General Debate

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

So I’ve found one—I have found one person that supports the transport announcements that were made by the Government yesterday. [Interruption] No, I’ve found one. I have found one that’s celebrating it, that’s leaping up and is thinking it’s fantastic, and her name is Clare Curran. She is loving it. She is loving it—anything possible to take the headlines away.

It has been a really busy week for the Government for the last couple of weeks—there’s absolutely no two ways about it—and one of them must have been last week, when they realised that, actually, what was going to happen was that we were going to have the chief executive and board members turning up to select committee tomorrow to correct it and possibly say all sorts of things about what’s been going on for the last two or three weeks. Imagine how busy they’ve been, trying to find somewhere for Clare Curran to be. Well, they did it. They found somewhere. They have found some tenuous kind of link between TVNZ being at the Commonwealth Games and, now, the Minister needing to be—so, kind of anything possible to get her out of the country so that they can possibly make sure that they can make their point well.

That would all be kind of amusing if it actually wasn’t so damned serious, and it is serious, because what we have is someone interfering with a State-owned broadcaster that actually prides themselves on their independence. What we have is someone that, at very best, did not give a full answer and has had to come back and correct it multiple times. What we now have, every time questions are asked by the member Melissa Lee and others, is that more and more comes out, but it’s not even forthcoming from the so-called Minister of open Government.

So what we have now is someone who is saying, “I was so concerned that the record be corrected as soon as possible in select committee that I waited three weeks to make a phone call myself—that, before then, I had felt it would be enough for someone in my office to make some phone call to someone in Radio New Zealand’s office.” But now, all of a sudden, here we were on 29 March, when Clare Curran thought it was so important that the record get fixed immediately and corrected immediately—this is what she would have us believe—that she made the phone call herself and left a voice message.

I have a simple message to the Prime Minister: if that message is not as the Minister has actually told us and her that it is, will she still be in her job, yeah? Clare Curran’s certainly spun this to everybody, including the Prime Minister, that it was a genuine question and a genuine request to the chief executive—that they simply write a letter to get the record corrected. But if in any way this is interfering with the independence of Parliament and how it actually runs and its members deserving to have the right information from people in front of them—if it’s interfering with that at all, as well as the interference to an independent State broadcaster, then I do see that as being very, very important.

And I think it’s disgraceful that we are having to squeeze every bit of information about this out of the Minister torturously and not with her being upfront and able to give the right information at the right time to the public of New Zealand, that, quite frankly, deserve better. It simply beggars belief that a senior, serious, and well-respected broadcaster felt that they had to mislead their bosses about the meeting and how it occurred and what had happened at it, and now we have a Minister that hides the facts, gets the facts actually drawn out of her slowly and painfully, and I think there is still more to come.

So I ask the Prime Minister to stand up in leadership and show the standards that she told New Zealand that she would hold her and her Government to—to stand up and make that true and to make that real for the people of New Zealand so that they can have, actually, faith in the integrity of what is happening in this place for all members of Parliament. And it’s time that that happened.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The member that just took her seat, Paula Bennett, told us that it beggars belief. Well, I’ll tell this House what beggars belief, and that’s waking up to news about the fact that a hospital in our largest city is covered in black mould and has sewage in the walls.

It sometimes feels, when one sees the reports of this, like we’re stuck in some kind of Dickensian kind of vortex where we’ve been suffering so much neglect by the ruling elite of the previous Government that they’ve allowed our hospitals to get covered in mould and have problems with sewage coming down the walls. You can look through there, and it’s like a combination of Bleak House and Oliver Twist, I think—the state that the previous Government have left this country in—when we’re now at a point where we’re looking at needing $14 billion of upgrades and repairs over 10 years because the previous Government let things run into such a state of disrepair.

And why was this? It was to have their treasured surpluses. Well, anybody can have a surplus when you don’t pay the bills, and that is exactly what the previous Government chose to do. There is nearly a decade of neglect and dereliction of the part of the previous Government.

We had district health boards who were forced to run surpluses by deferring maintenance, and when the deferral of maintenance means that there are people in our country with respiratory disease being housed in a hospital with black mould, where we have sick people in places, trying to get well, where there is sewage down the walls—this is not a record that anybody on the other side of the House can hold their head up about, because they have absolutely let New Zealand down.

But this Government has a plan to fix it, and it’s not only in health that we are going to have to fix things. We can look right across the neglect that we’ve seen in our transport system, and we’ve seen that with questioning in the House today—the fact that this Opposition just doesn’t realise the neglect that they had put in, the fact that our regional roads have been neglected by that Government’s failure to invest in them, that we have maintenance issues, that we have councils right around the country that are telling us that they do need that money to go into fixing their roads. This is an Opposition that can only focus on the highways of national significance, because that is exactly the way they governed—it was by a myopic focus on a few small things and refusal to see what was absolutely around there.

In a week where there has been so much happening—there are so many issues facing our country—the deputy leader of the National Party leads off with a beltway issue. Is she addressing their neglect in health? Is she addressing the neglect in education, where that Government failed to account for what was coming in the future? Was she addressing the neglect in the housing crisis?

