State care. And now we know why—because National’s solution to the problem of troubled children is boot camps. And it says everything will be fine.

The reason that I am in politics, the reason that the Green Party is in Parliament, and the very reason that our Government actually exists is to solve the big, hard problems, not to airbrush them out of existence and pretend that everything is fine. At this election, the Green Party will fight and campaign on real solutions to the real challenges that the real New Zealand faces. That is why we need to change the Government, and change is coming. Thank you.

I rise to celebrate the strong economy in New Zealand and National’s exceptional financial management. A strong economy underpins a healthy and happy society. A strong economy provides more jobs, and good jobs provide security for individuals and their families. That translates to a better quality of life and giving people more choices about how they want to live their lives. So we should all celebrate the 181,000 new jobs that were created in New Zealand in the last 2 years, and the future 200,000 jobs predicted to be created in the next 3 years. And we should celebrate that the unemployment rate is dropping. It is now down to 4.8 percent. Significantly, at the same time, after-tax wages have increased by 19 percent. That is important because that increase not only supports the workers and their families but flows through to superannuitants.

It often surprises me that people are not more interested in the workings of the economy. I think it is because the linkages between a strong economy and the well-being of individuals and their families are not well understood or regularly discussed, and I think they should be. We all want New Zealanders to be able to make good financial decisions for themselves and their families so that they can have a good quality of life. The bottom line is that unless a country’s economy is well managed and financially secure, it does not have the resources to provide the public services that we all want and need. If you do not have a strong economy, you do not have the money for a quality education system. If you do not have a strong economy, you do not have the resources to provide the hip operations for Granny. It is the richer countries that can provide the best opportunities for their people, that have the highest environmental standards, and that can contribute most to the world’s social issues.

Fortunately, the National Government, with Bill English and Steven Joyce as its Ministers of Finance, has actually done a great job of managing New Zealand’s economy, and we are now back in surplus. That means that we have more resources to tackle some of the long-term challenges in our society, and with our social investment approach, we can deliver really good outcomes for New Zealanders. The surplus has also meant that, in the 2017 Budget, the Government provided a $2 billion family support programme, which includes tax credits for low and middle income families and additional accommodation support, as well as record funding for social services—for example, health, in particular, and education—and a record $4 billion of infrastructure investment for across the country to make sure we can keep our economy growing and provide more jobs.

But I am not the only one who is impressed by the National Government’s financial management. The international organisation Legatum Institute has ranked New Zealand No. 1 in the world for prosperity for the last 6 years. The interesting thing about its definition of “prosperity” is it includes the natural environment, quality of health and education, governance, community safety and security, personal freedom, and social capital—all things that Kiwis embrace and cherish. All are underpinned by a strong economy. So you cannot do much better than that.

The financial future for New Zealand looks very good, as long as National continues to manage the economy well. We cannot be diverted by new taxes or by old policies reheated—taxes and old policies that will hinder growth and raise the cost of living for ordinary New Zealanders. New Zealand is a great place to live, and it will remain so as long as you vote National on 23 September.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for the ability to give a contribution to this general debate. I want to talk about a group of people—a group of constituents—whom I support through my portfolio work, and that is people with disabilities. They have been asking me and petitioning me over the course of the last few months to discuss issues of participation. So I had a look at the Justice and Electoral Committee’s Inquiry into the 2014 general election, and I want to commend the Electoral Commission and the submitters who submitted in that particular process.

I want to quote from the report, which said: “A strong theme in the submissions relating to voters with disabilities was about media coverage around the election. Submitters call for a greater use of captioning on political media coverage and more media content aimed at voters with disabilities. Some submitters argue that interpretation, captioning, and election advertising targeted at voters with disabilities should be publicly funded or not count towards electoral expenditure limits.” What this speaks to is some of the issues that people with disabilities have raised with me, and those are around their inability to participate fully in the democratic process.

