General Debate

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

Yesterday was a great day for fairness and for the future of New Zealand, because 27 years after user-pays entered tertiary education, the tide has turned back. I want to thank the member, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for leading that charge. In the great traditions of the first Labour Government and Peter Fraser, who extended out secondary education because they recognised that was necessary for people to fully participate in society, this Labour Government is saying: learning is for life. Learning is for life, it is for the future of work, and it is fair.

The fifth Labour Government, when it came into office, took interest off student loans—that was an unfairness—and it expanded allowance eligibility. This Labour-led Government, supported by New Zealand First and the Greens, now has the opportunity to give to New Zealanders the chance for all of them to fulfil their potential, not just the lucky few.

I want to read to you a statement from a schoolteacher, who put this on social media. She said, “Today I told my class that by the time they start university in 2025, or 2026, the three years fee policy will be fully rolled out for them. They went very quiet and then very loud and excited, talking about all the things they could study. My kids have always been bright enough, but now they’ll have the means, and suddenly university is for them the obvious next step after college, like it was for me and everyone else at my decile 8 school. Most of them will be the first in their family to go on to tertiary education. One boy who, no joke, told me in year 4 that he wanted to be a tribesman when he grows up asked me about engineering degrees. I told him about the prospectuses and he sat there for a good 20 minutes of his free time reading and comparing programmes.”

That’s the difference this side of the House will make. That’s the difference, because we have ambition for every single student in New Zealand—not just the ones from the high-decile schools but for every young New Zealander to go on to study, to train, to take up an apprenticeship, to get new skills.

This Government is committed to equity in education, to education for all. And I issue a challenge today to the National Party: are they going to get rid of free fees? Are they going to get rid of it? Is Paula Bennett, of all the people, going to get rid of it?

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: When we’re in in two years, buddy.

Are you? Are you going to get rid of it?

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: When we’re in Cabinet in two years.

They are not going to commit to that, because just like interest-free student loans and just like Working for Families—“communism by stealth”, John Key said. John Key stood in this House and said he would oppose interest-free loans with every bone in his body. What did he do? He behaved like a jellyfish when he got into Government and accepted the whole thing.

This party on this side of the House and the support parties who are with us know that education is essential in the 21st century for the future of work: the good and decent jobs that will be created in New Zealand need people to go on and train throughout their lives. There is more to do. There is always more to do to make education fair and accessible for every single New Zealander, but I want to pay tribute today to all of those people who for the last 27 years have fought to keep free education on the agenda. It is hard to turn around the neo-liberal user-pays philosophy that was, I admit, brought in by the then fourth Labour Government and then made worse by the National Party that came in. But this Government is committed to turning that around.

This Government is committed to making sure that wherever you grow up in New Zealand, whether you are rich or you are poor, whether you come from town or you come from country, whatever you are interested in pursuing that will develop you as a person, that will grow your skills, that will add to the productivity of our country—we will support you to do that.

This is a great policy. This is a great day for New Zealand, because finally we are able to say we have turned the tide on user-pays education. Education is for all. Education is a public good. This is something that is in the DNA of the Labour Party. I thank New Zealand First and the Greens for their strong support in making sure that we can advance this policy. New Zealanders going into tertiary training, apprenticeships, polytechnics, universities, and wānanga next year will know that they will have a free year and that they would have three free years if they continue to support a Labour-led Government.

Well, I have to say, that was not the worst debate contribution that I’ve heard. I certainly have heard a lot worse, and my impassioned colleague on the other side there, Grant Robertson, gave it a bit of stick. But where he went wrong, though—it was fatally, fatally flawed in one place—was a confident man—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! Sorry, I’m going to interrupt the member. In fact, we’re going to start the member’s time again. Mr Goldsmith, Mr Faafoi, and a number of other people have been standing and having conversations with their backs both to me and to Ms Bennett. It is most uncourteous, and it will not continue. The Hon Paula Bennett, starting again.

Hey, so where I was at was, you know, it wasn’t the worst debate contribution I’ve heard—in fact, impassioned and sticking up for what they believe in and principled, and all those good things—but it was fatally, fatally flawed in one bit, which kind of ruined the whole thing. If, a few weeks into Government, you weren’t so confident you aren’t going to be there for more one term, you wouldn’t give a damn if we were for it or against it. But that’s actually the whole flaw of it; it was, actually, you know, would National be supporting your free fees in years in time, and that’s not what it is.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: You’re bringing the house down, Paula!

Actually, I’m not trying to be funny, Mr Hipkins. I think this is kind of a serious matter. I think it’s kind of a serious matter, the way Government runs, the way it’s actually structured, and whether or not you’re organised enough to know whether there’s enough votes in the House if you’re going to be putting up people for positions. I think it’s important to know, actually, Mr Hipkins, if you’ve actually done the count of your colleagues and you know who’s here and who’s away and what’s going to happen.