So yesterday in the House, the Opposition thought there was some gotcha politics when they asked the Minister of Housing and Urban Development what the square footage of the apartments in the Unitec build were going to be—the plan this Government has to actually provide affordable housing for New Zealand. Well, I can tell you, the square footage of every one of those apartments will be greater than the square footage of a car, which is what the previous Government seemed to think was adequate housing for far too many New Zealanders.

But this Government has a plan. We are not content to book out motels and think that that is a solution to homelessness. We are a Government that actually wants to build some housing for New Zealanders and, what’s more, to make it affordable and, heaven forbid, warm and dry. [Interruption] That’s right. We don’t want mould running down the walls of our houses any more than we want mould in our hospitals.

This is a Government that has the courage to think beyond the three-year term, that has the courage to think about what New Zealand needs, what our future needs—and it certainly isn’t the levels of neglect that we saw from nine years of a National Government. We are a Government that will invest in our people, that will invest in our future, and that will ensure that we have health, housing, and education for our people.

That was a Labour MP from one of the regions that is so ashamed of what they came up with yesterday in their Government policy statement (GPS) on transport that she didn’t even mention their big flagship policy of the week. The reason why she and other Labour MPs from the regions are ashamed of what’s been put forward is because Labour is gutting regional transport funding by $5 billion. That’s $5 billion that is going in to fund about $5 billion of rail in Auckland and in other areas.

We’re seeing from Labour the way in which they have such disregard for regional New Zealand. We’re seeing from Labour and the New Zealand First Party how they talk tough, how they talk big in the regions, but actually when it comes to delivery, they’ve been found wanting.

We also learnt something new from the Prime Minister yesterday—actually, we learnt it this morning. We learnt from the Prime Minister this morning that, apparently, ramping up fuel prices, ramping up fuel taxes, is not a new tax because, all of a sudden, it’s an existing tax and therefore it’s OK to do it.

So I look forward to when the Minister of Finance stands up on Budget day in the future and ramps up income tax, and then claims it’s not a new tax because income tax is existing. That simply doesn’t wash with New Zealanders. New Zealanders around the regions are going to be paying large amounts more in fuel prices at the petrol pump because Labour is taxing regional New Zealanders more, to pay for Auckland’s trams.

Other speakers on this side of the House are going to be talking more about their regional projects, I’m sure. But I say to the people in Tauranga—and Todd Muller was asking questions about their road—that the good people of Tauranga are going to be paying more at the petrol pump, not seeing State Highway 2 upgraded, but the funding for trams in Auckland will increase.

They don’t like it when we talk about trams in Auckland and funding being lost from the State highway budget. The reality is, if we put together the 10 years of funding for State highways just using the baseline that we had—not increasing it at all; using the baseline that the National Government was proposing, over 10 years—and then see how much the Labour Government is putting into State highways, the gap in the big funding difference is $5 billion. They can’t deny it; it’s right there in the figures. If we look at the funding that’s there for mass transit and transitional rail and public transport, would somebody like to guess how much that is? It is $5 billion. Labour and New Zealand First are gutting the regions by $5 billion and putting it into trams.

I actually want to congratulate Julie Anne Genter. I want to congratulate her because she has been the winner, under that Government policy statement. She’s actually done very well. Shane Jones has been completely rolled over. The New Zealand First Party, the champions for the regions—they don’t care about the regions any more. In fact, Shane Jones completely lost this argument. So much for Winston Peters being the big champion for Northland. Northland won’t be seeing any improvements. The Waikato Expressway and the improvements around Waikato won’t be going ahead. We won’t be seeing the improvements to the Tauranga Northern Link that were planned. By the way, these are improvements that the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) say would have led to a 50 percent reduction in the road toll—a 50 percent reduction in deaths and serious injuries.

The Labour Government does not care about the regions, in the way they like to talk. They can’t come up with the sophistry that Phil Twyford has, where he says that these aren’t political decisions. We know that the signals that he has sent have led to NZTA already, before the GPS was even issued, making radical changes to the project. We know that there were contractors all geared up, all ready, about to be shortlisted, about to see tenders issued for the Tauranga Northern Link—a road that will save lives—and all of a sudden the tender process was cut. We know there are people that were expecting to see Public Works Act acquisitions in relation to the Waikato projects, and all of a sudden being told this won’t be happening any more. He likes to claim big political credit for the East-West Link being cancelled, but when it comes to fronting up to New Zealanders about other roading projects, he likes to hide behind the New Zealand Transport Agency.

Well, I say to Phil Twyford that it’s time for him to front up to New Zealanders. It’s time for the Minister of Transport to be more honest and upfront with New Zealanders about what he’s doing.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

I say that the Minister of Transport should be apologising to regional New Zealanders for gutting the State highway projects. They are taking money out of the regions, taxing people more for it, all to pay for Auckland trams. They should be ashamed of that.

One thing that the present Minister of Transport cannot be responsible for is the appalling maths of that member who’s just taken his seat. What he completely overlooks is that under the previous Government, New Zealanders would be paying more for their petrol because of the 20c excise duty they had put on petrol over future years. New Zealanders will be paying less. The great thing is that New Zealanders living in the regions will have better-quality roads to drive on, safer roads to drive on, which is something that the previous Government could not give a damn about.