When we look at the issue of accessibility, one of the first things we need to look at is how we define accessibility. When we look at polling places, they are listed as being “accessible”, “fully accessible”, or “accessible with support”. Accessibility in that case means the ability to get a wheelchair into a polling place. But accessibility in terms of being a person with a disability has a much wider context, and it is about access and participation. Currently, there is a petition being run by Deaf Action that is calling for all the televised public debates for the election to be fully live captioned and to have sign language interpreters. You would think that, in this day and age, it would be an easy task to facilitate.

When we think about people with vision impairment, I note that in the 2014 election we had, for the first time, the ability for voters with a disability who typically needed assistance marking their ballot paper to be able to use a telephone dictation service. But I have recently spoken with people who have vision impairment who talk about the desire they have to be able to enter a polling booth and to mark their own ballot if that ballot were in Braille. So what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?

What Labour believes is that there should be no barriers to participation for anyone who wants to engage in the democratic process and that when we find those barriers, we should do everything we can to eliminate them. What we are going to do—what we have committed to do, and what I know the Greens have also committed to do—is sponsor accessibility legislation. What that means is co-creating with the disability sector a piece of legislation that ensures that we provide accessible public information and communications; that we create accessible workplaces and employment; that we offer accessible goods and services; that we ensure accessible transport; and that we provide accessible customer services, access to justice, accessible housing, and, most importantly, accessible participation in the democratic process. One of the things we will do to ensure that is we will make sure that the level of live captioning is 100 percent of public broadcasting, and we will work with those providers’ online platforms to ensure captioning of their online content.

We commit to supporting children with special needs to participate fully in the education system. We support healthcare for all people with disabilities. We support ensuring that public transport is accessible, and we will ensure resourcing transition services from school to tertiary education and employment. Together we know we can do this, so let’s do this.

It is a great pleasure to rise to take part in the last general debate of the 51st Parliament. Time does indeed fly when you are having fun, as my son says, and working hard. I am very proud of the National-led Government, which has been delivering for New Zealand and New Zealanders over the last 9 years. Despite natural disasters, the global financial crisis, and international political upheaval, we here in New Zealand have a rock star economy compared with other OECD countries.

I know that some people have actually called him “the Rock”, and we do have a rock of a Prime Minister. He is steady as she goes; he is a stable man who has delivered for New Zealand in his previous role as the Minister of Finance during the global financial crisis, and now as the Prime Minister. He is firm, unlike some people. I am very proud to be part of the National team—a very stable National team.

It is a little bit different from the excitable Labour team. I think it was Mr David Parker who rose to his feet and was really excitable and talked about how they were right behind their leader, the brand new leader of the Labour Party. But they did that before. They actually did that for Phil Goff, going back to God knows how many years ago. They were just as excitable for David Shearer, and he was No. 2. Then another one came along, and that was David Cunliffe—No. 3. Then No. 4 was Andrew—

💬 Hon Members: Little.

—Little. They were just as excited for all of those leaders—Phil Goff, David Shearer, David Cunliffe, Andrew Little, and now we have the No. 5 leader of the Labour Party, and they are very excited. Good for them—it is about time. I would have preferred the Hon Annette King as the leader; I think she is a fantastic woman, and a woman whom I admire greatly. It is a real shame that she has given her valedictory and that she is retiring—shame about that.

You know, I talk about how I am excited about the work that this Government has delivered for New Zealand. It is not an easy effort, but we are working to keep debt down, to support job creation—which is really, really important—and for better business across our country. The economy is probably one of the most important things in this country to deliver for New Zealanders, because if we do not have a growing economy, we do not have the jobs for New Zealanders, and that means people do not have increasing pay packets that they could take home to support their families. It is very important.

It is really important to remember that the economy is front and centre of everything that this Government does, and this is because New Zealand must keep the economy growing so that we can all share the benefits of better schools. Today, the Associate Minister of Education was talking about the number of school classrooms that he is delivering for many, many parts of New Zealand, including one in Mount Albert. We need to provide roads and connectivity. We are also working hard to make Kiwi voices heard on the world stage, and to support the aspirations and dreams of the country and its people.