It has been a shambles—it has been a shambles—from day one, and it’s still a shambles today, but to be fair, in a new Government you can expect some mistakes. You can expect them trying to find their feet. You can expect the odd thing to be happening. What has really struck me with it is that what I expected was for them to have a degree of humility and to be actually able to stand up and say, “Got that one slightly wrong, guys. We’ve learnt from it. It won’t happen again, and we’ll move on.”, but they couldn’t do it. What we have realised is that after all of the glow of this new Prime Minister, who went round in the campaign and absolutely held herself up as being something kind of special, she’s as flawed as the rest of us and she’ll spin. You know, she’s as flawed as the rest of us, and her default position is to spin her way out of it instead of actually fronting up. I think, actually, I hope she learns from that, because the public do give you a bit of a hand.

So I’ve got a few key questions, colleagues. The first is: will Winston Peters still be the first man down the mine? We were promised that—we were promised that—promised it repeatedly, so will Winston Peters still be the first man down the mine? The people of Pike River actually deserve to know that. He made them that promise, and we’d like to see that actually go through.

We heard this great, impassioned plea, Mr Hipkins, about how wonderful this new fees-free tertiary education is and about how you’re doing it because you believe in education and you believe in people getting ahead. How about actually giving that to those people that are in charter schools, and recognising those students and those parents? They are actually full of real angst at the moment. They believe passionately in their kids. They want them to do well. I know some of the kids that are in some of those schools. They’re really, genuinely worried. It seems we care about some people’s education but not about others’. I ask for some consistency there.

Since we have the Government here, which is great, can we get how much immigration is now going to be dropped by? We were promised 30,000 by Labour; we were promised 50,000 by New Zealand First. Now it’s not going to be 30,000. Now they’re not sure how many. We’ve got no idea. People don’t know. Again, this is actually people’s lives, so it would be fair and reasonable to give people that are here in New Zealand applying for residency some certainty on what’s going on there. A lot of promises were made.

Mr Jones, it’d be good to know how many trees, yeah? We sort of had that it was going to be a billion. How many have been planted so far? We’re weeks and weeks in now. We’re six weeks in. We would like to know.

We’ve now backtracked, of course, on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, because Labour now love it, although they didn’t. So we’re just backtracking, backtracking, backtracking.

There were big housing promises from Twyford. We had that there were going to be 30,000 in the first year; now we’re already back to 16,000.

But the one for this week, without a doubt, has been the work-for-the-dole scheme. So we’ve got the “Js” going on. We’ve got Jonesy, Jackson, and Jacinda, yeah?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order!

So we have got that going on, and we’ve got Mr Jones going on about how this new work-for-the-dole scheme absolutely has to have sanctions. His nephs are getting off the couch; they’re going to be forced into these jobs at forestry—no call, by the way, on whether or not they’ll pass the drug test and actually be able to get into the jobs. Will there be sanctions if they can’t? Because that’s genuine—that’s genuine.

💬 Darroch Ball: They’re all lazy and they’re all on drugs, right?

Well, he’s the one that said they’re lying on the couch, Mr Ball. He’s the one that said they’re not getting off and getting those jobs. He’s the reason why we actually have people that are imported into the North to pick fruit and actually get ahead. There is a way that we actually could do something about this, so we’d like to see some consistency there. Mr Jackson, of course, is against it. He doesn’t want sanctions. He thinks that everyone is absolutely hard-done-by, and if only they could get a chance. Then we’ve got the position of the Prime Minister, of Jacinda Ardern, and that’s interesting in itself. If anyone could tell me what it is, I’d be really grateful, because I’ve got no idea at all on where she stands on any of this. Again, instead of fronting up, it’s all just a bit mealy-mouthed.

This, our fees-free education policy, is a wonderful policy. It is one where everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand can have access to post-secondary education. One of our 100-day promises is that we said that when we came into Government we would make fees free from 1 January of next year, and I am happy to say that we have delivered on that. Right now we have so many of our young people, and so many of those who are already in work but are required to train for more skills, actually having the opportunity to go through and train at post-secondary education. And one of the best things about this policy is the fact that it is universal.

You heard from our Minister of Education earlier on when he said that those who are wanting to go into industry training, instead of having access to just one year of free tertiary education, will be able to have access to two years’ post-secondary free education. That is really important, because when we look at our skills right now we know that we have such a huge shortage of skills. We know that there are so many who are currently in the workforce that can go through to industry training. They can learn as they earn, and they can get more skills to assist us with building a whole lot of the houses that we need to build, because we know that we have a huge, huge challenge to build houses to house so many—so many thousands of our people, right across Aotearoa. So we welcome this new policy, the fees-free policy, for so many reasons. And for our young people, as well as those who are older, who are wondering whether or not they can access fees-free tertiary education, they can go to www.feesfree.govt.nz, and they will be able to find out themselves whether or not they qualify for fees-free.

I’ve spoken to so many young people from South Auckland who are really excited about the opportunity this gives them—that they can actually go through, whether they go through to a polytechnic, to a private training establishment, or to university. Knowing that they can actually go through and train without having to worry about taking a student loan, without having to worry about asking their parents to assist, and without having to worry about whether they would have to work two or three part-time jobs just to afford an education—that has taken that worry off their minds. I’ve also spoken to many parents who are really excited about this as well, many parents who are saying now that this opportunity that their children have, to actually go through and train without them having to pay for their education, is a chance of a lifetime.