That party, when they were in Government, was the “coulda, woulda, shoulda” party. Well, they’re certainly that now. It is just incredible how little they got done and how much they try to take credit for now. Where do you begin? Take the Privacy Act. In 2012, they said they were going to rewrite the Privacy Act. We were going to have new privacy laws. And they did nothing. So it has taken this Government to introduce a new rewritten privacy law that’s fit for the 21st century and takes us ahead.

What about the year-and-a-day rule? Remember, they said, “Right, we’re going to get right on to it—right on to fixing that small element of the Crimes Act that is standing in the way of important prosecutions that should be taken.” What did they do? Absolutely nothing. So it’s taken this Government to actually introduce it. It didn’t stop the members opposite claiming it was all their work; it was their idea. But they couldn’t do what mattered most and that is to make the change.

And then there’s the law of contempt. Chris Finlayson—a member opposite who commands enormous respect on this side of the House—admitted that he has spent 10 years trying to convince his colleagues that this area of the law should change. And he may not be wrong. The Law Commission wrote a report on it. He struggled for 10 years but could not persuade his colleagues. He had to fall on the small matter of the lottery of the member’s bill process to get his law up, and he’s done it. The good thing is that it wasn’t just his luck in the member’s bill ballot; it is his luck to work with a Minister of Justice now who’s prepared to work with him to make sure this law might work.

And then, of course, there are the changes to the sale of liquor laws. Chris Bishop sits over here—it’s always a telling thing when members opposite are in so much despair, nothing’s going right for them. So what do they revert to? Talking about selling grog more easily. It’s kind of the political equivalent to self-medication—talk about the liquor laws. Chris Bishop’s done that now, but, of course, Chris Bishop has realised he’s also working with a Minister of Justice who’s prepared to be constructive and sensible and to help him make a difference.

But all of this pales into insignificance when it comes to what the last Government did, or failed to do, in the criminal justice sector. The truth is that we are standing on the burning deck of the criminal justice sector right now—that is how bad things are. Members opposite were happy to pass law after law after law that extended sentences, that imprisoned more people, and that banged more people up. I think the stunning thing about conservative parties is just how they love this thing about locking people up and punishing them. I think it’s a fetish—I think it’s a fetish. There is no act of human conduct that conservative parties will not think that a good spanking will cure, and so the members opposite, when they are in Government, they like nothing more than to punish people—lock them up—because it makes them feel good.

But, actually, the truth is it is not a way to deal with those who carry out criminal acts, and we have to do something better. The truth is our criminal justice system is verging on being broken, and it is time to fix it, and it will be this Government that will fix it. We have a justice system now that is less and less just, doing more and more harm and more and more damage, and, worse, is not protecting innocent members of the community. Our serious offending rate is going up. They don’t seem to have noticed that—lock more people up, criminalise more people, but not fix the fundamental problem.

So it is time to step up and fix the problem—time to step up and fix the issues that we are now facing. The priority is to keep innocent citizens safe. It is also to reduce offending. Simply leaving people for ever longer periods in prison doesn’t reduce offending and doesn’t create a disincentive to other offending. What we need to do is help the people who need to be changed, who can be changed, to be better citizens and to be more productive. In the end, that’s good for all of us. That’s good for all New Zealand. That’s what a sensible criminal justice system should do, and we’re determined to do it. It is time to have a Government step up and fix the mess of the last Government, and it is this Government that is doing it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is an absolute pleasure to be able to take a call this afternoon in this general debate. Well, just to continue on what Minister Little has just finished saying, looking at the Opposition, what a sad, sad, tired lot we have facing us these days. Five months in and we’re seeing absolutely the same old pattern that we saw in Government. And what do we know from the past Government? Well, we know a heck of a lot more, having gotten into our ministerial positions of responsibility and opened up some books.

What have we found? What did we see? This is a party that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The National Party is a party that is all sizzle, and at the end of the barbie there is no sausage. It’s a party that talks big on the games, talks big about its Budgets, talks big about the money that’s allocated, two, three, four, five years out, and when we get into Government, what do we find? Absolutely nothing.

In fact, this is a Government—and I’ve got to say to Minister Robertson, he was wrong. Minister Robertson, I’m sorry, mate—you were wrong. There was not an $11 billion hole in the National Government’s Budget; there was a $31 billion hole. And where do we find that $31 billion? Well, it’s the $11 billion that the Hon Grant Robertson identified during the election, but now we know that all the talk on the $20 billion capability plan was exactly that: talk, nothing else.

The irony is that we went into negotiations to secure that funding, to give our Defence Force personnel certainty and security going forward, only to find that there was never a dollar allocated. Oh, there was money allocated for this year—you know, operating costs. But when you look at those lines and columns and you pull out that wonderful, glossy book, the capability plan, there was one mention of the $20 billion, no tables, no outline years, no budget, no nothing. So all I’ve got to say to the National Party is it’s a good thing that they have time to sit in Opposition, to review their past performance, to wonder as to why they’re there and maybe do a bit of cleansing, which is well on its way right now, and I understand there’s more of that to come, Mr Carter—David Carter, that is.

So, look, this is the past Government that kicked the can down the road on some big issues that we’re having to deal with now. What’s one? Well, one was the frigate system upgrade—a $148 million blowout in the project—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: How much?