One of the things that I am very proud of—and I have actually mentioned this before—is that yesterday the Hon Hekia Parata, who is the former Minister for Education, gave her valedictory, and there were a few tears there from quite a few of us who came to Parliament with her back in 2008. In the work that she has led, and all the innovative approaches of our current ministerial team, led by the Hon Nikki Kaye, education is one of the most important as well. The fact is that we have delivered for our students—looking at the record, 85 percent of students attained NCEA level 2 in 2016, and that is actually up from 74 percent back in 2011.

Other important gains in education include the great achievement for Māori and Pasifika students, with results increasing to around 74 percent, up from 57 percent back in 2011. More work needs to be done, but the improvements are a fantastic result for our children, and children are important because children are the future of this country. This National Government has been delivering and will continue to deliver for New Zealand, for all New Zealanders up and down this country.

Also, the amazing infrastructure projects that we have delivered for Auckland are really important. Of course, the Waterview tunnel is really important, and it cuts travel time. It has been a fantastic Government.

I am very pleased to rise to speak in this general debate and, firstly, to confirm that I am very proud, as a member of the Labour Party, to have a leader who is not a rock but who is, in fact, a fully formed human being. Of course, I am speaking about the new Labour Party leader, Jacinda Ardern, who, up and down the country, is receiving a rapturous response from the people of New Zealand, who are responding to her warmth, her genuineness, and—most importantly of all—the incredibly positive, forward-looking vision that she is laying out for our country.

On 24 September, when we come back into this Chamber, I am very pleased to say that I will not be the newest member of the Labour caucus, because there will be at least a dozen other caucus members coming in behind me. When the new Labour Government comes into this House, if we are given that privilege by the people of New Zealand, we will be going forward with that positive vision that Jacinda Ardern has set out for the people of New Zealand over the past few inspiring weeks.

In Government, the starting proposition of a new Labour Government will be that New Zealand is a good country—not just good, in fact; that this is a great country. This is a place that people have been coming to for 800 years to build their lives and to live their dreams. It was called “God’s own” by that man who is immortalised out the front of this House, Richard John Seddon. It was called the last, the loneliest, the loveliest by Rudyard Kipling. Across the decades, people have known and identified this as a wonderful, wonderful place to live, and it is in that spirit that the next Labour Government will go forward. We are going to take those strengths that we have in New Zealand—our commitments to equality, to social justice, to a fair go for all, to giving our entrepreneurs a start, to being innovative and forward-looking and progressive. We are going to take that history, we are going to take those principles, and we are going to make this country an even better place.

I just want to touch on two important areas in which we will make a difference under the next Jacinda Ardern, Labour-led Government. The first is giving our young people a fair shot, because, unlike the Prime Minister, we do not think they are pretty damn hopeless. Unlike the Prime Minister, we do not think that the Government has reached the limits of what it can do for our young people. We believe in our young people and that inside every single one of them—inside every single one of them—there is the ability to become something great, to reach their potential, and to contribute to our society.

We are not going to accept 75,000 young people not in employment, education, or training; we are going to come up with a plan for every single one of those kids to help them reach their potential. It will start when they are at school, when, through our school-leavers’ kit, which was announced this week, we are going to give those young people a strategy and a plan so that they know what they are going to do when they go into education and they go into the workforce. We are going to give them life skills, we are going to give them the ability to get a driver’s licence, and we are going to teach them something about how our society and our democracy operate. We are going to take those 75,000 young kids not in employment, education, or training, and we are going to offer them the opportunity to take up an apprenticeship instead of just getting paid the dole—to give them a job, to give them some income, and to give them some hope for the future.

We are going to make sure that every single one of those young people can have the hope and the dream of homeownership in our country. We say that it is unacceptable that we have fewer people, as a percentage of our population, owning a home than since 1951, when Sidney Holland was the Prime Minister in this House. Under those circumstances, it is no wonder that some young people in our country do not think that we care anymore. We are going to give those young people some hope by moving towards free tertiary education, by bringing in 1 year’s free tertiary education in the next Labour Government’s very first term, opening the opportunity for every young person to reach their potential through education.

