General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

It couldn’t have been summed up better than in those last few sentences, where the “Minister of Open Government” stands firmly for the right of the Opposition to ask questions and firmly against the Government’s obligation to answer them—just one more example of the chaotic start of this weak Government, with a big cheque book, that’s already trying to hide what it does.

This week, we’ve had the opportunity in Parliament to discuss the secret coalition agreement, and we have established at least one thing: it exists. It exists; it’s in a safe, according to the Deputy Prime Minister; and some Ministers have it. We’ve also established one other clear thing: the Prime Minister, Ms Ardern, does not want it released. Here’s a simple question: who looks more comfortable talking about the secret coalition agreement and its possible release? Well, it’s Mr Winston Peters. He is the one who—whoever thought we’d be relying on him for telling it how it is? That’s how low the standard is for the new Government. He’s the one who’s described what’s in it: directives to Ministers, content about how the coalition should conduct itself—that all seems perfectly reasonable in the context of this unusual coalition Government. He’s also said it would be released. He’s quite happy about it.

Well, there’s someone who isn’t happy about it being released, and I just want to speculate about why. Winston Peters is happy to see it released, because it will show the extent of New Zealand First influence in the new coalition. The Prime Minister is very unhappy that it might be released, because it will show the extent of influence of New Zealand First in the new coalition. It does help answer one of the mystery questions: why has New Zealand First given away so much policy? There’s none of the anti-Māori policy you’d expect from the rhetoric from the election campaign, they’ve given away whatever it was on immigration they wanted to achieve, and “anti-foreigner” has been taken over by the Labour Party.

Are New Zealand First members and voters happy about the campaign to get Manus Island refugees here? I suspect not. Did they agree with the partners of sole parents not having to reveal their names so they’d have to contribute to the support of their children? I bet not. So why did they give it all away? Well, it must be because of the influence contained in this document, and that is why it is of so much public interest—so much public interest. For instance, it’s probably the key to how they manage the Greens. As we pointed out before, Labour hopes that putting the Greens down there, and New Zealand First there, means they’ll forget that each other is in the Government.

But does it contain, as speculated, a New Zealand First effective right of veto over all appointments and over the Budget? I think that’s really important. You see, the published coalition document is certainly now no longer a reliable guide to what this Government does. I mean, you look at that coalition document. Pick a number, and then halve it, and that’s what they’ll probably do. It’s not what they said they’d do, but half of it. Where it says they will do something, it probably means they won’t do something. We’ve seen so much backsliding and turning back on the backsliding to try and make sense of the regional development fund, how many trees are going to be planted, how many houses are going to be built—all the things that actually matter in reality and actually aren’t about intentions.

We have watched a circus over recent days, over the secret coalition document. The Prime Minister, in particular, has said, “It’s a list of policies that might come to light.”, and that compares with the description of the Deputy Prime Minister, who says, “It’s a set of directives to Ministers about how the coalition will work.” There can only be one of them that’s right. And this is the leadership of the new Government. The Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister cannot agree on a public description of a secret document that’s at the heart of how they work. That is why so many New Zealanders are rapidly losing confidence in this Government.

If ever you needed an illustration of the irrelevance of Opposition, that was it—that was it. That little contribution did nothing to improve New Zealand, it did nothing to enlighten New Zealand, and it didn’t change the fact that this new Government is getting on and governing in the interests of New Zealand.

I want to cover an announcement that the Government made today, which is one of the many instances where there is universal agreement across the three parties that make up the Government. New Zealand First campaigned on this, the Labour Party campaigned on this, and the Green Party campaigned on this: that is, making real the fact that New Zealand land assets should, first and foremost, be for New Zealanders.

While we’ve had the former Prime Minister, now Leader of the Opposition, talking about secret documents, actually, what the media is writing up in great detail—and very well reported, I might say—is what we’re doing in respect of rural land today. They’re not interested just in the fact that we are tightening the criteria so that, first and foremost, New Zealand land assets will be for New Zealanders; they’re interested in the theory as to why we are doing it.

They’re not the only ones that are interested. Increasingly, this is being reported in overseas news outlets, which are looking to how New Zealand is trying to maintain our liberal, outward-looking focus as a nation whilst dealing with the insecurities of New Zealanders born of the fact that the middle classes are feeling that they’re being squeezed out by the influences of multinationals and wealthy one-percenters from overseas.

In the Government, we know that it’s important to maintain what are very liberal settings in New Zealand, which make for a peaceful and prosperous society, outward-looking in our focus, that looks to the rest of the world in our trading relationships so that we can sell goods and services to the rest of the world to pay for our imports. But we also know that there is an unprecedented rate of change in the world, with the accumulation of wealth as a consequence of the excesses of global capitalism pushing all of that wealth, or just about all of the additional wealth being created in the world, to be captured by the top one percent.

What was the response of the last National Government in response to the concerns of New Zealanders? They largely ignored them, and in fact they pulled the wool over their eyes. There was a lot of concern around the Crafar farms sale to overseas buyers. The Government said they were going to tighten up on land sales, and then they sent a letter that duped New Zealanders by saying, “Look, we’ll only look seriously at applications to buy farms ten times the size of an average farm.” The average size of a dairy farm is 200 hectares. What would the old Government do? They’d look carefully at farms over 2,000 hectares. Virtually no dairy farm is of that size. In respect of sheep and beef, the average is about 700 hectares. What did they look at when they were getting over 7,000 hectares? The other ones—it would be going a little bit too far to say they were simply waved through, but that was just about the truth of it.