—a $148 million blowout in the project, that could have been settled by Mark Mitchell when he was the Minister. But did he do it? No—can’t make big decisions. He can order up a helicopter to take him from Whenuapai, 35 minutes down the road from his home, to take him to a dinner at Papakura, but he doesn’t want to talk about that—he doesn’t want to front up and talk about that. He will talk about me getting on board an NH90, but won’t talk about what he’s done, his own track record. The track record is no decisions. The track record is kicking the can down the road, waiting until the election’s out of the way, then we’ll deal with it.

What about the decision round the systems communications upgrade of the frigates? Ah, silence—silence. So here we are faced with a situation where that project is yet to follow on the back of the frigate systems upgrade, which is seeing vessels put in dry dock and worked on. Why could Mr Mitchell not have brought both those projects together and have the projects done at the same time? Why? Because he can’t make big decisions—totally incapable of it, which is reflected in the mess that the Minister of Health is having to clean up with hospitals up in Auckland with mould, mildew, and sewage, and former members of the district health board now are talking about it.

Well, Mr Coleman had every bit of information he needed, but did that turn the minds or the heads of that past Government? Not one bit. It turned them as much as their sympathy about people’s housing plights turned them. This is a Government that has a plan. I’m so proud of the announcement on the road funding. Julie Anne Genter, stand up and take a bow—and Mr Twyford. Finally, mayors around the country are applauding a Government for putting money into the rural—

💬 Hon Jacqui Dean: No, they’re not.

—and provincial communities of New Zealand and dealing with the roading projects. We’ll see all those old one-way bridges fixed up—don’t worry about it, Ms Dean; those one-way bridges will be fixed up—and we will see a far happier local government in New Zealand than we have seen over the last nine years. Let me assure you of that.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am very proud, like the previous speaker, Ron Mark, of the transport policy that we announced yesterday. It’s finally going to deliver the 21st century transport system that New Zealanders have been asking for for decades. Of course, for the last nine years, unfortunately, while they had petrol taxes and road-user charges being increased, the lion’s share of the new investment was going into just a few highways, mainly in urban areas. Let’s see where those roads of national significance were. Oh—billions of dollars in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, and Tauranga. So that must be why there was such a massive decline in the funding available for local roads and regional roads over the last nine years—because there was. There was a massive decline in the funding in regions like Bay of Plenty, in—OK, I’ve got to get my list here—Northland, Chatham Islands, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Southland, Taranaki, and West Coast.

So all of those regions—producing regions, where they have milk tankers and other important freight and tourism going on local and regional roads—were completely neglected under the National Government’s policy of pouring all of the money into a few uneconomic highway projects. The worst part is they actually made traffic worse in the urban areas, as we knew that they would. We could have spent that money across the entire nation.

Now, Jami-Lee Ross was saying a little bit earlier that there was a $5 billion reduction in the State highways category over 10 years and that that would have been spent in the regions. I have bad news for Jami-Lee Ross, because about half of that was just going to go on a few kilometres of highway in Auckland—the East-West Link. Yet for half the cost of the East-West Link, we could afford to put median barriers on every kilometre of State highway in this country.

Now, I know the Opposition struggles with analytical analysis, reasoning, and quantitative analysis, so I’ve done some numbers for them, because, clearly, they read their little talking notes and they get all outraged, but if they actually looked at the Budget that we are proposing, they would see that their constituents are going to benefit much more, because we have a 20 percent increase in State highway maintenance and a 20 percent increase in local road maintenance—almost a doubling over 10 years of investment in local roads. Why is that important? Because half—half—of all car and truck journeys, all vehicle kilometres travelled in the country, are on local roads, and yet, over the last nine years, that National Government was spending three to four times as much on State highways as on local roads. How can that make sense? How can it make sense to spend three to four times as much on State highways when half of all the trips are on local roads and, in fact, those local roads have to be subsidised by ratepayers?

No wonder we have ill-maintained roads across the country. No wonder we have washouts up in Northland. No wonder we have a disastrous, catastrophic number of serious injuries and deaths on our roads, increasing every year for the last five years, because there was a reduction in road policing and a reduction in road safety improvements on roads all over the country, just to pay for a few kilometres of upgraded highway in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga, and Hamilton that hasn’t even given people what they actually want.

Now, I can tell the Opposition that the people of Hamilton are absolutely thrilled that we’re finally pursuing a passenger rail service between Hamilton and Auckland that might enable people to get to Auckland in a reasonable amount of time, because after the more than $2 billion they spent on the Waikato Expressway, it just gets people driving to the queue in South Auckland 10 to 20 minutes sooner, so they can just wait in traffic in Auckland longer.

So, finally, we have a smart investment in transport, and I don’t doubt that all New Zealanders are going to see the benefit. And let’s talk about those road-user charge and fuel tax increases, because do you know how much they’re going to cost? Less than one cup a coffee a week for the average household—even in Auckland—after three years. I think that’s a great deal to finally have a 21st century transport system that gives real choices to people: safe walking and cycling to school for our kids, which is good for their health and good for traffic; real public transport and rapid transit options between our towns and cities. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ve been wondering for quite a while now why this Government’s policies seem so incoherent and fail to make any coherent sense. I mean, if you think about the first thing they did, it was to cancel the $1,000 a year tax adjustment because they were worried that wealthy families would receive too much of that, and then the second thing that they did was give those same wealthy families about $6,000 or $7,000 worth of free tertiary education. So I couldn’t work out the coherency or the logic behind those two choices.

