General Debate

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

I thought today it might be useful to reflect on the words of our new Prime Minister. Our new Prime Minister, three days before the election, uttered the prophetic phrase: “When you’re leading the charge, intention is reality.” That’s what she told New Zealand—when you’re leading the charge, it’s all about the intention. The intention is reality. And, as this Government is now fast working out, the intention is not reality at all. You actually have to do some work, and if the deeds don’t match the words, then intention is simply not sufficient.

We have some examples of that. We have the first example of this Government’s admirable intention to lift people’s wages. They think that people should earn more. There is probably no one in this House that doesn’t think that people should earn more, and that’s great. So what’s their first action to meet this intention? It’s to actually remove $1,060 from people who work and earn the median wage on 1 April next year. Money that was coming to them is—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will ask the member to resume his seat. The Hon Nikki Kaye, Julie Anne Genter, Nathan Guy, and a couple of members on my right have been talking as they’ve been wandering around. I was specifically asked at the beginning of question time today to try and tidy this up. I expected the whips to help me. They’re not, but I would ask that they do. Now, Steven Joyce, resume your call.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So we have this situation where a Government that says it wants to lift wages—the first thing it does, effectively, is reduce the spending power of New Zealanders from 1 April next year.

And how long will it take for them to earn that $1,060 back? Well, under this Government, quite a long time. But that’s OK, because they might be using it for some great initiative—some great initiative that is going to expand the skill base of New Zealand. That’s another of their intentions—to expand the skill base of this country.

So they have dedicated $2.8 billion to tertiary students to expand the skill base in this country. The only thing is they’re not actually going to lift the number of students in tertiary education. This $2.8 billion is not going to add at all to the number of students studying this year, next year—it’s just not going to happen. So they’ve just thrown $2.8 billion against the wall, which happens to be, incidentally, more than the $2.4 billion they’re saving by cancelling the tax package that would have given that income to New Zealanders.

They also claim to support older New Zealanders, and they want to encourage older New Zealanders. Well, then, why are they removing the increase in super that came with that tax package? They’re doing it tomorrow, and New Zealand First is enabling it. That party apparently cares so much about superannuation and veterans that it is actually going to remove the additional superannuation payment that’s going to happen on 1 April next year.

So the deeds don’t match the words. But that’s all right—that’s only one example. There are other examples. We have, of course, the example that they were going to be very fiscally responsible and that all their Budget plans and their big spending promises were fully funded and fully costed. That’s what we were hearing about it, except now they are so tight that they can’t even afford to give $350,000 to KidsCan to keep an admirable programme going, because they have so tightly spent the money that they have absolutely no capacity to spend any more.

And they’re fighting over a whole range of things. The Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) is being reformed—MPI is being reformed. It’s costing $17 million to indulge New Zealand First’s snitch on MPI—$17 million—and the Government that cares about lifting the quality and value of primary sector exports is taking this money from the research and development programme to lift the value and quality of primary sector exports. The $17 million to enhance paper-shuffling in Wellington—enhance paper-shuffling in Wellington—is taken from the R & D plan for the primary sector, and that is another example where their intentions are simply not meeting the realities.

It’s doesn’t stop there. There’s the billion trees that are only half a billion trees. There’s the immigration cull that Winston Peters was on about but is now very quiet about. It is also the houses that were going to be built, and now we don’t know. And then there’s the 1,800 police, and God knows when they’re turning up. This is a Government that’s fast learning that intentions have to be matched—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Listening to that contribution from Steven Joyce, I was reminded of a child’s nursery rhyme, because Humpty Dumpty has indeed had a great fall. He dug an $11 billion hole and threw his credibility into it, and everybody is still waiting for him to recover from that.

It is very clear that the former Government are having a great deal of difficulty getting their story straight as to what they think about the current Government. They want the current Government to be more transparent, and then they complain we’re being too open and honest about what it is that we are doing. Then they say we’re moving far too fast—far too fast—and then they say we’re not moving fast enough; we’re going too slow. Then they say we’re not doing anything—we’re not doing anything—and then they say we’re doing far too much. Then they try and say everything’s great—everything’s great—and then they say, “Oh my goodness, things are getting worse, things are terrible, things are terrible.”

They are struggling with Opposition, there is no doubt about that—as evidenced this morning by the fact that more than half the members of the National Party were too lazy to put a bill in the ballot for members’ day this morning. So passionate are they about the causes they came to Parliament to advocate that half of them couldn’t even put pen to paper and come up with a bill that they wanted to promote through this House. They are so lazy they could not come up with anything. So busy have they been trying to pull the rug out from under the current Government that they are failing to do their own job as the Opposition.

So let’s look at the success that’s happening on this side of the House, by contrast, because we had a 100-day plan. Let’s run through a few of the items in that 100-day plan: first of all, make tertiary education fees free from 1 January—done; increase student living costs by $50 a week from 1 January—done; pass the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill, requiring all rentals to be warm and dry—done; establish the tax working group—done; establish the Pike River Recovery Agency, with a responsible Minister—done; introduce waka jumping legislation—done; and increase paid parental leave—done.

