Address in Reply

Five weeks ago, the Government was sworn in, on 26 October. Since then, there have been hectic weeks of briefings, requesting papers, and changing policy directions. We in this Government are committed to governing for the many, not the few, and to ensuring economic programmes uplift the mass majority and not a small elite. We are resolved to ensure that economic plans come with a responsible, human face.

What we’ve seen in contrast, of course, is a bitter party imploding on itself, knowing full well that when the fights start, many people in the backbench will not have seen anything like it in the past. That’s what’s going to happen. When you look at the front bench of the National Party, you can see why they’re no longer in Government. They, singularly to collectively, lack the talent and the ability, and it shows when they make claims of being a dynamic Opposition. We have seen dynamic Oppositions in the past, led by people like Muldoon and Lange and others, but we have not seen a replication of that in this House since Parliament has come back post the election.

The fact that you’ve got to ask 6,000 questions—6,000 questions—suggests that after nine years of Government, you had no idea what you were doing in the first place. Six thousand questions—I think that’s more questions than I’ve asked in my whole career.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: No, no.

Oh, possibly not. Ha! All we’re getting there is a diet of cynicism and doubt, blackguarding the new Government’s policies and plans, throwing cold water on visions and aspirations, and badmouthing the future of a country called New Zealand. It puts one in mind of the famous line in The Mikado:

Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,

All centuries but this, and every country but his own;

Now, there is one who especially does this, and this is a man whose name is Finlayson. He waited until I was out of the country, and then he attacked me. He waited until I was out of the country, halfway around the world, and he launched his personal attack. He said, “I acted for the National Party when it expelled you way back in the early 1990s.” Funny about that, because on day one of the court case, they sought an adjournment. Their case collapsed—collapsed in total. He was the legal adviser. Well, let me tell you: the greatest legal mind in the whole Commonwealth—namely, himself; “yours truly” from Rongotai lines up in Rongotai four times in a row, and four times in a row the smart people of Rongotai rejected him. And so should the National Party. This is the man who made himself a QC. He made himself a QC. He didn’t vote for the profession to make him a QC—no, he thought, “I’ll make myself one”—[Interruption] Pardon? Is that the man from Pakuranga?

💬 Hon Member: No, it’s not.

Well, he sounds as stupid. That’s why I made a mistake.

💬 Chris Penk: I’m the member for somewhere; you’re the member for nowhere.

Oh, I see. Listen sunshine, I can even say this. I’ll be here long after you’re gone.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I’m on my feet. I think we’ll have a bit of order. Thank you. That is not helpful.

It is most unhelpful when you lead with your chin. And let me tell you, you know—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually, it’s not my chin.

Oh yes. Quite right. And in this case, decidedly so. It’s his chin that’s the one I’m talking about.

In fact, if I came from Helensville, where the last incumbent member visited about once every six months, I wouldn’t be shouting from the treetops like that member is. Helensville is a place that’s never seen an MP, and in fact the last MP there didn’t know that the biggest controversy coming in the country was in his own electorate, in the form of Kim Dotcom. Kim Dotcom had been to his office twice, and he told everybody he didn’t know about it. And offshore, in comes the overseas security brigades and there was an international raid on Kim Dotcom’s home. His predecessor said he neither knew about it as the head of the GCSB nor as the head of the SIS. I hope that member is an improvement. From what I’ve just seen, I don’t think so; I don’t think so.

But I want to say to that member that his colleagues sitting back there with him were forewarned before the last election as to what was going to happen. I told all those members there that they were going to be on the backbench for a long, long, long time. At least he could have the decency of acknowledging a forecast and a prediction that came right. I want to say this: that member will have to do a whole lot more, judging from the lack of talent in front of him over there, if he ever wants to see his party come back in Government. This party over there is tired. The whole front bench will not last. Even now, the internecine strife and the backstabbing have started. Oh yes, you can hear those knives on the grindstone. This is not an alternative Government we’re looking at right now.

I want to make it very clear—I want to make it very, very clear—that we have plans for regional recovery, we have plans for infrastructural investment, and we have plans to restore our health and education systems and their resources. As I have travelled around the country, and I do extensively, and far more than that member there, let me say what is the most amazing comment I get: “Thank God you guys turned up and made the right decision.” Now, I’m a humble man, and I said to them, “When my colleagues evaluated the alternatives, the sense of going with a conscience, against the blind ideology that doesn’t work, was profound, and we made the right decision.” And wearing a blue tie is not going to save that member now.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—an inspired choice, thanks to my lobbying. I must say my sense of esteem for the voters of Northland has just gone up exponentially as a consequence of that speech. But I do congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister and his ministerial colleagues—one day he’ll get to know their names—on their election to Government office. Having been there for the last nine years, and five as a Minister, I get some insight into the challenges and the opportunities, and I wish them all the best.

In particular, congratulations to Messrs Curran, Parker, and Clark—those Ministers in this Government who hail from the deep South of Dunedin. A lot was said over the last few years about Dunedin’s challenges and the opportunities that they would take to improve things, like the flooding issues in South Dunedin, the setting up of a gaming centre of excellence, I think, and, of course, the issues around the Southern District Health Board and Dunedin Hospital.

While we didn’t see eye to eye on all of those things by any stretch, I certainly commit to working, as I think we have in the past, in a collegial way to ensure the best for the city of Dunedin. I’ll even go as far as to say this of the Minister of Health, Dr Clark. He has said some significant things about the speed and nature of the Dunedin Hospital rebuild that, in the advice that he’s likely to get, he will probably need to retract and cool down and slow down.

I would say to him this: I’m not going to be too critical of that if indeed he has to do this. The project is too important. Both parties committed more than a billion dollars to upgrading the physical infrastructure, to ensure that there is a modern, fit for purpose facility well into the 21st century. I will know well enough how difficult that is, and how the drum-beating rhetoric in Opposition might not be matched when he sees the reality of the challenges of finding a location, devising service specification, and actually envisioning what the future of healthcare for the South is. As I say, I won’t be too critical if it’s necessary for him to cool his heels somewhat, and I look forward to working with him to getting the best outcome for the South.

But in respect of the reflections that one has in Opposition, I guess it’s fair to say that we have a little more time on our hands to reflect on the political philosophies that brought us to this place. Sometimes in Government, one gets so caught up in the day-to-day development of policy and the implementing of programmes, it is difficult to find the time to sit back and reflect on why it is we are here. I have certainly appreciated—it’s one silver lining—the opportunity to do that, to reflect on the things that are core to National Party people: liberty, freedom, individual responsibility, the right to live independent from the State and to live well and in the manner of that person’s choosing.

Indeed, in the Speech from the Throne we heard a little bit of a nod to that when it was said: “This government aspires for this country to be a country where all are accepted, no matter who they are, where they come from, how they live, or what their religious beliefs are”—noble sentiments; only, the actions of the Government are completely the opposite of the freedoms that are espoused in the Speech from the Throne. But there was a nod to it, actually, in the page before that—indeed, around tax. I think the battleground is best fought in the attitude towards tax, where the speech says—I think it’s at page six—“There will be a progressive tax system.”

Well, we already have a progressive tax system, so that’s code, actually, for a more progressive tax system “where everyone pays their fair share according to their means.” Now, where have we heard those words from? Karl Marx: “from each according to their means”—the socialist propaganda is embedded in the Speech from the Throne. Let there be no doubt of the goal of the Labour-led Government to socialise the freedoms and the liberties that they already talked about, but won’t follow up on—a progressive tax system according to their means.

I think we’ve seen another nod in all of the sorts of approaches we’re seeing, where the previous Government, through their Family Incomes Package in Budget 2017, were going to increase the tax thresholds that would benefit the lower-income families the most: increasing accommodation supplements and Working for Families that would have paid some families over $150 more a week and lift 50,000 children out of poverty. But because those tax changes were going to give me a tax cut, they’re going to get rid of it. And 50,000 children will stay in poverty.

What will they be replacing it with? A Best Start package, which means that the very high-income earning colleague of mine who is about to have his third child is going to get a baby bonus. Well, I’m sorry—and I don’t speak for him—but if it were me, I would say, “No, thanks. I don’t need the State’s help. There are many more families and children in this country that need it more.”

Again, a nod to this is in the Ministry for Vulnerable Children. The name is going to be changed now to the Ministry for Children. Well, I’m sorry; the Government does not need to minister to my children. I am their father; I will look after them, as every responsible parent in this country should. But if they can’t—or won’t—and that puts those children at risk, then it is absolutely right and proper for the State to intervene in a targeted way that restores that child and those families to the independence that they themselves aspired to in the Speech from the Throne.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: That’s absolutely right. That’s what it’s all about.

It is not about that, unfortunately, Mr Macindoe; it is about universality and it is about treating classes of people as classes. Oh that it were the case, Tim Macindoe, that that were the aspiration. Indeed, in my reflections, that is the country that I aspire to: a country that keeps the Government out of people’s lives when it’s unnecessary to intervene.

Now let’s talk about promises, because, indeed, we heard the promise to be more transparent and to deliver transparent mechanisms to hold the Government to account: “This government will foster a more open and democratic society. It will strengthen transparency around official information.”—it will strengthen transparency around official information. Well, that should be withdrawn and an apology made to the people of New Zealand, because only five weeks in and we are seeing roadblocks being thrown in the way of the right to know what the plans of this Government are, and the equivocation and the obfuscation around an agreement that I understand was signed and was given to Ministers, and it matters not one bit whether they had been sworn in at that point or not: it is their road map for how Government administration will be undertaken, and the public has a right to know what’s in those 33 pages. In fact, my guess is that it will be the size of a postage stamp by the time they get back to the office this afternoon. It will be shrunk and put out of sight, because they talk about transparency and they don’t act on it.

But the saddest thing about the first five weeks in Government is the retractions and the withdrawals of the commitments that they made to this country prior to coming to office. I’ll mention just three: a billion trees. It was pretty unequivocal: a billion trees. Only, what they didn’t say was that half a billion of those billion trees were already going to be planted anyway. A hundred thousand KiwiBuild houses—only, they’re not; they’re going to be bought off the plans of existing developments. It’s one forward and one back on house supply. And the really, really big rort was 20,000 to 30,000 fewer migrants. Well, they’ve backtracked on their immigration policy at 100 miles an hour, and Iain Lees-Galloway is now saying there’ll be virtually no change to tertiary education visas, to essential skills visas, to long-term partnership visas, and to parent visas—they’re all there, and that was entirely different from what they gave the public an expectation on. I am sad about that. We’ve got two years, 10 months, and two weeks to go before the public gets another say on whether or not they’re doing any good. Well, I hope they last that long.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I congratulate you on your election—you will do a fantastic job in the Chair, I am sure. It’s a great opportunity to review the last five weeks of this new Government, isn’t it? It’s fascinating what’s really occurred in the last five weeks. In my view, it’s been a very weak start for this new Government. The coalition looks like a three-legged wobbly stool in the first five weeks. Just think back to when they couldn’t even get their votes organised to get the Speaker elected into the House—on the first day. That was a shambles. And now we see backsliding on numerous fronts. Just think about what they are proposing to do on paid parental leave: locking out the opportunity for parents to share that special time with their children and not be forced to go back to work when they may need to look after other children in the family. I just think that that is already nanny State creeping in in the first five weeks of this Government.

Then we think about another big issue that obviously Chris Hipkins wanted to get stuck into, and this is another one about “nanny State knows best”, and that’s locking kids that aren’t yet five out of school. I can’t believe that they would want to say to parents, when a child is four years and 10 months, “Sorry, they can’t go to school.” If I was a teacher—and I’ve got a few mates that are teachers; they say to me, “Well, it makes sense to have these children in together as one cohort at the start of a term rather than being interrupted throughout that term.” Obviously, that is a big issue for the Government, which they want to use a sledgehammer to fix. Then we see national standards. Once again, are they in or are they out? And the list goes on.

Even today, and over the last 48 hours: the secret coalition document. This document’s going to come out no matter what. It’ll be prised out by the Ombudsman, or it’ll get to a point because of the political pressure that’s building, not just by the biggest Opposition party in the Parliament but by the media as well, because they can smell something here—whether it’s 38 pages or 33 pages—and they know that this Prime Minister has stood up in this House and said, “I want to lead a very transparent Government.” This strikes to the heart of this coalition deal with New Zealand First. You can bet your bottom dollar that this document will be coming out in a matter of moments, because the New Zealand public deserves to see it and to see what this Government is up to.

Then we focus in on the primary sector. Over the last five years as the Minister for Primary Industries, and a couple of years before that as Associate Minister for the primary sector, I’ve built numerous relationships up and down the country. As I go around the country and talk to farmers and growers and exporters, they are petrified about the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) being smashed apart by this coalition Government. There are 2,500 employees that work in MPI, and by and large they do a fantastic job. They are petrified right now about their future. Are they going to be told that they need to move to such and such a region, when in fact their families and their kids are settled here in Wellington or in other parts around the country?

