General Debate

Mr Speaker, thank you very much, and thank you for this first opportunity to speak in the House in the New Year. Gee, it’s great to be back, and, gee, it is great to be a member of the National Party caucus as we go into 2018 refreshed, encouraged, and ready to hold this Government to account.

It’s been a great summer for all of us; not so great for some of us in rural New Zealand, and that is going to be the subject of my intervention today. It seems to me that the current Government has asserted this “Pollyanna-ish” attitude where all is wonderful, all is rosy. Of course, they are promising the world, they’re congratulating themselves on what a great job they’ve done already, when the reality is far from so. All they’ve done is announced a couple of inquiries and failed to plant any trees whatsoever despite some big promises. And yet in rural New Zealand, there are dark clouds. Those dark clouds are because of current Government policies, which they are wanting to foist on rural New Zealand as well as the rest of the New Zealand economy.

There is a reason for four or five or six drops in business confidence in New Zealand. It is not just a blip because business doesn’t like the change of Government. No, it can’t be explained away so simply. It is because of this Government—and the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway said it just now—that National is worried about jobs. Yes, we are. We are worried about jobs. Business confidence is lowering. The regions are worried about employment and getting workers, and rural New Zealand shares the same fears.

But it’s not just this Government’s industrial relations policies; it is also this Government’s approach to water storage. Just yesterday, the Minister of Agriculture declared a medium-sized drought in parts of Southland, Otago, and other parts of New Zealand. Of course, to the city slickers over the other side of the House, that probably means very little. Well, I’ll tell you what it means to rural New Zealand and to those of us who represent real communities in rural New Zealand: what it means is that farmers and rural communities are under extreme stress, and while they are well supported by the rural support trust, which is a benefit that comes out of declaring a drought, that support can go only so far.

This Government, and its support partners, who’ve made much of the impacts of climate change on New Zealand’s climate, are completely at odds with their policy of not supporting future irrigation and water storage initiatives. So, on the one hand, we have a climate that’s changing. It’s going to get hotter in Central Otago; there’s going to be more summer—and in other parts of New Zealand. It is going to be harder for farmers and rural communities to make a living, and yet, on the other hand, we have the Green Party, New Zealand First, and Labour who have said that there is no commitment to continue supporting rural New Zealand in water storage initiatives.

So what’s that going to mean? Well, first of all, at its simplest form, it means a loss of confidence for rural New Zealand, across a number of interests. It’s not just dairy farming, the pet hate of the Greens. It’s not just dairy farming; it’s viticulture, it’s agriculture, and it’s fruit growing. There are a number of industries who, if they don’t get supported by this next Government into water storage initiatives, will simply go out of business.

The climate is changing. It’s getting hotter. We need water storage. So you can but wonder at the “Pollyanna-ish” attitude of this Government, who, on the one hand, cry crocodile tears about climate change and then, on the other, do the very thing that farmers don’t need to support them, and that is call a halt to irrigation, because for some reason they cannot see past their own ideology into supporting that very thing that will not only will enhance the environment, enhance water quality—it’s been shown to do so—but support that very part of the New Zealand economy that is productive. Well, this party does support rural communities.

What a great opportunity to stand and speak about what this Government has achieved in the past 100 days. Labour has achieved more in the past 100 days than National managed in 3,280-odd days—nine years. We’ve done it in 100.

What potential has yet to come in the following months and years that we can deliver that will affect the lives of New Zealanders? Let’s take a look. Let’s take a look at the life of a child—one child—under this Labour-led Government, and let’s look at how that child has changed with the new laws that have been brought in in the past 100 days. Paid parental leave—26 weeks’ paid parental leave.

We watched as National Party members fought this legislation and stopped it from coming into force with a financial veto. What we’ve done is enable parents—mums and dads—to bond with their kid in those early years, that important time, enable mums to breastfeed for the requisite time, and enable kids to get a good start at life. Let’s not forget how much National Party members fought tooth and nail to prevent this from coming into force—and they’re still fighting tooth and nail, but this time amongst themselves.

