General Debate

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want—in, perhaps, an unusual move for me—to congratulate New Zealand First, and Minister Sepuloni, for delivering on their coalition agreement for 150 front-line family violence services to get a well-overdue pay increase. This really, really matters, and I am so proud to stand up in this House and offer you my congratulations. These organisations, despite the rhetoric from that side of the House, have not had an increase in core funding for almost a decade, and they are an essential part of our response to family violence. Without them, our response lacks expertise, heart, and healing.

In a country like ours, everyone deserves to be safe in their home, and yet, right now, about 5 percent of women in this country will be experiencing physical violence in their intimate relationship. Some men will also be victims, though much less likely than women to experience fear or a loss of control of their daily lives—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can I ask members who are in the aisles or are standing up to sit down unless they’re whips, please. Thank you.

Police are called out to a family violence incident in this country about every four minutes, and children are present about 80 percent of the time. We know that this means for those children that it can have a profound, lifelong impact unless we get those children and their families the right support. We can do better than this. Funding these agencies is important for victims. We need a range of services. We need to have services for people with disabilities, the elderly, men, migrants, LGBTQI people, Māori—we need a whole range of services.

But just to give an indication to this House about what some of these services do, let me describe some of the work of women’s refuge, where I used to work years ago. On any given day, they might have a number of phone calls from women who are reaching out to them. They may be in immediate danger and needing to call the police, or they might be wanting to discuss wanting better for their kids but not being sure what they need to do, or they may be worried about an escalation of violence in their relationship. They are probably considering how to leave and how to keep their kids but not knowing whether they can do that. They may be grappling with how to find a house, get money, manage their jobs, help their children find a new school and deal with the trauma of the violence, and how to tell their family, or even just how to help him stop the violence.

The police might also call the refuge, passing on the details and asking the refuge to contact one of the 400 women they are likely to be in contact with every day, and then the refuge will call up that woman, who’s probably been trying to manage her own safety by herself for years. They need to try and establish a rapport to break through for that woman to have a sense that, actually, there is somebody who can help them manage their safety and find a pathway to safety.

Some of these women and kids will need to come into the refuge safe house. Others will need support out in the community to be able to deal with the range of agencies like Work and Income and Housing New Zealand and schools and courts and police, many of whom will not understand what they are going through. The refuge does, and they might be trying to do all of this incredibly important, potentially life-saving work with, say, just two paid staff. I just want the House to think about that: all of those lives, and there are two people, potentially, who are trying to manage all of those needs, all of those difficult conversations. It’s clear that is not enough, but that is the consequence of the years of the previous Government refusing to increase the funding to these front-line organisations. It has meant that the agencies have been juggling and many have been unable to adequately support the victims, but that all changes today.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does anyone remember that promise of the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, that she was going to lead a Government of relentless positivity? Does anyone remember that? Because what we saw today in Parliament was petulance—petulance; a refusal to answer a very decent question from David Seymour, a refusal to engage on the issues, a petulance that we were wasting her time having to come to Parliament. That’s the message that a lot of New Zealanders who watch Parliament at question time would have got from a Prime Minister who is too busy remixing music to go and visit the people in Taranaki and explain to them why she has completely stuffed up their industry; too busy going to have dinner with the journalist on Friday night, which was very inappropriate, I would have thought. She’s too busy doing that to go and visit the people of Taranaki. Her job is for the people of New Zealand, not for her own gratification to tell everyone in the world that she’s virtue signalling more than they are.

Let’s have a look at some of the broken promises. Another broken promise: oil and gas. Did she ever tell us in the election campaign that the oil and gas industry would be destroyed by her Government? Never; not once. Did she say she was going to be for the regions? Oh, yes, she did. And is she? No. Did she tell us that there would be no new taxes until the Tax Working Group came back? Oh, yes she did. And what has happened? Tax after tax after tax. Fuel tax: 25c a litre is more tax on people who pay for petrol. Why has she done that? Because she doesn’t have to pay for it. She’s got an electric vehicle at her place. She gets to use the roads for nothing. She’s after attacking every single group that she wants to do. She’s never promised that—she said no new taxes.

Let’s have a look at the KiwiBuild numbers. That’s always a good one. We were promised 100,000 new KiwiBuild houses, built by this Government. So far we’re down to 8,000 in the three-year term that they might actually get through to—8,000—and of those they’re all going to be bought off developers. So they’re going to pay more—this is how KiwiBuild works. They pay more money for houses than what they’re worth, and then they sell them to people at less than what they’re worth. So that’s a brilliant scheme if you are a developer and if you happen to be one of the people who is going to—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: No—that’s not true.

Now the Rt Hon Winston Peters has raised his voice, and good for him, because he can say he’s got $1 billion off New Zealand taxpayers for embassies. It’s great. He’s now going to go to Stockholm. And it’s interesting, isn’t it, that repairing the carpet in New Zealand embassies around the world is more important to New Zealand—$1 billion worth—and to New Zealand taxpayers than are the doctors visits for New Zealanders, free dental health for over-65s, and every other promise that they promised. So there’s $1 billion on foreign aid and also for embassies—because clearly we need an embassy in Stockholm!

