General Debate

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The state of the National Party was revealed this week in their confused and contradictory response to the Government’s exciting new housing development at Unitec. Simon Bridges and the four horsemen of the housing apocalypse—Judith Collins, Cameron Slater, Mike Hosking, and Matthew Hooton—have tied themselves in knots. Simon Bridges claims that Unitec was his idea and that National had already done it. Well, Mr Bridges, I’ve got words for you: coulda, woulda, shoulda. You could have done it; you didn’t. But we have.

Then he said that they didn’t announce it during the election campaign because he was worried they might get accused of pork-barrel politics.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: The bridges—what about the bridges?

This is from Simon “10 bridges” Bridges. He’s obviously had some kind of road to Damascus experience, but his road to Damascus is a 10-lane super highway called a road of National Party significance.

Then there was Judith “Crusher” Collins, the face of compassionate conservatism. Judith had so many reasons not to like—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Both the names used—thank you.

Judith Collins had so many reasons not to like the Unitec project that she had trouble choosing between them. Apparently, it’s going to cost money to put the pipes in the ground, therefore we shouldn’t do it. Density is apparently a really bad idea for any urban development, and now she’s worried about the possibility of potential lawsuits in years to come. The National Party are so good at making excuses for not building affordable houses. That’s precisely the kind of thinking that got us into the housing crisis to start with.

Let’s turn to Cameron Slater, who’s fallen on hard times recently because he used to be on John Key’s speed dial and now he’s just Judith Collins’ puppet boy. Perhaps that’s why he was so scathing of Simon Bridges’ statement that Unitec was a good idea. Cameron Slater did some basic maths and concluded that the Unitec project would be a slum, which is pretty much what Mike Hosking had to say on the radio the next morning. Cameron Slater and Mike Hosking, running the same lines from the National Party research unit—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Who would’ve thought?

Who would’ve thought? What a coincidence! But, you know, Mike, I have to say, these aren’t the kind of houses that you would buy. You know, on a Saturday morning at Unitec in 10 years’ time, the neighbours won’t be out on the road lovingly buffing the Ferrari and the Maserati. There won’t be any Georgian shutters on the houses—no topiary around the swimming pool out the back. But, Mike, these are the kinds of houses that your listeners would love to buy, and, in fact, they’re going to be lining up around the street trying to buy these houses, just as they are at Hobsonville right now—the stunningly successful, commercially successful Hobsonville development, where they can’t build those houses fast enough because they’re so popular.

But the most fevered of the four horsemen of the housing apocalypse was Matthew Hooton, who went on the radio waving around numbers that he had downloaded from Wikipedia, claiming that Hobsonville Point has a higher population density than Hong Kong. Now, anyone who’s been to Hong Kong knows how patently ridiculous that is. Mrs Collins, you need to get better sources.

This all goes to show just how hopelessly divided and confused the National Party and their acolytes are. On one hand, they claim that this exciting new urban development project at Unitec in Mount Albert is their idea and that they’ve already done it, but, on the other hand, it’s a terrible idea and we shouldn’t be doing it.

Thinking up excuses not to build affordable housing is exactly what got us into this crisis. The National Party spent nine years denying there was a housing crisis, and now it seems like they don’t want affordable houses to be built for young Kiwi families. They don’t want it. Our Government is going to roll up our sleeves and build the high-quality, affordable houses that young Kiwi families so desperately want.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, we are five months in already to this three-headed hydra of a coalition governing arrangement. What staggers me is that already they are looking like a tired, shambolic third-term Government. They’re out of ideas. Well, we know that probably happened on day one, because, actually, the biggest achievement of this Government in the last five months has been the establishment of inquiries and working-groups and expert panels—broadly, anyone who can has been asked to come together and give the Government some ideas on what to do, because they have none. So they’ve done that.

We know they’re out of ideas, but what has been even more apparent in the last couple of weeks is the level of shambles and disarray within their own ranks. It is quite extraordinary that the only thing we are really hearing from the Prime Minister in recent weeks is when she has to come out and defend the comments of another Minister, defend the actions of a backbench member, explain what she really meant when she shot off some comment from the hip on the steps of Parliament, and put out fires of things happening in her own party that she wasn’t briefed on. Time and time again, we are seeing the old adage play out, which is “If you can’t manage yourselves, you can’t run the country.”

Now, I wouldn’t have expected a Government, fresh from the excitement of assuming the Treasury benches and fresh with the vigour of taking on the governing reins of this country for the first time in nine years, to be out of ideas, in disarray, and unable to manage the simple business of acting collectively as a team and, most importantly, to focus on the best interests of New Zealand. That’s what you should do as a Government. That’s why we fight to be in this place. That’s why we fight to be in Government: so we can make New Zealand a better place for the people who live here. And all we’re seeing, consuming the time of the Government, the Ministers, and the Prime Minister in particular, is putting out fires, managing scandals, setting up working-groups—almost nothing on how we make New Zealand a better place.