Just to go back a few decades, we know that here in Aotearoa New Zealand there was a time when public education was absolutely free. As the legislation actually tells us, public education should be free, but we know that is not actually the case. We know that when we look across the House, and when we look across on this side as well, there are some members of Parliament that, when they attended post-secondary education just two or three decades ago, did not have to pay. So why is it that we’re saying now that education should not be free?

💬 Chris Bishop: Because 10 times the number of people go.

But that, Mr Bishop, is one of the reasons why we should ensure that it is more accessible for more people. We should make sure that we allow everyone, regardless of where they live, regardless of what part of New Zealand they come from, regardless of what ethnicity they have, and regardless of what earnings their parents have to at least have the opportunity to go through and train. Why should someone who attends a decile 10 school versus someone who attends a decile 1 school not have the same opportunity? That is the beauty of this legislation, Mr Bishop: this will allow free education for everyone. This is universal education, Mr Bishop, and we are a Government that is absolutely committed to ensuring that the opportunity for, and access to, tertiary education is fair for all. Thank you.

Mr Speaker, I want to start my contribution to the general debate by congratulating you on your appointment as Speaker of this House, and I extend my congratulations, also, to your fellow presiding officers. You will realise, as Speaker, that it is a very critical role in this Parliament. It’s actually a very critical role in the democratic system of New Zealand, and for good democracy to function, it requires a Speaker who is prepared to accept that role of making sure that the democracy of this country can operate within this House. I’m certainly at no time going to tell you how you do your job; that’s something you’re going to figure out for yourself. But I can give one piece of advice, I guess, as to what guided me every day that I came into this place. I attempted to gain the respect of all the members of Parliament that I was attempting to do my job in a fair and impartial way. I think that is an important test as to whether you’ve gained the respect of all members of Parliament.

I was overseas at the time that Mr Peters made his announcement. I listened on my phone; it was 9 o’clock in the morning, as I was attending an Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in St Petersburg, and I could never have been happier with the result of that announcement. Because I had no wish to go into any Government of which the Rt Hon Winston Peters was a part. I was there in 1996; in fact, I whipped with Mr Mark in the seat over there in the 1996-99 Government, and I knew then how it fell apart. I’m not one that will ever trust Mr Winston Peters, but I do wish those that are now going to deal with Mr Peters and his colleagues the very, very best of luck, because they’re going to need it.

I say that it is an absolute privilege to be in this Opposition, because what we are going to have the opportunity to do, as Opposition members, is hold what is appearing to be a very shaky coalition Government to account. And it is going to be a lot of fun doing it over the next three years.

We’ve already seen the cracks exposed in question time today: the Work for the Dole scheme advanced by the Hon Shane Jones, and then we tried to get some information from the Hon Willie Jackson as to whether he now supports it, or doesn’t, and I’m none the wiser after Willie Jackson’s comments in question time today. But I will go back and look at the Hansard later on in the day, very carefully, to see whether the Hon Willie Jackson supports Work for the Dole.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s comments—well, again, I’m not sure whether she’s supportive or not. Her answers are very evasive in the House. But we do know one thing: there’s one leg of the coalition that doesn’t support any Work for the Dole scheme, and that is, of course, the Green Party, who are essential—

💬 Darroch Ball: There’s only two parties in the coalition.

“There’s only two parties in the coalition.” We look forward to many, many votes—many votes—in this House relying on two votes, “two parties in the coalition”! We look forward to it. And if Darroch Ball really believes that, then it won’t be long before he’s over on this side of the House.

I’ve got a message for the Prime Minister: this is no longer student politics; this is about real Government. And it’s going to get tougher and tougher from here on in. We’ve already seen the different positions. Pike River’s a classic: “We will re-enter Pike River.” was the call from the Labour Party right throughout the campaign. The Rt Hon Winston Peters was going to be the first one down the mine. Well, I’m going to give him the box of the matches and the glass of whisky to go down there, as well, and there’ll be a lot of other New Zealanders cheering him on.

But now they’re in Government, they’ve looked at the reports, and their position is, in fact, the same as the former National Government’s: that we will allow entry into the mine provided it is safe to do so—provided it is safe to do so. And Darroch Ball shakes his head, because he wants the Rt Hon Winston Peters to go down that mine. He can’t wait for that to happen, because he’s going to then be part of the contest, whether it be Ron Mark, Darroch Ball, or the Hon Shane Jones, to be the next leader of New Zealand First. [Interruption] But it won’t matter, Ron Mark. I’ve got a message for you: it won’t matter, because you’re only here for another 2½ years, because then the New Zealand First Party will be totally destroyed over the next two to three years.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The Green Party has long led on increasing female representation in leadership, and I think that we’ve demonstrated just what can be achieved by that when you have explicit policies. We now have 75 percent of our caucus who are female—and incredibly high performing—the highest percentage, of course, for a long time of any party in this Parliament. I’d love to see other parties follow our lead, especially the National Party, which, sadly, still has less than one-third of their MPs as women.

Now, since I’ve taken on this role as Minister for Women, I’ve done a number of interviews on the persistent gender wage gap, and a number of interviews that have demonstrated to me why it is so necessary that we have a Ministry for Women to promote women’s affairs. There is an understandable perception out there in the public that, somehow, we’ve already achieved gender equality, that there is no need for explicit policies, and that men and women are paid the same for similar work. The data shows us that is simply not true. There is a persistent wage gap, and women are significantly under-represented in governance and leadership in the private sector at a much higher rate than in the public sector.