And there are many, many more that we are making progress on. Tomorrow we will introduce a Families Package into this House that will make New Zealand families genuinely better off and lift children out of poverty, and that is something that you’ll be hearing a lot more on from this side of the House tomorrow. We have already made significant progress to something the previous Government said could never be done, and that is banning overseas speculators from buying up New Zealand houses. It’s already practically delivered; we’ve got one final step to make that a reality. We’ve also made steps already to stop the sell-off of State houses—enough is enough. This Government is going to deliver on that. We’re going to stop the sell-off. What’s more, we’re going to build more, because when you’ve got a housing crisis you build more houses, and that is what this Government is going to deliver on.

We will have an inquiry into the shambolic state of New Zealand’s mental health services. Mental health is in crisis in New Zealand, and this Government is committed to addressing that. We will resume contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. This is a Government that is going to make good on its promise to ensure that superannuation is available for the future generations of New Zealand—something that that previous Government failed to do. They kept kicking the can down the road and they failed to take precautions, to make the savings required to ensure that New Zealanders’ superannuation in retirement was secured.

We will introduce legislation to set a target for the reduction and elimination of child poverty in this country. That is something that this Government takes very seriously, and we are going to deliver on that. We will increase the minimum wage so that those New Zealanders who are on the lowest incomes struggling to get ahead can actually get ahead. That is going to be delivered by this Government. This is a Government that has made enormous progress after only seven weeks in office, and there is much, much more to come.

We’ve made a lot of progress outside of the 100-day plan. In education we have delivered on our commitment to scrap national standards. We have delivered on our commitment to start addressing the teacher supply crisis that we inherited from the last Government, and there is a lot more to come. This is a Government getting on with the job of delivering for New Zealand.

It was very interesting to hear the honourable member Shane Jones yelling out “Crisis! Crisis!” and that, indeed, was the tenor of the speech that we heard from the other side. This in a country that has been doing so well over these past nine years—a strong country with a strong economy that is well prepared to deliver the living standards that all New Zealanders have wanted. I look back with satisfaction on the efforts that we made over the nine years in Government, and, yes, we go away in Opposition to contemplate and think about the things that we can do better next time we get into Government, the next time the people of New Zealand give us that opportunity. But in the meantime we’ll be working very hard to hold this Government to account.

This week, after weeks of working through the previous Government’s legislation and scratching the order book very hard in order to find some things to do, finally the Government is bringing in some legislation of its own later this week to take away the $1,060 that 1.2 million households in New Zealand were looking forward to after eight years where the thresholds haven’t changed, and finally getting some tax back. That’s been taken away. It’s going to cost about $2.4 billion—about the same amount they’re going to spend on making it free for university students and tertiary students to go and have their first year free at university. People will be scratching their heads at the argument—the logic—used, because we’re being told that we shouldn’t be having tax cuts for wealthy people such as members of Parliament, but, by the same token, we’ll pay even more money for the children of those wealthy people to go to university and to go on and earn higher incomes throughout the rest of their careers, because that is the absolute priority.

There’s no question that student life can be tough, and it’s always tough financially as a student, and few would disagree that rising accommodation costs have made it tougher in these past few years. I’ve spent a lot of time speaking to student reps and students, and know the pressures that they’ve been under. That’s why the previous Government in the Budget this year lifted the accommodation benefit for students in order to make it easier for students to get by in the accommodation sense, and if I’d been returned to Government I would have argued for further investment over the next few years as surpluses have allowed.

But when we go about our spending in Government, we used to focus on targeted, well-thought-through spending on important issues, and on making sure that we were getting the most bang for our bucks. What we’ve seen from this Government has been the spray all over the place approach to public policy, so that you have $2.8 billion invested in tertiary education. And what are we getting for that? How many more students are we getting going to university as a result of it? What are we actually buying for the $2.8 billion over the next four years?

Well, we’ve got the Cabinet paper that gives us an answer: virtually no new students at all. In fact, we’ll hold steady. They’ve talked about the decline in students. Yes, there has been a very slight decline in tertiary students for the past three years, for two simple reasons. One is that there is a demographic drop. The parents of the country weren’t active enough 20 years ago, so that’s an issue. Secondly, there’s been a jobs boom in this country and so everybody has been finding it easier to get work. They’ve been hounded to get into work because there are so many jobs and that’s why there have been slightly fewer people in polytechnics and the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand area.

But as a result, we look at what’s going on in the Cabinet paper for the $2.8 billion investment. What are we getting? Virtually no new students. So you’re spending $2.8 billion on what you’re already getting—students going to tertiary education—because they’ve been doing it, and they’ve been prepared to make a contribution of their own because they know that the outcome is a good one for them personally, and that they’re going on to earn a higher income. So instead of targeting and focusing on getting those who had genuine barriers to getting into education, putting resources into getting them over the line, they’re spreading it everywhere, and that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

What about the things you could have done with the $2.8 billion? Well, there’s a whole lot of things, but, in the tertiary space on its own, what about investing in the quality of the institutions to ensure that New Zealand’s tertiary education remains world class? You need to continue to invest in that every day. There’s no new money—I’d be interested to see; maybe the new Government has found the money tree and they will find an extra billion dollars to do that. But I don’t see anything in the $2.8 billion investment in tertiary education that raises the quality of that education or enables the New Zealand university sector and the tertiary sector to continue to improve in order to create a world-class education that will genuinely make this country more productive.