Let’s just look at a couple of the examples from the last few weeks. We’ve had a range of loose, ill-formed, poorly thought-out, inappropriate comments from the likes of Shane Jones, getting stuck into the performance of Air New Zealand, knowing full well that it is not appropriate for him to do so, having to be reined back in by the Prime Minister, told off—by the way, continuing to ignore that advice and carry on, which just shows the control the Prime Minister has over her Cabinet.

We’ve seen the Prime Minister herself going to the steps of Parliament, announcing policy off the hip, and then coming back in and having to explain to the media what she actually meant, which is different to what she actually said, which was different again to what her Minister said at the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand conference later on in the week. We’re seeing falling business confidence—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Look over here.

—which isn’t surprising actually, given that you’ve got a party that has zero ideas, zero competence, and seems to have no plan of where it’s going. We heard today, on behalf the Minister of Finance, that their plan for spending is—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Look over here.

—we’re just going to hope the economy keeps growing.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I’m sorry I have to interrupt that. I think the member is getting slightly repetitious—[Interruption]—no, in his interjections. Members are allowed to, and the member might have once or twice himself turned around and addressed members of his own team in the way that the member is doing now. I think we should just let the member get on with it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We’ve seen deeply questionable practices hinted at from members of New Zealand First bullying members on this side of the House who are trying to carry out legitimate activities. And we’ve seen poor old Jenny Marcroft rolled out to play the Bancroft to an unknown Steve Smith in New Zealand First. So what we want to know is who is Steve Smith? Who is the Minister who said poor old Mrs Marcroft ought to play Bancroft? She’s been thrown under the bus. When will Steve Smith of New Zealand First stand up and take responsibility?

You’ve seen, quite frankly, unbelievable conduct from the Minister of, ironically, open and transparent Government, the Hon Clare Curran—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—secret meetings that she failed to disclose when she was asked to do it. If these meetings were so above board and inconsequential, why did Carol Hirschfeld hide the true nature of them for four months? Why was it not included in the information, when my colleague Melissa Lee asked for it? To have a Minister of the Crown, who is responsible for the regulation of that sector, and is responsible for setting up panels to decide the allocation of more than $150 million of taxpayers’ money, to be meeting with the head of content, the head of news, at an independent broadcaster is one of the most serious allegations that I think I have seen in this House. It certainly puts into very stark light decisions like that of RNZ to have a member of the Prime Minister’s own staff appearing on radio without disclosing their positions. These are serious questions. They show an appalling lack of judgment by the Government, and I think the Government should be very worried.

Two words for the Opposition: cheer up! Cheer up! They don’t want to admit it, but the coalition Government’s plan to reset our direction as a country, to build a better, a fairer New Zealand is starting to take shape. Cheer up! Cheer up, Opposition members! We implemented the 100-day plan to help set a new direction and things have been done and achieved. We said we would do these things as a core commitment to reorient where this country was going, so that more New Zealanders could benefit. So what have we done?

We’ve passed our Families Package to boost incomes for around about 385,000 families. We have passed an extension for paid parental leave. Many mothers will benefit from that; so will their children. We will be seeing the increase of the minimum wage to $16.50, starting on 1 April this year, and we’ve announced a target for child poverty rates that I think will start to lead the way in which a whole-of-Government approach will actually do the things that we said we would do for the most vulnerable in our society, because it needs to be done.

But more than that, we’ve said that we would introduce a law to ban overseas speculators from buying up homes. And why is that important? It is because my colleague Phil Twyford has got an ambitious—ambitious—programme that we believe we can achieve. The announcement in terms of Unitec signals that we’re not just going to be bystanders in this effort; we want to be partners and partnering with others to help ensure that our KiwiBuild programme to increase homeownership will be something that we will actively pursue. Cheer up, Opposition members! Things are happening. The mood out there amongst many New Zealanders is that we are so, so pleased that the Government is starting to listen, that we have a Government who is listening to the needs in our communities.

But then when I think about the fact that orientation has just finished on many campuses, young people themselves are starting to really applaud the fact that this is the first year that they will have access to free tertiary training. But more than that, it’s a signal that they have a Government who is prepared to invest in them. It’s a signal that we have a Government that is prepared to invest in their future and their contribution to the type of economy that we will have. There are many, many positive things that are happening.

Most important is what we are doing to ensure that we give back to communities the confidence that we’re listening, because after all, many of the solutions that require support will actually help get the local economy moving. Housing is one of them. When we are talking about the way in which housing can help not only just build houses but ensure skills training for young people, ensure that we are investing in communities that sustain themselves, there are projects starting to emerge and people putting their hands up to say, “I want to be a part of that.” It is a huge, huge contribution to local economic development and opportunity.

