General Debate

Firstly, I need to acknowledge the passing of a kuia of the Wellington LGBTIQ community, Dana de Milo, in recent days. She was one of our torch holders who created space for so many of us to walk into, and she will be sorely missed by many—moe mai rā, Dana.

But speaking of great queens, it is pride season. Pride is a time of celebration and affirmation for people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, takatāpui, whakawahine, tangata ira tāne, fa‘afafine, fakaleiti, ‘akava‘ine, mahu, vaka sa lewa lewa, rae rae, fiafifine, fakafifine, hijra, gender-fluid, gender-queer, pansexual, asexual, queer, and questioning.

While we have come a long way as a country from when homosexuality and trans people were criminalised, we are still a long way from fully realising our human rights. For many of us, our moments of peace and our moments of celebration have been hard fought for, so celebrations, in fact, are often acts of defiance as well as an expression of joy, and, at times, they are also, all too often, an act of mourning.

My ability to stand here open and proud of my lesbian identity comes from the bravery and political advocacy of my elders, like Dana, so I am proud to stand as a Green Party MP to ensure that this House and our political platform enables all the members of my community to find a strong place to stand.

It’s all too often that I hear about the premature death of queer and trans people—sadly, mostly trans people—within my community because they could not find that place to stand. We all grieve for them and ourselves that we still live in a world where some lives seem to matter more. So, in the spirit of pride, I would like to draw the House’s attention today to some of the work that we need to do to help provide a strong place for my community to stand.

I do want to acknowledge the Minister James Shaw, the Minister of Statistics, for the leadership and support he is offering Statistics New Zealand to make sure that the data is collected to enable us to make our case to the Government for funding. I also want to acknowledge Pharmac for its decision to fund pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as an HIV prevention tool in the tool kit to end HIV by 2025. And I also want to celebrate the opportunity in the select committee at the moment, in the Governance and Administration Committee, that gives us the opportunity to create a system that ensures that changes to gender markers on official documents are easy to use, consistent across passports, drivers’ licences, and birth certificates, and are based on a principle of self-identification. So progress is being made, but there are still outstanding issues that we need to turn our focus to.

We need to ensure that access to gender affirmation surgery and services is available in all district health boards (DHBs). A survey in 2014 of DHBs showed that nine of them said that they provided no healthcare services at all to trans people in this country. Now, that is unacceptable, and when we know that trans people can be waiting between 40 and 70 years to access surgery, we really do have to think that maybe this appalling failure and the gulf between need and supply could only be a result of an attitude that is prejudiced and trivialising, and we need to take action on this.

We also need to do more work to ensure that our schools are safe and inclusive for our young people. They are unsafe at the moment and lead and contribute to high rates of suicide. There is much that we need to do to unleash the fabulosity of my community, and I hope this House will help.

Look, I’m really pleased to speak in this general debate, and what I would say is that on my birthday, I went out and walked with a group of people down Queen Street to protest against the closure of partnership schools in New Zealand. What I can say to you is, for all of the messages that we have from some people—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Scaremongerer.

—on the other side of the House about scaremongering, let’s talk about the facts for a moment. Fact number one: the Government has put legislation before this House that does not say that every partnership school can remain open. What it says is that either the model will be gone and the schools will close—their contracts will remain until 2020, 2022—or, by mutual determination, they’re gone. So any message by the Prime Minister or members from the other side of the House that, somehow, the partnership schools themselves will be saved is wrong, factually incorrect, and not true, and it does not reflect the legislation before this House.

The second point is—as the leader has already said today—the financial cost to that, we heard from the Ministry of Education this morning, is potentially $15 million. Why? Why are they doing this? Because the Prime Minister says these schools are broken. You tell that young head girl who stood up at the partnership schools rally that these schools are broken.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: A point of order, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. Nikki Kaye, sit down, please.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Members of Parliament cannot bring you into the debate, and especially ones that have been here for a little time. They should have learnt that a long, long time ago.

💬 SPEAKER: The member is correct, and I’m sure the Hon Nikki Kaye will take more care from now.

These schools are not broken. In fact, I’ve just seen Vanguard Military School’s excellent results. What they are doing for young Māori is hugely significant—another thing that we’ve heard. Basically, all these schools want to know—yes, it is correct the Government is talking to them about whether they will reopen, but they want to know that they have a future.