More on our positive vision: I want to talk about our positive vision for Auckland, because for too long our biggest city, Tāmaki-makau-rau, the first city of the Pacific, has been held back by a Government that does not recognise its potential. It is looking back to the transport solutions of the 1950s: more motorways, more sprawl, and a lack of investment in the kind of productive infrastructure that Auckland needs. It is a Labour Government under Jacinda Ardern that is going to have a revolutionary plan for Auckland. We are going to turn it on its head. We are going to invest in modern light rail. We are going to connect our city, Auckland, to its airport, because that is what the people of Auckland are crying out for. It is extraordinary to us that over the last couple of weeks, as we head into an election, with the Government splashing around billions of dollars, it will not even connect Auckland to its airport.

Well, we believe in Auckland, we believe in our young people, we are going to put the investments in that unlock the potential of everyone in this country, and I am really looking forward to a new Labour Government under Jacinda Ardern that will be relentlessly positive for New Zealand. Thank you.

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Mr Speaker, for your leadership in this term. This is the last general debate. I would also like to thank all the staff in Parliament who have been helpful in this term.

I am proud to be part of this National-led Government, which has helped this economy to grow. It has brought the economy back on track. This is the Government that embraces growth because it delivers more jobs, higher wages, and greater opportunity for New Zealanders. We are the Government that believes in New Zealand and knows what the challenges of growth are, and we know New Zealanders also accept that. Our opponents, on the other hand, would shut down growth because they are not up to tackling the challenges that success brings. These are the very important things that we need to understand.

In the past few days, I have accompanied the Prime Minister on some of the major announcements he has made. The first one, which I am very pleased about in particular, was the announcement on law and order and tackling youth crime. That is one area that the Indian diaspora and the ethnic community are very concerned about. The Prime Minister announced that we will be tackling it, and he made some major announcements about how we are going to tackle these youth offenders. We are going to make sure that if we are back in the Government, we will make it happen.

The other announcement was when the Prime Minister announced that the infrastructure investment in South Auckland, particularly the electrification of Papakura to Pukekohe, will make a lot of difference to infrastructure, and that will help to reduce congestion on the roads.

The third announcement, which made the Indian community, particularly the Sikh community, very excited, was when the Prime Minister said that if National forms the Government, it will amend the Crimes Act to ensure that the Kirpan is recognised and is not included in “offensive weapon”. I am disappointed with some of the hypocrisy that happens around here. About a year ago, a delegation of Sikhs met the Rt Hon Winston Peters and presented him with a Kirpan, which he accepted. The day before yesterday, he said he will oppose that bill when it comes through the Parliament. So I cannot understand which way he is going.

💬 Hon Amy Adams: Whichever way. It depends on the group he’s talking to that determines which way he’s going.

Exactly. The people of Indian origin are really disappointed with his comments and, moreover, it was a disappointment when he said that Hindus want to have the trishula, or trident, that they want to carry. When I see the news coverage today in the Indian Weekender, it has quoted some of the Hindu leaders who say—I would like to quote some of the quotes they have made, particularly from Roshan Nauhria, the trustee of Balmoral temple; he says: “Every religious cultural group have their individual cultural aspirations. If aspirations of one cultural group are being fulfilled by the government of the day, then there is no need for other cultural groups to sulk or worry about [it]”. That is what the Rt Hon Winston Peters said the Hindus are demanding.

I would like to quote from Mr Vinod Kumar, who is the president of the Hindu Council; he says: “I can confirm that the Hindus in New Zealand do not have any such aspirations to carry a trident,”. I do not know from where the Rt Hon Winston Peters got this information, where he said that Hindus are also demanding. He has got some very wrong advice, and I think he needs to have better advice.