I know that this Government is making a huge contribution to the way in which this country is going. The provincial growth fund and the good work of the Minister for Regional Economic Development will continue to tell the story that here is a Government that goes back to the regions, back to the provinces, supporting local development, regional government, partnering with local government and business and iwi in a way that’s never been done by the previous Government. So cheer up, Opposition members! Cheer up, because things are changing.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, what a three weeks this has been. Like a babushka doll from Russia, every time the head comes off the story goes so very much deeper, because, of course, the Government has made itself an international laughing stock over the last two days, but this really is not a joke. While the rest of the world was condemning Russia over a nerve agent attack on one of our closest friends and allies on their own soil, the United Kingdom, our Foreign Minister was talking about a trade deal with Russia. And now, while 26 countries and NATO have expelled Russian diplomats, we’re not because our Prime Minister has claimed she can’t find any Russian spies. But, of course, a statement was put out. It wasn’t a joint statement this time. I haven’t been to the website to see whether a staff member made a mistake and it’s been changed, but the Rt Hon Winston Peters has said, “Salisbury attack—[New Zealand] Government to keep next steps under review”. Well, I must say to the “Five Eyes” countries, to our close allies and friends in the United Kingdom, they’ll be relieved. They’ll sleep easily tonight because Winston Peters has said we’re keeping the next steps under review.

So let’s go back to the beginning of the three weeks and see exactly what’s happened. On 13 March, the Rt Hon Winston Peters issued a press statement: “[NZ] joins condemnation of nerve agent attack”. He didn’t call out Russia in there at all. There was no criticism of that at all. He merely said that New Zealand condemns the use of nerve agents anywhere, and for the rest of that week, in the newspapers, on the television, and on the radio, he spoke more about a trade deal than he did actually that issue.

On 16 March—just three days later, on the Friday—a joint statement was released by the Prime Minister and the Rt Hon Winston Peters that had quotes from the Prime Minister condemning Russia for involvement in the use of these chemicals on UK soil. The quotations were only from the Prime Minister; they weren’t from the Minister of Finance. If one was to go and—

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: Foreign affairs.

—sorry, from the Minister of Foreign Affairs—check that statement on the website today, the Government’s website, those quotations have been taken away, and, therefore, the suggestion is that they are also attributable to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and when asked in the House on Thursday of last week why that was, he said, “a staff member made a mistake”. Well, I’m not sure that’s the case, but thank goodness, on a website now, there is criticism.

Of course, what the Minister of Foreign Affairs has not done verbally in this House, or anywhere else, is stand up and tell the New Zealand public who he thinks is behind that attack on British soil, and he has an opportunity here in this House today to do so. The reason that’s so very important is so many other countries around the world are taking this issue much more seriously than the New Zealand Government is. Twenty-six countries have expelled Russian diplomats, including NATO on top of that. Of those 150 Russian diplomats, 60 from the USA, 23 from the UK, seven from NATO, and Mr Peters in the House said today, “Well, Australia has only expelled two, and they’re much larger than we are.” Well, in Sweden, there was one; Romania, there was one; Norway, there was one; Macedonia, there was one—the list goes on and on and on and on until it adds up to 150.

So the real question for this Government is, after three weeks of confusion, after three weeks of covering and playing catch up, what is their policy on Russia? What is the New Zealand Government’s policy on Russia? Can they explain that to the New Zealand people? Can they explain it to this House, because many of our friends, many of our allies, and very many New Zealanders just really don’t know?

Foreign affairs is a very important issue, and when it comes to the lives of others, it’s extremely important. New Zealand has one of the best reputations of any country in the world when it comes to foreign policy matters. We used to have an independent foreign policy. It’s for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to stand up and confirm we still do so.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Something very contradictory is happening on the other side of the House. At one level, we have this narrative of fabrication coming out from the leader of the other side of the House—cruel, unkind, inaccurate, attacking my good self as the provincial champion, as the purveyor of stores of goodwill, financial succour, to the provinces that have been neglected, downtrodden, and taken for granted for so long. But what the leader of the other side of the House doesn’t know is that his own members have taken to whispering sweet nothings in my ear.

Now, I have to say it’s not for me to be too extravagant in language—it would be unbecoming—but I have to share with you that some of these remarks are alarmingly flirtatious. Of course, I have received a letter from Dr Nick Smith, and I can assure the House there is nothing enchanting about that letter. The notion that that person could be an enchantress would be a type of sorcery, and it would remind me of that great line out of—which my leader knows—Macbeth, where, if I’m not mistaken, I see a face before me which is a combination of “Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,”. But I don’t want to continue, because the man asks for assistance—asks for assistance—to advance the interests of the airport of Nelson.