The reality is they’ve got a Minister going out there saying that his preference is that they all close. They’ve got some Ministers potentially behind the scenes having backroom discussions—the Prime Minister has already confirmed that. We’ve got some pretty serious allegations there, and all they want is fairness and justice and the ability to continue the futures of these young people. And what have they had? They’ve had a complete shambles. We’ve got potential legal cases, we’ve got Treaty of Waitangi issues, we’ve now got potential preferential treatment by Ministers, and we’ve got kids upset on the streets, giving speeches about the fact that they had mental health issues and these schools helped them. Why? Why is this happening? They’ve said “principle”; I say “ideology”.

What we need is all members of Parliament to try and force the Government—and I know the support is there. I know that’s why Willie, I know that’s why Kelvin, I know that’s why Peeni—you are out there—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—trying to speak up—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! No. [Interruption] That’s not helpful. The member does know that the members should be addressed by their titles or by their full names, not by their first names.

Well, look, at the end of the day, there are a whole lot of kids, some with pretty vulnerable issues. Their schools are closing and the Government will have to accept responsibility for that. Some of them may stay open, and we are fighting hard to ensure that the Government gives those schools the certainty, because those kids deserve to know. There are major questions to be asked around the costs and the legal questions, but also we’ve got these issues of potential preferential treatment. The Opposition will keep the foot down. The reason we’ll do that is because of the grandmother and the young person that spoke at the rally, because these schools are making a significant difference to the lives of young people.

I want to begin today by acknowledging the Rt Hon Bill English and his decision to stand down from Parliament after close to 28 years of service to this House and to the people of New Zealand. He deserves to be acknowledged. I haven’t always agreed with Bill English—in fact, I have probably disagreed with him more than I have agreed with him—but I think he does deserve to be recognised for the service he has given to the people of New Zealand and for the determination that he has shown over that period of time through a number of ups and downs that he’s experienced in this House.

It feels pretty good to be on this side of the House at the moment as part of a strong, cohesive, united Government that is delivering for New Zealand. We passed the Families Package, which provided a boost in incomes for 385,000 New Zealand families. We extended paid parental leave to 26 weeks. We are increasing the minimum wage. We are improving the conditions of people in workplaces by strengthening employment laws. We are banning overseas speculators from buying New Zealand’s houses. We have stopped the sell-off of State houses. We have made sure that rental homes are going to be warm and dry and healthy. We have started KiwiBuild so that we can get more houses built and added to the property market. We’ve resumed contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund so that we can provide security for New Zealanders in their retirement. We are on track to meet our surplus target and start paying back the record levels of debt that we inherited from the previous National Government.

I would note that almost every one of those things has been opposed by the National Opposition. They have been opposed by the National Opposition who, of course, are now somewhat distracted—somewhat distracted because the race is under way as to who is going to be the leader of the National Party.

I do believe one of the things that was stated today by one of those contenders, Simon Bridges, when he said, “I’m focused on Simon Bridges”. Everybody in the House will believe that Simon Bridges is focused on Simon Bridges. He clearly appears to be appealing to the young fogey contingent within the National Party; that’s his key demographic. A barbecue at Simon’s place has already had the desired effect—the vacancy has been created and he’s off.

It’s the same with Judith Collins. Now, it will be interesting to see how Judith Collins fares. It’s a little bit like giving the wicketkeeper a bowl when you’re playing cricket. It means you’ve given up on winning the game. That would be what would happen if Judith Collins was to become the leader of the National Party. It would be like an admission of defeat and they just needed somebody to fill in the shoes.

There is, of course, Amy Adams. She is the ultimate compromise candidate—the worst of everything. She is the worst of everything—no values, no profile, and absolutely nothing that would be attractive to the voters. By the time Amy Adams is done preparing for her race, the race will be over, but she’s certainly in the running.

Then, of course, we’ve got Jonathan Coleman. I have been told on good authority that Jonathan Coleman has secured his first vote to be the leader of the National Party. It is his own, but he has at least determined that he is going to be voting for himself.

Then, of course, we’ve got Steven Joyce. He’s mulling it over. He’s just trying to figure out whether he’s got a ladder tall enough to get himself out of his $11 billion hole so that he can make a run for the top job of the National Party.

But then there is the mystery candidate out the back there: Mark Mitchell, who’s throwing his name into the ring. Mark Mitchell used to be dog handler. That could come in handy if he does succeed in becoming the next leader of the New Zealand National Party.

I feel like I’ve watched this movie before, as the National Party tears itself limb from limb as they decide who the next leader of their party is going to be. And it is nice to be part of a strong, cohesive, and unified Government that’s focused on delivering for New Zealanders. We have seen real results in the first three or four months that we have been in Government and we are barely getting warmed up.