We think that in order to protect these beneficial settings that we have in New Zealand, we have to protect New Zealanders from being outbid by one-percenters from overseas. We’ve got support from lots of farmers in this regard. The National Party lost contact with the heart and soul individual farming families they used to represent. Now they represent the multinational corporate end of town. We’re standing up for the New Zealand farmers, who say they shouldn’t be outbid, and their kids and their neighbours shouldn’t be outbid, by one-percenters from overseas. We want sharemilkers to graduate to become farm owners rather than being for ever the employee of someone from overseas.

In the Labour Party, supported by New Zealand First and the Greens, we see that these issues are central to what New Zealanders see of themselves. If you’re going to stay here and pay taxes and put your shoulder to the wheel of the New Zealand economy, you should have the privilege of owning our land assets. That’s true of the most expensive piece of land and the cheapest piece of land. To do otherwise is frustrating the ambitions of New Zealanders who think this is intrinsic to their rights as a New Zealander. The Labour Party, with support from New Zealand First and the Greens, is standing up for New Zealanders and is doing it in a way that is preserving our international trading relationships.

When this new Government was—I won’t say elected—formed on 19, I think it was, October, and it was announced by the decision of one man, there was a couple of things we knew. We knew that it would be a big-spending Government. We knew that. We knew that they would be addicted to debt and they’d be all about handouts and unions and back to the dark old days of the 70s. We knew that.

But I tell you what we didn’t expect. We didn’t expect to be sitting here a month after the new Ministers had received their warrant and to be looking at what has to be one of the most secretive and shambolic Governments this country has ever seen. It’s secretive, because we are talking here about the questions around the addendum to the coalition agreement. We’re not talking about some private notes or thought pieces or discussions. We’re talking about what were 38 pages, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, of an addendum, with all the detail, to the most important document that goes to the heart of Government in this country.

Let’s be really clear about this. This is the document on which this Government is formed. It’s why it exists. There would be no Labour - New Zealand First coalition without this document. It is absolutely fundamental to our whole system of Parliament and democracy, and yet the Prime Minister says the public don’t have any interest in seeing it—shouldn’t have any right to see it—and dances on the head of a pin like I’ve never seen, about why it shouldn’t be released.

This is a document that, in the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, gives directions to Ministers on how to carry out their activities.

💬 Darroch Ball: You’re just guessing.

Now, how anyone can tell me—I’m not guessing; I’m relying on the words of the Deputy Prime Minister. And directions on appointments—how you can keep that secret and pretend to be open is, frankly, a joke.

It’s been an omnishambles. It genuinely has been an omnishambles from the very first day in this House, where there was a failure to know the rules, a failure to count, a failure to get it right, and right throughout. We’re now a month into this new Government’s 100 days. We’re actually more than that—we’re actually more than that. We’re about 35 days in. So we’re a third of the way through. And day after day, we’ve come to this House as Opposition and we’ve asked questions. What are the details? No answer—“We’re working through it.” What is the plan? “We’ve set up a working group.” What are the costings? “We don’t know. We’re working it out.” Where is the legislation? “Haven’t got that, but we’ve already announced what we’re doing.”

This is a Government that clearly isn’t ready to govern. The flip-flops we’ve seen already in just a month—funny how they were giants in Opposition and yet timid little mice now that they’re in Government. Those incontrovertible, non-caveated, completely black and white statements about what they would do in Government have back-pedalled faster than Lance Armstrong going backwards.

This is a Government that hasn’t seemed to give effect to one of the incontrovertible statements they made in Opposition. Look at Pike River—look at Pike River. On 13 September the now Prime Minister said, “Absolutely, unequivocally, we have clear evidence that it’s safe to go in and we will go in.” Within a few days of being in Government: “Well, we’d like to go in, if it’s possible, but we’d need to be sure it’s safe.” Now, I’m not knocking her for that view. That was always the view that National had. Of course we would want to go in if we could, but it must be safe. But how quickly an absolutely laid-down, straight-line promise to the country that was repeated time and time again by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister has now gone by the wayside.

And you look at housing. Mr Twyford came into the House every day and told us if only they were Government, they would’ve fixed it by now. He’s now there. It’s now his opportunity. And what have we learnt? KiwiBuild is “KiwiBuy”. Actually, what they’re going to do is just buy up a whole lot of houses because, frankly, in “Labour Land” only the Government can do anything well. But what’s worse—even then he doesn’t quite know what to do, so he sets up a housing working group to tell him how to fix the problem. Now, I don’t recall anywhere in the last three years Mr Twyford saying, “Well, we know there’s a problem, but we don’t know what the answer is, and we’ll figure it out if we ever become the Government.”, but that’s what he’s now telling us.

It is an omnishambles, and I would expect a Government that’s had nine years to figure out what it wants, what it’s about, to get that right.

And I’m going to leave you with one thought on this addendum to the coalition agreement. Here’s my suspicion. My suspicion is the real reason Labour don’t want to release it is because everything that’s in there would go against what they’ve promised the Greens. What I want to know is: do the Greens have that document? Does the Green Party, who’ve given supply and confidence to this New Zealand First - Labour coalition, know what’s in it and does it undermine everything they’ve been promised?