So it’s a real missed opportunity and a perfect example of bad policy, and I hope over the summer that they go away and reflect and come back—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

I just want to start by referring to the comments of that member, Paul Goldsmith, on this Government’s tertiary package, saying that it was a missed opportunity, saying that we shouldn’t be spreading money everywhere, and, instead, we should be targeting it. I just remind that side of the House that, actually, it was that Opposition that wanted to give broad-brush tax cuts to everyone in New Zealand, and I can’t see how that is targeted in any way. I just also want to remind that side of the House, because we’ve had this come up so many times in the past, that there are a number of members on that side of the House who had the luxury of getting free tertiary education. And it was good enough for them. And now here we are trying to introduce one year fees free, and all of a sudden it’s the worst decision in the world. All of a sudden they’re saying things like “These students should be prepared to make that contribution, because it’s an investment in their own future.” Well, actually, it’s an investment in the future of this country, so any good Government should be prepared to make that investment, and this good Government is prepared to make that investment.

I have been asked on a number of occasions over the past few weeks what it feels like after nine years to be in Government. I have to say it feels pretty good. It feels pretty good, because after nine years we have the ability to access information and advice. We don’t have to wait five weeks for an Official Information Act request to come through. We don’t have to submit hundreds of written questions and wait for the responses to come back. That advice is there. It feels amazing, because all of a sudden, after nine years of watching this country turn into something that we can’t even recognise, now we’re in the position where we can actually make decisions, turn back some of the bad decisions that have been made over the last nine years, and actually give some hope to New Zealanders who had given up hope that things could be any better, who had started to believe that homelessness was actually part of our everyday reality, who had started to believe that inequality would grow and that’s just how it was, who had started to believe that, actually, every day you do just need to struggle, and that’s how it is. Actually, it feels pretty good to be in the position where you can give people hope and make them believe and make them see that, actually, New Zealand can be better, and we’re a Government committed to making that happen.

My previous ministerial colleague, Minister Hipkins, talked about some of the things that have already been achieved under this Government, and the things that we’re committed to making happen in the first 100 days. How could we be ashamed of that? We’ve got a Families Package that ensures that thousands of families are going to be better off. We’ve got a tertiary package that is going to break down barriers to people accessing education. We’ve got housing strategies that are going to ensure that we can actually address the issues of homelessness and address the issue of affordable housing so that the reality of homeownership can be known to New Zealanders. And there are other things that are going on behind the scenes. Our focus is, of course, the 100-day package, but as Minister for Social Development and Minister for Disability Issues it is great to be able to work behind the scenes, being proactive about what the next three years will look like—as I said, looking at some of the things that we can unravel, but being proactive about what our future will look like as a country.

Over the past few weeks I have been hit up with a number of questions that are about employment, unemployment, sanctions, and what we plan to do. I just want to say it is so disappointing that the Opposition is so narrow-minded when it comes to beneficiaries, still wanting to put the boot in, still wanting to stigmatise New Zealanders who find themselves out of work. Yet under them, when they left office, 72,000 young people were still not in education or employment. Under them we still had unacceptably high rates of unemployment for Māori, for Pacific, and for disabled people. And that Government had no plan for those people—no plan for New Zealanders who found themselves out of work. The only plan they had was to reduce benefit numbers and to push people into whatever work they could push them into, no matter how meaningful, sustainable, or well paid that employment was.

Well, we’ve got a better plan for New Zealanders, actually. We believe that New Zealanders who find themselves out of work have the potential to go into better paid employment, more meaningful employment, and we want to support them to upskill and train so that they can do that. That side of the House doesn’t seem to take that strategy seriously, but in terms of the future of New Zealand it is important that we do take that seriously and that we genuinely invest in New Zealanders.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to actually put a few things on the record and to query a number of the things that the Government has stated. One of the things that concerns me is all of this talk, from the Prime Minister downwards, about a child poverty target, and, actually, no connection whatsoever to the fact that children in benefit-dependent homes are the children that suffer the hardest hardship. And yet, on no occasion has that side been willing to talk about how they are going to implement and—

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Nine years. Nine long years.

—deliver lower child poverty. So nine years—what did nine years bring? I’m so pleased that they are interested. Here is some of the information that I think makes an enormous difference to children living in hardship. The number of kids in material hardship has fallen by nearly 40 percent, to 135,000. That is a significant number, and the tax cut package that this Government is going to get rid of tomorrow would help 50,000 children—50,000 children. So I absolutely refute any comments from that side of the House that suggest the former National Government or the current Opposition don’t care about people.

Because I’ll tell the House this for free: the reality is opportunities for people come from work. Actually, this side of the House doesn’t think that work comes with a bad name. Whether you’re a tow truck driver, whether you’re a builder, whether you’re someone who’s starting your first job, or whether you’re one of the 1.2 million New Zealanders who will miss out—who will miss out—on $1,060 that they would have got from 1 April next year—don’t talk to this House about who cares and who doesn’t; 1.2 million New Zealanders miss out as a result of what that side is going to start doing tomorrow.