Best Start payment: this is the next stage in the child’s life. Once 26 weeks are up, then there’s $60 a week in the pocket for those families in the first year of a child’s life. The better bit, still, is for those low and middle income earners—the ones that the members opposite don’t tend to want to know about too much. They’re the ones that are also provided for by enabling that money to come in for the second and third year of the child’s life, to give that first three years.

And then, at three years, that nicely dovetails into the last Labour Government’s policies: 20 hours’ free early childhood education, enabling mums or dads to go back to work on a limited time and making that affordable. The cost of childcare has meant that the second wage-earner in the average household hasn’t been able to afford to go back to work, even if they want to, because it’s not financially worth it for their family. This legislation enables, from zero right through to five, those first five years of a child’s life to be well supported. That’s a plan. That’s a clear vision for how we want to see children in New Zealand grow up.

There’s no vision from the other side. You can’t build the next generation of New Zealanders on a tax cut or a promise of a tax cut. That’s not a vision; that’s a promise. Perhaps, the next leader of the National Party will be a bit bigger on vision. I bet Simon Bridges has had a few visions lately—try to speculate on what those might be. I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s got a plan and a vision for New Zealand.

So at five years old, the child is at school, likely to have no fees—isn’t that great? I’m encouraged by schools in the electorate of Hutt South already not nominating to put fees up because of the reassurance of what this Government has provided for. And to have no national standards—the overarching thing on teachers. Instead of having to deliberate bureaucracy, they can get on with doing their job and teaching kids, and us having confidence that teachers can do that well—well-supported teachers that have professional development and the ability to do what they do best. Maybe Nikki Kaye, instead of having to moan about national standards all the time, will have something else to think about now that there’s some leadership to be discussed, and that will give her something else to have a think about.

After that, we’ve got tertiary education—free tertiary education under this Labour Government; training and education available to all New Zealanders so that you can choose, the child can choose, what they can do with their life, whether it be polytech, university, or other trade training. That is now available to all people in New Zealand under this Labour Government. It gives everybody the opportunity for education that best suits them, and it maximises the potential of our people. Speaking of maximising potential, we might just say that the Leader of the Opposition might’ve just maximised his lately.

And, finally, jobs: at the end of it, having the ability to get a job that pays a wage so that you can afford to pay your rent or even maybe one day buy a home. That’s the vision that this Labour Government has for New Zealanders. From the time children are born to the time they’re earning a living, we’re making sure that people are provided for, and we’re going places. This is a Government that looks—

Order! [Interruption] Order! The member’s quite a bit over.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This week, the Minister of Agriculture has made a huge mistake with one of our bigger export industries, and that is the mānuka honey industry. I want just to go through a bit of a time frame of what has happened in that industry so that members in this House are well aware of the incompetence of that Minister.

Last year, the Government went through the process of review of the mānuka honey definition and, in July last year, a definition was put out to the industry. That definition was given to the industry so they could test their products against that definition to determine whether they met the test for mānuka honey. It was also an opportunity for the industries involved to actually be in consultation with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and to work through any differences they may have in that definition, because there are some differences that the industry had been using against what MPI had proposed in its definition.

So when you come to mānuka honey, there are two types. There are the multifloral and the monofloral, and, as the speaker identified yesterday, they are two different parts of the mānuka honey industry. But the test that has been applied is not so much around whether it is multifloral or monofloral, even though there is a divergence in some of the tests in that area. The main thing to look at is the ingredients that have been applied in the test that applies to both multi- and monofloral.

If you look at the industry, they have a test of leptospermum. That is the main test that the industry uses. If you look at the MPI test, it has two levels. The first is four chemical markers, and the second is a DNA test for both multifloral and monofloral. For the first chemical marker, there is a difference between mono- and multifloral, and that difference has been in all three definitions that have been put to the industry: the first definition in July last year that the Government put, the definition that went out by the new Minister in December, and the definition that was released this week. So, with those characteristics, there is one of the chemical markers that the Minister changed in the definition in December, and when he released that definition in December, he didn’t let the industry know. He just went out and released the definition of mānuka honey with a variation in it, which actually meant that a lot of multifloral mānuka honey failed the test.