It’s a pleasure to take my first call in a general debate in this Parliament. It’s wonderful to have this opportunity to have a broad-ranging discussion and not be called into line by the Speaker about it.

What I’m more than happy to be talking about is the great new Government that we have, which has hit the ground running. We have a Prime Minister that New Zealanders are absolutely loving. I’m getting great feedback in my electorate and everywhere I go that people love her new approach. They see generational change, they see compassion, they see kindness, and they see empathy. In short, they finally see a Prime Minister who cares about them and cares about their lives. And, for the first time, I am seeing real hope and excitement in people about their future.

One of the things that it has been a great pleasure for me to observe over the last month since we’ve been in Government is the number of young women who were previously disengaged from politics absolutely fizzing with excitement about the inspiring role model they see in our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the interest that they are taking in politics as a consequence.

We are making progress, this Jacinda Ardern - led Government. We are making great progress. We’ve got on with the work of banning foreign speculators, which the previous Government, over the course of nine years, said couldn’t be done. We did it in a month. We’ve got paid parental leave, we’ve got the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) on the way, and a families package that will put more money in the back pocket of Kiwi mums and dads. One of the things I’m really excited about seeing get into place for next winter is our winter power payments, which will help those who, we know, struggle to pay their power bills. It will help them have warm homes and keep them healthier, and I am excited about being able to talk to constituents on that. We are determined not to waste a minute on this side of the House. Real action—the kind of action we haven’t seen for the last nine years. That is what we are determined to do, and what our Government is getting on and doing.

We are told by the Opposition that we’re never going to have seen a more effective Opposition. Well, what I’m seeing is a lot of inside baseball. The biggest issue of the day for the Opposition seems to be secret notes. Sitting in question time, it seems to me like I’m watching a really bad teen movie. There is a jilted lover who is convinced that somewhere in the secret diary of someone, locked in the safe of someone’s bedroom, is the secret of why it ended—why it didn’t get over the line, and why they were left hanging and they chose someone else. You hear speaker after speaker convinced that those secrets are locked in that safe, and, if they knew, the troubles of the universe would be solved—if only they could see those secret 33 pages. Well, I think the Opposition needs to come to terms with the fact that the reason they didn’t get into Government isn’t contained in some mythical 33-page document. The reason they didn’t get into Government is because New Zealanders voted for change. New Zealanders voted for something different, New Zealanders voted for hope, and New Zealanders voted for a future of which they can be proud and that they can see themselves.

After the nine years of that Government, what are we seeing when we do get into Government? We’ve had Amy Adams, in the last contribution, saying, “Well, Phil Twyford hasn’t fixed the housing problem in a month.”; they had nine long years. And what have we found when we’ve come into Government? What we’re seeing is the big problems that have been left behind—billions and billions of dollars of a capital deficit. We’re seeing creaking schools and hospitals. Of particular interest to me was a $75 million budget blowout on a multi-sports facility in Christchurch. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what we’re seeing of these so called “fiscal geniuses”—of what they’ve left behind after nine years in Government.

There is not much to show for the record of what the last Government put into place. We are a Government that is determined to get on and do it, a Government that is determined to provide a better future for New Zealanders, and a group of people that aren’t obsessed about the secret diary that doesn’t exist. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, if this is a Government that has hit the ground running, I’m not sure what alternate reality we are living in. But, certainly, we should be talking about transparency and open government, absolutely, especially after the answers that the Associate Minister of State Services (Open Government) just gave. Open government—we’d been lectured on this for the last nine years, while we were over that side of the House. New Zealand Labour, New Zealand First, and New Zealand Greens lectured us on the importance of the Official Information Act—line, chapter, verse; on we go—lectured us on the importance of using it and the appropriateness of urgency, and lectured us on how the Official Information Act is so integral to good government. What do we see now? A secret agenda, hidden away, that goes to the heart of how this Government is going to be run, sets out the modus operandi of what they are going to do.

So often when we were over that side of the House, we were lectured on “Say what you mean; do what you say.” But what has this Government done? They’ve hidden behind their documents and done flip-flops. Flip-flops. No wonder the Leader of the Opposition called them a circus troop. Absolutely: we’ve seen flip-flops, we’ve seen tightrope artists, we’ve seen contortionists as they’ve weaved their way through promises made and backtracked. Absolutely. So it’s no wonder that we are questioning them about their openness and their transparency, because, really, I don’t think that they mean it at all.

What does this mean for the regions? There’ve been so many promises out there about policies, but what are the ramifications? There’s been no thought gone into it. We have had claims about immigration, that immigration is going to be cut—22,000 to 60,000—but what does that actually mean? Who are these people that are going to be cut from migration?

Let’s talk about Southland and our regional strategy. New Zealand First has been a party that’s stood up and talked about how important regional development is, but, on the flip side, it’s talking about cutting immigration. So where is some of the region’s workforce going to come from? There’s no transparency around that policy; it’s just a number that’s going to be cut. Oh, but look there, there’s a backflip by the Minister, because we’re not concerned with numbers anymore! Well, let’s be upfront: what’s in that document; what’s in that dossier? Come forward and let us know, so that people like those in Southland or in Taranaki can plan for the future.