It’s a really interesting conversation, because another group that can be quite vulnerable in this community are those that are our older citizens. Unfortunately, that side of the House think they can spend their money better than they can. So by making changes and taking away a tax cut for those on the pension, not only will those on the pension lose over time, because it won’t be connected to the average wage—and that side of the House talks about increasing wages. We’ve got no idea how they plan to do it, but talk is cheap, so they keep talking about it. But it is the usual story. When that side come in, they think they can spend what you earn better than taxpayers can, which I think is the absolute height of arrogance.

I want to come back to what I started on in terms of child poverty, because in terms of teen parents, there are 57 percent fewer teen parents than in 2009. Something that the Government doesn’t seem to understand is that opportunities come for individuals through work. If you want to get an apprenticeship, guess what? A young person needs to have a job if they are to get an apprenticeship. So for all of the comments about—and, I must admit, it was fascinating to hear Minister Sepuloni talk about written questions, because there are very few answers coming back from them so far. But whether it is on-the-job training, whether it is the opportunity of a promotion, or whether it’s the opportunity for higher wages, those are the things that come when someone is employed.

So, absolutely, this side of the House cares about individuals—real people with real needs. That’s why we’ve used social investment to tackle things in a very different way to change people’s lives—change people’s lives. This side of the House actually focused on understanding more about real people with real needs—real people with real needs—and how to solve some of those challenges. Some of it was around employment, some of it was around mental health, some of it was around lack of educational opportunities, and this side of the House actually tackled those very hard issues.

I look forward to seeing the plan. I’m waiting for the plan, in terms of what the Minister for Social Development is going to do to support the Prime Minister’s ambitious target around child poverty, because the first thing that came on to the table was work for the dole, and they quickly swept it off.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It’s appropriate that you’re in the seat, actually, Mr Speaker, because I want to highlight a petition that was received in 2010. It was organised by NZEI Te Riu Roa, 38,000 Kiwis signed it, and I believe that you and the former member Catherine Delahunty received it. At the same time, we had 225 boards of trustees members. We had teachers, we had the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, and we had the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) who said that national standards were fundamentally flawed, they were confusing, and they were unworkable. They had no confidence in them. They were untried, untested, and they labelled children as failures, and what I really want to highlight is that the workload for teachers was going to be awful. So from 2010 to today—can I say that national standards are gone by Christmas.

I want to acknowledge Minister Chris Hipkins, because we listened. We listened to the sector. We listened to boards of trustees that had parents on them. So finally—finally—New Zealand has a Government that’s whakarongo mai. We are listening to the parents, to our stakeholders that are critical to an effective organisation of our education system.

I also want to highlight a comment by Melanie Webber from the PPTA—she’s the vice president. In May 2017 she said this: “It is a crisis if you’re a kid in school and you don’t have a teacher … [trained] in a speciality in front of you … no-one’s paying attention”. Well, guess what? We are paying attention, because the initiatives that were outlined today by our Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, are going to address the teacher supply package. Under the previous Government, according to their Minister Hekia Parata, in August 2016—at that point in time—there were 4,000 teacher vacancies. Four thousand—and what did she say? She said that that’s not a crisis; no, it’s just a shortage. It’s pretty much like the housing situation in every other aspect.

But what I want to highlight is what the former Government knew between 2005 and 2015 in respect of teachers aged between 60 and 79. In 2005 there were 3,608 of them, and in 2015 there were 8,434. So we had a 134 percent increase in teachers aged between 60 and 79. That Government knew that—did nothing about it. At the same time, between 2010 and 2015: in 2010 we had 17,000 young people training to be teachers, and in 2015 we had 11,000. We had a 6,000 reduction. That, actually, was a Government responsibility—to address the looming crisis.

I have to commend a couple of people in my electorate. The first is Karen McMurray, who is the principal of Randwick Park School and who, in August last year, organised, as the president of Manurewa Principals Association, for us to get together. They had vacancies then. All of the schools in my electorate had vacancies. Well, today, 65 percent of schools in Auckland have vacancies—40 percent across the country—and that Government, the previous Government, did nothing, as I’ve outlined, to address the crisis. Why? Because they wouldn’t admit that a crisis existed. And we’ve seen it in other sectors: 70,000 houses short, people living on the streets and in cars, and these are children who we want to have a great education.

So I want to talk about the initiatives that were outlined today, because what we have done in the voluntary bonding scheme is to now increase it to include decile 2 and 3 schools. That is specific and it’s targeted, because we know that there are some schools, like in South Auckland, that find it incredibly hard to find teachers. We are also focusing on teachers in science, technology, maths, and Te Reo Māori. Why? Because they’re the speciality areas where we lack the capacity, as Melanie Webber said, to make sure that our kids actually have a teacher, but not just a teacher; they have to be good teachers, and they have to be teachers who know their subject of speciality. So this Government, after 43 days, I am proud to say, is getting on with the business, and we are ensuring that the crisis is addressed.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I didn’t have the opportunity to speak in the Address in Reply debate, so I’d like to take this opportunity to start by thanking the fine folk of Hamilton West for doing me the great honour of re-electing me to represent them. Sir, I know it’s an electorate that you know well. I’m very proud to be now in a position where I have matched my good friend Martin Gallagher’s record of being elected four times to represent the seat, and, in fact, if I may say so, I am the first one to have been elected in four consecutive elections. So I am proud, and I want to advocate as strongly as I can for my constituents, albeit from the new position that I’m in, in Opposition.