Then we heard that they were very keen to help the young people who were not in education, employment, or training into work, and they had these schemes up in Northland that were going to help this group that they were terribly concerned about. But then, on the same day, they announced that they were doing away with the 90-day trials, so any employer who is going to take a chance on somebody who’s unskilled, hasn’t had any experience, or comes from a different background is, somehow, more likely to take that chance in the absence of a 90-day trial. So there was no logic or coherency in that policy decision.

Then we came along to regional development, and we had our good friend Mr Jones, the self-styled champion of the regions, going around handing out the money in little parcels around the country in order to help with investment in the regions. But, at the same time, this Government was proposing massive changes to the foreign investment rules that, basically, said to the rest of the world, “Clear off. We’re not interested in your investment. Don’t come here, please.” So the regions themselves may get some extra resources from Government investment, but it won’t anywhere near make up for the lost investment coming into the regions from foreign investors and, indeed, from domestic private sector investment, which has been put off by uncertainty around tax policy, uncertainty around industrial relations policy, and uncertainty around immigration policy. All these things add up to less investment going on in the regions.

Now, this week, the clanger is the transport policy, which renders the Government’s regional economic development strategy in tatters, because, again, we have Mr Jones talking about the provincial growth fund and $1 billion a year of investment, but, at the same time, the transport plan sucks billions of dollars out of the planned investment in regional roads. The lifeblood of the regions, such as the proposed highways into Northland that would open up that region, proposed highways around Tauranga and in the South Island—all these major investments that the regions were going to see in the years ahead have been pulled away. So the investment that Shane Jones is making is being overwhelmed by the sucking out of investment from the regions in our transport policy.

That’s why I said at question time—and the Speaker was kind enough to not let me ask the question, but it is interesting to see—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—that Shane Jones, when it comes to defending the regions from big business, is a tiger, but when it comes to protecting the regions from his own Government, in which he is part of that very Cabinet, he is a pussycat. There’s no question about it, and it’s rather embarrassing to see this man.

So I’ve been asking myself, well, why is this? Why is this Government so incoherent? And, of course, the obvious answer is—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! No, I am going to interrupt the member, and warn Chlöe Swarbrick that she interjects or she stands, but not both at the same time.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was in full flight trying to explain this incoherency in the Government, and the obvious reason for it is that it is not a coherent Government. It has three parties that are all pulling in different directions, and on each given day, one particular party wins a particular argument around each policy. So the Greens, of course, are crowing over the transport policy—they won that one on that particular day. The next day, New Zealand First will win a particular argument about having lots of money to spend in the regions, and all these policies fight against each other and make no sense because the Government’s pulling in one direction to appease that little group on Monday. And then, on Tuesday, they agree to something that the other little group of the Greens or the Labour Party agrees on, and on Wednesday it renders that asunder.

So the country, of course, is left confused and befuddled by a Government that on every day is proposing things that are working in the exact opposite direction of what they proposed the day before. That is why, I’m afraid, we’re seeing this reduction in business and consumer confidence in this country, because nobody can have any clear sense—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Oh, it’s a great day to be in Government. It’s a great day to be part of this landmark Government of Labour, with our coalition and support parties in New Zealand First and the Greens. In particular, the engine room that we have within this Government—I mustn’t forget about our Māori caucus: 13 strong members of Parliament, seven of seven Māori electorates, and our other many capable members in our Māori caucus. It’s a great day to be in Government, unlike the very lacklustre, sad, befuddled lot on the other side. I do acknowledge Paul Goldsmith, the “Pink Panther” from Epsom there—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member will withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. But that contribution from the member from Epsom I think epitomises the state of the Opposition. They are very sad. They are forlorn. They are still grieving that they no longer have their Cabinet posts and are in Government. But, look, reality has hit home. Reality has hit home, and I think no more is that evidenced than by the lacklustre Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bridges. And I think I know what the issue is with Mr Bridges. I think he needs to bring back the Brylcreem. I think he needs to bring back the—

💬 SPEAKER: Oh no. No, no. The member will resume his seat. I think there are matters of taste. I probably didn’t intervene quickly enough on the Hon Andrew Little earlier on, but I think there are areas that we won’t get into.

Well, it’s a free-flowing debate, sir, but I do—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Well, the first thing we’ll have, seeing as I’m on my feet, is Mr Bishop withdrawing and apologising.

💬 Chris Bishop: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 SPEAKER: And now we’ll have Mr Tirikatene.

I withdraw and apologise.