Just the other day, I was visiting a constituent. Five jobs for electricians available—five jobs available that he could hire straight away. Where are those people going to come from? Well, I’ve got news for New Zealand First: they’re not going to come from Auckland, Wellington, or Christchurch. We need skilled people.

Moving on to regional development, with the flip-flop and this $1 billion fund that “Dr Evil” keeps talking about—$1 billion, whether it’s new funding or a mixture. How is that going to be applied? Well, our previous Government put $2.4 million into our SoRDS project—the Southland Regional Development Strategy—to attract 10,000 more people by 2025. Where’s the consideration going into that? How does the $1 billion apply to that? We don’t know, but we’re going through policies and doing flip-flops and not being transparent about what it means.

This is not a Government that’s hit the ground running; it’s a Government that’s made a whole lot of promises in the election campaign and doesn’t know how to deliver. They’re not fit for Government. They don’t know how to be Ministers. They don’t know how to be good Government members. They don’t know what the ramifications of their policies are.

Let’s move to tertiary education, shall we, and this free-fees scheme. If they understood regional development, they would have understood the Southland Institute of Technology’s (SIT) free-fees regime and its importance in our Southland regional strategy. But what’s happened? We’ve just had a blanket policy with no consideration for what SIT is doing, except when they did have an emergency meeting during the campaign. They sent Mr Andrew Little down there to have a bit of a chinwag with our CEO, because he knew he was getting into dangerous territory.

So, look, there is no thinking about the ramifications of these policies. No wonder they’re doing flip-flops, no wonder we’re questioning them about transparency, because they’re not doing what they say and they’re not clearly communicating it to the New Zealand public. No wonder the New Zealand public are confused, and no wonder they’re losing interest in this Government pretty quick.

Well, it’s a bit of a rarity to be having to sit here and listen to the National Party give us a lecture on flip-flops. The Key Government was noted for its focus groups that would flip-flop at the—[Interruption] Bit of a miss.

I’m pleased the member Sarah Dowie raised Southland, because there are so many things in Southland that need to be fixed. I’m pleased you raised the $2.4 billion for the Southland Regional Development Strategy. You turned up with $2.4 billion—you turned up with a planeload of Cabinet Ministers with $2.4 billion. We have turned up with $3 billion over three years. We’re going to do some real things. We’re not going to be running Invermay into the ground. We’re not going to be running Telford into the ground. We’re not going to sit there while Queenstown has a massive infrastructure deficit and a housing crisis and has got a 13-bed hospital. We’re not going to sit around; we’re going to do something.

Righty-o, so I don’t want to spend another minute talking about the National Party, because it is a seething mess of resentment and denial. What I want to talk about is the great day this is for New Zealand. There were thousands of young men and women that got up this morning to go and pick up their handpiece or milk their cows, or to put on the cuffs and get their spray units going in the orchard, with some hope. Finally, they had a Government that was on their side, and not the side of the foreign speculators. I would like to commend my colleagues the Hon David Parker and the Hon Eugenie Sage for the priority they’ve put round this very, very important piece of legislation.

I might say, following on from the housing situation, it is a disgrace what has happened in that as well. If you take away the pathway to young people, that’s like taking the All Blacks away from rugby—it takes the pinnacle.

This is a great decision also because of the family farm. Everything you see in these great cities that we see, all the infrastructure we have, is built on one single foundation: the family farm. That has sustained us since the Dunedin sailed out of Ōāmaru Harbour in 1877 with our first shipment of frozen meat.

So under the previous Government and these liberal foreign ownership rules, where we had 465,000 hectares sold in 2016 alone—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: 465,000?

465,000 hectares. The Overseas Investment Office, between 2008 and 2015, had 724 applications for sensitive land, of which 11 were turned down—a mere 1.5 percent. That is a wet bus ticket, and you should hang your heads in shame, over that side, for selling out the young generation of New Zealand coming through.

We’ve also seen farm debt balloon as a consequence of opening farming up to the international market. We now have $61 billion of farm debt, up from $35 billion when that previous Government was coming into office. The interest alone on that debt is the whole of the beef industry—the revenue from that—just to pay the interest. And, of course, they’re foreign banks, as well. That money’s heading off to Sydney or Amsterdam.

As Mr Key warned us previously, we will be tenants in our own land if we keep this up, and if that previous Government had got another three years, there may have been nothing left at all. Not content with allowing a mass sell-off, that Government decided to get in on it itself, by selling Landcorp’s Jericho Station in Te Ānau—selling our State-owned farms, which are owned by the people of New Zealand. An utter disgrace, and particularly when the underbidder, who was a local farmer, was a mere $200,000 short. That is how pathetic this previous Government had got.

But, ladies and gentlemen, the cavalry has arrived in the form of this New Zealand First, Labour, and Green coalition Government. We will put this right, and we have put this right today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I never thought I’d say it, but that member Mark Patterson makes me miss Denis O’Rourke.

It is fair to say, at the end of the day, I think the best side did win. I mean, it could’ve gone either way, but, really, as we say in sport, the scoreboard never lies. I just want to acknowledge the two leaders who I think got it over the line: Scott “Razor” Robertson and Luke Whitelock. Canterbury winning the rugby Mitre 10 Cup championship recently, for the ninth year out of 10, proved once again that Canterbury is the best rugby region in the world.