What will happen is that they will focus on themselves instead of doing what they should do—and that’s supporting our exporters to get their products into market. Smashing apart MPI into five different entities will be costly. They’ll need to get new chief executives and they’ll need to get new premises up and down the country. MPI already has a massive footprint up and down New Zealand; they already have an enlarged footprint around the world. So for MPI to be smashed apart is going to mean that the ball will get dropped, and the balls that MPI has to juggle and deal with are numerous. You will see those employees focus on themselves instead of focusing on what they should be doing—and that’s growing our exports and doing wonderfully well in terms of the whole aspect of supporting our primary sector.

We’ve got a new Minister, Damien O’Conner, who has had nine years to build up policies—and that one, in my view, is a daft one. He’s also been talking big time about collaboration in the primary sector: “There should be more of it.” Well, in the primary sector, with MPI, you’ve already got collaboration. You’ve already got the biggest Government regulator working across all the different sectors. Why would you want to smash that apart? I can’t believe that it’s to do with anything other than being ideology driven.

Also, when we think about collaboration in the primary sector, this week we’ve got the Primary Growth Partnership annual meeting. They’re all coming into Wellington. They will be intrigued to hear a speech from Damien O’Connor, because he has gone up and down the country ridiculing the biggest investment in the primary sector under the previous Government. He’s called it a slush fund, he’s called it corporate welfare—he’s called it a whole lot of things—and now he has to stand up and speak to hundreds of people this week and talk about collaboration in the primary sector when it will be staring him in the face in this room. The Red Meat Profit Partnership: six different meat companies all sitting around the table together. If you think about Lifestyle Wines, there are 18 different wineries that are involved in this programme. And the list goes on and on and on.

He is going to set up a primary advisory council and also a chief agriculture adviser. Now, what’s going to be fascinating is when this group of advisers goes back to the Minister, Damien O’Connor, and says, “Actually, you need to be supporting regional water storage projects up and down the country.”, when they’ve ruled out a whole lot of them because of the influence of Eugenie Sage and because David Parker hates farmers and hates irrigation. We are on the cusp of a big drought occurring in New Zealand any time soon. In my patch, it’s very, very dry right now in the Horowhenua. I was out at the Horowhenua Taste Trail on the weekend talking to exporters—Genoese Foods, Turk’s Poultry, RJ’s Licorice—all worried about this new coalition Government and what it means for them as exporters.

What’s also going to be interesting is where the Government ends up on stock exclusion and water quality, because that is going to have a massive cost on the primary sector. What we don’t hear from the new Minister for the Environment, David Parker, is the great work that farmers have done already, fencing off 26,000 kilometres of streams and lakes, which gets you on a plane from Wellington to Chicago and back again. That’s a massive contribution that our farmers have made in a voluntary capacity, and soon this coalition Government will be out with grandiose plans of doing more fencing, up hills and beyond. They’ll be tougher on water quality, because that’s what they said in the campaign, and so the primary sector—the big engine room; the primary sector—is petrified about economic growth slowing down; exports slowing down; no irrigation; biological emissions for animals coming into the emissions trading scheme, ahead of research, once again; and more tax on our most productive part of the New Zealand economy, getting ahead of the investment made by the last Government, which was trying to come up with solutions, not taxes.

So the primary sector right now is in a state of flux. Over the road at Pastoral House, there are a thousand MPI workers doing all the work that they do diligently, day in, day out, and they are really worried about their future. And I can tell you what: it’s going to be costly, it’s going to be disruptive, and there’s going to be a huge amount of redundancy. I know that the State Services Commission and MPI are busy trying to talk the Minister out of what he is currently proposing, and we will be watching on this side of the House to ensure that the new coalition Government continues to do what they can to support the primary sector, because everything I’m hearing at the moment scares the bejeebers out of me and a lot of farmers and growers and fishers up and down the country.

Ā, e Te Māngai Tuarua o Te Whare nei, tēnā koe. Ko Hikurangi Te Maunga. Ko Waiapū Te Awa. Ko Ngāti Porou Te Iwi. E te tuahine Hine Tāwhiwhirangi, rātau mā kua wehe atu ki Te Pō, haere, haere, moe mai rā.

[And so thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, of this House. Hikurangi is the mountain. Waiapū is the river. Ngāti Porou is the tribe. Sister Hine Tāwhiwhirangi, and others who have departed to the void, go forth, journey on, and rest there indeed.]

Madam Deputy Speaker, can I please acknowledge your appointment to the Chair, along with our assistant colleagues in Adrian Rurawhe, Poto Williams, and, of course, the Speaker himself, the Hon Trevor Mallard. I know that you’ve all been appointed on merit, and I wish you all the best and I look forward to your rulings over this 52nd Parliament.

This is my first contribution in the 52nd Parliament. Can I extend warm greetings to all the new members in this House and say I look forward to the exciting term that lies in front of us.

Can I please acknowledge the voters of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti—those that have supported me to return to this House as their representative. Can I mihi out to the many of them, from Pōtaka in the north, right through to Wainuiōmata. Nō reira, e Te Iwi o Te Ikaroa Rāwhiti, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Therefore, to the tribe of Te Ikaroa Rāwhiti, salutations, acknowledgments, and accolades to you all.]

One of the failings of the last Government over the last nine years that I have clearly witnessed as the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is the lack of infrastructural investment throughout my electorate. I’m talking about roading, health, education, and jobs in the regions, which for nine years—nine years—that side of the House failed to deliver in the electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. I was up the Coast just the other day, in Rangitukia, in Tolaga Bay, and also in Tokomaru, and their issues remain the same. They are the issues I’ve raised around a lack of investment in my region around roading, around health, around education, and around jobs.

I’m proud to stand here in a Labour-led Government, and I want to commend our second elected female Prime Minister in Jacinda Ardern. I want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Winston Peters and his decision to go into coalition with Labour, and, of course, our friends the Greens.

I’m excited about the proposed policies that lie in front of us for the next three years, and I want to take the time for that side of the House, particularly, and for the members of the public who are watching, to remind us that this Government is going to be a Government of action. It will not be a Government that’s going to sit around and twiddle around and not do anything, but it will have an absolute commitment to action, and it’s no better reflected than in the coalition 100-day plan. When I look through it, I want to highlight some areas that I know are going to deliver real results to the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti.

Let’s look at education. We’re going to raise the student allowance by $50, starting on 1 January. That’s going to be enormously beneficial to many of the young people throughout my electorate going into tertiary education, particularly, but into anything post-education. We’re going to make available the first year of education, which the Minister of Education has talked about in this House.

Housing has continued to be a big issue throughout my electorate, and in the healthy home guarantee, many of the Māori constituents I represent are going to benefit from all the homes being fully insulated and warm. Banning speculators is going to reduce the price and make it affordable for very first-time owners. And, of course, establishing the Affordable Housing Authority and beginning KiwiBuild—with the billion trees, there should be no unemployment in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti with KiwiBuild and a billion trees. So I want to acknowledge the Hon Shane Jones in his role in terms of regional economic development.

Whānau—we talk about the Families Package. As winter comes next year, once we get over summer, the winter fuel package, Best Start, and the paid parental leave extensions kicking in on 1 July are definitely going to help Māori, and, of course, the minimum wage, which is going to lift to $16.50, and introducing fair legislation to improve our workplaces is always going to make a difference.

The ministerial inquiry into mental health is a big issue on the Coast, is a big issue in Gisborne, and is a big issue in Hawke’s Bay, and I welcome that as part of the 100-day plan. And, of course, in the environment, we are going to clean up our rivers and waterways and we’re going to set zero carbon emission goals through the Independent Climate Commission. Of course, when it comes to the finance, we have very strict financial commitments and rules and regulations, and we’re going to resume contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and establish the working party. So I just want to put on record that this Government is going to be a Government of action, and no better is it demonstrated but in the 100-day plan.

I am proud to be accorded the opportunity to be a Minister of the executive, and I want to take this time now to acknowledge the portfolios that I have been given and talk briefly about them. I want to acknowledge the men and women up and down this country who are customs officers. They look after the border of this country in terms of illegal drug trafficking and anything else that we don’t want in this country. I want to acknowledge them for the hard efforts that they do: illegal drugs, revenue collection for importers and exporters, and another big one—which I’m particularly interested in—is trade. That’s the Customs Service. It is much more complex than I have given them time for, but I want to acknowledge that I’m looking forward to working alongside the hard-working officials in the Customs Service.

I’m also the Associate Minister of Agriculture, and what the previous speaker, Nathan Guy, said around primary industries—can I share that as I’ve travelled up and down this country and met with different farmers, the feedback I’m getting is quite a different one to that former Minister. They’re pleased that we’ve got a Labour-led Government. They’re pleased about the innovative ideas, because for nine years there’s been a tired array of ideas coming from that side. They have come up to me and said that they are looking very much forward to working with myself and the Hon Damien O’Connor in the agricultural space. And pulling out or dismantling—can I just put off the fear around public servants losing their jobs. We have worked really well with our officials to assure them that we value the contribution they will continue to make to this Labour-led Government, and nothing will change on that front. So don’t take any notice of that former Minister.

I want to also acknowledge the local government associate role that I’ve picked up and, of course, the newly formed Crown-Māori relations, which is an exciting new portfolio that this Labour Government has decided to create. Can I just say in that context, in terms of the Crown-Māori space, I want to acknowledge the Treaty work that Governments do—particularly the Office of Treaty Settlements—with iwi. Once that is generally finished and in the negotiation we have got to an agreement, then the Crown generally leaves the table and it’s on to the iwi to get on to it. I actually believe that there’s an opportunity for the Crown to remain at the table, to unlock the economic potential not just through iwi settlements but whānau, hapū, and marae organisations who want to make a better difference for their people that they represent. And there’s definitely a role, I believe, for the Crown to remain at that table. That’s why I’m excited for the role in working with the Hon Kelvin Davis in that particular space.

There isn’t much more that I want to add, other than to look forward to working on this side of the House with the innovative and bold suggestions that all three parties have come to the table with. I’m looking forward to working with colleagues. The 100-day plan is an ambitious plan, but it’s clear. It’s open. It’s transparent. It’s available to the public. We will be held accountable on what we’ve said we are going to do in the 100 days. It is inspiring. It’s ambitious. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Those members on that side are going to have to realise that they’ve got three years of sitting there. You’ve got three years of sitting there. You’ve got three years of sitting there and listening to this side of the Government that has been brought in to create and fix the mess that you have left behind, and I’m happy to be part of a Labour-led Government who is going to make a difference for all New Zealanders. Kia ora.

I’ll just remind members not to bring the Speaker into it, because it’s becoming quite prevalent in the House.

It’s a pleasure to follow the contribution by that last member, Meka Whaitiri, who seems to personify the new Greens - New Zealand First - led Labour Government, which is increasingly, after only five weeks, one of a tone of just sheer arrogance. “Get used to it,” she said, from her lofty heights. “Get used to us.” Well, that’s arrogant. Iain Lees-Galloway, in question time today, saying to the Hon Amy Adams, “Well, if you’d played nicely and if you’d been nice to me, I might’ve listened to your Supplementary Order Paper around paid parental leave. All you had to do was just do it nicely, and we might’ve listened to you.” Well, that sounds like arrogance to me. But the speaker who has just resumed her seat, what capped it off for me was the parallel universe she inhabits where she goes around New Zealand and farmers—farmers—are welcoming a Greens - New Zealand First - Labour Government.

💬 Hon Member: Name them!

Ha! Yeah, bring them to me. I will talk to them, because I have never met any of them.

I can tell the speaker that I have spent the last glorious week—glorious week—in my own electorate of Waitaki, clearly and undisputedly the most beautiful electorate in New Zealand. I can say that in front of the new chums, because it is. In that beautiful week last week I met up with a number of members who were not only very keen to have a yarn about the new normal for us in the National Party and to talk about their hopes for the future but also to talk about the fears—the very real fears about what a Greens - New Zealand First - Labour-led Government will mean for them.

So it might’ve been the vintner that I met just out of Alexandra who grows, very successfully, grapes for some pretty good brands, wine labels, around New Zealand, who said to me as I went into her small home where she showed me some of beautiful product and some beautiful muffins—thank you very much. She said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do if this Government brings on the minimum wage of $20 an hour. I don’t know if I if I can keep my vineyard going.” She is a small business, and if she and her husband—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Rich get richer—rich get richer.