Just this week, we had the Diversity Dividend Report that Westpac New Zealand puts out, and I was quite shocked at just how low the percentage of women in leadership roles still is. It’s only at 29 percent, even though women make up 49 percent of the workforce in New Zealand. What this report shows is that having equal female and male leadership can lead to better economic outcomes. It’s actually better for business. This is a major economics consultancy that’s come out, done the research on this, and demonstrated that.

So when I go out and I say it’s my goal as Minister for Women and this Government’s goal to improve the situation for women and girls in this country, to close the gender pay gap both in the public sector and in the private sector, and to ensure that there’s greater diversity in leadership and governance, particularly in the private sector where it’s lagging behind the public sector—when we say that, inevitably we get a bit of a response from some quarters of New Zealand that say, “It should just be the best person for the job. We shouldn’t hire women just because they’re women.”

Well, what that view fails to take into account is that women currently aren’t getting the jobs they deserve and they would do very well at, because of bias. And that is clear in this report. It says the top barrier cited is a perception of a lack of female talent, and yet it also says businesses would be better performing and better off if there were more women in management roles.

So the only way to address this bias that is out there in the workplace is to have explicit plans and policies and a commitment to address this problem. The research showed that only 40 percent of businesses had a gender parity strategy, and only 26 percent of them were even measuring themselves against it. So this is time for us to come together in Aotearoa and to achieve better outcomes for all people.

I’m so proud not only to be in the Green Party but to be part of this new, progressive Government, which is, in and of itself, more diverse—certainly more than the previous Government and probably any Government that we’ve had in New Zealand. I think it’s a fantastic strength of this new Government that we represent different views and that we represent a wider range of New Zealanders. While the Opposition will try to paint this as some sort of problem for the Government, in fact it is our strength that we will negotiate and work together on the areas where we have common ground, and we will represent more than just the top 10 percent, or just those who are already doing the best, or just those who happen to be in the dairy industry in New Zealand. The previous Government tended to over-represent certain sectors of society. We want to represent all of New Zealand, and we will make better decisions when we do that.

This Government is committed to policies that will increase female representation, but it’s going to take more than that. We’ve already demonstrated that by extending paid parental leave to 22 weeks and then 26 weeks, which is going to help all families, and particularly women; by increasing the minimum wage—there are 350,000 women in precarious work in New Zealand, and increasing the minimum wage will improve their situation—and, of course, by ditching the last Government’s terrible pay equity and equal pay legislation, which would have put in place barriers to women actually achieving equal pay.

This Government is committed to equality and well-being for all New Zealanders, and we know that by taking an evidence-based and inclusive approach, we can achieve that.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s actually a pleasure to stand up here on this side of the House and represent the dairy industry, and I wasn’t overly impressed with the comment from the last speaker, Julie Anne Genter, that this party over-represented the dairy industry. We represent all industries, because we’re a go-forward party that actually like people to do well in business.

This morning, I was down at the Dairy Environment Leaders’ Forum. It’s a great group of people. They get their heads together and they are showing some leadership in the dairy industry about how to approach some of their issues. And I was very pleased to tell them, when I was down there this morning, that Mr Ron Mark stood up in the Address in Reply debate when he gave his leader’s speech and said that the farmer in Southland was just as important as the person who was running a business in Queen Street. I want to commend that party for that comment.

I was also asked as to what I thought this new Government might mean, and I said that, well, actually, it’s quite interesting for me to work out what this new Government might mean, because I might be able to tell you what some of the things that New Zealand First stand for are, I might be able to tell you some of the Labour policies, and I might be to tell you some of the Green policies, but when we make that connection and put them all together, I’m not quite sure—when we see this 100-day plan—exactly what it means.

💬 Darroch Ball: You get MMP. You get an MMP Government

Actually, Mr Ball, I don’t think you know what it means either, by the comment that you made before about the fact that there’s a two-party coalition—yes, but you need three parties to vote to get that Government. So you’re actually almost discounting it. It’s interesting, the distance between your party and the Green Party.

I was very impressed this morning because that Dairy Environment Leaders’ Forum are in the process of making some fantastic videos. We talk a lot about water storage and we talk a lot about irrigation, and, unfortunately, some parties in this Parliament think that irrigation is only for the farmers. Well, actually, the first step in taking irrigation is to make sure, before they take it, that the fish flow is accounted for. Actually, there are parts in this country where water is being used from storage systems to supplement that fish life. So we don’t have a water shortage problem in this country; we have a water storage problem in this country, and we need to get wise—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Water quality problem.

Well, actually, water storage can help quality. So let’s just not let over 96 percent of it run out to sea; let’s be a wise nation and do it and use it, and use it well.