Can I take the time, Mr Speaker—it’s the first time I have spoken in the House—to acknowledge you and the other presiding officers for your election. I did read recently they were referring you to being the referee of the Chamber, and growing up the son of Tom Doocey, the international rugby referee, that gives me some great comfort. But, as we know, it’s expected now—referees in the field of play are also expected to do some coaching, so I look forward to your support over the coming term.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I’ll start now by saying keep me out of the debate. Keep going.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I also take the opportunity to acknowledge the good people of Waimakariri, who have re-elected me as their member of Parliament for a second term. I am very humbled and very privileged not only to get more people to vote for myself but that more people voted for National in 2017 than they did in 2014. Could I state for the record of the House that it is my job as the member of Parliament for Waimakariri to serve all in the electorate to the best of my ability, irrespective of how they voted.

The first chance this new Government’s had, and they’ve failed the region of Canterbury. When you look at the Speech from the Throne how many times did they mention Canterbury recovery? How many times did they mention Christchurch recovery? Even Kaikōura—we commemorated the one year recently, and I’d like to acknowledge my good friend and colleague Stuart Smith for his great advocacy in that district, post the earthquakes. They didn’t mention them once. The former National Government had the Canterbury recovery as one of the top four priorities. This Government has let down Canterbury right from the start. Look at how many Cabinet Ministers we had from Canterbury in the last Government: up to four. They’ve got one—25 percent less Canterbury MPs in Parliament, and we’ve still got the same amount of Canterbury MPs on the National side. They’re hollowing out the representation from Canterbury—25 percent less MPs from the South Island, yet we have the same amount of MPs in National from the South Island. It’s all because New Zealand First had a purge of their centre-right MPs: Denis O’Rourke, Richard Prosser, and Ria Bond. They got rid of them all because they knew they were going to have a marriage with the loopy left and they couldn’t take the centre-right MPs with them. This Government is failing Canterbury, the second-biggest economy in New Zealand. It’s failing the South Island right from the start.

Then we had the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration come out. Her first task in her new role, and she came out and said she was getting an anchor project “back on track” by cancelling its contract. How do you get something “back on track” when you stop it? Then she went on to say there was a $75 million blowout. Well, let’s publicly release that document. Let’s know the breakdown of that $75 million. Is it increased expenditure? Or, in the environment of Canterbury, is it increased risk allocation that would sit on the budget and not be realised with good contracting. Let’s release it. They’re talking about openness and transparency; let’s release the document. That Minister is also talking about merging anchor projects. She mentioned several times last week that she’s interested in saving costs by merging anchor projects. What is this code for? Is this code for removing funding for the Canterbury earthquakes to pay for big funding policies announced in other parts of the country? Is the Canterbury earthquake going to pay for Auckland housing? I believe the people of Canterbury should know, and they should know and have the confidence that this new Government is going to stand up for them as the great region of Canterbury rebuilds. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Ā, tuatahi, e tika ana ki te huri i ō tātau whakaaro ki taku tuahine kātahi anō ka hinga i roto i Te Tai Rāwhiti, nō reira e te tuahine Heeni: moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā!

Ki a koe e Te Māngai, ā, ngā mihi ki a koe i roto i tō tūru hou, pai ana ki te kite atu i a koe. Ā, tekau mā rima ngā tau, mai i te wā mutunga i kōrero au i roto i Te Whare nei; nōku te hōnore mō taku hokinga mai.

[So, firstly, it is apt that we turn our thoughts to my sister who has passed away just now at the East Coast, therefore, to you, the sister Heeni: sleep, slumber, and rest there indeed!

And so, to you, Mr Speaker, acknowledgments to you in your new seat, it is so nice to see you. It has been 15 years since the last time I spoke in this House; the honour is mine for my return.]

It’s been 15 years since I’ve had a bit of a kōrero in the House, so it’s great to be back. It’s appropriate today that I salute our Māori caucus—a Māori caucus that has done the business despite all the lies and all the stories from the Opposition on the other side.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: No. No. No.

No? Got that wrong, sir?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Yeah. Not lies if you’re talking about people who are currently in the House.

Oh, stories—all the stories, sir. All the stories that have come from the Opposition about this wonderful Māori caucus over the last few years. Despite all this nonsense, we cleaned up in the election—13 Māori representatives—13 Māori representatives: seven Māori seats, four list seats, and two general seats. You’ve got to ask the question why. Why did we clean up? Because we concentrated on the issues that resonate with our people: housing, health, education—core issues for our people; not goobledegook stuff like tino rangatiratanga nonsense that was being spouted out in an independent Māori party that the National Party talked about. The nonsense that they talked about that you could get Māori independence sitting at the table, and all you were getting were crumbs and the National Party were giving tax cuts to their rich mates. No, sir, we concentrated on the issues.

You can’t expect your people to support nonsense. I am proud of what we did. I’m proud of what we did in the health and education areas. Some of these wonderful Māori MPs who you see in front of you today: Peeni Henare, Kiritapu, Willow-Jean over here—we’re adding something to the House. We had a National Party supporting nonsense—absolute nonsense—in the last few years. So today, I want to thank the Māori nation for supporting our Māori caucus. The Māori caucus, the true Māori party, for this Government, for this Parliament. E tika ana ki te mihi ki a mātau i tēnei wā.