However, I do want to say to Bill English that I was disappointed with his general debate speech today. As much as I acknowledge his record of service in this House, I thought it was disappointing that he used his final general debate speech to belittle the accomplishments of young people who were recognised in the Prime Minister’s youth awards. I think that the House can expect better from Mr English. I’m sure we will get that when he delivers his valedictory speech, which will be more befitting him and better recognise the years of service he has given to this House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Actually, the Rt Hon Bill English spoke about real results—real results for real people, actually, who had faced some real challenges in life, and it was the previous Government who introduced an innovative solution to delivering education to children that weren’t being served in the mainstream system. So I am proud, and Bill English is proud, that we have given young people opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise have been given.

I want to comment on another part of the record of the last decade. The Salvation Army this morning actually released in its state of the nation report the trends over the past 10 years, and it is, of course, no mistake that over the majority of that period of time the Rt Hon Bill English was the finance Minister and then the Prime Minister. This is not just talking about economic results, about economic progress; it talks about really important progress in social areas, whether it’s jobs, incomes, crime, benefits, or child poverty. So I wanted to focus some of my time in this general debate on real results.

Prime Minister Ardern has talked about the fact that she wants to be held accountable. We’re still waiting to hear what she wants to be held accountable for, but I thought I would actually talk about some of the record of the previous Prime Minister, whether it’s in areas of job creation, whether it’s income growth, whether it’s declining benefits, or whether it’s lifting children out of material hardship. These are not our words; these are the Salvation Army’s. One of the real hallmarks of Bill English’s time in this place, nearly 28 years, is his absolute commitment to putting data in the hands of others to help us as a country to solve our real challenges. So it’s recognising that it might be an iwi organisation, it might be a partnership school that’s run by a local iwi or Pasifika, it might be in a place-based initiative—very grassroots community organisations that are helping to solve the challenges of real people with real needs, whether it was lifting the minimum wage, whether it was increasing benefits for the first time in 40 years, or whether it was reducing the number of children living in hardship by 135,000.

So I’m looking forward to that Government opening the books, showing data, and providing more data than we’ve previously seen in the last nine years of Government—opening the door for others to help solve the problems, instead of shutting them down, like they’re doing with partnership schools at the moment, and actually allowing others in to work with the Government of the day. But you’ve said you want to be accountable for results, so what have you said so far?

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

That Government have said they’re going to be held accountable for results. A billion trees—a billion trees. We’re looking forward to how many have already been planted. A hundred thousand homes—now, that can’t be counting the ones that were already under way, so we’re looking forward to those results. And 30,000 fewer immigrants—30,000. So those are the numbers that that side of the House have put out there. We will be watching and we will be counting, and we will be enabling and ensuring that others across the country are also watching and holding this Government to account.

If I look at the record of an extraordinary New Zealander who yesterday announced he was leaving Parliament after nearly 28 years of service, I’m not looking at his report; I’m looking at the Salvation Army report. And I’m looking at the increased number of jobs, I’m looking at increased wages, I’m looking at the reduced number of people on benefit, and, more importantly, the reduced number of children living in material hardship. That was delivered under this Government. I’m looking to see what the record of the other side will be to deliver for real people with real challenges, because, to be fair, the record isn’t so great when the first thing you want to do—the first thing in education that Labour wants to do—is strip the opportunity of the very children you purport to support.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Otirā, e ngā mema o Te Whare nei. Tēnā tātou katoa. I too want to acknowledge the 27-plus years of the Rt Hon Bill English. I just want to mihi to him for his 27-plus years of service, and I also want to send my best wishes to him, and to Mary and the family, in his next journey of life.

We’ve just come from almost 10, 12-odd days of a brilliant Waitangi weekend, and I want to talk about the positivity that the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, with her Cabinet Ministers and colleagues in the Government, displayed up in Waitangi. Five long days—the longest any Prime Minister in modern Government has ever contributed to the founding day of our great nation. There she was, moving amongst people with ease, sending out the positive vision that she, with this Government, has for this nation. I was proud, along with many of the members of the Government, to be alongside her as she moved seamlessly amongst groups, large and small—iwi chairs, rangatahi Māori, the Māori wardens, and the Māori Women’s Welfare League, not to mention the many others that she engaged with. So I want to mihi to our Northland members, who ensured that we had a successful five days celebrating in Waitangi.

But, as the Minister in charge of animal welfare, I take animal welfare issues very seriously, and I have to say that this Opposition will need a good vet at the leadership gallops—or should I say “trots”—to make sure none of the horses will have been tampered with who are lining up to take over from the Rt Hon Bill English. It is with regret that we note that “Billy Boy”, the old favourite from the South, has finally been retired to a paddock outside Winton—good luck and a long life, munching on those Southland swedes and watching this race.