Now, the second thing I actually want to get onto is that down there we talk a lot about skills and trades, and I just heard from Jenny Salesa that no matter where people live, this current Government is going to deliver skills and trades. My fear, and I’ll say it right now—and I’ve had a whole lot of people say to me, “Why is the first year of education free? Let people prove that they’re going to do something.”—is that in electorates like the one I represent, it’s going to encourage more people to go up and fill the universities, and we’re going to be left with a shortage of people to stay and do the skills and trades. I know that promise is there, and I’ve heard it today, about funding all sorts of tertiary education, but the reality is that at some point those students have to be able to travel to that destination to get whatever sort of qualification it is. So I’m going to be keeping a real close eye on that as spokesperson for rural communities, because I want the students that choose to live and work and get trades in rural communities to have an equal and fair chance.

I’m one of those people that believe that not all the answers are in Wellington—in fact, 90 percent of them are in the community. Today I had a visit from a wonderful young group, and seeing that it was general debate, I said to them I would give them a mention. It was Jay and his friends from Tumekē Clothing. They are a Young Enterprise Scheme group, and they had decided there’s so many of us—you know, in Wellington we talk about lots of stuff, but it’s the people in the community that do it. They have developed these fantastic T-shirts as part of their Young Enterprise scheme, and they’re about getting Te Reo up and running. They’re in Wellington tonight, and I want to commend Jay and that team, because I think that’s a fantastic initiative. I’ve supported three other Young Enterprise teams in my own electorate, and there are a lot of good young people out there, and we need to give them the best opportunities.

So, with that, I want to say thank you for the opportunity. Thank you.

Mr Speaker, can I begin by congratulating you on your role as the Speaker of Parliament and, also, your colleagues, the Deputy Speaker and the Assistant Speakers.

I want to particularly acknowledge, for the record, Poto Williams being your Assistant Speaker and the first Pacific person to hold this office. I’m not sure whether that’s recognised by the House, but that’s a significant record, as Pacific communities look to the future of New Zealand and recognise that this is their home. For a large percentage of Pacific peoples—60 percent of them are born here in Aotearoa New Zealand—this is their home; they know no home other than Aotearoa New Zealand.

So the dreams and aspirations of their parents, grandparents, who first arrived into Aotearoa New Zealand—one of the key things of that vision was education. We all believed, and the elders all believed, that education was the key to the success of our communities, albeit in the early days of the 1960s and 1970s, many of the elders then got free tertiary education. That’s why we have a lot of teachers; that’s why we have accountants. In fact, many on the other side of the House are beneficiaries of the free tertiary education policies of previous Governments.

I think the policy that has been announced yesterday by the Prime Minister and by the Hon Chris Hipkins, the Minister of Education—that is a policy that I would like to see this House shout from the rooftop over and over and over again, because this is our investment into the future of New Zealand. Look, we are saying that this is a policy—it’s universal, it is free, there is no age gap here. It is available to those who are finishing up high school this year. It is available for those who want to go into apprenticeship schemes. It is available for those already in the workforce who want to receive organised training. I want to say that as part of the work that we did in the Future of Work Commission, we know from what we see in other parts of the world that the work environment is changing, and unless our population receives skills, receives qualifications, our population will not be able to receive the full benefits of this economy.

I have to smile when I listen to the other side—and may they be effective members of the Opposition, and may they be long-lasting in that role of Opposition—because when they were here in Government, we would say, “Invest in the future of this country. Invest in free education.” What happened? No, they did not want to do one iota. Steven Joyce is somebody that got free education. Paula Bennett received the free education support from the State, but when they were in Government they pulled the ladder up.

So this is a policy that is not only going to benefit present generations but it’ll benefit the future and the next generation. I know that in my heart, unless Pacific children, Pacific young people, and the Pacific workforce, which this country will rely upon in years to come—unless they are able to access tertiary education, which the previous Government made harder, under their regime. They made it difficult. It was a regime where, if you had money, you could access tertiary education. But under this new Labour-led coalition Government with New Zealand First, with support partners the Green Party, this is the stuff that strong foundations, wealthy nations, are made from: by ensuring that it is available for all. I know in my heart that unless our communities, unless the working-class communities of South Auckland, unless Pacific workers quickly take up this advantage, they will for ever be treated by the other side as people only good for cleaning jobs, only good for cleaning up the toilets, only good for doing low-level skills and low-paying jobs.

That’s why it’s not just a responsibility of this side of the House to be championing and shouting from the rooftop of the value of this policy, but I think the other side, members of the Opposition, have a moral responsibility. If we are united in this House about doing what is good for New Zealand, then they have a moral responsibility also to promote this policy to their constituency. When we look at the struggles of many families, education is the key to remove them from the struggles and to succeed in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It seems that the theme is the education policy recently announced by the Government, and I’d like to focus on that for a minute as well.

I’d like to open with a letter from one of my constituents. She’s a 22-year-old graduate who’s just finished her Bachelor of agricultural science at Massey University. To quote her, “Many of my friends have commented in frustration that they can foresee many first-year students abusing and taking advantage of the financial privilege of a free first year at university. I think New Zealand needs to develop a principle and culture of reward for effort. Something for nothing does nothing for people. Rewards are far more valued when the work has been done.” I’m going to repeat just a small part of that: “Something for nothing does nothing for people.” That is, unfortunately, the policy of the Labour Government.