Now the Hon Shane Jones mocks. The Hon Shane Jones laughs when I say that. I invite the Hon Shane Jones to go down to Airport Road, just out of Alexandra, pop into Immigrant’s Vineyard—yes, these people are Dutch; they’re very nice people too—and tell them why he is scoffing at their fears about raising the minimum wage having an impact on their business. And it’s not just raising the minimum wage having an impact on their small business—and to the listeners at home, if I may address them directly, the Hon Shane Jones is still mocking as I am talking about the real experiences that are being told to me by my constituents who are small-business people. He mocks. He calls them rich. He calls them the rich getting richer. Well, the professional person who runs an office—they hire something around 19 staff and this person is saying: “They raise the minimum wage—I don’t know if I can take school leavers on anymore. I just simply don’t know whether we can afford it.”

That’s not me speaking. This is small business speaking—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: No, you’re making it up. Fake news—fake news!

—directly to us about their fears coming out of this Government. No—not making it up at all.

So let’s turn to the farmers and their fears about the impacts of this Government on farming. I had several meetings last week with irrigators. I have met with a representative of the Manuherikia irrigation company. Now, they have a proposal to raise the Manuherikia dam, improve water quality, improve environmental outcomes, improve outcomes for the community, and improve outcomes for the farming. They have been working for years and years and years on this proposal to augment and improve their existing irrigation company. It’s not a new initiative; it’s an existing irrigation company. They have been working with the Crown investment company and luckily enough they have got a commitment from the Minister that the support will be maintained for them. But they fear for the future because this commitment only relates to stage two. This is stage three. What about stage three? What about if this Government pulls out from supporting irrigation, which has all these environmental, social, economic bottom lines—what about if the Crown pulls out from them? What happens to that six, seven years of earnest work by all the farmers and the farming committee? What happens to those families and those livelihoods? What happens to that little corner of New Zealand who relies on water for its economic sustainability?

I’ll tell you what’s going to happen: irrigation is going to become unaffordable. Those farming families, who have been on the land for generations, who have gone from mining privileges and are transitioning to the Resource Management Act framework for water, who have been doing the best for their families, the best for their farming endeavours—we’re just going to shut up shop. I don’t know what the land will become, but it won’t be productive. What does that do? What does that do to New Zealand’s economy? That is what this Government has to answer. So the Hon Shane Jones, who was still chipping away across the House, needs to get up and tell this House what he is going to do to maintain economic sustainability—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Billion dollars. Billion trees.

—in those regions that need water? And it’s not just Central Otago, it’s not just North Otago, it’s not just the Hunter Downs irrigation company who are facing the same sort of challenges; without water there is not the level of productivity. What does productivity bring? What does water bring? It brings jobs; that’s what it brings. It brings people shopping in the supermarket; that’s what it brings. And what is Shane Jones’ answer to that? A billion dollars a year. Well, let’s be having it, Minister. Let’s be having a slice of that billion dollars into Manuherikia irrigation company, into Hunter Downs. I’m sure colleagues across this side of the House could stand up and talk about—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Corporate welfare—corporate welfare.

—any number of initiatives that will benefit—is the Minister now calling it a “pocket of money”? What’s he calling it? Say again? I invite the Minister—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Billion trees.

—he’s been chipping across the House. Oh, a billion trees. You see, there’s another thing: a billion trees—obviously more than you can count on the fingers of both hands. The thing is with those billion trees, we were already planting half of that. So does the billion include that half or not? And what about the land? Is the land available for those billion trees? And what about the workers? Are the workers available for those billion trees? And what about when they have to be paid $20 an hour, minimum wage? Does that become economically sustainable? There is so little substance to that proposal, it’s laughable. But here’s the rub: it is important. It is important to my region, it is important to my colleague’s region, it is important to every region throughout New Zealand that we have decent policies coming from this Government.

They’ve had five weeks in Government. We can put that on the fingers of one hand. They’ve had five weeks. It is not good enough any more to say things like, “We’re looking forward to getting to know the sector.” I’m sorry; that is not good enough. These people are in Government now. We need answers. My farmers need answers, and they need them sooner rather than later, because I’ll tell you what’s happening in the regions: there is a high level of anxiety and uncertainty. There is going to be a lack of investment in that very infrastructure of the half of the private sector that New Zealand needs to continue to thrive. Well, here it is folks. You ain’t going to get it from them. Bring it on is what I say.

Just before I call the next speaker, can I just refer the members to Speakers’ Rulings from Mr Geoff Braybrooke that interjections should be rare, reasonable, and, if possible, witty. And just being like a parrot, you know, is not particularly witty.

Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you so much. May I begin my address by congratulating and acknowledging Mr Venkat Raman. He’s the founder of Indian Newslink, and last night we celebrated 10 years of businesses under Indian Newslink—so many businesses across New Zealand—and I’d like to just acknowledge all the work that Mr Venkat Raman has put in to our country. I would also like to congratulate Crimson Education, the overall winner of last night’s Indian Business Awards. In particular, it was a young lady called Sharndré Kushor—22 years old. I’m just extremely proud that it’s a young lady that actually won that award.

Our new coalition Government was sworn into office just over four weeks ago. We are bringing new ideas to solve so many issues that we’re facing in Aotearoa New Zealand today. Just earlier on during question time, we heard that there is a Budget funding hole of just over $10 billion in infrastructure. The two main issues I would like to talk about this afternoon are child poverty and homelessness. In addition to addressing those two issues, we also have to look at that particular funding challenge.

One of the main issues that we are finding ourselves having to address is this issue of homelessness. Now, I remember, about two years ago, when I was trying to highlight this particular issue from South Auckland, and, initially, when I became a member of Parliament, I did not expect to deal with such volumes of homelessness on a daily basis in my office. But the most shocking thing to me, as a local MP, was the fact that so many of these families coming to ask for assistance were working. They were working full time, and yet they could not find a place where they could actually afford the rent.

And so I’d like to also acknowledge at this time the assistance from a journalist who actually came and spent a lot of time in Ōtara—three weeks, and he was doing other work as well. I am talking about Mike Wesley-Smith of The Nation. In that time, one of the things that he actually uncovered was that in Ōtara, in the previous year, 80 percent of all the houses that were sold were sold to investors. It actually answered one of the questions I had in my mind, because so many of these families coming to ask for my assistance had never lived in a State house. They’ve always lived in private rentals.

I was wondering why I was seeing so many people from my local community coming to ask for assistance—people that had never asked for assistance in terms of social housing in the past. He actually helped me answer that question. When they are given eviction notices, told to leave those houses, and they cannot find another house that they can afford—and, yes, they’re working full time—it is actually really desperate. I find a lot of these families in desperate situations. Initially, when I saw families who had come to see me in the minivans they live in and in the cars that they live in, and when I went out as a local MP—I found so many cars parked in the street, and all of these folks were living in those cars—I found, with the assistance of the journalist, that half of them work full time, and that a quarter of them had degrees.

So they’re educated, 25 percent of them; they work full time, 50 percent of them; and they’re still living in cars. This, of course, is a really concerning issue to me as a local MP, but it has become a big issue for us as a Government, because we know now—and we know this from Yale University—that New Zealand now has the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD.

We know—a little earlier on, from Otago University—that there are over 41,000 homeless people in Aotearoa New Zealand, but that is 2013 census figures. I’m looking forward to the census figures of next year, because if we go by the kinds of numbers I’m seeing in my office in Ōtara, the figure will probably be more. When I first became an MP, I was seeing a certain number of families who were coming to ask for assistance because they were homeless, but three years later I was seeing three times those numbers of families. So, on the one hand, I’m looking forward to the actual numbers from Statistics New Zealand but, on the other, it will probably confirm that we have so many more who are living in these situations.

One of the things that we read in the media lately is some criticism of the kinds of experts that we, the Government, are bringing together to give us the actual reality of homelessness, of rental, and of the conditions of our housing, but let me just say that what my parliamentary colleague and Minister of Housing, the Hon Phil Twyford, is doing in bringing these folks together is actually going to inform us. They will actually tell us: this is the status of housing right now; this is the status of rental accommodation; and this is actually the status of homelessness. For us, as a Government, those statistics—yes, they did exist and they do exist in the Government departments—haven’t actually been out there in the public. And so I look forward to when that report is going to be released, which is going to be just before Christmas.

In terms of child poverty, can I now reflect on a lady who is one of my heroes, someone I look up to, and how she served children, and how she served those who were living in the most dire of circumstances: St Mother Teresa. We celebrated her birth just a couple of days ago, and as many of you already know, she had a life journey that was filled with love and compassion, filled with kindness towards our most vulnerable. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, and she has over 4,000 sisters in over 100 countries. Some of these sisters are right here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I met a few of them over the weekend.

One of the things that St Mother Teresa did is she reached out to anyone and to everyone in need. She offered practical help, no matter their race, their faith, or their social status. And one of the things that is occurring over in my electorate, in Ōtāhuhu, where there are a few Catholic churches but also a few Catholic schools, is we have a non-governmental organisation that helps those who are homeless; it’s called St Vincent’s. This particular organisation works in collaboration with McAuley High School. They have what is called Vinnies. Now, what this organisation does is it assists our youngest students and helps them to serve those in need. On a yearly basis, they come together and they go to St Vincent’s and they help them with food, they help them with clothes, and they help sort things out, because too many of our families are in need.

But if I can go back to St Mother Teresa, one of the things that she is quoted as saying is this: and I quote, “Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right where you are.” And other quote from her, “If you can’t feed 100 people, then feed just one.” At this time, I’d like to refer to a young boy, not in my electorate—a young boy from Manurewa; we know, because this was covered in the media. This young boy, he would go past this older gentleman, a Pākehā gentleman, and what he would notice was that this gentleman was crying. But what he did was he stopped. He asked him, “Why are you crying?” This was a homeless person. This older gentleman shared with him that he had lost his wife. He had lost his home as well, because he had lost his job. But what this young boy did is he shared his lunch with this gentleman. This gentleman now, we know, tells us that that act of kindness, that act of love, gave him hope, and every day he would look forward to this young person stopping by to share his lunch.

Can I just say that if many of us in this House just share a little bit of kindness, just like this young boy and just like St Mother Teresa, we would help a whole lot more people. Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to rise to speak in this Address in Reply debate but, first of all, I would like to congratulate you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I think this is the first opportunity I’ve had to actually congratulate you on your election to Assistant Speaker. I’m very, very happy for you—very well deserved.

Just referring to this, it’s also a great pleasure to actually follow the Minister who just resumed her seat. The Hon Jenny Salesa is a good sort, and when she was actually talking about Mother Teresa, I was just sitting here reflecting on the fact that perhaps she needs the quality of Mother Teresa to be on that side of the House, to deal with her coalition partners: to her left, New Zealand First, and to her right, the Green Party. So I wish you good luck, my friend. You will require the patience of Mother Teresa to deal with your coalition partners, so well done. Also, congratulations on your elevation to Minister for Ethnic Communities. I’m her shadow and I’ll be following you around, and I look forward to working with you. We have had precedents. We’ve actually worked together in the past, so I know that we work really well, so, hopefully, you just need to answer those questions.

I’d like to start by also acknowledging the people in Mt Albert. They have, together with so many New Zealanders, voted to continue the strong legacy of the National-led Government and voted for a strong economy and an aspirational country. I would also like to acknowledge, in particular, the voters from the migrant community. For some, voting can still be a daunting experience, and I acknowledge their support and encouragement for me and my ethnic caucus colleagues as I begin my fourth term as a member of Parliament for the National Party.

Just on that note, I’d just like to commiserate with my friends on that side Raymond Huo and Louisa Wall, who I respect tremendously. I am disappointed for you that you did not actually rise to the ministership but, you know, your time will come, so just be patient. I rate you guys, so you just need to wait a little bit.

I would also like to acknowledge my Korean community who has staunchly been backing me as a member of Parliament and backing National’s vision for families, safer communities, and a strong economy. I just want to say thank you. Kamsahamnida—that’s “thank you” in my language.

A few days ago, I had the distinct privilege of being honoured by the Korean community of Wellington, who held a special reception. Apparently, being a fourth-term member in Korea’s quite a big deal, so they decided to do a big dinner and I just want to say thank you. Thank you for coming along and thank you for honouring me. I think it’s wonderful that we live in a country that celebrates diversity.

I was also reflecting back to my maiden speech and part of that—you know, it was also during part of the Address in Reply debate—where I noted how important it was for Asian New Zealanders to be participating in New Zealand’s democracy. I quote, “voting is the ultimate realisation that we live in a democracy.” It is important to say that all voices matter in an election and in making sure our Parliament is representative of the people it legislates for. Whether one is attacked by others for one’s last name, for or one’s accent, or, indeed, for where one tries to build one’s life in our country, know that we on this side of the House, the National Party, are listening to all of you and will advocate for all of you in this House and across the community of our nation—although some across on the other side may not.