Now, being a great champion of the regions and the provinces and having enjoyed a certain passing acquaintance with the fishing industry, from time to time, and being known to contribute to political fortunes which I’ve been condemned to reveal, I would say don’t threaten that I’m going to bust you through the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) process and, at the end of your letter, in a whimpering, limp-wristed fashion, say, “By the way, is there anything that I can do to help the two airports in my electorate, as Murray McCully and John Carter”—two Northlanders with slightly redeeming qualities about them, not the least of which is the latter saw great virtue in my good self taking a trip for three years into the Tropics, but that’s another matter.

Mr Smith, tell your leader that you, along with your colleagues—and I accept that they should do that—are quietly approaching the provincial champion to back your regions. Just be up front.

Now I need to continue, because in South Otago and in Southland, where the frugal South met the feckless North in my good self, they have threatened to erect a bust of my good self—suitable physical proportions. I, because of modesty and the quiet way in which I was brought up have, to date, turned them down, but I can make a promise to Murihiku—I can make a promise to the South—no more the provinces sending quiet, useless, lapdog, right-wing politicians to the House, never once standing up for their regions and for their provinces, constantly banking their boat, and never delivering anything for their area.

Now, of course, that requires me to acknowledge in the House Mr Matt King, who is, I’m told, a farmer. From time to time, I’ve been known to drive past the property that he calls a farm. Now it’s not for me to talk about a neighbour, but, sir, do not for a moment think that the nest you currently occupy is yours permanently. That’s the first thing. The second thing: get some lessons from Mr John Carter, get some lessons from Mr Murray McCully, and you will see that the North has been taken for granted for far too long. And had it not been for those two ex-politicians standing up and advocating for the North—why did they advocate? Because they knew, in the case of my good self, they were pushing on an open door, not waiting for an obscure backbencher to deliver something that, unfortunately, is physically impossible, politically impossible, and soon to enter the annals of haere rā.

The North realises that it missed a brilliant opportunity by sending Mr King to Parliament. But wait—wait. Mr “Matua Shane” Jones, provincial champion and one of the most modest parliamentarians to grace this House and this Chamber, is on his way. Kia ora tātou.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just didn’t want to interrupt the previous member from speaking. But Matt King did a very unparliamentary hand gesture, and I would like him to withdraw and apologise.

Did the member do an inappropriate, unparliamentary hand gesture?

I withdraw and apologise.

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen a significant change. We’ve seen a very significant change from the Prime Minister that was relentlessly positive, to being relentlessly worried, to being relentlessly anxious, to being relentlessly concerned about where the next bullet from her own team is coming from. You know, I feel sorry for the Prime Minister. I feel sorry for the Prime Minister whose perspective was to be relentlessly positive, but she has been defending herself as Prime Minister against bullets from multiple directions.

In the Speech from the Throne, this was the commitment: “This government will foster a more open and democratic society. It will strengthen transparency around official information.” Well, so unfortunate, because what we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks is we’ve seen bully-boy tactics, where Ministers have sent a backbench MP to an electorate MP who was doing his absolute duty and expected that they will back down from their duty as an elected representative. That sort of behaviour is appalling. And it’s not surprising, really, that the Prime Minister has slipped into “relentlessly negative”.

But not just that example—she’s been defending bullets from her own party, where a president and the general manager have not shared information with her. And to have a former Prime Minister—Helen Clark—come out and say this week that the current Prime Minister has been deeply let down by her own party is pretty appalling.

So it’s not surprising. It’s not surprising that we now have a Prime Minister that is no longer relentlessly positive—anything but. She’s been blindsided left, right, and centre.

What’s going to be interesting, as the conversation plays out around the Minister responsible for open Government, Minister Curran, and a staff member for Radio New Zealand, is what was the staff member for Radio New Zealand so worried about that she would lie on four occasions and hide whether the meeting was planned or not? And I can see that’s why the Prime Minister is no longer relentlessly positive.

But it doesn’t end there. She’s dealing with Ministers—or a Minister in particular—that is inappropriate in terms of Air New Zealand. The Prime Minister does her job, sends the Minister a message—probably within hours, he’s back at it. So how can the Prime Minister remain relentlessly positive when she’s been given bullets from every single direction?

Because what New Zealanders want to see—I think they like that “relentlessly positive”. But you can’t fake it. And what we’ve seen from the Prime Minister in the last couple of weeks is an absolute struggle to keep it together. And the unfortunate thing is that New Zealanders want to see competent, capable, and stable Government. That’s what they expect to see. But no. What we’re seeing instead, through that Government’s actions, from what they are intending in workplace relations—we’ve seen train strikes, we’ve got bus strikes, we’ve now got the threat of a nurses’ strike. And we will see ordinary New Zealanders—hard-working taxpayers across this country—on the receiving end of some pretty awful experiences, delivered by the not so relentlessly positive Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government.