Whether I had a free education or Paula Bennett had a free education doesn’t make it right—it doesn’t make it right at all. My point here is that I find it quite ironic that the proposal of a universal benefit is supported, but then the universality of the $1,000 tax cut is rejected by the same people, by the same Government. I find that quite ironic. I agree with Grant Robertson when he said today that he and I don’t need the $1,000. But then, why does that Government give, essentially, $8,000 or $9,000 of fees free to the same group of people?

The universality is my point. I think the policy on the Government side has got it wrong. I do not understand why the Government—and we all agree that people should have access to education, particularly those who are in the lower socio-economic groups. But a universal policy is absolutely the wrong way to achieve that. Targeted scholarships, means tests—anything but a universal policy should have been the policy of that Government.

A universal policy is just going to mean a free year off, a gap year, for 19- and 20-year-olds or first-year university students. And there will be queues. There will be queues at enrolment time, and that will put more pressure on the universities, more pressure on the tertiary education institutes. So they’re going to have to build more classrooms, build more lecture theatres, and more lecturers will need to be employed. This is going to be a balloon. It will be a free lolly scramble for those that don’t need the money.

The next point I’d like to talk about briefly is working for the dole—working for the benefit—that Mr Jones has been talking about. Again, you know, we’ve got disagreement between Mr Jones and Mr Jackson. Mr Jackson says Mr Jones is mad. The Prime Minister is not quite sure where she stands on the issue. She talks about not committing at all, one way or the other, to support one Minister or the other and certainly not particularly supporting Mr Jones.

She talks about hope a lot. We can’t feed our families on hope. We need jobs, real jobs, and a growing economy, with real, productive jobs out there in the open market. A tax-subsidised work-for-the-dole scheme is absolutely the wrong thing to do. It doesn’t provide any training to those people that are doing meaningless jobs, taxpayer-subsidised jobs. And again, there seems to be this never-ending supply of money that is available to the Labour Government that at some point, at one point, and it’s coming soon—they will realise they need to be accountable to the taxpayer for the money that they spend on behalf of the taxpayer.

The work-for-the-dole idea from Mr Jones is ludicrous. What I would like him to support in the regions, with his billion-dollar fund, is to convince the Greens that water storage is a good thing, that water storage does support regional New Zealand, that water storage does provide productive and real jobs in the rural economy.

Thank goodness we have a Labour-led Government at the helm right now, because that was the most uninspired, absolutely tragic last five minutes of my life, which I cannot get back. So, Mr Scott, thank you for finishing.

There’s been a song on loop in my head—Fat Freddy’s Drop: “Hope for a generation”. I was going to sing it, but I got a bit shy. The thing that is going through my mind right now is thank goodness we have a Government at the helm that is inspiring hope in a generation of young people. Quite frankly, why the majority of us are sitting here in this House today is because for nine long years that Government failed to give our kids any hope. It failed to create spaces in our communities for kids, like a lot of our families—a space. It failed to create the picture that our kids might just, one day, go on to become whatever it is that they want.

There is this ethos that sits on the other side of the House that you are the ruling superior, and it is by us, for us, by the elite, for the elite. But this Government right here has invested in creating a vision of hope, and it stretches across all four corners of the well-beings. I want to commend Jacinda Ardern, our Prime Minister, and I want to commend our executive for implementing, in an extremely short period of time, six weeks in fact—we have had healthy homes. That legislation has immeasurable benefit in my electorate. You won’t see it, or maybe it might hurt the pocket a little bit because you’ve got to insulate your homes, for those of you that own rentals. But for a majority of those people living in those homes, that creates a healthy, warm environment.

We’ve had paid parental leave come through this House—26 weeks’ paid parental leave for parents that want to be parents at home. You’ve created all these quandaries about this, that, and the other thing. But at the end of the day it is a fantastic bill and an opportunity for our families to grow families.

But just yesterday—I want to commend the Hon Christopher Hipkins because what he has done, in six weeks, is introduce an extra fifty bucks for all students. That has the impact of 130,000 people in this country being better off because he found some money to give an extra 130,000 people fifty bucks in their pocket, to enhance themselves, to become engaged participants in our country.

But, more importantly, yesterday he reversed a tragic trend, which started almost 30 years ago, that started to commodify something that is a basic, fundamental human right. Now, I listened to you, Mr Scott, and I heard you lament the fact that you and the Hon Paula Bennett got a free education and it’s just not right. Well, it’s absolutely right for the future of our nation that every single kid is entitled to a free education. It is a fundamental human right. You want to talk about means testing education. Shall we start means testing health? Shall we start means testing for our primary schools? Hey, why not? Let’s go to our secondary schools. Health, education—there are some fundamental tenets that this side of the House believes in: that we should all be entitled to these as citizens of this nation.

I just want to turn—because it was not that long ago; it was only a few months ago, actually. I remember listening to our former Prime Minister in this House commenting on the state of young people, the state of young people—that there were kids sitting at home that didn’t want jobs. They were far more interested in sitting at home and smoking pot or whatnot.