What he is trying to do is to divide the Indian community. He wants to create the division between the Hindus and the Sikhs, and he is playing. I understand that he is going to attend another event this weekend with the Indians. When it comes to asking for the vote, he wants to go to the Indians; when it comes to supporting them, he does not want to support them. It is totally, totally inappropriate for him to do this. He is totally anti-migrant. All his speeches and all his team are anti-migrant. Whenever you see his team, they will just target the migrants and want to blame—that migrants are responsible for anything happening in this country. I think it is totally incorrect—it is. Thank you.

It is a proud opportunity I have, to be one of the last contributors in the House in this, the last general debate of the 51st Parliament. I want to acknowledge you, Mr Speaker, and I would like to acknowledge the staff in Parliament here for the work that you do and for the work that they do. This will be my last opportunity to do so.

💬 Chris Bishop: Ever.

💬 Hon Amy Adams: Yes, it will, that’s true—for ever.

In the 51st term. Come on guys, loosen up—far out. Chris, that might be true for you. Relax. I would like to acknowledge my Wellington staff and I would like to acknowledge my Rotorua staff. We have learnt a lot together, and we have achieved some wonderful outcomes for the people of New Zealand and the people of Rotorua.

I am particularly proud to be a member of the New Zealand First caucus. We have been an incredibly disciplined and hard-working team this term, and I am proud to be able to say that in this House this afternoon. More so, we have listened to the people of New Zealand, as we have moved around the country, and talked to them and heard them. What we say to them is we have heard you, and we have written policy, and we bring to you in this election—moving forward—a vision of New Zealand that represents all New Zealanders.

Our deputy leader spoke earlier about a broken Government and a broken economy. I wish I could go into all of the detail, because what the members over there have said needs to be fact-checked in this political environment because nothing they have said stacks up.

Today, as someone who has spoken around the country on regional development and who has followed Minister Joyce’s absurd regional development reports—which kind of have some good ideas every now and then but are so disconnected from the regions whence they came and have no funding attached—I say to New Zealanders: take heart. New Zealand First has heard you, and we say to you that, yes, we do live in a beautiful country. We are made up of a diverse group of people who, in the main, want the same outcomes. Actually, we all want to grow and we all want to do better for the people of New Zealand.

What we should acknowledge, and what I would like to speak to, is our primary industry. I would like to acknowledge the regions as our heartland and the economic powerhouses of this country we call home. Let us hope, actually, that that never changes, because, in our vision and as we move forward, a New Zealand First Government would look to play a part in growing value-added business in New Zealand. We would—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: So you’re going to pick the winners?

Yes, actually, we would be part of picking winners. We would see our fish stocks processed here on shore. We would take our trees and have them turned into building materials to build our homes and our commercial towers here in Wellington and Auckland, for example. We would take our dairy products and help Kiwis turn them into valuable finished products. We would take our meat and have it processed here with state-of-the-art facilities.

First of all, and foremost amongst that, we would actually have to stop the sale of our land, of our forests, and of our assets to so-called foreign investors. It is not investment; it is a buy-up, and it must be stopped if New Zealand is to have any kind of future that will actually benefit the people we presume to represent. The difference between New Zealand First and that Government, apart from ad hoc, catch-up, laisar-faire economics is that we have a plan.

💬 Chris Bishop: Laissez-faire.

Yes, I did have that written down. I did not want to confuse some of your members there. We have a plan. That Government will only react, like it is doing now, to emergency after emergency. We are hurting, and the economy and the people of New Zealand, unfortunately, are going backwards.

As a New Zealand First caucus member, I am excited about the future under a New Zealand First Government, and I look forward to engaging with Kiwis across the country in the coming weeks, when we will show them what we can do and what—as a country—can be achieved together. A party vote for New Zealand First is a statement that we have had enough and that we must grow as a country. Thank you.

E Te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. Tena koutou katoa, e ngā mema o Te Whare. For the second time in 2 months, I feel compelled to correct Mr Tabuteau’s French. It is pronounced “laissez-faire”, Monsieur Tabuteau.