Under the National Government, we saw a booming economy, we saw more jobs being created by businesses ready to offer innovative research and promote New Zealand’s brand on the global stage. We saw better roading across our country, and we saw 21st century learning classrooms spring up all across the nation for better education and the building of young minds, actually. National has been a champion for the vulnerable and will continue to champion those who will have their voices cut off under this new three-pronged Government.

With my new portfolio responsibilities I’m reaching out alongside all of my National parliamentary colleagues to talk to these stakeholders in our communities—our businesses in the country that want to make sure they’re being listened to. I can tell this House that people want to ensure that their issues are heard, that—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Members, please don’t talk across the aisle. Sorry to interrupt you. Please continue on.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. People want to know that the Government isn’t just dealing with what’s interesting to them, but to the people of this country, and I just want to assure the public that National is, in fact, listening.

As of this morning, I have actually written to hundreds of stakeholders and community leaders across broadcasting, communications, digital media, and ethnic communities and started meeting with them to listen to their needs. These are people that are already speaking out about their concerns for the future of New Zealand’s migrant communities and for the future of good telecommunications, as well. They’re concerned, because they’re unsure what is in store for them and they want to know. They want to have transparency, they want to know where they are headed, but this Government hasn’t actually given them the transparency that they promised them so far. So I will keep on asking questions and my executive assistant tells me that as of today I have asked 579 written questions to Ministers in this 52nd Parliament to ensure that I and the people of New Zealand can hold them to account and support the best transparency and open Government that can be done for the benefit of New Zealand’s democracy.

Some in the media might actually sort of, you know, downplay that and say we’re wasting our time or whatever—that we’re asking pedantic or unnecessary questions, but these are important questions. These are important because we want an open, transparent Parliament. They are necessary because it has been over a month since the new Government took office and some of those questions that we’re asking are not even being answered.

Under this Government, we are already seeing the election promises backtracked. Less than four or five weeks since taking office, just over two months since the election, it’s disappointing but it is what comes with a Government coalition so lacking in cohesion and practical policy ideas—

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: [Yawns]

—that they must look back on what was working, I guess. National had a strong, innovative plan and so they will actually go along with that. That member across over there yawns. You know, they’ve already backtracked on planting 100 million trees a year. That actually worked out—I had to actually try and calculate how many that would mean in 365 days. That’s 274,000 trees planted every day, including weekends, to achieve that target, and half of them have already, as members have previously said, been planted by the industry to replace forestry stock as needed to ensure the long-term production of New Zealand’s vibrant forestry industry.

They’ve also backtracked on immigration. Everywhere I go, as the ethnic communities spokesperson, people tell me they are really concerned about the new Government’s policy on immigration, because they feel that they’re going to be discriminated against—that Labour’s immigration policy, if they have a colour of skin like mine, might actually discriminate, or that maybe if they have a surname like mine, it might discriminate. They are really, really concerned, and I urge you, the Hon Jenny Salesa, to look after your constituents in those ethnic portfolios who are really, really concerned. If they haven’t talked to you, they will be coming your way and speaking very loudly.

Alongside my National colleagues, championing the needs of the public, we are here speaking for the businesses who actually need some work, and I wish the new Government the best of luck in their endeavours. So far they’re not doing such a great job, so I look forward to them improving.

Under National’s nine years, average take-home pay increased by $13,000 to $59,000 per year, a 28 percent increase, and this was not merely inflation but real cash in hand for the benefit of those who actually needed it the most. In order for them to catch up to the work that the National Government did, Labour’s going to have to pedal pretty damn fast. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker, and, as this is my first opportunity to say a few words in the 52nd Parliament, can I add my voice to those who have acknowledged your elevation to the Assistant Speaker’s role. I actually was personally very pleased when I saw that. I think you’ll do a tremendous job, and it is a testament to your talents that you’ve brought in over the last few years that you’ve been here.

Can I also acknowledge everyone who has been returned or elected for the first time to this great House, and particularly Angie, at the back there, sitting in exactly the same seat that I was in three years ago. This could be you in three years, sitting out here—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Or less.

—or potentially less. But, seriously, it’s great to see you here, and I look forward to working with you over the next three years.

Can I particularly acknowledge the National Party team who have got elected. I think particularly, if you look at our 2017 intake, it’s a very, very impressive group of people. I thought the 2014 intake was pretty good, actually, but I’d have to say the 2017 intake just talks to the strength of capability and renewal that our party has brought into this House and that has been a legacy of both John Key’s leadership and Bill English’s. Can I, of course, acknowledge our leader. As I said to a huge National Party function a couple of days ago, where we had 250 there, here is a man who genuinely understands people. Rather than a smile-and-wave approach, he actually connects at a very deep and genuine level with people, and that actually talks to his character and is part of the reason he remains so popular.

When I look out across at the Government in front of me, I just have this huge sense that they’re still pinching themselves that this thing’s actually turned out like it has. In fact, I still believe most of the people in the Labour Party still can’t quite believe it, particularly those who have found themselves on the ministerial benches. You can see that in the lightness of their programme, which I’ll return to in a moment. But this still has very much a feel that three months ago it was the great Hail Mary pass. For once in politics the pass stuck, and there they are, sitting there now on the Government benches. But you can tell from the 100-day plan that they have put in front of you that they are seriously underdone in terms of thinking around the vision for the next three years.

You can tell that because they have reverted to type. As a former student president, I understand this. When the pressure comes on and you actually get a real job, the first thing you do is (1) form a committee, and (2) bring the people who were here 10 years ago back again to tell you how to run the country. So Sir Michael Cullen turns up. Helen Clark we haven’t heard of for nine years—she’s suddenly back in full voice. Heather Simpson’s upstairs designing how to actually put a Government together.

This is a party that simply was not ready, and you can see it in terms of the plan that they are talking to. Already, the lightness of their agenda has been highlighted. We’ve heard it this afternoon—some of the flip-flops that we’ve already had. The trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), was an affront to democracy! You add the words “comprehensive and progressive” in front of the name—now it is the best deal that we can possibly see!

I have to mention him, because he would be very disappointed if I didn’t: Minister Jones. He bellicosely sort of belches billions of dollars, is what so far—I’ve only been in this House for a little bit, and this is what I see. It’s like, “a billion trees” and “a billion dollars”—you know, typical of someone who’s never really had to own the applying of capital himself. So let’s look at that billion trees. Well, it’s not a billion trees, is it? It’s half a billion. We’ve been here five weeks—it’s already half. And there’s no plan behind it. It’s just nice, high-level rhetoric. Where’s the land? Where are the people trained to be able to plant it? Where is the capital to be able to facilitate it? [Interruption] Actually, you’re quite right: we can’t do all this. We’re going to rely on the private sector to do it. We haven’t talked to them about it, but that’s what going to happen.

Look, that high-level rhetoric is humorous, at a level, but this business of Government is serious. There is a significant amount of capital that wants to be able to swing in behind a strategy that has merit, and the risk here is that the strategy’s going to be shown as a laughing stock because there’s no detailed thinking behind it.

If you go to the billion-dollar-a-year regional development fund, I actually agree with my colleague who says that in many respects we want that to be successful. Coming from a region that is extremely successful—the Bay of Plenty and Tauranga, at the moment with the highest level of employment in the country, the highest level of internal migration to our region—it is an area that has been invested in heavily by private capital but also facilitated by public investment, such as Callaghan Innovation and others. They understand that, actually, you invest where the highest growth is occurring.

I want to make sure, over the next three years, that this billion-dollar fund, when you strip the humour and rhetoric away from it, is actually a fund that has got serious criteria behind it and that understands that businesses of New Zealand deserve the support, where appropriate, of public money. Mr Jones can’t stand there one second and bellow, “Corporate welfare”, and in the next second say, “Oh, and I’ve got a billion dollars to throw out and haven’t really thought about the criteria yet.” This is serious. This is public money—taxpayer money. It deserves to have criteria that are defendable and that mean that the communities of Tauranga that I represent have an opportunity to showcase their businesses being able to access it.

I do want to spend a moment reflecting on the portfolios that I have been asked to take up as the National Party spokesperson, particularly climate change and assisting Nuk, of course, in Crown-Māori relations moving forward. I’ll talk to both of them. I’d like to start on climate change. I had the privilege of travelling with Minister Shaw a couple of weeks ago, and I acknowledge him for inviting me, as other Ministers in the National Government previously have done, to go overseas. He did a fair job—in my opinion, more than a fair job—around that forum, promoting New Zealand’s interests. But there was a concern for me that is starting to become quite serious, and that is that we can talk here about ambition; we can look forward to 2050 and have high-end rhetoric around where we want to position New Zealand; we can call it a moral imperative; we can call it, even, an issue of our generation, and in many respects there are aspects of that definition that I am comfortable with—but what I am not comfortable with is this view that we have to be first, that we have to be fast, and that above all we need to be famous and acknowledged by the NGOs as somehow taking more than our proportional response on behalf of the global community. I disagree with that.

The National Party has a strong record on climate change. It has always believed that our response should be proportionate. We should take part in a global community’s response, but it should be proportionate. There is no premium for being the best and the first. There is also a moral imperative for the families of New Zealand who seek to compete on the world stage selling their goods to the world. Those families understand the importance of the environment. Those families understand the importance of climate change. Those families understand the importance of a proportional response and this country doing our part—and I don’t disagree with the fact that we must. I don’t disagree that we should consider a climate commission to provide some independent advice. The emphasis is on independence. There’s no independence in saying, “Oh, here’s our independent tax working group, with Sir Michael Cullen leading it.” That’s not independence. What, is Russel Norman going to head the climate commission? Absolutely ridiculous.

But there are some fundamental choices that this country has to make as we move away from a carbon-intensive world, and they are very appropriate questions to ask of all of us around our appetite for change—the appetite to actually crystallise the cost of the move. Yes, there are opportunities, but there will also be significant costs for our trade-exposed industries, and it’s absolutely critical that we get this balance right. The concern that I have is that our motivation must always be that we must do what is good for New Zealand. It must not be that we must do what the United Nations will give us a gold medal for, because it is for New Zealand that we work. It is for New Zealand that we endeavour and strive. It is not to get a gold medal from the United Nations because somehow we’ve got there first, in their view.

There are 190 countries on this journey, and we are but one, and we do 0.16 percent of the emissions. It is important. We must play our part, but it must be proportional. Let us not get carried away by international rhetoric saying “Being number one is what counts”. Being for New Zealand is what counts. Thank you.

Madam Assistant Speaker, can I first congratulate you on your appointment. It is delightful to see you in the Chair, and I look forward to seeing you in the Chair many more times. It is a real pleasure to have your input into this House after your already acknowledged service to your fine electorate further south. It is, of course, from our perspective, also good to be on this side of the House, looking from a different perspective across the House.

I wanted to reflect a little on the election, and the new Government’s ambitious programme resulting from that election. Before I get too far into that, I do also want to thank the good people of Dunedin North, who have invested their faith in me to put me back in this House again for another term. The good people of Dunedin North, I think, voted—at least two out of every three of them—for the Government that sits on this side of the House. They are disproportionately wise in that part of the country. In fact, it would be foolish of me to quibble with their choices. So I thank them for that, and I hope that I can also live up to the faith that they have put in me.

It is a real privilege, I have to say, to serve as the Minister of Health. In the four weeks that I have been in the role, I have really enjoyed the opportunity to get around to speak with those people in the sector who have been struggling, who have been stressed, and who have been frustrated from nine years of a Government that had not prioritised the health of New Zealanders. The system, of course, has continued to work well for those who can get into it. Every day I hear stories from people who have been well served by our health system. They are incredibly grateful for the fine clinicians, the allied health workforce, the nurses across the country—those people who serve day in, day out in our health system to make sure that people are looked after; those caring professionals that train to be health professionals because they want better health outcomes for New Zealanders.

But there’s no doubt, and we’ve all seen the statistics, that sickness has gone up, that absenteeism at work and burnout have gone up during the period of the previous Government. So many of the people in that workforce have been doing it tough, and, more than anything else, they’re expressing relief to me that there is a Government that has committed to putting more money into the health sector—that has committed to making health a priority once more—and a Government that up front says, “We want affordable access to quality care for all New Zealanders.”

This is a Government that’s not afraid to be ambitious, that’s not afraid to want to make sure that New Zealanders have better access to quality care. I feel very proud to stand on this side of the House with the support of the coalition partners for an approach to health that will mean better healthcare—that will genuinely mean better healthcare for New Zealanders. The people in the sector who get into the sector because they care too are also delighted with the change of Government. So I thank them for their acknowledgment, and I want to acknowledge their ambition.

I also want to ask them for patience because, of course, we can’t fix everything overnight. Nine years of neglect in the health system—

💬 Chris Bishop: Aw, rubbish.