The industry was not happy, as you could imagine, and legal action was brought against that Minister in the last couple of weeks. That was going ahead, and then, suddenly, on Monday, the Minister changed the definition back to the original definition that this Government had put out in July. So when this Minister stands in this House and tries to argue multifloral against monofloral, he is just trying to confuse the situation. The reality is that the chemical markers that are actually part of the first part of the test are the crucial thing, and he stuffed it up. The Minister stuffed it up. He went and put a high chemical marker requirement, that higher requirement led to a lot of mānuka honey failing, and he had to back down this week. That Minister has put one of New Zealand’s export industries at risk. That Minister should not be holding his warrant anymore, and he has deliberately, in this House yesterday, not expressed an honest approach to what happened.

💬 SPEAKER: The member will withdraw and apologise. He knows what he’s done.

I withdraw and apologise. The Minister needs to come to this House and explain what actually happened, and we’re giving him that opportunity. He has that opportunity, in the next few days at question time, to come and explain what has happened, but the Minister will not do that, because he believes he is right, and his ego is so big. You can see that with his comments around the wine industry today—how he is putting New Zealand primary industry at risk. That Minister will not admit his failures, and one of our key industries has suffered because of his incompetence, his failure to actually go to the market and consult, and his ability then to hide behind definitions when it comes to answering questions in this House. Thank you.

As a new member of this House, I’m disheartened to hear former Ministers speak of current Ministers in such a fashion that we have just heard. In defence of our Minister of Agriculture and Minister for Rural Communities, he is deeply admired amongst our rural communities.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

You can laugh all you like. The members opposite can laugh all they like.

I note the Hon Jacqui Dean calling over here, calling us city slickers—I couldn’t be more offended if she’d tried. I live in Wairarapa, and I know exactly the issues that are facing rural and regional New Zealand. As the members stand there, like the Hon Simon Bridges—who I haven’t seen smile so much, and when my fellow comrades over here were mentioning his name, his smile got wider and wider. They don’t like that word, do they? They don’t like the workers, and they don’t like talking about workers; they like scooting around the outsides of it, actually not wanting to address the issues.

That there actually sums up the last nine years, when the National Party were in Government. We heard from Jacqui Dean and we heard from the Hon Simon Bridges, declaring that they are in touch with rural and regional New Zealand. We didn’t hear them talk about the shortage of rural broadband. We didn’t hear them talk about the lack of infrastructure funding in our regional areas. Nor did we hear about the lack of provisions and measures that the previous Government put in place to actually allow our small-business owners in rural areas to access the workers, giving people that are standing there wanting a chance—give them a go. We haven’t seen that over the last nine years. We never heard these two members talk about the lack of access to primary healthcare in certain rural areas. The fact is that the National Party paint themselves to be the party of rural New Zealand, and yet they fail to deliver every single time. They take those regions for granted, they think they’re going to vote for them anyway, and they do absolutely nothing.

Take police, for example. There are many towns in our rural communities who rely on police that come from up to 45 minutes to an hour’s drive away. How is that delivering for our rural communities? They would rather focus on delivering tax cuts than actually giving our communities what they need.

But this Government is different. In the last 100 days, we’ve delivered more for rural communities already than the previous Government actually did in real terms. They might have given them lip-service, but in nine years they delivered nothing. And all that they can do is a little snigger. They started with a bit of a hiss and a roar when I stood up here, but they’re pretty quiet now, because they know that there’s truth in what I speak.

The fact is if you look at farm ownership, this is one thing that is affecting hard-working New Zealanders in our rural community. It doesn’t matter if they are a sharemilker or a shearer or, indeed, someone who just works on a farm. One generation ago, you could work hard, you could save up, and you could buy productive land in this country. That was no longer the case only a few months ago. One of the first things this Government did was put in provisions to make sure that New Zealanders could actually afford farms, to make sure that overseas speculators cannot come into our productive land just for the sake of buying it and not adding any value. Just like this Government delivered for New Zealand homeowners, it has delivered for future farmers as well.

We have actually also identified another mistake of the previous Government in assuming that primary industries are all but the same and can therefore be thrown into the same Government department. The Minister of Agriculture, the first thing he did was identify that agriculture needs a specific focus—and forestry and fisheries and, indeed, rural communities.