The first question, though, is what kind of track is this? Hard and fast? Soft and slow? A bit of bounce? That might let someone keen and unexpected charge through the field, like the old show pony “Craven Coleman”, bloodline out of “Naked Opportunity” and “Desperation”. He may still come out of nowhere to surprise, but he will break a leg and will then have to be put down, like the last time he ran.

Then we have “Crusher Collins” in the blue silks, who may also be guilty of interference when that two-year-old “Brylcreem Bridges” tries to pass her on the inside. Look for the illegal use of the whip.

And the use of the whip, or whips, may have to be carefully examined by the stewards of this race. Whatever, I hope the stewards have got their eyes peeled for horse tranquillisers by the gallon, not for the horses but for us, the poor spectators. One thing for sure is there will be endless jockeying before they even hit the last bend.

In the last few minutes, I do want to return back to the serious notion of governing the nation for all New Zealanders and lay out the plan of Labour, with the Greens and New Zealand First, in terms of the first 100 days and beyond. I want to particularly acknowledge the restarting of our Superannuation Fund, which contributes to ensuring that the age of super stays at 65, which is a big issue for the constituents of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti; the Families Package, which my colleague the Hon Chris Hipkins acknowledged; the ban on overseas speculators, which is definitely going to help in terms of the house availability in my electorate; and, of course, the stopping of the mass sell-off of State houses. These policies put in place by this Labour-led Government, with our coalition partners, is a commitment that this Government is here to do the business. It is here to do the business that nine years of that National Government failed to achieve.

Can I also point out that it is very clear that when we come to charter schools, we have made it clear that we are not shutting down charter schools. I will say it again: we are not shutting down charter schools. We are actually saying that there won’t be any more opened. Like Minister Hipkins has said, as we speak, Ministry of Education officials are speaking with every single charter school, up and down this country, on a case by case basis and in an open and transparent way around the future educational needs for their young people. That’s a Government committed to doing the right thing by all New Zealanders. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to correct Meka Whaitiri, the previous speaker. The Government has actually announced that they are going to be shutting down partnership schools, and the fact is that two of the MPs—Crown Ministers in the Government—are actually backing two of the Māori partnership schools, which has come out in the media this afternoon. It has come out in the media, so the Government cannot deny that the aim of their game is to shut down partnership schools, except for the two Māori partnership schools, of which two Ministers have got their fingers—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Three.

—three Ministers, then—deeply entrenched in those schools, and that is not—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think the member’s got to be very careful with the tone and direction of the comments she’s making.

Thank you. Well, anyway, going on. The announcement that was made that came out in the media this afternoon around those partnership schools, I think it does look at the other partnership schools and start to—I’m sure that the people that are in those partnership schools are thinking, “What about us? What about us? We are part and parcel of a group of partnership schools that have helped, and continue to help, 1,500 vulnerable children”—children that could not fit within mainstream education and that did not succeed in mainstream education—“and what’s going to happen to them? What is going to happen to their successful futures?”, because there will be no successful future for those children that are going to be mainstreamed into mainstream schools, and they are not going to succeed. Partnership schools were an avenue for these children to actually succeed, and the success was renowned, over and over again.

When the previous speaker talked about the Prime Minister being in Waitangi for five days—and good on her—I guess that a lot of those five days will be for nought if her generals do not fall in line and do not actually adhere to support some of the things that she has said. I can see that the generals are starting to fall out of line with each other, and that is not good for this country. When I start to look at some of the other areas that this Government purport to actually support Māori in, I start to look at the Whānau Ora programme. And, as from where I stand here, as from yesterday and in previous months, I’ve heard nothing about Whānau Ora or what this Government’s going to be doing for it. There’s speculation out there that, perhaps, they will be reviewing it to get rid of some of the Whānau Ora projects and programmes, and I don’t know why that is.

Now, when I asked Te Puni Kōkiri today about what type of review it is, I was told it might be an independent review. It may be a ministerial review. Then we heard last year in November from the Minister on the programme The Hui that it is going to be a comprehensive review. No terms of reference—we have no idea what this review’s going to do, considering there was a review done on the commissioning agents last year that came out and from the review they were able to shape up their back office administration side of their business and they came out of that very well. So if you’re going to do a comprehensive review, wouldn’t somebody actually let the public know what type of terms of reference will actually go on with the review of Whānau Ora?