[It is only right that a tribute is accorded to us at this time.]

At the same time, I want to say that it’s only right that we mihi to the Māori Party for their effort. It was hard sitting with the National Party, we know. But despite our disagreements with them, we salute them in terms of at least trying to advance kaupapa Māori every day. Yes, things went wrong. Things went wrong for sitting by Jami-Lee and others, but it was hard for them, and today I say thank you to Te Ururoa and his partner, Marama—Marama, wasn’t it?—Marama Fox. Well done for the effort. It must’ve been tough sitting at the table, getting crumbs from the Tories.

I want to say today also that I’ve been lucky enough to be given this employment ministry. It’s an honour and a privilege to be given it. When I came into the position, we got the results: 4.6 percent was the unemployment rate—4.6 percent—and the problem is—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Why couldn’t he get elected to Cabinet?

Well, why are you sitting there? Because you’re stupid. All right?

So in terms of the unemployment rate of 4.6 percent, the problem with that is there’s a crisis in the employment strategy. The crisis is Māori, Pacific Islanders, women, and the disabled have all missed out. And they’ve missed out because of the greedy, selfish policies that were being put out by the last Government. As an employment Minister, I’m going to try and get a strategy in where we get collaboration with the Government agencies; where we focus on communities; where we fund our people directly instead of them getting crumbs. We know what they can do. We know what they can do, but they must be given an opportunity.

We can’t have an employment strategy where you get 4.6 percent of people unemployed and Māori and Pacific Island rates at three times that rate. That’s a crisis. That’s a crisis that’s been created by this previous Government, and it’s a strategy that I want to address over the next few years. I’m sure I’ll be able to do that it with the other Ministers, like Shane Jones and Carmel Sepuloni and Peeni Henare, as we get the strategy, the correct strategy, for our people. Ā, nā reira ki a koutou, kia ora anō tātau katoa.

[And so, to you collectively, therefore, an appreciation to us all once again.]

I want to acknowledge and welcome the member back. I didn’t want to interrupt him, because he was in full flight, but the member did address at least three members in the House by their first names. While I know he was being caring about it, except to Mr Jami-Lee Ross, he must use members’ surnames as well. I’m sure the member will catch up.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take part in this debate. We have had a very good start to this term demonstrating how disorganised this Labour Government is. In these few days of the House sitting, we have seen so much disorganisation on that side. Just to remind them, on the very first day they had no idea how many of their members were away, and then they wanted to block some National MPs from being on select committees. Then, in a very embarrassing situation, they had no option but to do a U-turn and allow the remaining National MPs to be on select committees. That definitely left the Hon Chris Hipkins red-faced. Actually, I’m really amazed to see that he’s still got the job. Ha! Maybe that is the best they have.

After that, they introduced their very first piece of legislation, and then that legislation didn’t go through the select committee process. That legislation is being rushed through the House. So the sequence of activities that we have seen so far—first, blocking some National MPs from being on select committees; second, not letting this first piece of their legislation go through the select committee process—clearly tells us that they know that the select committee process is not going to be an easy process for them. This is because they know that they don’t have the mandate for their election policies from the percentage of votes they got, and that’s why they have been trying to block National MPs from being on select committees, and trying to rush this legislation through the House without letting it go through the select committee process.

From the very first day, what I see is that they are trying to paint a very negative image of our country, New Zealand. Not just here in the House, but outside also, I have seen some of their members speak, and they have been continuously painting a very negative image of New Zealand. We should not forget that this is the same party that was exposed, only a few months ago, exploiting and mistreating 85 political recruits from overseas.

Yes, it’s very convenient that they can ignore facts. Yes, I’m talking about the policies that the previous member spoke about. There are several policies I can count. They should be really proud to see that they have inherited the economy that is the envy of many, many OECD countries. Our roads and our schools are better than when the previous Labour Government left office. We made GP visits free for children under the age of 13. We increased the benefit for the first time in 40-plus years. Māori and Pasifika students are doing better. So I’m really proud of the work that the previous National Government did, because that work definitely benefited several families in Mt Roskill.

So from this new Government, what we are seeing is that they just believe in the same thing they believed last time: that is, taxing, borrowing, and spending. But we are a small country. New Zealand doesn’t want any more debt. People don’t want handouts. People want jobs and opportunities. People want jobs and opportunities to find self-worth. People want jobs and opportunities to find self-growth and to see their community flourish. We cannot have a prosperous future by having other people put clothes on our backs or food on our table, but that is what this Labour Government believes in: handouts—making people depend on the system.

But, it doesn’t stop there. In the very first week of question time, the Prime Minister could not confirm that they are going to build 100,000 new houses in 10 years. This was one of their most important policies because, every meeting I went to, they kept talking about this policy of building 100,000 new houses in 10 years. Then the Prime Minister could not confirm that they are going to build 100,000 new houses in 10 years, because, all of a sudden, they realised that there is no plan. They cannot deliver it. They need land to build that many houses, and there is nothing done so far for that.