So they’ll be pretty disappointed out there. They’ll be pretty disappointed, because the gloss has come off. We’re not just seeing speed wobbles; I think we’re seeing some pretty significant rifts. As I said, you know, I feel sorry for the Prime Minister, because her team, on every side of this House, is letting her down, and I hope that they do something different to help her restore that relentlessly positive look. But I fear that “relentlessly positive” has gone for good.

There’ll be people watching this on television—the general debate. This is the time when they expect us all to have a go at each other’s throats. This is the time when politicians—really, the gloves are off. It’s when we’re unbound by the normal rules—or some of the normal rules—around debating legislation.

But can I invite those watching—in fact, my colleagues, everyone—to feel sorry for those sitting on the opposite side, to feel sorry for those in Opposition. Look, they’re good people. I’ve been on a sports field—notwithstanding what Matt King just did. I found that a little disgraceful. But I’ve—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I know the member is a new member, but there is a very strong convention in the House, and that is when a matter has been dealt with by way of point of order, it is left behind and not mentioned further.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a terrible day when one goes to bed not knowing something they didn’t know when they woke up. So I’m grateful for that piece of advice and I’ll make sure—

💬 SPEAKER: And it’s also a convention not to comment on Speakers’ rulings. So just keep going.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. So going back to this sympathy I feel—I don’t feel sympathy for the Opposition for the fact that they are in Opposition, although I have seen a few of them standing, looking wistfully, as Crown cars have gone and they are walking through the rain to the taxi.

No, what I feel very sorry for them about is that the reality is now dawning on them. The bubble that they have lived in—the only people on that side of the House who weren’t in it were their ex - Prime Minister, their other ex - Prime Minister, and now their ex - Minister of Finance, all of whom have gone. Clearly it was they who were in charge of the messaging. It was they who clearly told them everything was OK. And now, I feel sorry for these people as they sit through select committees and they see submitters coming through here and telling the truth, telling it as it is, telling us the effect of the underfunding of the last nine years.

Anyone can run a surplus if you don’t pay the bills and you don’t do the maintenance. Well, let’s just talk about paying the bills. Let’s just go to the Cullen fund. I mean, they cut that off and now, here we are, appointing a new leader, Mr Orr, who made an average of 10 percent over his time looking after that fund. Just imagine how much better this country would have been off had the Opposition not cut that spending at the time.

What about Better Public Services? Oh, that was well praised—Better Public Services. Well, again, with my colleagues I sit in select committees as we hear Government departments coming through. It’s quite clear that Better Public Services were simply cheaper public services, and now who’s going to have to foot that bill?

Everywhere we look we see that those members, who I continue to feel sorry for, did live in that fantasyland. How terrible it must be to now get the realisation of just why and how they were able to live in this fantasyland of excesses. Mind you, we had Australia. We were lauded by their now Prime Minister and we were very popular there, evidently, at a time when our crooks were being dumped over here, when our citizens living there were having reduced rights around education and various other services that any New Zealander in the past had been able to avail themselves of.

Sit and look at these members of the Opposition. Look at them thinking now that, yes, we’ve seen the hospital up at Middlemore. If that’s not an absolute classic case of not paying the bills—because we’ve now got a hospital. We’re going to—$11 million we’ve had to basically put in there now, and who knows what we’re going to have to put in. Every stone we pick up, there are scuttling critters underneath it and those critters represent underspending, underfunding, and who’s going to have to fix it? We’re going to have to fix it.

So when you sit there criticising, when you sit there putting pressure on this side of the House—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

That was a speech from a new member who has much to learn about this place and his role in it. Sitting on this side of the House, there isn’t a need for him to feel sorry for us one little bit because we do sit in those select committees and we are seeing the lack of work and the lack of focus and the lack of legislation—and the lack of ambition, quite frankly—that’s coming from this new Government.

This is a new Government that came to office towards the end of last year, brimming with hope and with confidence and with the skippy bright step of a new and exciting opportunity. Who would have thought that here we would be, only a few short months later, and the wheels would have come so comprehensively off so early in this Government’s administration?

So over the last week or two we’ve seen, as my colleague the Hon Louise Upston has indicated, a Government that’s gone from being confident and from being upbeat, to being well and truly on the back foot. Most of it has been as a result of self-inflicted wounds. This is the sort of behaviour that occurs to a Government usually after several terms in office. It’s a highly unusual thing to see, in our democracy, a Government come to pieces so quickly and in such a comprehensive way.