It is something—like, when you look at Whānau Ora, it is about building whānau capacity, and a lot of whānau capacity is actually based within education outcomes. I was brought up in the knowledge that education will set you free, and yet, we’re looking at partnership schools that are going to close just because there is a Government that doesn’t want a successful story to go on. And they have been successful. You cannot deny that.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

The Government cannot deny that—I’ve got you—partnership schools have been successful and will continue to be successful. So why shut them down? Why close them? Why send them to the wall when something as successful as partnership schools has helped Māori and will continue to help Māori, if the Government could just get their heads out of the sand and up and looking and supporting Māori? Why aren’t Government supporting Māori?

I believe it’s because they just want to change things just because the Government thinks it can. It’s not good. It’s not good politics, and it’s not very good leadership either. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

After that speech, it’s very clear to me that a Māori should be in charge of the National Party. There’s no doubt about it. Your time’s come. Their time’s come. The reality is for years and years Māori have been ignored in that party. Winston Peters made a great run.

It was a shame Jo—she left, because she’s in my speech—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member can’t refer to members leaving the Chamber.

My apologies—my apologies, sir. But really, the time has come for a change. We need to see a change in the National Party and a change in terms of the leadership.

Winston Peters—he could’ve been the first National Party leader but, sadly, sadly, the knives came out for him. The problem the National Party has, of course, with our Māori members is that we’ve got some lovely members on the other side—we’ve got four. I’m looking at the seven Māori members on this piece of paper, and there’s four lovely—very lovely—members.

One of them is sitting right over there now, Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti over there, look, he was a fantastic doctor—a fantastic doctor. And does he have aspirations? It’s very hard to have aspirations in a National Party who have never promoted a Māori to the leadership. But I say to the member over there, Dr Reti, you’re a fine member, you’re too nice, you’re too lovely for the National Party.

Harete Hipango—she’s beautiful. She’s fabulous. She’s too nice, too sweet, and too lovely to take on the National Party leadership—that there is no doubt.

Now—Nuk Korako. We love Nuk. We love Nuk. He’s the man. He’s probably not the man for the leadership, but he’s a kaumātua. He’s got to whakatikatika i tana reo [fix up his language]. Peeni will work on him in terms of his reo side, but what a man. What a leader he could be if he just got a bit of support.

I’ve got to say to Dr Reti, just get behind. There, she’s come back here. That’s good. Sorry there, Mr Speaker, but it’s great to see the fourth member of the—I was saying four lovely people, and Joanne Hayes, after the last speech, it’s questionable whether she fits that bill. But I don’t like your chances, Joanne, of leadership.

But the problem with these four is that they’re in this category of “lovely”, but then we have “nasty”, and there’s three of them who fit the bill.

Number one—Paula Bennett. Ooh! Woah, there’s some problems there, particularly when she can go on to a marae and then, all of a sudden, talk to the media about our wonderful chairman, Huri Dennis, and then deny it all, and then run rumours about our wonderful Deputy Prime Minister and bash beneficiaries. Oh, it’s a sad day when we hear that Paula Bennett has aspirations in terms of the National Party leadership. But she’s Māori, and we love Māori. Some question there, but she is Māori, and good luck, Paula—don’t like your chances.

Then there’s old Simon—Simon Bridges. Now, Simon Bridges, in terms of what’s positive about him—not a lot, but he’s from Ngāti Maniapoto, which is my tribe. He’s from Ngāti Maniapoto. That’s my mum’s tribe. And even though our chairman, Tiwha Bell—well, he’s disowned him. But even though Ngāti Maniapoto have said, “Goodness gracious! Is he one of our sons?”, we still support him because he’s Māori. But there’s a nasty edge, and we saw that on day one here, didn’t we? Didn’t we? He came after us. Simon—he is so intent on being the leader. And he’s got this group behind him—these right-wing fundamentalists who so want to put him up as the leader of the National Party. But I don’t think it’s going to work out.

But the real man—the person, the Māori, who should lead the National Party—is Jami-Lee Ross. Jami-Lee—I see, look, OK, he’s got anger problems. We know that and the Speaker knows that, but we’ll put him on Whānau Ora. We’ll put him on a programme. He’ll come right, sir, with your counsel, with your support. We’ll look after Jami. Jami’s got aspiration. He’s good looking. He’s young. He’s been ignored, you know. So he went a bit crazy one day—we all know that. We all saw it. But, Mr Speaker, you’ll help him. And I like Jami.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Oh, sorry, my apologies again, sir. But his main positive is he’s from Ngati Porou—whanaunga to myself and Peeni—and I think he could go on to great things.

So I say to Dr Shane Reti and Joanne Hayes over there—support Jami-Lee Ross as the new leader of the National Party. Kia ora tātou.

I find it so interesting that the only thing the last three Labour MPs could speak about was the National Party leadership race. Do you know why that is? I’ll tell you why that is. That is because they are deflecting, because the issue of the day is charter schools and they don’t want to talk about it. They will do anything in their power not to talk about charter schools, and I’ll tell you why.