💬 SPEAKER: And I’m just going to warn the member that he’s had two strikes. If he has another one, he finishes his speech.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m just getting to the main point of my contribution today. It is great to be part of this Government, because, unlike the other side, which is really focusing on beltway, insignificant issues, this Government every day is making real changes for everyday Kiwis out there. None is more so than I can just give a selection of this week. From 1 April, 28,000 Māori families are better off, with an increase of 75c to the minimum wage—an increase to $16.50 for the minimum wage. That makes a huge difference to working people and also their whānau, and none more so than the over 50 percent of that group comprised of rangatahi, young workers. That’s making a huge difference, not to mention the impacts from our Families Package, paid parental leave—all of this host of measures which this Government is putting in place. Not being distracted by sideline issues, we’re getting on with it every day.

Likewise this week we’ve had the announcement of our transport policy. My electorate in Te Tai Tonga will benefit immensely from the doubling of the investment that will be going into local and regional roading in areas such as such as the West Coast - Tasman, Otago, and Southland. They will benefit. They’ve been neglected. They were neglected by the last Government for nine years, and now we are putting the priorities on bringing balance back to our roading network, led ably by Minister Twyford. This Government is getting on with the business.

Can I also mention the fact that under the nine years of the previous Government, massive under-investment was taking place in our health system. We’ve seen that this week also, through the shocking condition that has been reported through Middlemore Hospital. As we’ve heard, black mould and atrocious conditions are afflicting a major hospital in a major metropolitan area, and we are having to put the investments back into the health system. Significant investments—$14 billion—we’re having to put in to repair the state of our health and our hospital infrastructure throughout the country, which will also include a new hospital for Dunedin, and that is long overdue, too.

This is a Government on the move. We’re ably led by our executive team, under the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. We’re getting on with it. We’re working hard every day for hard-working Kiwis—hard-working Kiwis out there—none more so than the many Māori whānau that put their trust in our “Māori Battalion” that we have on this side of the House, which is bolstering the work ably under the five Ministers that we have, every day doing work which is taking our country forward and making a better life for all our whānau out there. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, thank you. It is very telling when members of the Government spend a large part of their contributions in the general debate talking about National—thank you very much to the member who just resumed his seat, Rino Tirikatene. When they are not referring to and making nasty personal attacks on colleagues, they are delivering platitudes about hard-working New Zealanders. Well, that’s all very fine and good, but there is some real damage being done to this country by this current Government, and we are beginning to see the extent of the damage that is being done.

We are now getting a picture of what this Government is like. The tensions between the three warring factions are beginning to come out in the way of policy. I will give you an example. That example came to light yesterday in the Government’s policy statement on land transport. Earlier in the debate, we had the Hon Julie Anne Genter absolutely glowing about the wonderful, marvellous—marvellous—21st century traffic solution. What does that really mean? What does that really mean? That means trams for Auckland. What that really means is $5 billion of expenditure that would have gone into the regions being pulled in favour of trams and light rail for Auckland. Tell me how that is good for the regions?

New Zealand First must be spitting with rage. Here we have the Green Party over on one side of the House—for those members who follow Parliament—who are talking about a completely Auckland-central funding mechanism. Imagine stealing $5 billion out of the regions and standing up and being happy about it. Then on another side of the House, we have New Zealand First and the Hon Shane Jones with his regional investment fund, which they say is doing everything for the regions. Where is the compatibility between those two policies? Why are they stealing $5 billion in favour of Auckland and then they have Shane Jones trying to run a very strong campaign for is home town in Northland with his regional development fund? There is a lack of coherency in this Government policy. The trouble is it would be almost amusing if it weren’t having a real effect on New Zealanders in the region.

I had a chat to a relative of mine who lives down South, in my electorate, in fact. This relative of mine, a lady, lives on an invalids benefit—has done all her adult life, because she has got cerebral palsy. My relative budgets very, very carefully down to the last dollar. She puts the rest of us to shame. She budgets $7 per week for fuel. She needs that fuel so she can go to the doctor, so she can go to the supermarket, so she can go to the swimming pool to do exercise, and so she can go into town and do her job. She is not unlike many, many, many New Zealanders on low, fixed incomes—so $7 a week for fuel. A quick reckoning means that an extra 10c per litre fuel tax on this lady adds $3 to her weekly fuel bill, bringing it to $10 a week.

Now, $3 might not seem like much to some members in this House, but for those New Zealanders who budget very, very carefully down to the last dollar, actually, 100-odd dollars a year is a significant dent in their budget, which they cannot spend on other things. That is before every other thing that that lady and every other New Zealander in the regions has to factor in: the cost of food and the cost of every other commodity because of the fuel tax going on top. They don’t get any benefit out of it, because this is a transport policy for Auckland.

Do not tell us that this is a transport policy that is in any way going to benefit rural and provincial New Zealand, because it is not. It is going to drive cost for ordinary New Zealanders throughout New Zealand—never mind Aucklanders, who are going to be paying up to 27c extra per litre of fuel. This is a poor, poor policy.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an absolute privilege to speak in my first general debate. What I want to talk about today is the absolute dire state of our health system. I mean, everybody’s been focusing at the moment on the state of the Middlemore Hospital buildings, and they’re talking about that toxic mould growing on the walls. They are talking about leaking sewage. What they’re also saying is the district health board (DHB) CEOs talking about the fact that they were too reluctant to actually go back to the Government to get some more money to fix it, because of that whole pressure to stay in surplus, to balance the books.