—will take some time to put right. We don’t need to look any further, in fact, than Dunedin Hospital, now that Mr Bishop quibbles with what I’m saying. We know that that hospital is long overdue for replacement. In fact, in 2014 I asked the then health Minister when they would begin to address the delays in the hospital rebuild—in 2014—and still they had not done anything about it come this election. They had not got a plan together despite advice from many sectors that that ought to be quite possible.

What’s worse is that they had not put money aside for it. No, there was nothing—no capital put aside. There was a contingency of a few hundred million when, in fact, we now know that a build is likely to cost $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion. They imagined, I think, that this money would mysteriously arrive on some kind of money tree, perhaps—I’m not sure. We know now that they’d put aside $5 billion for capital projects when, in fact, they knew $13 billion were already on the way.

That’s the kind of bookkeeping that we have seen from that Government during their time. They have actually left a whole lot of things that are going to take time to address, and the full extent of that is still being uncovered. I know in my portfolio, in health, I am still finding more rundown assets that need to be looked at, that need to be replaced over time, and that, of course, cost money. But you can’t sweat assets forever. You can’t sit on those assets forever and not expect the system to be under strain.

We know in Dunedin Hospital, for example, surgery gets cancelled when it rains. The operating theatres cannot function because they are leaking. That is not a first-world hospital. That is, unfortunately, the kind of thing you might expect to see in a developing country, but it should not be happening in New Zealand—certainly not in a hospital where many of New Zealand’s clinicians are trained.

It’s not the only example. Up and down the country there are other hospitals that are showing wear and tear, and no provision has been made, it seems, from that previous Government to address those issues. And you know, with existing buildings that have passed their use-by date, they also force old ways of doing things—more expensive ways of doing things. The previous Government simply has not kept up. It has not had the vision for New Zealanders to have access to quality healthcare at an affordable price, and we’ve all borne the cost of that.

Instead, they had a focus on short-term targets. So we saw that Avastin injections have skyrocketed under their watch, and skin lesion removals, and those things counted towards their elective targets that they wanted to parade about, but, frequently, many of those were done in primary care previously, at lower costs. So we’ve had these distorted behaviours with an exclusive focus on short-term targets. All of these things will need to be addressed.

What I’ve also found out since I have been the health Minister is that none of the district health board (DHB) annual accountability documents have been signed off. None of them—none of them—and we know why that is. It goes right back to the time when they made that blunder in the Budget where the health Minister did not see that the wrong amounts had been allocated to the different DHBs around the country. Two weeks out from the financial year beginning, the DHBs didn’t know the correct amount of money they would be allocated in the Budget. Long after the Budget day, two weeks out from the financial year beginning, the DHBs around New Zealand did not have the correct figures for how much money they would have to spend in that financial year. So, of course, everything has been pushed back, and the previous Minister—goodness knows what he was doing. But all 20 DHBs had not been signed off with their accountability documents, and how many months into the financial year are we now?

I think it’s a disgrace. It speaks to the low priority placed on health by the previous Government, and I can assure this House that this Government takes responsibility much more seriously in the health space—as it does in education, as it does in housing. We are a Government that is concerned for a kinder, more caring society; a Government that has empathy; a Government that will manage fiscal responsibility. We have set ourselves the Budget responsibility rules, which we will keep to. We will manage in a fiscally responsible way, but we won’t prioritise building new prisons, or pet projects in the roading sector, or whatever else it may be. This will be a Government that looks to look after New Zealanders’ interests; that spends money wisely; that is concerned to provide decent education for all New Zealanders so every kid can get a world-class education at their local school; that wants to provide affordable access to quality care so all New Zealanders can access quality care regardless of the depth of their wallets.

We’ll do that, in part, by reducing the cost of access to primary care. Currently, people going to see their GP—we know that over half a million people in the past year have not gone to see their GP because they couldn’t afford it. How can that be in a country like New Zealand, that over half a million people—and growing—every year cannot afford to go to their GP when they need to, for reasons of cost? So we’ve said we’ll lower that barrier. We will reduce GP fees by $10 so that New Zealanders will be able to afford to go and visit their doctors, because we believe that all people should be able to afford that quality care, not just those who are already well off.

In the health sector, we will have other priorities, too. We’ve said we want to kick off a mental health inquiry. We want to have an agreed approach, because the current approach clearly has not been working. There’s been a 60 percent increase in the number of people accessing mental health services over the past decade, and less than half of that in terms of additional funding to meet that need. But we want to have a review first so we fully understand how best to spend any new money in that sector, so we get the best outcome for New Zealanders. We want to make sure that there’s a good public health system, and we want to make sure that the disparities that we see across different ethnic groups are reduced, because right now there are clearly not equitable outcomes in the health sector. As I’ve said, we want to address the issue of primary care. We want affordable access to quality care for all New Zealanders.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. If there was ever an example of this new Government’s lack of readiness and preparedness to be in Government, it’s that Minister who has just resumed his seat, David Clark. About three months ago, he had no expectation at all that he would be in the hot seat, and his speech in contribution to this Address in Reply debate absolutely sealed the confirmation of that very firmly in the minds of everyone who would’ve been listening and everybody in the Chamber today. Madam Assistant Speaker, it’s a pleasure to be participating here in the Address in Reply debate, and it is with pleasure that I congratulate you on your appointment as a presiding officer of this House, and to your colleagues as other presiding officers, I wish you collectively well in this 52nd Parliament.

I have the great pleasure and, very proudly, the responsibility of returning to this House for a third term as the very proud and keenly championing MP for Coromandel. I’m pleased to report that the pohutukawa are in bloom along the Thames coast and around the peninsula, and that summer is on its way. We are going to enjoy, notwithstanding this new Government, a very good summer in the Coromandel.

The election result was interesting in Coromandel, because we had some good candidates, I have to say. I want to congratulate the other candidates who went through the campaign with me in Coromandel. We had a new Green candidate, and he took over from the irrepressible Catherine Delahunty, who’s retired from this House. He did pretty well—in my view, made something of a rookie’s mistake and ran a candidate campaign rather than a party vote campaign, which saw the Green Party vote diminish significantly in the Coromandel, a seat once held by a Green MP. That was probably a surprise, although part of it was probably in response to the situation that occurred during the election campaign, where the former Green Party co-leader, Metiria Turei, was forced to acknowledge that her electoral and benefit fraud meant that she needed to go from this place.

What I’m sad about as a result of that is that two other, I think, good Green MPs are not sitting in this Chamber: Kennedy Graham and Dave Clendon. In what I think was probably one of the most principled acts that I’d seen in my years of watching politics in New Zealand, Kennedy Graham and David Clendon chose to resign their places on the Green Party list as a matter of principle. This House is the poorer for not having those two Green members here. I worked with Kennedy Graham on the GLOBE-NZ project, which led to the Vivid Economics report, and I’ve got to say that I worked very closely and well with Kennedy Graham, because that was truly a cross-party consensus document. I hope that when the climate change initiatives that this Government has heralded so loudly do come into effect, they find a place for Kennedy Graham and Dave Clendon, because they are two MPs who did make a good contribution to this House.

I want to congratulate my colleagues in the National Party, particularly our leader, Bill English, for what I thought was an excellent campaign. Bill English came to the Coromandel and campaigned through there with me. I have very fond memories of standing in front of the world-famous Lemon and Paeroa bottle in Paeroa, and we had a very good period of time campaigning there. But what was immediately apparent when we had Bill English in the electorate was how he was speaking to middle New Zealand in a way that resonated, that captured their imagination in a way that worked for them. It was aspirational, it was standing on a very good record of the nine years that the National Party had had in Government, and we’ve left this Government with a New Zealand that is in very good shape. No matter what they will try and do in terms of rewriting history and trying to change the facts and the numbers and statistics, the simple reality is that New Zealand has done well and prospered under nine years of the stable, calm, rational leadership of John Key and Bill English.

So where are we now? Well, we find ourselves now with a new Government ill-prepared for Government, ill-prepared for leadership, and ill-prepared for the challenges and the opportunities that they confront and face on the Treasury benches. Funnily enough, I was speaking to a New Zealand First candidate only last week who said, “I dodged a bullet.” That’s about himself—he said, “I didn’t get elected. I dodged a bullet, because I would not have wanted to be there, in hindsight, because I didn’t think for one moment”, said this New Zealand First candidate, “that the Rt Hon Winston Peters would do what he did.” Now, be that as it may, I suspect it probably reflects what could easily be referred to as voters’ remorse by a fair percentage of New Zealand First voters who actually didn’t vote for this outcome, weren’t expecting it, and weren’t wanting it. In my electorate, where there were some New Zealand First voters, I’m pleased to say that my National Party membership numbers have increased a wee bit. There are a number of them that have come back to the mothership, so to speak, and they are in good heart and they’re ready for the next election in 2020.

Bill English has given me a great opportunity to take over the National Party’s spokespersonship role on the environment. I’m delighted to have been given that opportunity, because being from the Coromandel and representing the electorate, of course, our natural environment and our natural heritage and resources are incredibly important to me, my constituents, and the rest of the nation. In the National Party, I think we’ve got a very good view about environmental care, responsibility, and management, but we have never talked up our goals and aspirations and our good intent in the way that this Government did during the election campaign. They really did talk it up. Bill English, in his Address in Reply speech, when leading off this debate a week or two ago, made the point that the Speech from the Throne was dripping with good intent, and dripping with good intent it certainly was, but good intent is not what gets things done. Actually, what this Opposition will be doing is we’ll be holding the Government to account not for their good intention—because, heaven forbid, we agree with most, if not some, of their good intention—but what we will be holding them to account for is the reality of their intention. It’s a situation where, now that they sit on the Treasury benches, actually, deeds and actions speak louder than words and mere good intentions.

I want to just remind members opposite of the challenge that the Leader of the Opposition, Bill English, made in his speech. He said that we’re going to measure two important environmental measurements for this Government. This time next year—next Christmas—we’ll be looking to the Avon River in Christchurch to see what tangible improvements and water quality have occurred there. We’ll be watching and we’ll be wanting to report back.

Similarly, the second area that we are going to be looking at this time next year is in Auckland City, where, over the last 12 months or so, on 160 days, raw sewage has been pumped on to the beaches and into the harbour of Auckland in a way that if it was being done by farmers in our rural communities, they would be prosecuted.

So what we’re going to do is ask this Government to come good on their good intentions—come good on their good intentions and prove that the road to purgatory is not paved with good intentions, and it is something more than that.

David Parker has a very big workload. He’s been given the environment responsibility. He’s a capable member. I’ve had dealings with him from my time when I was chairing the Local Government and Environment Committee. I don’t, for one minute, question his ability. But, boy, he’s got a very heavy workload. So we’ll be watching that very closely over the next little period of time.

The National Party is in incredibly good heart. We’re united. We’re strong. We’re not at all diminished. We will continue to ask questions—written, oral, and policy questions—of this Government, holding them to account, holding the peat to their feet, so that they actually have to turn good intentions into good deeds.

Madam Assistant Speaker, I wish you well in your role as a presiding officer.

Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. Can I first of all congratulate you, ma’am, on your elevation to this role. It was a pleasure serving with you on the Justice and Electoral Committee in the last Parliament, and I’m sure you’ll do a great job in this role. And congratulations to all the other presiding officers as well.

This is my first time speaking in a debate in the House. I’ve had the privilege of asking my first oral question. I’ve got to say that asking oral questions when you’re in Opposition is a little bit different to asking oral questions when you’re a Government backbencher. The adrenalin is a bit higher and the nerves are a bit greater. But this is my first time speaking in the House.

I want to acknowledge, secondly, the good people of Hutt South for electing me as their local member. It’s an honour and a privilege to have that role, and it’s something that I’ve worked pretty hard for over the last three years as a list MP. I want to say it was a bit of a bitter-sweet victory. Oftentimes when you win an electorate seat off another party, oftentimes you are in Government, so it’s a bit of a bitter-sweet victory to win the seat but lose the war. But, as I have been saying to people around the Hutt, ultimately the Government did change and we just have to make the best of it. What I’ve said is that where we can work with the Government in relation to things in the Hutt Valley I’m keen to do that, and where I can’t work with the Government and where I think things are going to take the Hutt backwards, I’ll say so.

Can I acknowledge the new Government and our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Congratulations on your election to office. All of New Zealand is hoping that you do well and wishing you all the best.

A few things characterise this Government, and I want to run through a few of the characteristics that have come to define this Government after only five or six weeks. The first thing is incompetence. We saw that on the first day with the debacle over electing the Speaker. You wouldn’t think that would be particularly difficult for a Government to do. You turn up, it’s the first day, everyone gets sworn in, you elect the Speaker, and then we go off for lunch. But no, no. You wouldn’t think that would be difficult, but it was for this Government because they didn’t have the numbers, or at least they didn’t know that they didn’t have the numbers, which, as we know in politics on this side of the House, is actually far worse. Always know when you’ve got the numbers, and they didn’t.