But, on this side, we are quite helpful, and I have some advice for that side. The advice that I have for them is that maybe they should be talking to NASA. Yes, I’m talking about NASA, which is involved in aeronautics and airspace research. NASA is planning to send humans to Mars in the 2030s. Maybe that red planet Mars is an option for that red party? All in all, disorganisation, fictional facts, secret documents, attempts to impeach democracy, and promises already broken—or, as Labour would call it, business as usual. Thank you.

Thank you. E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa. Mr Speaker, in my speech, I want to honour influential women. I want to appreciate the work of women in our grassroots communities, pushing for the progressive change that we all need—that Aotearoa has long deserved—and who are trying to fix up the mess and deal with the fallout that has been put upon our communities from years of the previous Government’s neglect and abuse, in actual fact.

So I will start and join my whanaunga, Mr Jackson, in honouring Hēni Tāwhiwhirangi of Ngāti Porou, who was a staunch advocate for the well-being and development of Ngāti Porou whānau, iwi, and hapū—the very agency that our Government should be working to support in our rohe.

I am also going to ask this House to honour Shelley the bus driver here in Wellington, who, I was given word, passed away yesterday. Shelley would greet her customers in Te Reo. Shelley would greet her customers and passengers with a smiley face and Te Reo, as part of something that all New Zealanders should feel comfortable and learned and able to be able to do. Shelley is another example of the influential women that this House should be backing, for us to do our part in backing up the incredible work that is happening on the ground.

I want to honour Debbie Munroe in my Manurewa community for the work she does and has done for years, feeding people who are living rough on the streets, looking for the solutions to take them off the streets.

I want to honour the women of Parihaka, and I announced a couple of weeks ago that I would insert a member’s bill into our biscuit tin to create a commemoration day for Parihaka. I want to acknowledge the women and children who this Crown apologised to for the rape and abuse by the violent aggressive act of the Crown in invading a settlement and peaceful community.

I want to honour Paora Crawford Moyle and all of the women who were abused by the State, and the Greens are proud to call for an inquiry into the Crown State abuse that absolutely included our young sons and our young daughters.

I want to honour Waimarie, Qiane, Bobbi-Jo, Pānia, and Moana for protecting Ihumātao on the front line against the development that was again forced and opened up by the previous National Government. They have not given up, and nor should we.

I want to honour the ongoing kaitiaki protection work that mana whenua, wāhine and tāne and all genders have always done, including the Ruanui mammal sanctuary that is wanting to be created by the East Coast and Ngāti Ruanui and other iwi. I am proud to be with the Green Party who will support the kaitiaki work that has always led at the grassroots.

I want to honour the women of the Mongrel Mob in Waikato, who I have been keeping an eye on, who are working in their own whānau to prioritise the safety and well-being of their mokopuna, are taking up their own agency to do better from within their own powers and dreams and resources, and are connecting to community to make sure that their mokopuna will be kept safe and to look for new pathways to live as community.

Our role in Government is to protect and support the work that these grassroots influential women are doing. Our role is to not continue to create and place barriers in their way. Our role is to not sell off State houses so that they have to pick up the pieces of our people on the street. Our role is to not—and the Greens will stay firm on this—continue to give permits to seismic surveys that damage both the potential of our climate safety and our marine mammal life.

Our role is to support the very women who are at the front line of these causes. I am proud to be part of the six women of our eight-member caucus in the Green Party, who understand that the leadership and future of our country absolutely depends on the hands of our women being healthy and strong and supported. Kia ora.

I call a gallant member, Christopher Penk.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s with pleasure that I rise to contribute to the general debate, and I ask myself, in the context of being the member for Helensville, what the actions of the Government will have in store for my electorate. Obviously, general themes are to be canvassed in this debate, but all politics—it’s almost a truism to say—are local, and so I want to focus on a couple of specific examples that I think will act as benchmarks for the performance of the Government. By looking at those, setting a line in the sand now—a west coast beach sand, perhaps—we will be able to see if there is a great difference between the rhetoric and the reality, we’ll be able to judge the difference between the walk and the talk and to check the flips and the flops—I would say “the yin and the yang”, but I know the Minister of Housing is not fond of Chinese-sounding words—and we’ll be able to see the before and after of the Government formation and, in three years’ time, exactly what that looks like.

So on the subject of the opposite pairs, we could talk about open and closed, in the context of Government. We could talk about shut or open, in the context of a gate for immigration arrivals. We could talk about the yea or the nay, in reference to a proposed referendum on the Māori seats. We could talk about above or below, being the figures of a hundred thousand homes and a billion trees. Or we could talk about those being perhaps in the context of the private sector, rather than the public sector, and the credit being claimed by the Government already for the work of ordinary New Zealanders taking a risk—they’ll take everyone else’s good work, indeed.

So, in the context of all that, as promised, I’ll raise a few issues for the consideration of the Government that pertain directly to the Helensville electorate—first, passenger rail beyond Swanson Station. This is an area of intense concern to the electorate, although I appreciate not necessarily to all members of this House, but as the House of Representatives, as the Government, they will be responsible for the issues and the outcomes that actually speak to the daily lives of the individuals in my electorate, and indeed every other electorate in this nation. So there’s the tunnel that precludes the passenger rail that is desired by those residents. I hope that the Government will take as liberal an approach to safety considerations being carefully considered in relation to that tunnel as they are in relation to the Pike River mine re-entry, and I hope that “pike” doesn’t have another meaning in the context of backtracking on promises in that regard.