Could I also congratulate the new Government, welcome all the new MPs, and congratulate them on their election. It is an exciting time to have been elected, and I’ve been very impressed by the maiden speeches that I’ve heard from across the House. I know that they’ve come here with the best of intentions, and I wish them well.

But if the members of the new Government—I’m sure that they are already quite concerned by the shambolic start that their ministerial colleagues have shown, because it seems that this is a Government full of grand vision and intentions but no fiscal plan. Very quickly they are going to squander the gains that we have worked so hard—through the most difficult positions that any Government ever faced—to get us into.

We came into office nine years ago, already in a domestic recession. The global financial crisis hit, and then we had the earthquakes. We had the Rena disaster. We had Pike River. We had all sorts of problems, yet we came through, and at the end of that time, in all the leading OECD indicators, we in New Zealand were seen as having done remarkably well and to have set a model for other countries to follow. Yet now, in this short space of time, we have a Government that is throwing it all away on some very extravagant and uncosted policies, and I really fear for the country. I hope I am wrong.

There have been a number of people who have said that National MPs don’t seem to be able to accept the election result. They’re quite wrong—we do. This is a legitimate outcome of an MMP election, and I was so proud of the gracious way in which the Rt Hon Bill English acknowledged that on the night that Winston Peters chose the Government. But therein lies the problem. My electors say to me, “Surely a basic tenet of democracy is that the voters should choose the Government—not Winston Peters.” Until you have a system whereby the voters can choose the Government, not one man leading a minor party, you do have a problem.

We will be a strong and constructive Opposition in the best interests of all New Zealanders. In my electorate I’m calling on the new Government to commit to some really important projects that will make such a big difference for our growing region going forward. One of the most important is to recommit to the Housing Infrastructure Fund, which is going to make an enormous difference in Hamilton, which has long needed greater balance in its growth. As the person who represents the southern and western suburbs on my side of the river, seeing the Peacocke Development going ahead after years on the drawing board—which will be enabled by the Housing Infrastructure Fund—is incredibly important, and I really, really urge the new Government to commit to it.

I also urge them to pick up the commitment that our party made, going into the election campaign, to extend the Waikato Expressway to the base of the Kaimais and also down to Tīrau. State Highway 1 is so incredibly important for the movement of freight, for safe commuting, and for a whole raft of reasons that it is absolutely vital that the new Government should make that commitment, and I’ve been really concerned that the new transport Minister has failed to commit to that and many other roading projects in recent weeks.

I make a strong plea for the Government to commit to the Southern Links project, which is so important, particularly between Taranaki, the King Country, and the Waikato. and I really hope that they will do that.

Can I also urge them to commit to the Waikato Medical School proposal. We have a critical shortage of doctors in rural areas—the hard-to-staff centres. The Waikato Medical School proposal is based on a well-proven model that is going so well overseas, and I strongly urge the new Government to commit to it.

Today, a number of members opposite have celebrated the demise of national standards. Well, let me just finish by pointing out why they came into existence. Parents were not receiving helpful reports in sufficient time to enable them to take remedial action when their children were falling behind in literacy and numeracy. Those are the foundation blocks for a good education, and to get rid of national standards without having anything in place is utterly irresponsible.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, my crikey! Isn’t it interesting to hear members of Parliament coming back to the House and making their first speeches. How would I describe that speech by Tim Macindoe? “Cry Me a River” is how I would describe that speech—“Cry Me a River”.

The speech opened up with “How great I am. I’ve done this, done that, done everything.” It was all about himself—how wonderful. And then it moved on, into that zone of grief—you know: “Unfair, not fair, we got more than you, it’s not fair.”

Well, actually, I’ve got a message for Mr Macindoe, as he makes his way, right? Be good in Government—be good in Government. Be competent. Don’t be the disaster that, unfortunately, we are now finding that last Government to have been. What am I speaking of? I am speaking of the revelations, the grenade, that landed on my desk when I became the Minister of Defence.

💬 Brett Hudson: Your medals. You discovered you were wearing your medals incorrectly. That’s right.

Well, that member can’t talk. He hasn’t got any medals, has he? So let’s talk about 148 million medals, 148 million of them, a blow out on a project that that National Government had responsibility—[Interruption] Well, actually, this is how jolly lazy they were. They didn’t even start this project. It was a Labour - New Zealand First Government that signed off on the business case for this project. What for? To upgrade one of our three top-tier assets in defence—our strategic assets: special forces, P3 Orions, Anzac frigates.

These frigates—and those members have gone silent now because they know—had fallen behind. The systems on board were outdated. We knew that in 2008—in 2008. So we signed off. And then this Government takes the helm—or not, it would appear. And then it has the responsibility and the privilege of seeing our men and women in the navy equipped with the finest equipment necessary (a) to protect themselves, (b) to protect other people, and (c) to be able to operate in a high-tech environment where the risks these days are massive.