Over the last few days we’ve had a very significant resignation from a high-ranking executive in the State broadcaster Radio New Zealand’s administration. She’s had to fall on her sword because of a—well, actually, an error of judgment of the highest order by a new junior Minister who should have known better. But in the full flush of excitement early on in her administration, having just recently been sworn in, she was eager and keen to go and prove herself to her mates in the flash coffee houses of Wellington, and there the problem really arose. So the rest of that is now history—well, it’s history for that Radio New Zealand executive; it’s not yet, I suspect, history for the current Minister, who may well have to find a seat on the backbench, along with that backbench MP who just sat down prior to me rising.

I want to raise the issue of the new Associate Minister for the Environment and her role in the tawdry, sordid little affair that involves the early and unexpected resignation of the Environmental Protection Authority’s (EPA’s) Chief Scientist, Dr Jacqueline Rowarth. We know from the release of official information, correspondence of emails, and a variety of information that’s become available, that the Minister involved herself in matters that she clearly should not have done. That, too, was actually as a result of naive exuberance and enthusiasm very early on in her time in her ministry.

Just a month or so after having been sworn in, at the very first meeting with the EPA’s chief executive, the matter of Dr Jacqueline Rowarth’s employment was raised and discussed in a way that was entirely inappropriate for a Minister of the Crown to involve herself in. Then we find later that there have been emails sent from the Minister’s office, at the Minister’s request, to the chief executive of the EPA, critical of the chief scientist. One can only assume that that was done in order to facilitate and to make easy the exit of the chief scientist from the employment of the EPA.

Then further, we find that on 15 December, after that first initial meeting with the chief executive, the chief executive himself replied to the Minister’s office with an email that says, yes, he’d seen the article. It says, “I had seen it”—the grammar is appalling, by the way—“and are happy to update Minister privately on discussion with Jacqueline.” Happy to update the Minister privately on discussion with Jacqueline—that can only be a coded message that there were further conversations between the Minister, and the Minister now has very serious questions to answer about her role in the early exit of the Chief Science Advisor. Those questions will be relentless and she will, at some point, have to address them, as will the chief executive.

There has been a change—a change in the way that people on the street feel. I feel it when people come up to me and talk to me on the buses, in the supermarket, and as I walk about my electorate and talk to my constituents. The change they feel is a sense of hope—hope that things will finally get better, and that finally they will have a chance to have a decent home, that finally their schools will be properly resourced, that finally they will have decent healthcare, and that finally they have a Government that cares, and that is this Labour - New Zealand First Government, supported by the Greens—a Government that genuinely cares about real people. And it’s a Government that takes action: the extraordinary action of building 3,000 new dwellings at the Unitec site in Auckland—some apartments, some terrace houses and townhouses, all built and planned with green space, with great access to transport; a place where we can build thriving communities. “At last”, people say—“At last we have a chance of a decent home.”

It’s action that’s taking place in my own electorate of New Lynn, where, over the next two to three years, another 350 Housing New Zealand Corporation dwellings will be built to help people have a stable, secure place to live. That’s a lot of people coming to live securely in my electorate, and I will be delighted to welcome them, because that’s what a caring Government does. It ensures that all people have access to decent housing.

It’s the sort of action we’re seeing with the teacher education refresh, where experienced teachers are being encouraged to stay in our classrooms. It’s the action on the regional fuel tax, where instead of just tolerating the snarled roads, the poor planning, the lack of public transport, no busway on the Northwestern Motorway—instead of doing that, we’re going to take action to ensure that our infrastructure can be properly funded. It’s action on tenancy rights—ensuring that tenants are not charged for services that they don’t actually need.

This is a Government taking action, and it’s a real change. It’s a sense of hope, a sense of change from the previous Government—a Government and an Opposition that is now entirely about negativity. They are the say-nothing, do-nothing Opposition. They don’t want us to do anything in taxation, they don’t want us to do anything on roads, they don’t want us to build houses, they don’t want to get more young people into education; all they want us to do is to expel some imaginary Russian spies. You might think it was funny that all they want us to do is play with imaginary friends, except it comes from their time in Government, when they were the do-nothing Government—doing nothing in pursuit of some mythical surplus.

And where was that do-nothing the worst? It was in health, seen at Middlemore Hospital, where they did nothing in respect to the repairs and maintenance. It was all a Government of neglect, and it’s really sad what happened there. You see, when the acting CEO of Counties Manukau District Health Board was asked why they had not done the repairs and maintenance—was it in order to stay in surplus?—she said yes: “the whole government [had] expected the health sector to be able to live within its means, and to be able to do that we have had to compromise on our capital investment programme.” Compromise—compromise our children’s health, compromise our assets and infrastructure, and compromise our future, all in respect of some ideological surplus.