Actually, what they’ve been doing is they’ve been hiding away in their offices all day thinking about clever things like horse races and dog handlers. What I’ve been thinking about is the ton of garbage that has been coming out of the Labour Government over the last few months about charter schools because they are ideologically opposed to them.

The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern called charter schools, at the end of last year, a failed model. Well, let’s take a look at the actual reality, not just that spin. Vanguard Military School is a charter school in my electorate that I will stand up for. Let’s look at their results—let’s look at their results. The reality is Vanguard Military School—their NCEA results for last year for level 2 were 89 percent compared to the national average of 77 percent. And do you know what? Those Māori MPs opposite me should be interested in the fact that Vanguard have 50 percent of their roll who are Māori students.

So you know what? Given Miss Ardern’s speech at Waitangi about the distance between the whare and the homestead and how that represented the difference in equality that we still have and her hopes for the future, I’m sure she would be interested in Vanguard’s roll-based results for last year for Māori students. Level 2—90 percent compared to the national average of 72. Let’s look at level 3—95 percent compared to the national average of 55 percent. For a failed model, charter schools certainly seem to be working for Māori, and Mr Jackson knows that.

Today in question time, Jacinda Ardern was so very concerned that charter schools have unregistered teachers and don’t teach to the curriculum. So let’s look at her very grave concerns. The teachers are unregistered—the Labour Government say it with such passion you’d be forgiven for thinking that the local P dealer was teaching chemistry. The reality is that teachers of core subjects are registered teachers. Vanguard employs two unregistered teachers. One is a defence force teacher and the other one is a Te Reo teacher.

What about the charter schools who are not teaching to the curriculum? Again, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Vanguard students get credits for making coffee and braiding each other’s hair. Well, I can tell you that Vanguard, like most other charter schools, teaches to the New Zealand curriculum. In fact, English, maths, and PE are compulsory.

So why, given all of this, is it that one of the first pieces of education legislation is to get rid of these amazing schools? The reality is that these schools work; they just don’t work for the unions. Unfortunately, Mr Hipkins—in his inept Government, this whole issue has become a massive omnishambles.

Let’s break it down: the negotiation process, whereby Mr Hipkins blindsided schools with two press releases that he put out with his intentions to close charter schools down, without even bothering to phone them first. Or how about Mr Hipkins’ empty offer to transition charter schools to special character schools? Like the ministry meeting with Vanguard this week, for the first time, and expecting them to have an application for special character school status in by 1 April. They have to make a decision, after four years of operation, in six measly weeks. Well, that is a very bad April Fool’s joke. If only Mr Hipkins was as good at talking to charter schools as he is with the Australian Labor Party.

Then we have the Labour Party’s backtracking Māori MPs: Jackson, Henare, and Davis. Kelvin Davis, my favourite one, pledged to resign from Parliament if the next Labour Government closes either of the charter schools in Whangarei. What about the charter schools in my electorate, which are also in his electorate, that he’s never visited? Vanguard—he has never even visited them. He hasn’t even picked up the phone to call them. That is a disgrace. He has been their MP for three years, and he’s never walked in the door. Why is he not standing up for the 50 percent Māori students in that school?

As much as I like beating up on the Government, this is about the children of those partnership schools, the children that I have visited and spoken to. I have looked in their eyes and seen the future that they now have under the charter school model that they didn’t have before. Thank you.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare. What I find interesting is that, in this general debate, I would have thought that the other side would have used this as an opportunity to do their speeches for the leadership campaign. I’m surprised, actually, that they didn’t. They are trying to find somebody who can match the very popular Jacinda Ardern, our current Prime Minister. They are trying to find somebody with youth. They are trying to find somebody who can appeal to a different generation. We’ve seen these tweets and these reports and these updates coming through. What I challenge the other side to do is to find a leader who has as much heart as our Prime Minister has. We are a Government with heart, versus the Opposition.

I am still disturbed by some of the comments I heard in the debate yesterday on the bill for the reduction of child poverty. I heard comments like, “This will do nothing to change the outcome.”, made by the Hon Paula Bennett. “This will do nothing for child poverty. This will not change the status quo.” I heard quotes, for example, that, “Our children are in poverty because their parents make bad decisions.”, and blaming it on the parents for spending money on alcohol—that there are parents and there are families who don’t want free lunches or the raincoats that are being offered. The challenges thrown out from the other side, for us to go to Kaikohe and see some of the great work that the other side were doing—I heard blame; I heard denial; I heard personal responsibility arguments being given; I heard about economic growth being the solution to all of our problems.