This is going to be my final contribution in this Chamber not only in the 51st Parliament of New Zealand but for the immediate future and the time being, and I want to do a couple of things in this 5-minute contribution. Firstly, I want to thank everyone who has supported me so much in coming into this place and trying as best as I have been able to make a difference for New Zealanders.

In particular, I want to acknowledge my family, my mother, soon to be Dr Alyse Foster, whom I am incredibly proud of in her efforts towards gaining her PhD in her 60s.

I want to acknowledge all the staff who have given me such good support in my offices in Parliament and in the constituency office: Aaron Hape, Chloe Oldfield, Christian Hermansen, Nicola Yong, Jackson Freeman, Joshua Whitford, Beth McEwen, Logan Morton, Luc Powell, and Jono Webb.

I want to acknowledge the National Party—in particular, the leadership of the Rt Hon Sir John Key and now the Rt Hon Bill English. I can think of no better people to act as New Zealand’s Prime Ministers in the interests of all Kiwis, and it has been a pleasure and an honour serving under them.

I want to acknowledge all of those many people in the National Party—the volunteers, the executives, the chairs, but also the fundraisers, the people who are out there in the cold weather putting up hoardings, who have helped me across two campaigns. I want to acknowledge in particular, at the leadership level, Malcolm Plimmer, board members Roger Bridge and Alastair Bell, and my regional chair Rachel Bird.

I want to acknowledge those in Parliament whom I have grown to be friends with and have been supported so well by, particularly the class of 2011 in the National Party: the Hon Maggie Barry, the Hon Scott Simpson, the Hon Mark Mitchell, the Hon Alfred Ngaro, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, Simon O’Connor, Ian McKelvie, Dr Jian Yang, and Joanne Hayes.

Mr Speaker, thank you and your team of presiding officers for the forbearance you have shown to me over 4½ years. It is an absolute honour and a privilege to serve in this House in what must be the best country in the world. This is truly a realm of the superlatives. Not only were we the last place in the world to be colonised by humans, not only do we have the largest exclusive economic zone per capita of any country in the world but I am very, very proud of the fact that we are the least corrupt country in the world as measured by Transparency International, an organisation that I am pleased to be a paid-up member of. How is this relevant to our economic status? Actually, being an uncorrupt and transparent country in which people have respect for and trust in the institutions is so important if we want to attract that foreign investment that Mr Tabuteau so disparages. I think, going forward, it will serve us very well in terms of engaging with the rest of the world.

I also want to touch on our engagement with the rest of the world. We are a trading economy. We are very reliant on being able to sell our products offshore. I thought it was very interesting last week—a remark that I completely agreed with in the valedictory statement of the Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I think the bipartisan agreement on trade that has existed in this House for decades does need to be restored. We cannot get rich by simply selling to ourselves, and with the opportunities in the world today, some of which were referenced earlier by the Hon Todd McClay in his speech as Minister of Trade, the opportunities that exist for New Zealand with Brexit and the fast-paced development of the Asia-Pacific region are huge. So it is my hope that, in the years ahead, New Zealand will seize these opportunities rather than wish to shut out the rest of the world, as I know some in this House perhaps might prefer to do.

It has been a pleasure to be able to work cross-party on a number of issues, and I would like to acknowledge colleagues who have been on the Rainbow NZ Parliamentary Network, such as Louisa Wall. I would like to acknowledge Poto Williams, the deputy chair—vice president, internationally—of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. As New Zealand’s Commonwealth Parliamentary Association representative, I have really enjoyed my time working with the Commonwealth. There is a Commonwealth advantage—up to 20 percent, we are told by Baroness Scotland—in trading with those countries that have our shared heritage and our compatible legal and governmental systems.

I go from this place having put through a member’s bill, having achieved some things, and knowing that New Zealand, as a country, will continue to do well into the future. I hope the New Zealand public see that National has tried incredibly hard to deliver for New Zealanders, and I am sure it will continue to go well in the future. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.