The question is well, what has been happening beyond that in our health system? Before the election there was a lot of talk—and I used these figures—about a $2.3 billion underspend. The whole sense of that was that the previous Government hadn’t been keeping up with those basic cost pressures: population growth and staff wages. We were accumulating that gradual, gradual deficit in our health funding going on.

I think the problem, though, when I think about what was happening in my own DHB and what’s happening now across the health sector, what my colleagues are telling me—$2.3 billion is kind of hard to understand. You don’t really capture what’s been happening. But for me, thinking about it, what has been happening—the best analogy I can think about is when I used to work in A & E and we used to see these patients coming in with slow internal bleeding. I think the problem was when we used to work in A & E, people would come in with trauma and you’d jump on to it straight away. You’d see it, you’d put pressure on, you’d give them IV fluids, and you’d sort it out. But the ones we used to get taught about to be careful of were those slow bleeders—the one you get with that gradual, gradual dripping away, loss of blood volume. What had happened was you’d send them up to the ward, you’d send them home, and they’d suddenly crash. So the problem was that it was those ones who were actually much more sinister.

When I think about our own health system and what’s been happening there—the first sign something was going wrong in those patients was that their heart rate would start to go up. They’d start to have their heart beating faster, to get that blood round the system. And what I see in our own health workforce is they’ve been working harder and harder in order to keep things happening. Because they’re committed to their patients, because they believe in what they’re doing, they’re burning themselves out.

What we are seeing in our A & Es is those staff working really, really long shifts. What I’m seeing across our midwifery is those midwives are working really, really long hours, putting all that effort in. And what I’m seeing in our mental health system is these health professionals taking on this burden of care, and it’s starting to burn them out.

What was concerning me was some of these people I’ve been talking to, the health workforce, said initially that they were doing it out of love for their patients, out of care for what they were doing. But now they’re starting to burn out and give up, and they’re starting to walk away. So we’ve got a real problem there.

But the other thing is when a patient starts to decompensate further, they shut down the periphery, to divert all the blood flow up to the core heart, the brain, the lungs—the really important bits. What’s been happening in my own DHB is the DHB’s been diverting anything away that it can—the electives. Basically, anything that’s not urgent has been diverted away to core business, like the acute A & Es, so those with chronic medical conditions are missing out.

The number of people that came to me over the last few months, talking about how they were in absolute agony with hip pain, with knee pain—they’re in wheelchairs when they shouldn’t be. They are having to give up work because they can’t get the operations they need. There were delayed cancer diagnoses because they can’t get a colonoscopy, waiting months and months—six months, eight months for an ultrasound scan. Patients have been suffering. It’s not just an academic exercise with this $2.3 billion; it’s having a real impact down where I live.

The problem is, though, the DHBs can’t divert that blood flow away from anywhere else, because they’re overflowing in their A & E departments. There are people coming in with acute respiratory infectious diseases. And so our health system is starting to shut down. The problem is, with a patient, if you don’t stop the bleeding, eventually they crash. Then what happens is you need to get in and put in a massive resuscitation effort, with a massive bolus of IV fluids. And that’s what our health system is needing at the moment: a massive cash injection just to stand still, to restore that blood pressure.

I think the problem is that the previous Government prided themselves on being good economic managers, but how I saw it was that they were starving the kids to pay the mortgage. But now what we find out is they weren’t even paying the mortgage payments. What they were doing was kicking the can down the line, so we’re now up to $14 billion just in health infrastructure alone.

Our Government is going to fix it, but we can’t do it all in one Budget. We may not even take one term. But we are committed to restoring our health services for New Zealand.

Yesterday, the transport Minister, Phil Twyford, released the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport. For me, as the member of Parliament for Rangitata, and for many of my regional colleagues, it made for sober reading. More fuel taxes are on the way, with a fuel tax of at least between 9c and 12c and potentially more when the Auckland fuel levy is rolled out to other regions. Now, some members might recall the Labour Party travelling round the country before the last election, making all sorts of comments about tax—I certainly do. Just a week before the election, in an attempt to burnish his economic credentials, Grant Robertson made the following statement: “There will be no new taxes or levies introduced in our first term of Government beyond those we have already announced.” Now, Labour has been in Government for less than six months, and how many times has that already been broken? How many times will it be broken again?

What’s worse, though, is what we’re getting for that money. We’re going to pay more, but we’ll get less. The National Land Transport Fund is paid for out of road-user charges and petrol taxes. It’s vitally important for the continued maintenance of roads by the New Zealand Transport Agency and councils and improving the roading network. By cutting $5 billion out of it to spend on Auckland rail projects and cycleways, the transport Minister is putting a huge number of critically important transport projects in the bin.

I come from one of the regions that Shane Jones often likes to stand up and claim that he speaks for. Mid-Canterbury and South Canterbury have grown strongly in recent years. With a strong economy, our farms and businesses have succeeded, and as a result, traffic across the region has increased. The success of Prime Port in Timaru and the development and expansion of the inland port at Rolleston have seen more trucks travelling between the two.