I want to contrast this to our Government of action—our Government where we have a successful Government in a country where we deliver: a country where we deliver healthcare, a country where we deliver education, a country where we deliver welfare, we deliver housing, we deliver infrastructure, and we deliver decent living standards. That’s the Government we have on this side of the House: a Government that cares about ordinary people, and that is why the people in my electorate, the people in New Lynn, Avondale, Blockhouse Bay—they feel a sense of hope.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak today—a day when it’s clear that we are seeing, across the House, the early separation and divorce proceedings of this unholy marriage of inconvenience: the Labour - New Zealand First - Greens coalition Government. While we still can, before it completely dissolves, I want to reflect back on how this unholy alliance came to be.

Let’s start with the marriage proposal—the engagement, if you will: the coalition negotiations. Let’s look at what each party brought to the table. What was their dowry? What did they bring? What did they give up? Well, let’s start with the Greens—what did they bring to this unholy marriage? Well, what did they give up? The Greens gave up their principles; that’s what they gave up—both of them, Kennedy Graham and David Clendon, given up, sacrificed on the altar of a marriage proposal for this unholy alliance.

Let’s go to New Zealand First. What was their dowry? What did they bring to the table? New Zealand First had a problem. The problem for them was they had nothing that was valuable to New Zealanders. They had nothing that New Zealanders wanted that they could bring to the negotiations, so they rustled around and they eventually found a couple of old bags—a couple of old bags that they tried to polish up and make shiny, but, at the end of the day, everyone could still see they were a couple of old bags and they had a lot of baggage. But they thought, “Look, we’ll bring them along. That will be our dowry.”

Labour thought they’d do something different: “Let’s do something traditional: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” So what did Labour bring to the table? What did they bring to the marriage proposal? Something old—a capital gains tax; something new—a capital gains tax; something borrowed—still a capital gains tax, borrowed from Australia, and then they damaged that relationship so badly we can’t give it back; and something blue—National Party surpluses to pay for a capital gains tax. That’s what Labour brought to the marriage.

So we had the engagement: the coalition negotiations deciding the marriage. I don’t even want to consider the marriage night—that’s an image I don’t want to have in my head—but let’s look, maybe, to the morning after, the morning after the marriage. I can imagine the leader of New Zealand First waking up: to his right he sees Ron Mark, to his left he sees Labour, and through blurry eyes he sees Ron and he says to him, “Ron Mark, Ron Mark, what happened? Where are we?”—because, you see, things had changed. Initially, at the beginning of the night, there were three parties in the marriage bed, but during the night the Greens had been rolled. They’d been rolled right out of the bed on to the floor, but that was OK because on the floor was a mat—a hemp mat—from which they had received great comfort.

Anyway, left in the bed is the leader of New Zealand First, and he turns to Ron and says, “Ron, Ron”—blurry-eyed, waking up in the morning—“Ron, Ron, is that you?” He says, “Yes, yes, boss; it’s me.” He says, “Ron, why are you wearing that ridiculous cowboy hat? Take it off. Does this look like Bonanza?” He says, “No, no, boss. That’s what I wear all the time.” “Ron, I need to know what happened. What happened last night?” He said, “You don’t remember?” He said, “No, I don’t.” He said, “Well, we actually formed a marriage, a coalition with Greens and New Zealand First.” The leader of New Zealand First: “Oh no, that’s terrible, my worst nightmare—I’m in a marriage with people I can’t stand.” He said, “Ron, this is terrible.”

And then, vaguely, through the shifting mists, the shifting fogs, the leader of New Zealand First starts to recall some of the episodes of the night before. He starts to recall, and he recalls the last words he heard before the lights went out. He vaguely recalls the words, the mist starts to shift, and what were the last words he heard in the marriage bed before the lights went out? “Mmm, let’s do this.” Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I believe the Opposition is struggling from their divorce with the New Zealand public, but on to another topic. When I think of the previous Government and the Opposition party, there is a song that comes to mind, and that song is a Beatles song, and it’s called “Yesterday”.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

But now it looks as though they’re here to stay

Oh, I believe in yesterday

Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be

There’s a shadow hanging over me

Oh, I believe in yesterday

Why did Bill have to go?

I don’t know, he wouldn’t say

But how I long for yesterday.

But there’s a problem with yesterday, because, for a number of New Zealanders, yesterday was not quite so rosy. A number of New Zealanders were struggling yesterday in the areas of housing, health, education, the environment, and jobs, but I’m proud to say that now we have a Prime Minister and a Government who will fix these neglected problems of yesterday. You see, yesterday, we had families struggling, child poverty rampant, and the previous Government would do nothing about it, but today, we have a Government who are acting. On 1 July, families will be supported. The quality of life they deserve will be given to them. Child poverty will be reduced.

Yesterday, we had a Government who denied there was a housing crisis, who allowed houses to be sold to overseas speculators, but today, we have a Government who are banning the overseas sales of existing homes. Yesterday, we had the mass sell-off of State housing. Today, we have an increasing of the State housing stock to provide a safety net for people. Yesterday, we had rental homes that were cold, damp, and unhealthy, but today, we have a healthy homes guarantee of warm, dry homes. Yesterday, our police force were overstretched and underfunded, but today, we are working towards increasing the force by over 1,800 in the next three years.