But where are we, nine long years later? Well, the vessels still haven’t been upgraded. But worse, the project that would have seen that process start was stalled. Why? This Government knew, back in 2015, in 2016, and a few months prior to the election that they had a problem. What was the problem? Well, actually, the same problem that’s plagued defence and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) for years, and which, unfortunately, I’ve been banging on about for 16-odd years in Parliament—poor project management.

But who was the Government that took over and was going to fix all that? National. What did they do? Nothing. In 2014 they finally started to accept recommendations that had been in reports time and time again, saying that the MOD is understaffed, under-resourced, and doesn’t have the capacity to manage these multibillion-dollar projects. But oh no, no, no. They sat there and did nothing.

Mr Brownlee wanted to stand up in the House today, in question time, or yell across the House, and justify his inaction. He says, “Oh, we rolled over too soon. We could have delayed. We could have held out longer.” What? Mr Brownlee bought all of the systems that are sitting on shelves in warehouses right now, with the warranty clock ticking down to zero. Is he seriously suggesting—that’s the mark, isn’t it? It’s becoming the hallmark of this “John Cleese” Government isn’t it, really? Just total incompetence and buffoonery.

So what? Is he suggesting that we go into another tender process, another due diligence process, and take as long as they did—another nine years—while all of these systems sit on the shelves? The warranties expire, and they become out of date again. Well, that sounds just like the National Party.

You know, it is one thing to come into Government with hope and desire to serve the New Zealand public and the citizens of this country as best as you can in the areas of defence and foreign policy. But, by crikey, I’ve got to say it doesn’t help us when all we are finding all over the place is fiscal holes and promises made without the money budgeted and decisions that haven’t been made, and the consequence of that is that now we are behind. So what? Do we sail these frigates into these areas where they are of questionable value, where there are questionable risks? That’s clearly a decision that the National Government of the past decided to go with.

If I was sitting on those benches, I’d feel ashamed. I’d feel ashamed of their inaction, ashamed that they didn’t take the advice in front of them, and ashamed that they didn’t do what we have just done—signed off, allocated the money, signed the contract, and got the project under way.

I’m still a new MP but, from watching the last Government, I was under the impression that you need focused action to get results around here—the kind that would take you out of a global financial crisis at an internationally acclaimed rate. Ten thousand jobs a month for the last 18 months—a promise? No, actually, more than a promise; it was a policy. Actually, it was a plan; an active, live plan, live right now, to give back $1,000 to workers on 1 April. That particular plan is live, and it’s for the average wage worker—a figure to the tune of $60,000 that, perhaps, Mr Willie Jackson should take note of. There’s nothing more fundamental than a Government that can set and communicate their plan. Another way of saying that is, certainty. We need certainty in this country for our residents, for schools, for families—they require that.

Now, there are some things that we do know in this first term here, so far—just the few weeks that we’ve been sitting here in the House. One is that we’ve debated legislation and it’s been National’s legislation—largely procedural, but National’s legislation none the less.

But what is it that we do not know? Back to the topic of certainty—what is it that we do not know? How the Regional Development (Provincial Growth) Fund will play out. Is it a billion trees or half a billion trees? We do not know where the health sector is going. Why is it that in your 100-day list, there are only two things that relate to health: an inquiry and medicinal cannabis? What about the rest of it? What about police funding? Where’s that coming from?

And details in transport—let’s spend a little bit of time on that. We don’t know the details of transport projects all over this country. In question time, one by one my colleagues have stood up and referred to projects that they do not know about in the Waikato, in Hawke’s Bay, in Southland. And in my own area, the East-West transport link—a very, very big project. I’m not sure the Minister understands the problem that that is trying to solve.

The Onehunga industrial area—the Penrose industrial area included—is the largest industrial area in this country, and, every day, trucks to the tune of 8,000 go along both the Church Street and Neilson Street thoroughfares. The plan is to take trucks off suburban roads and alleviate congestion, thereby helping out, intrinsically, our economy in this country.

We don’t know what’s going to replace that. Where is the certainty? Is it the $750 million version that was announced by a couple of candidates during Labour’s campaign, for which I cannot find any written record today? We’ve had three years of planning on that—construction time and boards of inquiry to the tune of $50 million. Well, now it appears we’re going back to a $50 million drawing board. We’re forcing business owners to, once again, face uncertainty.

How about education? Reports are coming out tomorrow, Friday. I was once a school board chair. I know very well this time of the year. What is it that we will be faced with? What is it that we will understand is replacing national standards? One of the members across the way said that national standards will be gone by Christmas. How about we know by Christmas what’s going to replace national standards? We need certainty in this area.

We need certainty in building projects. Are we going to oppose building projects just on an ideological position of opposing public-private partnerships? And how’s this for certainty—or, should I say, irony? The Minister of Education said in relation to national standards, “if you force rushed change on to the education sector with little … consultation, you get an inferior product and students will bear the brunt”. Did he not see how fast they ran through their major tertiary policy without consulting the sector?