But we also see this incompetence on display in the House at the moment. Despite the 100-day action plan, and much fevered talk about a Government of action, and we’re going to do this, that, and the other thing, there’s actually no legislation that the Government has brought before the House for us to consider. OK, we’ve had the paid parental leave bill, but in their own words that was a bill that was passed in the previous Parliament. So that’s not actually a new piece of legislation. We had to ram that through under urgency—hypocritically going against everything that the Government said in Opposition for nine years, about how urgency was an abuse of the democratic process and was unconstitutional. We had to do that through urgency.

And then we have the Government picking up a member’s bill in Andrew Little’s name, the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), and basically 95 percent of the content of that bill is a replica of what the previous Government passed in the last Parliament. They’ve had to pick up a member’s bill and adopt it as Government business. And other than that, what do we have? Nothing. We literally have nothing. That’s why the Government had to change the sitting programme, so they could send the Parliamentary Counsel Office off in the last week to desperately draft legislation. We’ve turned up here for a four-week sitting period, and is there any legislation that’s pressing, that’s coming down the line? No, we’ve no idea. So this is a Government that is incompetent.

But it’s also a Government that’s hypocritical, particularly around its transparency and its openness. What does the coalition agreement between New Zealand First and Labour say? It says, “This is an agreement that will strengthen New Zealand’s democracy by increasing public participation, openness, and transparency around official information.” But we learn this week that, actually, there’s a secret document of 38 pages, or 33 pages, or 32 pages, depending on which font you use—Arial, or Comic Sans, or something. There’s a secret document that actually governs how the coalition will operate.

What we hear is that this is a document of precision on various areas of policy commitment and development. We hear from Mr Peters, the Deputy Prime Minister, that these are directives to Ministers with accountability in media strategy to ensure the coalition works. In fact, this document is so important, in the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, that “the things contained in the document apparently were the first subject we raised about how we’re going to handle a cohesive coalition agreement.” I just want to repeat that for the House: the things in this document that the Government is refusing to release, the things in this document, were the first subject raised by the Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition negotiations.

Does anyone seriously think that something that was the first subject raised by the Deputy Prime Minister is not of public interest? Absolutely it is in the public interest. The Prime Minister’s excuses as to why this can’t be released are pathetic. First of all she said, “Well, they’re just notes.” Well, as she will know, from her nine years OIA-ing the previous Government, that is not a reason not to release something. Just because something is not a formal document does not make it not official information. She should go and talk to the Ombudsman about that.

Then she says, “Well, it may be that some areas are unworkable or fiscally irresponsible.” Well, again, that is irrelevant. I am sure that some of the things this Government wants to do will be fiscally irresponsible. I am quite convinced many of the things this Government will do will be fiscally irresponsible, but that is no reason to deny their profligate spending plans from the New Zealand people. And then she says, “Well, we haven’t distributed it to Ministers.” Well, that’s irrelevant. Just because Ministers don’t have it doesn’t mean it is not official information.

The worst excuse, or the most comical, depending on how you look at it, came from Mr Peters himself. He stood next to Jacinda Ardern at the post-Cabinet press conference: “I mean, Moses came down from the mountain and only had Ten Commandments, right? But there’s a lot in the Old Testament as well, get it? I’m only here because the Prime Minister asked me to be here. This is not Zimbabwe all over again.”

I literally have no idea what that even means, but it’s certainly not an excuse as to why something that is at the very core of the new coalition Government should not be released. So they’re hypocritical, and they’re arrogant. It has only taken six weeks. We had Shane Jones sitting there, throughout the previous speeches, bellicosity and belligerence personified, literally waving at Jacqui Dean, saying, “Bye-bye, bye-bye.” I’m imitating Shane Jones from about 40 minutes ago—bye-bye, bye-bye to Opposition members. The arrogance on display, after just six weeks, is just unbelievable.

The responses to written questions—Chris Hipkins says it’s parliamentary spam. I have asked Stuart Nash who he met with on a particular day, and he said: “You need to be more specific.” OK. I asked him who he met with during a particular hour-long period. He refused to answer. The arrogance is breathtaking. We’re trying to get access to information that we answered when we were in Government. When the now Government was in Opposition, they got access to a lot of that information.

And then we have the briefings to incoming Ministers. We’re six weeks in. Where are they? I understand, from my sources in the Civil Service, that briefings to incoming Ministers are usually sent around departments. They’re usually sent around departments after they’ve been to the Minister. But in this new Government, this new regime of transparency, the “BIMS”, as they’re popularly known, have not even been sent around to senior staff. They’ve been kept in Ministers’ offices, and the journalists have been declined the requests. Well, they need to be released.

The fourth characteristic of this Government, and this is the thing that will ultimately bring them down in the end, is a tendency for virtue-signalling as a substitution for public policy. And it was Milton Friedman who said that one of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programmes by their intentions rather than their results. This Government has a long ambitious list: eradicate child poverty—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Go back to the Second World War. The Korean War!

—enter Pike River; stop homelessness; build 100,000 homes; plant a billion trees, Shane Jones; increase the health of the economy. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Members!

And what they like to do—particularly Green members, but New Zealand First are not immune to this either—is pretend that because they care more, because they have more empathy than National, in their minds, and because they have the most passion for something, that will lead to better public policy outcomes. But, actually, as they are about to discover over the next three years, just because you tell everyone out there in the community that you care more and the nasty Nats don’t care about homelessness or poverty or trees or whatever, that does not necessarily mean that public policy gets improved. They are about to discover that, and I am looking forward, on this side of the House, to the new Government discovering that reality.

Madam Assistant Speaker, I am really pleased to take a call in this Address in Reply debate, and can I acknowledge you as Assistant Speaker. Congratulations on your role, and to Adrian Rurawhe, as well, but particularly to you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I thought we had a very positive working relationship on the Health Committee. Perhaps if I could put it this way, I suspect both of us will miss working on that committee. Can I acknowledge the Deputy Speaker, as well, and, of course, the Speaker himself, Trevor Mallard—now the Rt Hon Trevor Mallard—for taking the role.

But as I begin this speech, I think it is really appropriate to turn to the people of Tāmaki and to thank them for—in fact, first and foremost—an incredible party vote response. Tāmaki’s as blue as blue, and they turned out in droves. My thanks to all those people in the electorate who supported the National Party. Thanks, too, that they took the opportunity to tick the box twice and include me in that, and I’m very pleased to be returning to this House for my third term.

The people there in Tāmaki are quite remarkable, and one element of it—it doesn’t matter if they are in St Heliers or Glenn Innes, Ōrakei or Glendowie, they are very quick to give their thoughts and opinions on things, and that is actually quite a refreshing thing for a local MP. I never go to bed or wake in the morning worrying or wondering what the people there think. So they are disappointed, which will be no surprise, that we were not able to negotiate our way to Government. We certainly were able to bring an enormous vote overall. In fact—I think one of my colleagues was telling me earlier today—actually, the same numbers effectively voted National this time as they did back in 2014. We just weren’t able to quite pull it over the line. But I am relishing the opportunity to be in Opposition. Not wanting to be, by any means, but you relish the chances that you’re given. I’m one of these sort of—it doesn’t always go well with my theology, but actually a bit of a fatalist. That actually—

💬 Sarah Dowie: It’s because it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

It is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s been proving quite amusing, like chasing people in the North around the bush. But, actually, it’s an opportunity, and you have to take them. To the people of Tāmaki, we’ll continue to be a strong voice for them here in this Parliament with issues that concern them.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: What about Prince Harry?

But also to—oh, we’re coming to that. You’re going to really like this one, Shane.

💬 Hon Member: What about Rob?

Absolutely; it’s just going to go on and on—but also to take the role of Opposition and hold this Government to account.

This, now, is for Shane Jones. But, of course, we are replying to the Speech from the Throne, and it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge, as this House did today—in fact, it was quite remarkable that this House was completely united in affirming its support for the Queen and the monarchy of New Zealand. I think it’s fantastic, particularly for anyone here who understands democracy and good governance, as is often spoken of by me in the House. But I do want to acknowledge Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for their engagement. This is indeed an exciting time. I would want to echo the sentiments of some people today, that they should be invited down here as quickly as possible. Perhaps newer members of the House won’t realise but, actually, the tourist potential of when we have the royal family down here is huge. There was a select committee report, I think about 2 years ago, that highlighted the sort of tenfold increase in the likes of spending and visitors to this country when we bring members of our royal family down here. So I think it’s fantastic.

Just continuing the theme for Shane Jones’ sake, I want to congratulate Her Majesty herself and Prince Philip on their 70th wedding anniversary, which, as that honourable member will know, was on 20 November—70 years; their platinum jubilee.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: The member opposite was there.

The member opposite may well have been there; I won’t quiz him—we’re not in oral question time. Look, I’m only coming up to one year married, and I just note that if Rachel and I do reach the platinum anniversary, it will be in the year 2086—could be a long time.

Look, those matters aside, we now have a Government that really has no idea what it’s doing. The previous member who just resumed his seat, Chris Bishop, I think quite eloquently touched on a number of the problems. Really, what we have here is a bunch of people—and I’m talking now about Labour, Greens, and New Zealand First—who campaigned in poetry but are now having to govern in prose. I’m not even sure they’ll even be doing that.

In fact, in many ways I can’t help but think they’re governing via Post-it notes; sort of throwing Post-it notes around and seeing what happens to stick on the wall. Some of the Post-it notes are green, some are black and white, some are certainly red. They just sort of wait and see what lands there. In fact, when I think about the colours of Post-it notes, or the types, some of them are even Post-it notes in the spirit of Donald Trump. We have a left-wing Government that is anti-immigration, and we have a left-wing Government that is anti the TPP. In fact, from what I understand, there is no other left-wing Government—in fact, probably not even a left-wing party in the world—that is so supportive of Donald Trump’s policies, particularly, again, as I say, around immigration and the TPP. It must create very confusing conversations when this governing party fronts up to the likes of the Trudeaus of the world and tries to explain things.

I was very pleased to pick up the corrections portfolio. I think, for me, it illustrates one of the problems this Government is already running into. We’ve had the former spokesperson, now Minister, talk about reducing the prison population by 30 percent—very lofty, lofty goals. The problem is that a few weeks in, there are absolutely no details on how this will be achieved. As a number of people already around the country are asking me, how can a Government profess to be tough on crime—and we’ve heard that from the Minister of Police; we’ve certainly heard it from the Minister of Justice—and at the same time be reducing the prison population by simply not releasing people into the community? I have been at pains already to point out to the House—not in this speech but in some of my questions—that most people, in fact over 75 percent of people in our prisons, are there for violent offences. It is one of those myths out there that we’re actually locking people up for drug offences but, by and large, we’re not—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: What about the other 30 percent?

Well, actually, we can’t do the math—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: That’s right—with a proper parole system, we could let them go!

So we already have here the illustration of the problems. We have the Minister of Justice yell out, “It’s 30 percent.” No, it’s 25 percent of people in prisons who are there for non-violent activities, but that member’s Government is wanting to release 30 percent. So, you know, I’ll leave people to do the math there. Look, I’m also very pleased to take up the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. I’m not going to go into detail there, but obviously a fascinating area, along with defence and trade.

But I do want to use the last couple of moments to touch on a couple of other critical areas. The main one is actually around education and the push to close the partnership schools—or the kura hourua, sometimes inaccurately known as partnership schools. I want to put on the record that these schools are remarkable. I’ve had some engagement with a number of them. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I was at a huge gathering called Trust Live, pulling students, teachers, and the community together to celebrate. What is achieved in these schools for these young people is remarkable. It has turned lives around. Members who have been in this House a little while will know this, particularly those of us who sat through the select committee process, that it was people, often from those communities they say they represent—and it’s general but it is the Pacific and Māori communities and lower socio-economic groups within European New Zealanders who are crying out for this—and now they’re seeing the results and it’s absolutely remarkable, but equally sad that this Government is looking to shut those down.

It’s very representative to me of a one-size-fits-all approach, which always fits very well with the left wing—one size fits all and, come hell or high water, people will fit that; they will be made to fit that. It probably suits their union mates, particularly in the education sector, that will not deign any opportunity for someone to work outside their model, lest it show them up, but I think it is absolutely sad that young people in New Zealand, particularly on the periphery, are going to lose an opportunity here.