Yesterday, we had an education curriculum narrowing due to national standards and we had teachers who were reduced to administrators; today, national standards is gone, allowing teachers to teach the full breadth of their curriculum. I had a principal say to me the other day that teachers in his school are once again picking up their curriculum documents—documents that had been hidden under piles of paper because they’ve been constantly struggling due to the work they’d been given through national standards and the lack of trust that had been put upon them. But now teachers are pulling out their curriculum documents, they’re getting together, and they’re exploring how they can teach the full breadth of our world-class curriculum.

Yesterday, we had dirty rivers. We had a Government who wouldn’t act in this area. But today, we have clear plans to clean up our rivers and waterways and restore the clean, green image we have in New Zealand. Yesterday, around climate change, the Government were, in their own words, “a fast follower”. There was no leadership. But today, we have a Government who will lead—carbon emissions goal for fossil fuel - free by 2050. It’s time that we led the world in this area.

Yesterday, we had a minimum wage which was difficult for people to live on. I’m proud to announce that this Government are raising it to $16.50 an hour from 1 April—164,000 workers and families will be better off. Yesterday, we had superannuation that was due to rise to the age of 67. Today, we have a Government who have resumed contribution to the superannuation funds to keep the retirement age at 67.

We have a Government who will lead. For nine years, we’ve been consigned to a Government that simply follows, but we have a Government who will lead on a global scale. I’m proud to be a part of that Government. Thank you.

Just before I call Parmjeet Parmar, I am going to remind members that in the general debate there is no excuse for reading speeches. I’ve been pretty lenient. We said we’d be lenient up to the end of last year. I’ve been pretty lenient with members, but that won’t continue. Speeches will not be read at all in the general debate.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to have the last say in today’s general debate. This side is not afraid of doing things that are right for New Zealand, unlike this Labour-led Government. They are in Government just by chance. They are in Government just because of the grace of the New Zealand First Party—or shall I say the New Zealand First Party’s board. They were in Opposition for nine years, and they have no plan. We have seen they lack the ability and organisation to run this country.

They have very quickly reverted back to that “tax and tax” Labour Government, as we saw with the regional fuel tax legislation last night before the House. Yes, Aucklanders don’t need that legislation; Aucklanders don’t need another burden of another tax. Yes, we do need transport mechanisms; we do need more infrastructure—but there should be other ways of funding that.

The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has no time to see what’s happening in her party—maybe she’s too busy looking for Russian spies.

When they found themselves in Government, because they didn’t have any plan, to cover up that, they came up with an idea—that idea is to set up working groups after working groups. With the nurses’ pay dispute, there is going to be an advisory panel—so it’s working groups, advisory panels, and reviews.

Their legislative programme is weak, and I suggest that they can bring legislation before the House that would make their legislative programme interesting, as well. That legislation should be to legislate that in the next election—which could be before 2020, looking at the state of this Government—on the ballot paper, instead of the names of the Labour politicians, it should be the names of people that they will appoint on working groups if they ever get back in Government, because it’s those people on working groups actually running this country, not these politicians in Government.

We have seen that their policies are failing—yes, already we have seen that. Their tertiary fees-fee education policy—we have seen there has been a negligible increase in the number of enrolments. And, yes, they can go ahead and set up another working group to establish why that policy didn’t work, and I know that working group will come back and say that that policy was never meant to increase enrolments but that policy was meant to be just a vote-grabbing policy—exactly, a vote-grabbing policy. This Government is just a self-serving Government, not serving New Zealand.

As the spokesperson on research, science, and innovation, I’m appalled to see the lack of commitment from this Government for research, science, and innovation. There is big talk, just like in other policy areas, of increasing science and research and development spending, and that is to 2 percent of the GDP in 10 years. But what we have seen when it comes to funding—actually, we have seen funding cut in Primary Growth Partnership that was for research and development. You don’t increase spending in R & D by cutting research and development spending.

Then, the Minister is really busy going around launching and celebrating programmes that were put in place by the previous National Government. So, yes, the Minister formally launched a programme that has been in place since 2015—put in place by the previous National Government. And last week, there was an event in Parliament to celebrate the success of National Science Challenges—and, again, I want to remind the Minister that it is really important that when she is going around launching those programmes formally and celebrating those programmes, she should acknowledge that those programmes were put in place by the previous National Government, and stop pretending that these programmes are put in place by her or this Labour Government.

Science and innovation is important for the creation of jobs and to support the economy. The Government lack that understanding. They don’t have the interest of New Zealand at their heart; it is this Opposition that champions that. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.