There are more tourists on our roads. The number of international tourists has doubled in the last 15 years. Where previously they might have stuck to places like Auckland and Rotorua, now far more of them are coming to the South Island and are driving themselves around. All of these factors have caused State Highway 1—particularly between Christchurch and Ashburton—to become more congested, more often, and all of that growth is projected to continue. It’s impacting on safety. The road as it is now—two lanes, with passing lanes—is becoming more dangerous. Every week, I meet people who are no longer willing to drive on the road through to Christchurch, nervous about the number of trucks or drivers new to our roads.

What used to be a straightforward one-hour drive now regularly sees delays of 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or, as we saw on the weekend, even longer. Not only are those delays frustrating for passenger traffic, they’re also contributing to costly delays for freight—particularly in the Canterbury and South Island economies—through higher freight fees and missed deadlines. Those small deadlines, though, are dwarfed by the impact of the closure of the Rākaia bridge. As we’ve seen from the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes, to build resilience in the network we need second bridge crossings over the Rākaia River and the Ashburton River.

Unfortunately, the announcement made by Phil Twyford yesterday makes those sorts of investments nearly impossible under this Government. Important roading projects like four-laning State Highway 1 won’t happen. Belfast to Pegasus won’t happen. Upgrading the road between Queenstown and Milford won’t happen. A second bridge over the Ashburton River won’t happen. My constituents and others across the South Island and regional New Zealand will pay more but will get less.

This is a Government who have already turned their backs on the regions. Instead of backing our regions, instead of investing in the engine room of the New Zealand economy, Phil Twyford and the Labour - New Zealand First Government have decided to put all their eggs in the Auckland basket. It makes a complete falsehood of Shane Jones’ attempts to woo regional New Zealand. It makes his $3 billion pot nothing more than a slush fund to make up for the cuts made elsewhere by his Government, but only to his favoured region of Northland. It’s more evidence that this is a Government that has given up on the regions and given up on people south of the Bombay Hills.

Before I call the next member—I have said something previously, and I’m now going to say it for the last time, and that is that in the general debate, members must not read their speeches. A cheery suggestion to the member Andrew Falloon is that until he’s confident, he might want to sit slightly further away from me, because it then doesn’t become quite as obvious.

Tēnā koe. I’m privileged to stand here today. It’s the first time I’m contributing in a general debate, so I just want to thank the members of the public for voting for a Labour coalition Government. Thank you, New Zealand.

Today, I want to acknowledge a leader who today, if she was alive, would be 90 years old. Maya Angelou was an American poet, a singer, a member of the civil rights defence activists, and today, if she was alive, she would be 90 years old. I mention Maya Angelou because I want to—there’s a quote of hers that I like. She has influenced millions of people. I’ve chosen one quote to share with the House today, and that quote is “Faith is the evidence of the unseen.”—faith is the evidence of the unseen. I put it to you today, to all the speakers on the other side, that New Zealanders, for the last nine years, had faith—or diminished faith—in the National Government. Why do I say that? I’ll get to that later on.

I live in Counties Manukau, which covers the Counties Manukau District Health Board. In 2016, the estimated population of Counties Manukau was about half a million, which represents 11 percent of New Zealand’s population. At the time of the census, 36 percent of Counties Manukau are living in areas classed as the most socio-economically deprived areas in New Zealand. I want to acknowledge that 36 percent, which means that 64 percent of New Zealanders in Counties Manukau are actually boxing above their weight despite being neglected by this Government in the last nine years. In that sense, I want to acknowledge Joseph Parker, who fought for New Zealand not long ago, in the weekend. We were all so proud of him. Most of us in this House were glued to the TV.

But despite Counties Manukau boxing above their weight, we’ve heard today in this very House, in this very House—I think I’ll go back to an experience. Because I live in Counties Manukau, I visit Middlemore Hospital all the time, and when I walk through the corridors of Middlemore Hospital—there were days that were reported in the paper, but I’ve seen it in real life: patients sleeping in the corridors. What the people of Counties Manukau had faith in was that the Government was funding the district health board sufficiently to be able to provide for the sickness of the people that lived in Counties Manukau. What they didn’t know is that there’s a building that cannot be used by the sick people of Counties Manukau because it has been neglected for the last nine years.

So I’ve said that despite being neglected by the National Government, Counties Manukau boxed above their weight, and, as mentioned by Dr Liz Craig, the district health board comes to the Health Committee and they’ve talked about—I can say that they had little faith that what they were saying in terms of the voice of experience would have been heard by the then Government.

I want to talk about the last—that health Minister Dr Coleman lives in Northcote. He was the last member for Northcote—he will vacate the seat. If you had to drive from Northcote to Counties Manukau in peak hour, it’d probably be faster for someone to drive from Whangarei to Auckland, really, because the traffic problem in Auckland is shocking—shocking that the last Government had neglected it.

There’s a member’s bill that’s been drawn under my name, and I’m asking this House that another language other than English and Te Reo Māori be used by members when they take their oath or their declaration of allegiance in this House. Today, we’ve heard a member from the National Party who has come in, because the tigers they were in the last Government have become pussies and some of them have just fallen off and have gone off, and we’ve had to replace them off the list. I want to send a message to Agnes Loheni and to the member who stood in New Lynn for the National Party to practise Samoan and Italian, because by the time they come in—it may be June, July—they probably will be able to, say, take their oath in Samoan or Italian, because, I tell you, people in this last Government are dropping off like flies. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.