Well, I live up on the East Coast. We’ve got some of the highest deprivation rates in this country. Forty-nine percent of my electorate is comprised of Māori. I am yet to meet that young person that does not want to fulfil their aspirations. I am yet to meet that one young person that wants to sit at home and waste away, until the time of oblivion. I have met hundreds of young people that think they do not have a place in this community and this society. So I want to honour the Hon Christopher Hipkins for creating an opportunity for the many—for creating opportunities for kids like mine, up on the East Coast. You know, our Māori kids—I think there’s going to be 16,000 Māori kids that are going to benefit from this fees-free policy. I want to commend you for your work in bringing this to the House.

Thank you to this Government. Thank you to New Zealand First for voting for change. Over 50 percent of this country voted for change, and that is indeed what we truly have. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it is an absolute pleasure to be able to stand in the House today, and before I actually engage in the general debate I want to put a bit of a shout-out out to the team down at Scott Base and McMurdo: those who work out at Williams Field on the airstrip; those who’re at Phoenix; people like Peter Beggs, CEO of Antarctica New Zealand; Matt Johnson; Simon Trotter; Peter Smith; Trudie Baker; Fiona Shanhun; Rebecca Roper-Gee; Megan Smith; Kylie Wood; Lieutenant Commander Ross Hickey; Dai Seto, who was my climbing instructor down there; and everybody else, particularly New Zealand Defence Force personnel, who do such a tremendous job supporting New Zealand’s science community and doing that important work that’ll help us redress, hopefully, the climate change issues that this Government has decided it will bravely tackle.

I’m very proud of the fact that the New Zealand Defence Force is playing a very strong part in fighting climate change through the commitment of massive resources. In fact, it’s our largest deployment we have globally, and most people don’t know that. So a big shout-out to them.

But what an interesting time in this House. I’ve sat here and I’ve listened to the speeches, and I want to start with the Hon Paula Bennett. I feel sorry for her. Paula Bennett is trying hard, but she’s finding it hard to try. She tries humour, but it just doesn’t come through. And in this general debate, the one thing that I noticed is Paula’s furious. She’s furious with the pale, male, and—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Paula Bennett—the Hon Paula Bennett—is furious with the pale, male, stale elements to her left who cost her her ministerial job. She’s not the only one, though. The Rt Hon David Carter—what a bitter, bitter, bitter man. And he’s right. He did try hard to earn the respect of this House in his time as the Speaker. He tried very hard, and most of us found his trying very hard as well. And all I’ll say is, Mr Carter—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! I know it’s somewhat dated, but I think reflections on the Speaker—even of this sort—are going a bit far.

Well, I—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: No.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I apologise for that. But I’ve got to say, the attack on the Rt Hon Winston Peters by the Rt Hon David Carter revealed something that those of us who were in a coalition Government in 1998 knew. Mr Carter made it clear in the speech today that he was happy—happy—that he’s consigned, along with all of his National Party MPs, to Opposition. Why? Because he has a personal issue with being in Government with the Rt Hon Mr Peters.

Well, one of the things that went through my mind when I was deliberating, and when I, amongst my New Zealand First colleagues, voted for this coalition Government and voted to make the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern the Prime Minister, was whether or not we could trust—whether we had confidence in the coalition partner. The Rt Hon Mr Carter, as he said, was a junior whip when I was a whip in coalition Government. I was the senior whip of New Zealand First and a junior whip for the Government. He was the junior whip of the National Party and a whip in the Government. But what Mr Carter didn’t say is that he also joined the plotters and helped overthrow his Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jim Bolger. I leave it right there.

So in my mind, when I’m considering who would I go to war with, who would I be in coalition with, who could I trust, who could I absolutely have confidence in, who would not put their personal vendettas above the best interests of the nation, and who would not put their own personal issues with another member of Parliament against the best wishes of his entire caucus—Mr Carter gave that answer here today. And I thank him for his honesty, and I hope the rest of his caucus colleagues appreciate it as well.

Mr Brownlee summed it up today when he said this: in reply to questions and answers, in an interjection, he said, “7.2 percent wins? That’s democracy?” I’m sorry, Mr Brownlee. Get over it. Get over it. Move on.

My message really is this: to all of the National MPs who are going into the Christmas break, who’re going to be pondering what they’re going to do now, who’re going to ponder what they’re going to do next, over those BBQs and on the beaches—if one is angry or bitter, like Mr Carter, that one is on the Opposition benches, look no further than your front bench and, for you, decide what you’re going to do after Christmas.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s my first time speaking since my maiden speech, and I’m delighted that I have the opportunity to speak on something that I’m absolutely passionate about. And I’m going to take the opportunity to speak about fees-free education for our students and our adults as well.

I’m actually going to change this up a little bit, because I heard about how there was a “we can’t live on hope alone.” That really concerned me, and I started to sit here, and I was thinking about what I normally do at this time of the year, before I had this position of being here in the House. For the last many, many years, I have been a school principal, and at this time of the year we’re preparing for the saddest time of the year: to say farewell to our year 6 students. Over this time, we take them through possible career options that they can have as they’re getting older and moving through their lives.

Even though the children that I worked with came from the most disadvantaged backgrounds around, and were predominantly Māori and Pasifika who had lost touch with their cultural heritage, those children had hopes and dreams like anybody else. Those children wanted to have a variety of different career options. They wanted to be teachers. They wanted to be nurses. They wanted to be doctors. They wanted to be builders. They wanted to be plumbers. They had hopes and dreams, like anybody does.