I want to sort of, probably, highlight in a different way—and I did point it out a few weeks ago in a very brief speech. We hear a lot about diversity these days; it’s sort of one of the buzz words that’s flicked around. I’d like to put it to the left, in particular, that they look at diversity when it comes to education; that, actually, it’s fine to have a State system, but equally it’s good to have an integrated system and a private system, and to have a little bit of diversity and have these charter schools as well. Because, you know, that’s what people want, and we want to respect that. In fact, we want to be tolerant of that. Lest I even mention this phrase today, with some of the news out there, it could even be argued as a human right, but maybe others in this House, particularly on the other side, might like to opine on that a little bit.

There are also issues in health. I congratulate the new Minister. I worked with Dr David Clark on the Health Committee. He has a huge road ahead of him. So much has been promised; how that’s going to be fulfilled leaves many questions. I am particularly disappointed that somehow this falsity of something called “medical marijuana” is being put forward as some great priority in health, when one can think of so many other things that are going on. On that, my time is up, but congratulations again, Madam Assistant Speaker.

This is a split call—the Hon Julie Anne Genter.

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. “E rere kau mai Te Awa nui nei mai i Te Kāhui Maunga ki Tangaroa. Ko au Te Awa, ko Te Awa ko au.”

[Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. “This majestic river flows directly from the cluster of mountains to Tangaroa, deity of the sea and fish. I am the river and the river is me.”]

The river flows from the mountains to the sea. I am the river and the river is me. Toitū Te Marae ā Tāne Mahuta; toitū Te Marae ā Tangaroa; toitū te tangata.

[The marae of Tāne Mahuta, deity of the forests and birds, stands undisturbed; the marae of Tangaroa, deity of the sea and fish, stands untouched; man is sustainable.]

If the land is well and the sea is well, the people will thrive. This wisdom was known to many previous generations of tangata whenua. The health of the land and the sea is critical to our own well-being, and, furthermore, the health and well-being of our communities, of our neighbours, and of all of the people—our fellow citizens in this country—affects our own well-being. We are all connected.

The reason I stood for Parliament, in particular for the Green Party of Aotearoa / New Zealand, is because I have hope. I have hope that love will triumph over fear. I have hope that we, as fellow humans, as part of this richly diverse ecosystem that is currently under a considerable threat, can overcome our differences and our most selfish tendencies and impulses and be our best selves and work together to stabilise the climate; that we can work together to restore our rivers and our native species; that we can work together to achieve peace, that we can work together to achieve justice; and that we can all live our lives respectfully—respectfully—of our fellow humans and of the planet that gives us life.

Although it’s common in this Parliament for us to focus on the short term and the drama of the daily game, which is evidenced perfectly by the National Party—newly in Opposition, caught up in trivial questions and trying to hamper the progress of the new Government with spurious allegations—I want to talk about the bigger picture. The work that we, as policy makers, as legislators, and as politicians, do here will determine the course of our history. Democracy here in Aotearoa, but also globally, is our best chance at solving the climate crisis and reducing inequality. Inequality, in and of itself, is anathema to democracy.

This new Government and the Prime Minister’s Speech from the Throne could not have come soon enough, because, for the first time in nine years, we have a Government that believes it has a real responsibility to protect the environment and to protect and empower all of our people. And for the first time in the history of Aotearoa, we have Green Party Ministers, of which I am hugely privileged to be one. I stand on the shoulders of all those who came before me. I will not waste one moment. I will do everything I can to bring the Green kaupapa into the policy and processes of this Government, which represents more than just one party. This Government represents a wider variety of views of New Zealand citizens, and I think that is a fantastic thing for democracy.

The National Party Opposition are giving their passionate, empty speeches, parroting talking points—anything to criticise the Government or to claim that it is not possible to do better than they did in the past nine years. I don’t believe this is because they are bad; I just think they don’t see that we’re all connected, and they don’t acknowledge that the playing field, so to speak, of our society is not level. There is a history of colonisation and subjugation that leaves a legacy of conscious and unconscious bias and will prevent justice unless we all work together to overcome it. When they speak of freedom for individuals, it is the freedom of a few privileged people—mostly white; mostly male—to continue to profit excessively at the expense of the many people who do the real work of our society.

The National Opposition do not see that the economy isn’t money; it isn’t just about business. A stronger economy is not achieved by a few hundred millionaires making tens of millions tax-free in capital gains while homelessness increases in Aotearoa. The economy is not a thing that is separate to us; it is entirely made up of us. It is entirely made up of people and our natural resources, and if we want to thrive for the long term and leave a better future for our children and grandchildren, we have to look after both, and that is the path the Green Party, as part of this new Government, is committed to: one of love for all people and our planet. Aroha mai, aroha atu.

[Empathy is incoming and outgoing.]

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. In this opening debate of this parliamentary term, I want to acknowledge the historic nature of this Government. Our country now has an inspiring, new, young Prime Minister, someone who represents generational political change, one of the youngest leaders on the world stage. We have a new Government that truly reflects the MMP system we adopted all the way back in 1996: our most MMP Government we’ve ever seen. For the Greens, who are proudly the world’s oldest national green party, which traces our routes back to 1972 with the Values Party, it’s historic that we have three Green Ministers and a Parliamentary Under-Secretary in Government. For my caucus, it is inspiring and historic to have this country’s youngest member of Parliament—the youngest in decades and decades—Chlöe Swarbrick, and also the country’s first refugee MP, Golriz Ghahraman. But, most importantly, for Kiwis it is historic because of the policy agenda of this Government. This is going to be the Government to tackle climate change and inequality to protect our environment.

After nine years, it sure is time for a change. What we saw was an economy that had amongst the highest growth of inequality in the developed world; low wage growth; low productivity; research and development languishing in the bottom half of the OECD; a housing market that locked a whole generation out of ownership; and hundreds of thousands of cold, damp homes, literally, making thousands sick. We saw an economy that poisoned our rivers and saw species threatened with extinction, and a Government that would throw tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money at oil companies to drill, to mine, and to frack. That is why it’s so great to have a historic change of Government, a new, progressive Government.

I think I can quite safely say this is going to be the most climate-friendly Government in our country’s history. It’s at the heart of the confidence and supply agreement we’ve negotiated with the Labour Party, and we’ve set a goal of being a net zero economy by 2050. We’re going to introduce a climate change zero carbon Act. We’re going to introduce and establish a climate change commission. We’re going to set up a green infrastructure fund. We’re going to start working with unions and workers for a just transition from the fossil fuel economy. We’re going to start planning towards 100 percent clean, renewable electricity. We’re going to see more electric cars on our roads and more solar panels on our schools’ roofs. We’re going to drive the research and development into sustainable, low-carbon, environmentally friendly ways of running our economy, be it from farming to manufacturing.

We’re going to be increasing water quality across the country, significantly increasing funding for the Department of Conservation, giving our threatened species a true taonga. It’s something that unites all of us in this country: our love for our environment, our love for our special taonga: our flora and fauna. We’re going to see our cities give Kiwis more options for better public transport and safer walking and cycling. We’re going to fix the mental health system. We’re going to make sure that our school system gives every New Zealand child everything they need to succeed, no matter what their learning needs are. We’re going to see women paid more, to close the gender pay gap. This is what we’re delivering for Kiwis. This is the historic change.

There are lots of other things we can point to in this Chamber, but it’s the policy agenda—putting New Zealanders, the environment, our climate, and our society at the heart of Government. It’s going to be a pretty great three years, and I’m looking forward to rolling out these great positive changes for Kiwis. Kia ora koutou.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker, and can I congratulate you and the other presiding officers on your election in this Parliament. I look forward to seeing you in the Chair for the next three years.

Can I also congratulate the new members that undertook their maiden speeches throughout the course of this Address in Reply debate. There was a large number of new members. It’s always great to see new members giving their maiden speeches here and telling us what they’re about, what they stand for, and what they’re going to be looking to achieve, and I particularly want to congratulate the 10 new National MPs that all gave their maiden speeches as well. As a caucus, we were very proud to see them stand on their feet for the first time and introduce themselves to the House, and I’m sure they’re going to achieve great things in their time here as members of Parliament.

It’s very good to be speaking in this debate, and I’m certainly going to be supporting the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. The reason why the Leader of the Opposition moved the amendment that he did was because there has been a huge amount of achievement that we were able to undertake in nine years as a National-led Government, and we left this country in a far better place than we inherited it nine years prior. We also left the economy in a great shape. We left many of the civil and public services that we have in New Zealand, like the education system and the health system, in a much better state than we found them, and there was a huge amount of achievement in the social sector for young people, particularly, and for families in this country.

I share the Leader of the Opposition’s view that this new Government we have opposite needs to be held to account for everything they do and ensure that they are delivering more for New Zealanders. They talked a big game. They went out there during the election campaign and said they were going to do a huge amount of things, and now is the time to hold them to account on that. Not just members of Parliament on this side but members of the public in the community will be looking to ensure that the talk that they talked during the election campaign actually results in achievements for New Zealand, and when they fail in receiving achievements through this new Government, the public will be quick to say so, and so will we.

I have been reading and watching the progress of this new Government so far, in the four or five weeks that they’ve been in office. We were told that there was going to be some big honeymoon period. Well, I think they’re going to be wondering where that honeymoon period is, because so far they haven’t done particularly well. I noticed that Kelvin Davis didn’t spend any time on his feet during question time this week. We’ll see whether he’s going to have a go on Wednesday or Thursday. They’ll probably make a good choice if they don’t give him that opportunity. I see Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters are here to answer questions this time—probably a wise move on their part, too. But we saw very quickly during the first two weeks of Parliament that their number one in the team got them through the election, but there wasn’t a huge amount sitting there afterwards.

I think what we’re seeing as well is that this Government is not able to deliver on the rhetoric that they had during the election campaign. The big talk that they had and all the promises that they had in the election campaign are not coming to fruition. In fact, I think very soon in the new year, we’re going to be talking about this Government as the Government of broken promises—the Government that talks big but doesn’t achieve anything.

The first thing I want to talk about—I was looking through the coalition agreement between the Green Party and the Labour Party, and I stumbled across this very interesting set of information. The two parties agree to “Strengthen New Zealand’s democracy by increasing public participation, openness, and transparency around official information.” Well, how does the Green Party stay in the Government with the Labour Party and those other Ministers from New Zealand First, when the very simple set of accountabilities that they should have to this House, the Government is ignoring?

Ministers are refusing to be accountable to this House. We see during question time that people like Winston Peters not able to answer a straight question, but we also know that the written question system is a situation where they’re not prepared to even say what they’ve been doing. They will not say to the public what they’ve—

💬 Jan Logie: The hypocrisy—the hypocrisy!

Calm down, Jan Logie. You know, you might get a chance to be a Minister one day—you never know. She’s not right now. But accountability to this Parliament is so very important.

I also want to understand a bit more about the Green Party’s view on democracy and accountability and transparency. You see, we learnt through an email to a journalist that the Green Party is prepared to trade away electoral law in this country to get a public holiday. This is the party that stood up day after day in this Parliament and talked about the sanctity of electoral law. They talked about the fact that such basic institutions of New Zealand should be respected so wholeheartedly, and here they are saying amongst their colleagues—they didn’t expect it to get out to the media—that they’re prepared to trade away electoral law.

What else are those parties prepared to trade away? We don’t know that, because Winston Peters, who said he’d make this secret deal public, is now refusing to do so. The Prime Minister stood in the Beehive theatrette and danced on the head of a pin, talking about the fact that it was just notes and it didn’t mean all that much. Those 38 pages, or 33 pages—depending on which font it’s in and depending on which ministerial staff member changed the font in the system—tell us exactly what the Government’s going to be up to, but we don’t know, because they don’t believe they’re accountable to the public.

They don’t believe in transparency. They’ve abandoned already, in their first few weeks of being in office, public accountability and transparency, and they want to trade away electoral law just to stay in office, because Winston Peters knows that his party won’t be happy with many of the things they’ve agreed to and he’s concerned—

💬 Fletcher Tabuteau: Whatever.

—his MPs will jump. Is he concerned that Mark Patterson is going to jump? Is he concerned that the other MPs—Fletcher Tabuteau; is he going to jump? Fletcher Tabuteau is quite a talent. No wonder he needs a law to ensure talented people like that remain in his party, when they know what’s in that secret agreement. No one else does.

The other broken promises are racking up pretty fast, as well. They promised a billion trees. Now, we’re hearing it’s going to be only about half a billion.

We heard year after year how the Labour Party was going to send down someone into Pike River—into the mine. Well, now they’ve adopted the National Party position of saying they’ll do that but if it’s safe. That is the correct decision to make. We stand by our view, and we welcome the Labour Party’s coming to the party on that particular situation.

What about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? Oh, we were going to hear about how the Labour Party was going to go in tough and they were going to release everything and they were going to completely change the deal and ensure that all the nasty stuff that the National Party put into TPP wasn’t going to exist. What’s the situation now? They changed a few words in the title. Now, apparently, it’s a whole new deal. Well, Labour has failed on those promises so far.