In the commitment of the Government, or at least its parties, in relation to the election campaign and the things that we heard from them on the campaign trail in relation to public transport, I hope those things become real for the people of Helensville and that we can rely on that in good faith. It’s too soon to say whether the Government will or won’t, and I am genuinely open-minded about the fact that there may be some constructive work done by them on that. I would like to work with them in good faith to achieve those aims for the people of Helensville, and I invite them to do so.

Another measure on which I think we’ll be able to judge the success, at least so far as the people of Helensville are concerned, is that of kauri dieback, or “ka-oo-ri” dieback—say it however you want, it will be pronounced “extinct” soon enough if there is not proactive action by a Government whose parties on the campaign trail talked about being passionate advocates for the environment. They talked about being its great defenders, and I will look forward very much to seeing that they do that, or, if not, then they will have that kauri gum, if not blood, on their hands. So, again, an open invitation to work constructively on these very serious and, indeed, urgent issues, and it will be very interesting to see if the rhetoric does indeed match the reality on that one.

Similarly, in terms of communications, the relevant Minister has talked about the Government wanting to leave no one behind and believing that digital means are a fundamental way of it being able to achieve this. So I say to the Minister, and indeed her Cabinet, that it will be very welcome indeed if areas like Bethells Beach and Coatesville in the Helensville electorate are able to rely on that, and it is not merely the flip to be followed soon enough by a flop, as in so many areas.

Finally, on the subject of water quality, west coast beaches are among the worst in the Auckland region—and, therefore, I suspect in the country—in relation to some issues that are traditionally local government. So, in fairness, I must say to the Government that not only have they not been in long enough to have affected that but it is an area traditionally not in their realm. However, if the rhetoric and the reality are to be matched in relation to the water quality—criticisms that they had been making in Opposition in relation to dairy farm streams and others—then I look forward very much to them achieving a great deal in that regard, and we will be watching them very, very closely indeed.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s my first time speaking in the House after my maiden speech, and it’s such a privilege to rise here as a member of a very strong and committed MMP Government, led by our leader, the brilliant and passionate Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. There’s been a lot of negativity from the other side of the House, but after their nine long years in Government, we have now taken over to show we’re serious about making a change for the better.

Getting on with our 100-day plan, we have already seen the extension of paid parental leave to 26 weeks to give our children the best-possible start in life, and we have seen the banning of foreign speculators from buying existing homes, as a first step to fixing the housing crisis. We have shown our commitment to equal pay by cancelling the flawed legislation that would have made achieving pay equity harder for New Zealand women.

The changes show that we’re making a Government that is not afraid to care, and another very recent example of that was the announcement yesterday, on the 38th anniversary of the Erebus crash, of the commitment by our Prime Minister to a national memorial to honour the memory of those who died. The Erebus accident is still the worst aviation accident in the Southern Hemisphere, and yesterday we remembered those who lost their lives 38 years ago, when Flight TE901, with 20 crew and 237 passengers, crashed into Mount Erebus on 28 November 1979. That was a day when all New Zealanders said they knew someone who knew someone who was affected by that disaster.

Our Prime Minister has shown empathy and understanding of the ongoing hurt and grief of the families and friends of the crew and passengers who died on that fateful day in 1979. It’s a terrible oversight that until now, nothing has been done to establish a suitable national memorial to the Mount Erebus accident victims, especially for the many families involved. Other, more recent disasters have their own memorials, including the Pike River accident and the Christchurch earthquake victims.

In 2019, it will be 40 years since Erebus, and that will be a very suitable time for the opening of a national memorial. Our Prime Minister has committed to talking with the families and Air New Zealand on how best to pursue this. There are several smaller memorials, but there’s no significant public place where all 257 names are displayed and where people can come together, remember, and have special times of contemplation, prayer, and reflection.

One of those smaller memorials is a memorial garden close to Auckland Airport. On 28 November 2000, the 21st anniversary of the Erebus disaster, work began on that memorial garden dedicated to the 15 flight attendants and five flight crew who died in the crash. The garden was opened the following year. The 20 names were recorded on a plaque set into a memorial stone at the centre of the garden, and the words read: “This garden is your special place”.

I was president of the Flight Attendants and Related Services Association (FARSA), the flight attendants’ union, for four years from 2009, and every year on 28 November, we would lay a wreath and remember our colleagues who died at Erebus. Having this memorial garden so clearly shows the importance of having a special, dedicated place to remember the families, surviving spouses, siblings, and children of our colleagues, and of having a place to come together every year to honour the memories of those who died on that fateful day and to feel for the families and their ongoing grief.

In 2014, a special 35th anniversary memorial service was held. I would like to repeat the heartfelt words spoken at the time by our past president of FARSA Mary Webb, who was also a crew member at the time of the Erebus crash. She said, “The crew were not heroes. They were ordinary people like you and me. They went to work and they never came home.”

Repeating her words, I can’t help but think of another group of workers—29 men who went to work and never came home; the tragedy at Pike River mine—and I am so proud to be part of a Government that cares enough to appoint the Hon Andrew Little as Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry and to do all that is possible to provide closure for those families. I hope that the Pike River families can take some comfort from seeing how nearly four decades after the Erebus disaster, we are still honouring the memory of those who died. They will never be forgotten.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.