But I’ll tell you the really worrying thing that happened for those children along the way. In 11 years, the number of children that I had that went on to post-secondary education, from the many, many that I had go through my decile 1 school, amounted to 3 percent of that roll. And I find that a horrific statistic.

So I wanted to find out what were the main reasons that that was actually happening. What were the barriers to them? And there are a variety of reasons but, predominantly, what would come through is that “We can’t afford it, whaea. We just can’t afford it. It’s something we can’t do.”, or “I’m not sure I can do it, and I don’t want to take the risk that I won’t be able to pay that money back.” They felt so unconfident about their abilities because that’s what society had done to them.

This is what this fees-free policy can do for these children. It gives them hope, and hope is good for them. It is a policy that is for all New Zealanders. And not only does it give them hope but it gives their parents hope, because it is not only the children who were missing out on education but also their parents. Out of my roll of parents, I would’ve had about 5 percent of those numbers—and I’m not exactly sure, but it’s around between 5 and 10 percent of those parents—who had post-secondary qualifications. Every single one of those parents had dreams and hopes and aspirations for them beyond what they were doing in their lives—every single one of them.

But, again, the biggest barrier to them was the cost and the fees, and this policy will turn that around for them. This is a policy for all New Zealanders. This will help everybody into education.

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s an argument for scholarships, not for universality.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, let them eat cake!

Yeah, exactly. Those people did not have scholarships available to them, Mr Bishop. You need to get real. You need to find out exactly what is going on for those people.

Many of them have dreams now that they did not have before, and only last night I was contacted by a 17-year-old, who said to me, “Do you think that I could now become a teacher? I never thought that I could do this, but I’ve looked, I’m eligible, and now I want to become a teacher.” I am so excited for that young woman, because in 27 years of teaching, she is by far the brightest student. She’s stanine 9. She is the brightest student I have ever, ever taught, and that’s in high- and low-decile schools, and she has got dreams now that she didn’t have before this policy was announced yesterday. So it is a very, very, very exciting policy for all New Zealanders. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is with pleasure that I speak in the general debate today. I just want to say at the outset that I wish the new Government well and congratulate it on forming its coalition. Many weren’t happy with the outcome, but it is, of course, democracy in action.

Before I talk, I just want to return to that dreadful speech I heard from the Minister of Defence, who talked with a lot of disrespect about the former Speaker of this House. I find that dreadful, for the Minister of Defence to take that opportunity to make that attack on him. I just think he should cast back and remind himself about some of his own actions. I, with former military experience, just want to remind that speaker about the importance of wearing medals and the respect that comes with that. I just think that’s been significantly undervalued.

The second thing: I was glad that he did speak of Peter Beggs from Antarctica New Zealand. I know Peter well, too, and they do do a fantastic job. I’m sure that speaker is now going to be able to claim he’s a polar explorer by having touched some snow in the Antarctic, and so I wish him well.

But I do think this raises a bigger issue: that is, being in power is a lot different from sitting in the Opposition. I think some of the new Ministers are now finding that it’s harder to be accountable for the results that they must now seek to achieve than they anticipated when they sat in Opposition. One of the biggest roles for any Government—any new Government, particularly—is to show leadership. I was glad that the coalition set out a 100-day plan, but I’ve got to note that that plan is on a slow burn. I’m rather disappointed, personally, that most of the bills we’ve debated in this House to date have been National Government bills, from a hangover from the 51st—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! I’m just going to warn the member not to anticipate any orders of the day and remind him we haven’t debated any bills yet.

Thank you. With the issue of leadership, the big issue is about confidence. I think this is the biggest issue for a new Government. There are worrying signs that people do worry, and increasingly are worried, about the future of the New Zealand economy: where we’re going, and a general lack of confidence. It’s great to be able to talk about hope, as we heard before, and about being “relentlessly positive”, but I just want to highlight some of the independent parties who have already, in the last two months, started to highlight this issue of lack of confidence.

The first one was the Alleasing Equipment Demand Index that came out just recently, showing that 71 percent of businesses are concerned about the impact of politics on their ability to grow their business. The second one, the renowned ANZ Research’s ANZ Business Outlook, showed that business confidence has turned down sharply, particularly between the October and November period. The third was the slump in retail sales during the September quarter—and, of course, we know the retail sector employs many, many New Zealanders.

More recently, the Westpac economists, who say that this Government—and these are their words—“will face economic headwinds in 2018”, are increasingly joining a list of people downgrading GDP growth for New Zealand. They quote—this is not me; this is independent contractors—“the issues that are leading to this lack of confidence are the plan to introduce free tertiary education”, which in time will be significant, at $8 billion, “an increase in fuel tax, particularly in Auckland, the cost of increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and the increasing Government spend.”

This is the issue that I’m most worried about: where this Government’s going to take our debt level. Our debt level is going to climb significantly, and I think that the importance of this for New Zealanders is that it removes the flexibility to do stuff when things go wrong. All Governments get blind-sided, whether it’s by an earthquake or whatever, and the lack of flexibility to deal with that, by spending everything you’ve got and agreeing to everything that everyone wants to ask you—that ill-discipline is going to come back to haunt this Government.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.