It seems one thing is certain here in an uncertain world, and that is our party polling numbers are going up. We have, and still have, public support. We provided certainty before, and we will do it again. The public have confidence in us, even in Opposition.

I’d like the members to picture a bustling, urban New Zealand school. A teacher stands at the front of the class of seven-year-old children. All of a sudden, a hot air balloon lands on the school field outside the window. The students rush to have a look. However, the teacher, burdened and exhausted by a regime of constant testing, re-testing, and assessment, calls the children back to the mat and continues teaching to a prescribed, standardised test.

During the past nine years, primary school teachers have felt more like administrators than teachers. There was no opportunity to embrace teaching moments, and this was primarily caused by two things: number one, national standards; and, number two, a lack of trust in our teaching professionals.

However, a new day has dawned. Grey skies have parted, allowing the sun to once again shine on our education system. This week, the Government ended the failed experiment that was national standards. Every parent, grandparent, teacher, and child will have an extra Christmas present under their tree this year. There will be a small box, and inside that box will be a note, and that note will say, “We will once again put children at the heart of our education system.”

Our teachers are once again being valued and trusted and respected as the teaching professionals that they are. We have a world-class curriculum. Now teachers will be empowered to get on with teaching the full breadth of it.

What do parents want? We’ve heard from the other side of the House that parents want national standards—that parents have always wanted it. Let’s have a look at that. What do parents want? The parents I speak to—and I spent six years as a teacher—told me they wanted a diverse, engaging education system—a diverse, engaging education system—and national standards does not deliver this. In fact, it does the opposite. It narrows the curriculum.

How do we know that parents want this kind of education system? We know this because in 2012 the National Government talked about removing specialist subjects from intermediate schools, and en masse—am I right, Mr Hipkins?—the parents rose up and said, “We do not want to lose the specialist subjects from intermediate schools.” So we know that parents want a diverse education system, and that’s what we will deliver.

I believe that national standards had a number of issues. And it’s incredibly exciting to say the word “had”—to talk about national standards in the past tense. Number one, as I said before, it narrowed the curriculum. It placed extra emphasis on literacy and numeracy, to the detriment of other subjects. The last Government were all about literacy, numeracy, and narrowing our world-class curriculum—areas like the arts, which promote creativity, teamwork, discipline, and problem solving, were cast aside. Our schooling system must instil a belief in what young people can achieve, then give them the tools to be all they can be.

National standards promoted dishonesty from teachers and principals. I personally know of teachers who fudged the data in order to make it look like they were doing a good job. And this was done out of pressure to show that they are moving their students. A principal once told me that she fudged her school’s national standards reports. After feeling somewhat guilty, she confessed at a meeting of other principals what she’d done. And, to her surprise, the majority of the other principals said, “We do the same thing.” So national standards—it wasn’t standard and it wasn’t national, as we’ve heard a lot of times.

People become teachers because of a passion for wanting to inspire and shape the next generation. When they’re forced to teach only a small percentage of our world-class curriculum, it’s no wonder they feel discouraged and disillusioned. National standards are not holistic. With testing being done only on literacy and numeracy, they’re ignoring the whole person—for example, they did not take into account any lack of family support, whether a student’s stomach was full, whether they’re sleeping well. Instead, it was a very specific assessment of their literacy and numeracy skills. Then on their school report they were crudely labelled as either a failure or a success. Ninety percent of an iceberg is under the water. National standards was looking at that little shiny bit on top and judging the iceberg just by that.

I’m proud to be part of a Government that has scrapped national standards. My teaching colleagues for years and years have been telling me, “Please get rid of them.”, and finally we’ve done it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I certainly won’t be going into the territory the last speaker, Jamie Strange, went into. That’s well beyond me.

The last three months have been very interesting for a backbench MP from the heart of rural New Zealand as the consortium of three have taken over the Government benches—and I congratulate them on that. I’m very pleased with the two portfolios I’ve been allocated. One relates to seniors, which, I guess, is appropriate for me. The other is veterans, which could be said to be appropriate to me too, but it’s not, in fact.

In fact, I was very interested in listening to the speech of the Minister of Defence as he pinned his medals to the mast, so to speak, or, in my case, “pinned his medals to the aircraft wings”. In fact, I live very close to Ōhākea, and I also have, in the Rangitīkei electorate, the Ōhākea, Linton army, and the Waiōuru bases—and Irirangi, of course, which most people don’t know, but it is a navy base smack in the middle of the Rangitīkei, which is a bit amazing to imagine. But defence is very clearly close to the heart of all those in the Rangitīkei.

It will be interesting to see how the legislative programme to be announced by the Government in the next few days does impact on, I guess, senior citizens in New Zealand—those holders of the gold card—and certainly how it will impact on veterans as well. I guess the other challenge for that sector of our community will come tonight in the early debate on the euthanasia bill, and that clearly has a different impact on older people, in my view, than it does on, perhaps, where it could get to with respect to other parts of our community.

I want to speak a little bit about the concerns that the people in the Rangitīkei have with the direction of the new Government. I think that concern is because of the unknown, not necessarily because of what we know. I think that when you consider that a large part of the electorate relies heavily on water, the environment, the dairy industry, and the agricultural sector, it will be very interesting to see where the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) gets to—and I see the Minister sitting over there—with this reform, or sort of partial reform, I suppose, of MPI and its bits, and how they are placed. MPI clearly is very important to our sector, and it’s going to be very interesting to see where that gets to—very important for us as well.