I want to talk a little bit about Manus Island as well, because it appears that that is the number one foreign policy goal of the new Labour Government—ensuring that that nasty Australian Government does something about the refugees on Manus Island. At the same time that the Prime Minister was overseas talking about ensuring that 150 refugees could come to New Zealand, we were debating in this Parliament whether fathers could have access to the same paid parental leave system as those that mother children. I want to know why the Labour Party was so opposed to fathers having access to paid parental leave at the same time as the mother of the children, and why the Labour Party was happy to say they’re unhappy about that, whilst the Prime Minister was talking about how she wanted to bring 150 refugees to New Zealand. Why does the Prime Minister of New Zealand care more about 150 men on Manus Island than about the fathers in this country that want to take paid parental leave with the mother of their children? That’s the reality of it.

While we were talking about paid parental leave and having an equal opportunity for fathers to have that paid parental leave alongside the mother of their children, for various reasons that’ll be important to their family, the Prime Minister was out there talking about bringing in refugees from Manus Island. Good on her—it was a National Party view as well—but I have to say that seeing the two sitting there side by side in the newspaper wasn’t something I felt particularly comfortable with.

We’ve seen other promises like KiwiBuild being abandoned somewhat in that they’re not going to be building the houses they said they would, but they’re going to buy most of them—another failed promise. The police officers that Stuart Nash said were going to be imported from overseas—they were going to have this big programme to get 1,800 police officers coming into this country—already, he’s backtracking on that as well. And the immigration changes—we heard week after week during the election campaign from New Zealand First about how they were going to stop all those immigrants coming into the country because those nasty immigrants were buying up all the land as foreigners. They’re back-tracking on that as well.

So I want to know why the Labour Party and the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party believe they can hold this together for three years. I want to know what’s in that secret deal, because the public deserves to know. I want to know why those backbenchers up there aren’t asking to see publicly that deal so they know what they’ve signed up for, and I want to know why this Government believes it can horse-trade away something so important like electoral law. So far this is the Government of broken promises. This is a Government that is not going to achieve everything it said it would at the election campaign, and we’re right here to hold them to account. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a good day for New Zealand, as this Government is about to be confirmed by its first confidence vote in this House. Jami-Lee Ross asks, “What makes us think that this Government’s going to be able to hold it together for three years?” And I’ve got one simple answer for him: because we believe collectively that a better New Zealand is possible—something the last Government had stopped believing. They believed that that was as good as it got for New Zealand, and we on this side think that better is possible and that New Zealand’s best days are still ahead of it. We are optimistic and positive about the future of this country. How quickly the members opposite have forgotten the aspirations they once held for this country.

This is a Government that is unified and disciplined, working together in what I think will be recognised in the future as New Zealand’s first genuinely MMP Government: a coalition Government, supported by the Green Party with confidence and supply, working together to make New Zealand a better place, constructively identifying the areas that we can work together on and constructively working through the areas where there may be disagreement. And we will do so in an open and transparent way. We will do so with positivity and optimism, and I think that that is what New Zealanders are looking for.

This is a Government that is already making progress. This week in the House we will confirm in law extra entitlement to paid parental leave, something that this side of the House collectively—Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens—has campaigned for, for a very long time. I am absolutely delighted to say that when the third reading is completed on Thursday it will not be vetoed by the Minister of Finance. This is not the first time this legislation will have been passed by this House, but it is the first time it will be progressed all the way through to being signed and becoming law, because this Minister of Finance and this Government think that it’s a priority—in stark contrast to the Government we replaced, whose Minister of Finance, who is now the Leader of the Opposition, thought that it should be vetoed. We will deliver on that commitment.

We will deliver on our commitment to ensure that those living in rental houses have warm, dry rental accommodation, and that will be delivered when that bill, introduced by my colleague Andrew Little, now in the name of the new Minister Phil Twyford, will be passed through this House in the coming days as well.

We have already made clear our commitment to deliver the first year of tertiary education and training free for those entering study for the first time next year, and that will be in place from 1 January. I want to be clear about it: that includes people going into trades training. Some of the views of the members opposite suggest that they think that tertiary education is only about those who go to university. Roughly, only a third of school leavers go on to university. This policy will also apply to the others who go on to polytechnic training, training, and on-the-job and workplace training, and it will deliver for New Zealand. Students who were ignored under the last Government will get an extra $50 per week in living costs and in student allowances, also from 1 January next year. That’s in place and that is going to be delivered.

It would be fair to say that over the last decade the tools and levers available to the Government have been finely tuned to ratchet up the cost for those undertaking tertiary study. For the first time in nearly a decade, there is a Government that is committed to lowering the financial barriers to participation in the post-school education system, and I am absolutely proud to be part of that and the work that we have been doing to deliver that and to make that a reality. We know that investment in our people is one of the most important investments a Government can make. Providing opportunities for New Zealanders to upskill and retrain is a high priority for this Government.

We have already made clear our commitment to ban overseas buyers who are soaking up New Zealand homes, and overseas speculators soaking up New Zealand homes, and we will be delivering on that as well. My colleague Andrew Little has already made announcements on delivering on the commitments we have made to the families of the people who were lost at Pike River. And to Jami-Lee Ross, who made much of that, I simply remind him of the words of the former Prime Minister John Key, who went down, looked those families in the eye, and said that he would do whatever it took—whatever it took—to bring their families home. Whatever it took: that was the commitment made by the previous Government. This Government will work with those families. We will make good on the commitments that we have made to them. We won’t simply make promises that we have no intention of keeping.

I’m absolutely delighted and humbled to have been made the Minister of Education in this new Government. It is a job that I have aspired to for quite some time, as members of this House will be aware. I want to acknowledge my predecessor in the role the Hon Nikki Kaye, who is in the House today. When I ran into her not long after she became the Minister of Education she said one of the best things about working with people in education was the level of passion and commitment they have to their job. I want to acknowledge that I have had exactly the same experience. Whilst we might not always agree, the level of commitment shown by the people who work in our education system is truly amazing, and I do want to acknowledge them.

I do want to disagree with the Hon Nikki Kaye on one respect though—in that she referred to our “union mates” in the House the week before last when she was questioning me. On this side of the House we prefer to call them “teachers” rather than our “union mates”, because no Government can deliver on its commitments in education without teachers. Actually, they are the people who do the work on a day-to-day basis to make sure young New Zealanders get the very best possible start, and, increasingly, to make sure adult New Zealanders get second opportunities at learning, because we know that more and more of that is going to be required in the future. As the future of work changes and as the future of the way we live changes, more and more New Zealanders are going to need to re-engage with the education system. I’m really excited by that challenge.

I’m also really excited by the challenge of being Minister of State Services in this Government because I think that we can do an enormous amount to ensure that our public services are more responsive to the lives of New Zealanders. They can act in a way that is more connected rather than operating in the silos that they operate in at the moment. And, again, I have been truly humbled by the level of passion and commitment of those working at the senior levels of the Public Service whom I have had interactions with in my role as Minister of State Services. They are constantly driving for a more responsive, better Public Service. This Government is certainly going to be working them hard to deliver on that because we believe in the power of the State through quality public services to make a big difference in the lives of our citizens. We think that we can do a much better job—better is possible. The message that we had from the previous Government clearly was that this was as good as it got. Well, New Zealanders didn’t agree. New Zealanders had more ambition than that. And no matter what certain members on the other side may choose to claim now, more New Zealanders voted for change at the last election than voted for the status quo, and we will be delivering on that change on this side of the House.

We will be delivering working collaboratively together in an MMP environment to ensure that New Zealanders get the change that they voted for at the last election. New Zealanders were hungry for something different. They were hungry for a Government that had a better vision for the future of New Zealand; that was optimistic about the future; that believed that better is possible; that would treat the role of Government with a degree of respect and with a degree of humility; that would treat New Zealanders with respect and with empathy, as my good friend the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has committed this Government to doing. I am enormously proud to be a member of this Government. I am looking forward to continuing the work that we have already started. We are positive. We are confident. We are optimistic about the future. I’m looking forward to getting on with the job.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I take the opportunity to actually congratulate you—I know I did it personally, but I’d like to do it publicly now—on your elevation to Speaker. I know your encyclopaedic knowledge of Speakers’ Rulings and of the Standing Orders will hold you in very good stead in that role—so congratulations.

I’d like to actually pay tribute to the Minister of Education. He, like most of us, will understand the value of a good education and, certainly, numeracy is very high on that list, and the ability to count to 61 was certainly proved to be failing on the first day of Parliament. Never mind, those national standards will ensure that students can actually count to 61, so let’s hope that continues.

I think some of my colleagues have been very unkind to the new Government, likening it to a three-headed monster and all sorts of things. I don’t like that analogy at all. So I actually thought that a car analogy is far more apt. I think the analogy would start with the main party, the Labour Lada. Now, the Labour Lada is a very old car. It’s not fit for purpose and it’s mostly junky, and it comes up with some very strange ideas. It’s then joined ably by the old Trekka truck, which is New Zealand First. The old Trekka truck, made of plastic, also not fit for purpose, unsafe, and unreliable. Then, of course, we have the third party, which is a rainbow-coloured, electric-powered, 1960s combi van, with a hazy, smoky, unknown substance coming out of it, and dropping its principles every time there is an urgency debate. So that’s our Government and good luck to them, but we will be here holding them to account. And we certainly do need to do that.

I’d have to say that my electorate was very disappointed that the Speech from the Throne didn’t mention the ongoing need for support for the Kaikōura rebuild after the earthquake. I thought that was rather sad, but never mind. We are moving on, and I think it was quite important that a billion dollars is being spent on a road and rail rebuild, and we’re yet to hear much from that side on that. But it’s fantastic work started by the Government ably led by John Key and then Bill English.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: That’s the last time I’ll let you cut a ribbon.

And it’s moving on fantastically well. I would like to acknowledge Minister Faafoi, who did a great job in opening the new marina. [Interruption] Yes, he does do immigration cases. That’s right. We can’t forget that. It has been a fantastic job to rebuild that marina and get it up and running and just in time for Christmas and the opening of the road.

In fact, when we talk about the election, I thought that was a phenomenal effort by my colleagues, and I’d like to welcome all my “class of 2017” coming into this House. They’re fantastic. Particularly the member from Northland, who fought a good, strong battle to take the seat from some other member—I don’t know who that was—but well done to the member from Northland. It’s interesting to see that when you have electorates—and certainly in our party, when you’re so dominated by electorate MPs—having that pulse of what’s happening—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: High-quality electorate MPs.

Yes, high-quality electorate MPs—it’s phenomenal—compared to these guys over the other side, but never mind. New Zealand First: how many electorates have they got? Well, they had one—not this time—never mind.

Our economic position is such now that our economy is going to keep going strong for some time. [Bell rung] Thank you. The bad impact of the new Government—

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: This has got to be the longest two minutes of my life.

Yes, well, it’s a bonus. It’s actually a bonus.

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Labour stuffed up in their timing.

That’s right. They couldn’t work out their timing, I guess—again, those numeracy skills. Timing is numeracy skills, isn’t it? Yes. Sixty seconds in a minute, 3,600 seconds in an hour—we could go on. But, look, leaving the economy in such a fine fettle really makes it difficult for them to mess it up in the short term, so we’ve really just got to hold them to task. They’re complaining about the number of questions; I’m still waiting for a number of answers. I know that everybody else is. We’re waiting with bated breath. So we look forward to those questions coming through, and we won’t accept those answers that really are just trying to push it out further and then generate more questions. So we look forward to holding you guys to account, and we look forward to the next three years. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. By way of interjection, a few moments ago, the Hon Ruth Dyson very generously moved an extension of time for my good colleague the member for Kaikōura. I’d like to second that motion.

Well, I think the member knows that the member has to seek it for himself and, seeing he didn’t use his full time anyway, I think it’s a bit unreasonable. He dropped about a minute short. [Interruption] Order! While I’m on my feet, I would like to ask Mr King—I’m sure he’s just sort of sucking on a lolly, but if he could do it less actively, especially when he’s in shot, there will be fewer complaints to the Speaker’s office, thank you.

The question is that the amendment in the name of the Rt Hon Bill English be agreed to.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise, Mr Speaker, but in reading out the result of the first vote count, you indicated that the Ayes vote was 56. My understanding, from my count of that, is that they voted 57 votes.

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Fifty-six National, one ACT in favour of the Leader of the Opposition’s amendment.

So we’ll seek leave of the House to amend the previous vote to 57 in favour, 63 against. Is there any objection to that? All right. That’s the case, and my having declared the result of the previous one, I will now read the Address to Her Excellency.