Well, what we saw today was the report released by the Salvation Army on the state of our nation. What does that report say? We’ve had a 12 percent increase in families needing food parcels. It highlights the real-life impact of a decade of management that left too many people behind. Nine years of neglect. We also received another report this week on the stocktake of New Zealand’s housing. The housing crisis is worse than we even knew it to be. The previous Government had no heart. They denied there was a housing crisis. They denied that child poverty was an issue.

Well, our Government is not prepared to tolerate this. We are going to do something about it. In the first 100 days of being in Government, we have already done a significant amount of things to address these issues. But that is not it. We have got a lot more work to do, and we are absolutely committed to doing that work.

We heard, actually, that on the birthday of one of the members who spoke earlier, she marched about charter schools. Well, I’m proud to say that on my birthday, the Hon Grant Robertson introduced the Families Package. That Families Package will benefit over 385,000 families. We introduced the Best Start payment. That is going to be of benefit to the more than 65,000 babies that are born every year in this country. We are extending Working for Families; reinstating the independent earner tax credit; increasing the accommodation supplement; the accommodation benefit; a winter energy payment that will benefit approximately one million people; and lifesaving legislation in the passing of the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). That is lifesaving legislation that is going to make a huge difference to the people that live in my region in Northland who are suffering from respiratory illnesses that are caused by cold, damp housing.

Our priority, our focus, is to put children and to put people back at the heart of everything that we do. I was proud of our Prime Minister when she stood on my marae, at Te Whare Rūnanga, on Waitangi Day saying and challenging—making the statement that she wants to be judged on her actions. She wants to earn the right to stand on the mahau of that whare and to speak. She is saying to all those that come to Waitangi next year to judge her on what we deliver. We are a Government that wants to be held accountable. We are prepared to put what we want to do, and aim to do, into legislation so we can be measured against that. We have achieved a lot in the first 100 days, but there is a lot more to come. Kia ora.

It gives me pleasure to speak in this general debate, and, as members on the other side have asked me to say a word, I’m going to. I’m actually going to talk about charter schools. What I witnessed today in question time was the biggest set of, sort of, avoiding of the issue that I’ve seen so far in this House, from the Prime Minister down, actually—Ministers, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Education, and the Leader of the House. What I saw was a contentious issue that nobody will actually front up on.

I want to talk about charter schools a bit. I acknowledge the Hon Meka Whaitiri, who’s in the House with us today, because we actually have a charter school, Te Kura o Mangateretere. Before the election last year, the Hon Anne Tolley and I visited that school. Sure, it doesn’t have all the registered teachers and it may not meet all the criteria of mainstream education, but we saw about 30 young people that had largely been rejected by every other schooling system in the North Island—from Tauranga, from Auckland, and from Whakatū, which is our own local community. That school has been set up, it feeds the kids in the morning, and it teaches them in a different way, and, actually, for the first time, they were telling us they had a group of people that believed in them, were confident in them, and that could make a difference.

Now I accept that the Government may have an ideological difference in approach, but what I heard today was a Government that will not front up to the decisions it’s about to make, and, actually, what that’s about is fronting up. I challenge the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education and some of the Māori MPs, who happen to be Ministers, to front up in those schools, look those kids in the eye, and say, “We are about to change things, and, yes, we might be about to change things, but here’s another way.” You see, today in the House, the Prime Minister would not give the Leader of the Opposition a guarantee that those schools would remain open, and I actually think—

💬 Erica Stanford: She can’t.

Yes, technically, she may not be able to, but what she could do is go into those schools and talk out the transition plan, because that’s what’s missing at the moment.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why a leader—and I’ve been a leader in various roles myself. Sometimes you’ve actually got to front up to the people you are talking about and talk to them about the issue. You see, this Prime Minister, she says, “We care.” She talked about Waitangi—about walking the walk. Here is an opportunity for this Prime Minister to front up in a contentious area of change and make a difference, to reassure these young people—these 1,500 young people—who are in a good set of education that they’re happy with, by choice, who are now being told that their school closes and there’s no guarantee of a future.

The Hon Chris Hipkins, who sits in front of us—he too claims that he can’t be involved because it’s subject to ministerial processes and technical government processes. Actually, have a heart. These kids and these schools don’t know where they stand, from the time this policy was announced to now, and I watch members on the other side shaking their heads. Yes, they can go and talk as a local member of Parliament, but they’re covered by a collective responsibility. I’m sure there are conversations going on. This is actually an easy thing to solve—a really easy thing to solve. Front up to these schools, give them a guarantee that they’ll remain open—even under the new arrangements—and talk with them about how that’s going to happen. At the moment, that hasn’t occurred, and I worry, in this early stage of this Government, that when the tough things happen, nobody’s prepared to front up and do the tough things.