How can that party stand here and say that they are the party for rural communities when one of the first things they did when they got into Government the last time was get rid of the Minister of Rural Affairs—got rid of the ministry and the Minister that was actually guaranteed to give rural communities a voice at Cabinet? Well, I’m proud to be part of a party and a Government where one of the first things we did was reinstate the Minister for Rural Communities to ensure that places like Dannevirke and Carterton and Featherston have a voice at the top table.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I find it incredibly interesting just how much time this Government is spending talking about the National Party. On and on they go, again and again. It seems like there’s jealousy on that side. I see it in their eyes. They have nothing else to talk about, so they keep coming back to refer to the great things that we did during our time in Government.

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: Good boy.

They’re jealous of our drive, our determination, the success we’ve had, the strength we have, the ambition, and the quality of people on this side of the House. And I’d just like to comment on that speech of the previous member, Kieran McAnulty. He didn’t sound like he actually meant any of it. All those things he was saying about rural New Zealand, and yet I don’t think he believed it himself. As someone who actually represents rural New Zealand, I can assure him there are plenty of great things that have been done by the former Government for rural New Zealand.

It is still possible to own your own farm by working hard. I’ve seen it many times over the last few years, and I would encourage you to have more ambition—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! No. The member is a new member, but he doesn’t bring me into the debate. While I’m on my feet, I will ask the Hon Maggie Barry just to be very careful about the tone of her interjections and to think what she would say if a male member called a female member a good girl.

Thank you for your guidance, Mr Speaker. Carrying on from that, business confidence is something that we’ve seen highlighted in the last few days. It’s terrible where it sits at the moment. We see this massive decrease. It’s outrageous how much it’s fallen, and as if 39 or 38 wasn’t bad enough in the business confidence survey, if you actually break that down by sector and look at agriculture, it is minus 68. That is incredible.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: How much?

Minus 68 is the level of confidence in the agriculture sector because of this new Government. No wonder there’s so much uncertainty out there. When I talk to farmers around the Waikato I’m constantly getting feedback. They don’t know what’s going on. They’re scared. They’re worried about their future. Water storage forms a huge part of that around the country—120,000-plus hectares are now uncertain. These projects have massive benefits for New Zealand. They have social benefits. They have economic benefits. They have environmental—and so many other benefits that are just being neglected by this Government. If they’d only look at the data, they would realise there is so much benefit to implementing these projects for our regions and for our country as a whole. We need to continue to focus on these to enable our regions to continue to prosper.

On top of that, we have migrant workers. We don’t know where that policy is sitting yet. We’ve heard it chop and change multiple times. Where are these people going to come from to pick our vegetables, to work on our farms—some of these challenges that we face in the Waikato, and we still have no answers for after 100 days.

We’re smashing apart the Ministry for Primary Industries. That’s what we’re hearing from the Government. What good is that doing? We need to be concentrating on challenges like Mycoplasma bovis and coming up with solutions like actually understanding what this new test for mānuka honey is, rather than chucking out different categories and then getting presented with legal challenges because of it. We need to be a little smarter about what we’re doing.

On top of that, these trees: we’ve heard all about a billion trees. Well, where are they now? What we’re hearing now is that we’re not sure how many it will be. Maybe it’s just an aspirational target instead. And, actually, today in the House we heard from Minister Shane Jones that it will even include lemon trees. Well, the only lemon here is that policy. This is no laughing matter, I would say to that Minister, as he continues to make jokes about the number of trees. This is serious for New Zealanders and serious for the people he’s claiming it will give jobs to. We need to see some actual evidence and some work happening.

The business confidence side, aside from agriculture in the regions, is struggling. When I talk to business owners in Matamata, when I talk about to business owners in Morrinsville, they’re concerned. They don’t know what the future is looking like for them under this Government. They want to be growing their businesses, supporting their communities, and contributing to New Zealand, and yet they don’t see they can do that with this Government.

Roading is being cut. The Waikato has great projects available through the commitments from the previous Government on the expressway, and now we’re seeing those up in the air. Who knows where they’re going to be? All we’re hearing are promises and intentions and absolutely no action at this stage.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.