I think it will be interesting from an environmental perspective to see where the Government gets to with a lot of that stuff, because it is a pretty challenging issue—for our hill country, particularly; I think our dairy sectors have done very well in that area. The other area that’s of particular concern to people in the Rangitīkei electorate will be around our trade and the opportunities that are impacted, or could be impacted, by potential policy there.

I don’t know what the outcome’s going to be there, and I hope it’s all positive. I imagine it will be all positive. We’ve seen, ironically, the dollar drop a little, which has helped exporters to some extent, but, of course, it’s increased significantly some import costs for the agricultural sector, most noticeably fuel. We’ve also seen a bit of a drop in business confidence, which, whilst not reflected in any sales figures that I’ve seen to date, I think, is none the less cause for nervousness around the investment sector—certainly nervousness around investment decisions in agriculture.

I think the other area that’s going to be of particular interest to the agricultural sector will be where we get to with the conditions on foreign investment in agriculture and foreign investment in farmland. I think that’s going to be a challenging issue for us, because, clearly, land prices are fairly important to agriculture, and we certainly need to maintain a level of stability in that area.

It would be a great pity, I think, to see provincial New Zealand retreat once again, as in the past couple of years we in the Rangitīkei—and, I’m sure, many other parts of New Zealand—have seen our small towns rebuilding, our employment figures improving dramatically on the back of the construction sector, to some extent. Our deferred maintenance—that’s quite an interesting point, because an awful lot of deferred maintenance has created a lot of work in provincial New Zealand. I think that’s very encouraging for the country, because it certainly means that there’s a much brighter future for provincial rural New Zealand than perhaps we’ve seen in the past. The environmental factors, of course, are another area where I guess you could say deferred maintenance or deferred expenditure is making quite a difference.

Tourism is going very well in the Ruapehu district, to the north of my electorate, which, ironically, is heavily reliant on work visas and immigrants. In a growing economy this is essential for our future.

The other two issues I want to very quickly talk about are the Manawatū Gorge—critical to my region. There was an announcement made this morning that has delayed the decision. I think that’s positive because I think they’re probably considering some options that I think are preferable to, perhaps, some of the earlier options that were talked about. I think we’ll get a good decision—well, I hope we get a good decision—out of that. The other one is the Ōhākea air force base, which, of course, there have been some negotiations with Singapore on, and I think for our future in the Rangitīkei-Manawatū area, I think it’s most important that we get to a base with that. Thank you, sir.

It is a pleasure to stand and take a call in this general debate. This is my first time participating in the general debate, and I just have to say, what a fantastic time to be involved in education, whether you are a student, a teacher, or a parent of a child attending school. After nine long years, the clouds are lifting. The sun is starting to shine again on our education system. It’s been a long time, but, hey—help is finally here.

Isn’t it refreshing to have such a proactive, visionary, hard-working, and progressive Government leading the way on all things important to this country? Some members opposite might say we are spending all our time working on their legislation, but, I put it to you: we are simply cleaning up. We are tidying up the mess, doing the housework. And, believe me, there is a big mess to clean.

But, anyway, let’s talk about the really important stuff. Let’s get back to this progressive Government that is making things happen that will benefit all New Zealanders, in particular around the education space, an area that is near and dear to my heart. Without a decent education, what have you got? As I said in my maiden speech, “Education is the one thing that overcomes every disadvantage with which a child might be born.” Whether it’s first, second, or third chance education, it remains the most transformative influence in our lives. It benefits everybody, and to that extent education at any level is a public good. Fees-free post - secondary school education is going to be transformative for New Zealanders.

Let’s move on to national standards—something that is neither national nor standard. It’s a dog’s breakfast. How demeaning is it for a child to see that they are constantly below standard? What does that mean for a child? Will they think, “I am dumb. I am stupid. I am just not good enough.”? I don’t know. As an adult, I would probably think that, and I would think, “What is the point of even trying?” Education is about building children up—enabling them to be empowered, not beaten down.

As a parent, I found national standards pointless. They told me nothing about my child. I don’t want to know where they sit on a scale compared to other children. I’m not interested in others; I’m interested in my child and what his personal achievements and successes are—where he needs to improve, not where he isn’t good enough.

So national standards are gone, and I can hear teachers clapping everywhere. They’re clapping their hands in glee. Finally, they are free of national standards, which were forced upon them. We will do it better. We will work collaboratively with all stakeholders. We will build a better system, one that is more focused on the child’s progress—not one that will fail our children again, but one that will be transformative.

We are a Government that listens, unlike the previous one, which simply heard principals tell them of the shortage of teachers in Auckland and shortages of teachers with specific subject skills, such as science, Te Reo, technology, and maths. Well, this Government not only heard, but we listened. Now principals can rest assured that this Government has really listened and we have a plan and we will provide funding to the tune of $9.5 million to address immediate pressures. And believe me, there is much more to come from this progressive, hard-working, forward-thinking Government. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.