I challenge the Prime Minister and I challenge the various Ministers here to actually have some courage and some gumption to look these people in the eye, just like the Hon Bill English did the day before he announced his resignation. He gets this. He understands the difference between talk and the walk. Here we have 1,500 young people of New Zealand, probably our most disadvantaged or challenged, who have a system. It’s working. It may not tick all the boxes in an educational critique, but it’s working. We’re going to shut them down—that’s what the law change says—and yet nobody to this day has properly fronted up to those young people. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the last speaker in this general debate, I find myself in the position of taking the post-match commentary position on some of the speeches from that side of the House, and some from this side of the House. I think it can be best summed up, for members on the Government side of the House, that we’re part of a strong team—that we’ve had a great start to this parliamentary year at Waitangi and in getting through our 100-day programme.

I think the theme that I would pick up from the other side of the House is “don’t mention the war”, because there is one going on across that side of the House. I think it was a little bit rich of Lawrence Yule to stand up in this House and, within the first 30 seconds, accuse this side of the House of “avoiding the issue”. Ha, ha! There is an issue on that side of the House, and I do want to tackle that and say that I do respect the decision that the Rt Hon Bill English has made, and I respect him as a politician. Every year, when I have been sworn in after a general election, I have the honour of being sworn in with Mr English, and I shake his hand because I do have respect for him and I do want to note that here in the House.

But I do think that the Rt Hon Bill English has been treated shabbily by his caucus—shabbily by his caucus. I’m at pains to point out the anatomy of this coup against Mr English, because there’s someone in this House who started it all off who I have quite a lot of respect for—the member for Invercargill, Sarah Dowie. An innocent comment started this whole ball rolling. When asked, when leaving a select committee, Sarah Dowie said the innocent words of, “Look, there’s been a little bit of talk.” Just that little half a sentence from Sarah Dowie meant the game was all on, and we know it was on because Sarah Dowie is a very truthful person and she got caught out telling the truth.

Over Christmas, a lot of them were talking about it, and then when Mr English was giving his state of the nation speech a couple of Wednesdays ago, boom—someone spruiked the speech. Now who was it—who was it?—and why would they do it? It’s pretty obvious that there was unrest in the National caucus. Bill had done his best, but they realised he wasn’t the man for the job, so when Bill was about to take centre stage someone from that side of the House said, “We’re not going to let Bill have it all his own way.” So Sarah Dowie and then this spruiking of his speech all added up to something being amiss in the National caucus.

I respect the decision that Mr English has made, but now it’s all on, and now there are a whole lot of people who have never had phone calls from senior members of the National caucus who, all of a sudden, are getting phone calls every five minutes—because that’s how it works in their caucus. There are three or four runners, I know now. I think “JC” tried to get out and have first-mover advantage—not that “JC”, but Judith Collins. She tried to get out and get first-mover advantage on Twitter today, but I think it’s not looking good for her, given—and it may be news to some of the members who are in the House, because they may not have seen this because they think something else is the issue of the day—Amy Adams has also announced her candidacy for the leadership. Apparently standing behind her were Maggie Barry, Chris Bishop, Tim Macindoe, and Nikki Kaye.

So I think, if I put my former political reporter’s hat back on, that’s bad news for “Slick”, and when I say “Slick” I mean Simon Bridges, who was, up until about 35 minutes ago, the front runner for the leader of the National Party. But it seems—and if the party wants generational change—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Māori’s going to miss out.

—Amy Adams has got it. Now I do want to point out the speech from Willie Jackson, that they haven’t taken his suggestion of looking for a Māori leader to lead them to the 2020 election.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Jami-Lee.

He did mention Jami-Lee; I don’t think Jami-Lee is going to run. But, here’s the rub: Judith Collins is not going to sit and watch Amy Adams just take it so easily; neither is Simon Bridges. So it’s going to get ugly, until it comes to a head, and it’s going to get ugly for the National caucus. So the phone batteries of the members of the National caucus are going to go very flat very fast over the next three or four days, because they are going to get lobbied heavily by both—I think the front runners now are Amy and Simon.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

Amy Adams and Simon Bridges. So—

💬 Erica Stanford: Is that all you’ve been thinking about today? Come on, what else is new?

Ha! Erica Stanford thinks that charter schools are the issue of the day. I would suggest you go to the New Zealand Herald and Stuff websites and figure out that the failed leader of the next National Government is about to be chosen.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.