I heard the Prime Minister today arrogantly tell the House in answer to the Leader of the Opposition as to why we had to have an embassy in Stockholm, and the answer was, essentially, “because you lot closed it”. So that’s the answer. So she needs to learn something from the Rt Hon Helen Clark. Helen Clark went after and helped and targeted particular groups in the community who needed help. This Prime Minister that we’ve got at the moment, she targets people she’s going to do over. Whether it’s the farmers, the oil and gas workers, the 8,000 people whose jobs will be lost because of her, the people in the regions—she’s after the people who buy petrol, the people who pay for the roads. She’s after everybody who actually helps make this economy work. And where is she for the farmers? Oh, don’t worry about that. She’s too busy mixing music and working out her next trip to Stockholm, because the Rt Hon Winston Peters—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

I want to just acknowledge that contribution from the Hon Judith Collins and recognise the fact that it did seem to question the motivations of others. I think it’s important that everyone in this House should recognise that that particular contribution was brought to you by the letter “O” for Oravida. The irony of that!

Well, it’s just one week to go to Budget 2018; eight sleeps to go. Eight sleeps to go, and then we will see a Budget delivered in this House which will show a Government that is not afraid to tackle the challenging issues, that is not afraid to tackle and clean up the mess that the other side of the House left behind after their time in Government. Budget 2018 will make it clear once and for all that this Government has very different priorities from the previous Government. It was already clear, of course, when we cancelled the tax package that was skewed towards the wealthy and put in place instead a targeted package of family support that goes to 384,000 New Zealand families. That will be rolled out and will mean many families will get $75 a week more in the pocket—a targeted package that makes sure that those who need it the most are cared for. This is a Government that actually cares for New Zealanders.

We care about affordable access to quality care in health. We care about education. We care about housing on this side of the House. We know that the fundamentals have been neglected for too long and that is why we are going to have a Budget that addresses that critical infrastructure; that addresses education, the neglect, the social neglect; that addresses the infrastructure neglect in education and health and housing. It will take more than one Budget to address it all, and this is a fiscally responsible Budget that is determined to balance the books but also to address that historical neglect that we have inherited. We’ve got a plan to address it. We’re going to get on and do it.

There has been a legacy of time bombs out there left by the previous Government. Look at the workforce issues, the pressures that have been building up over nine long years of underfunding in the health system: $2.3 billion worth of underfunding is what an independent economist has assessed it at. That side of the House; they didn’t seem to care. Those dedicated professionals would turn up to work day after day, week after week, month after month. This side of the House; we do care. We will begin to make those workforces more sustainable. I met the nurses out today who were concerned about underfunding in the health system and we as a Government are determined to address that historical neglect.

We are determined to address the building issues that we’ve inherited. Everybody knows by now in this country that there is rot and mould in some of our hospital buildings. Those problems didn’t develop overnight; they developed because there was a Government previously that refused to acknowledge that those problems existed at all. I as health Minister have asked for a national asset management plan so that we can actually get a baseline across the country of all the buildings. We can prioritise them; we can address them. There is asbestos in many buildings. There are historical issues that need to be addressed and we have a plan to address them, and I think this current Government will be seen to be a Government that is prioritising that, addressing that historical neglect, in a way that the previous Government didn’t, come Budget day.

We will address that historical legacy of underfunding across the health sector, the deficits that are building up, and the health services that are now harder for New Zealanders to access than they used to be. We think New Zealanders deserve healthcare that is of a First World status.

Look at the helicopters. They left the helicopters undealt with; 29 years is the average age of that fleet. We need a sustainable, futureproofedservice that actually improves clinical outcomes for patients over time. We won’t let things drift. We won’t be afraid of tackling the hard issues. Bowel screening—they were hopelessly optimistic with bowel screening. No plan at all to address bowel screening, and they just said, “We’ll roll it out.” We are uncovering all the problems with that. We’ve had to instigate a review, in fact—because it was so horrendous—to get to the bottom of their poor planning.

We’ve introduced nearly as many reviews as the last Government did in their first year, because we’ve inherited such a mess and we’re determined to get on and deal with it. Mental health: New Zealanders—tens of thousands of them—called for a review of mental health, and we have kicked that off because we believe we need to listen and we need to address that serious crisis. Water: up to 100,000 New Zealanders every year—best estimate—are getting crook from poor water.

This Government will address the hard issues. We will address the infrastructure deficits we’ve inherited. We’ll address the service deficits we’ve inherited. We are a Government committed to a better future for New Zealanders—a Government that will tackle the hard issues. We’ve got different priorities, and we will deliver for New Zealanders.

Look, one of the strange things I’ve found with all the claims around health from that member David Clark and others is that I haven’t seen one photo yet of all these supposed mouldy walls and asbestos and stuff. I’d just love that member to table some of them, because, as that member well knows, I’ve visited many of these hospitals over time and it’s just funny.

But we all know what the agenda is here. It is to try and create an excuse before we release the Budget—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. Can I just say to members on my right that the comments may have been provocative and they could have had a quick and short response, but just a barrage is too much.

All I wanted was a photo. The other thing is we’re all hearing about care—that the other side of the House really cares. Do you know how the Labour Party, in particular, is illustrating the care at the moment? It’s to, effectively, re-announce National Party policy as its own, and the humdinger on Friday was this massive announcement of $100 million of funding for housing and homelessness—which is, in fact, less money than National had already committed. There was big talk about Housing First, this amazing new Canadian initiative, and about how Labour’s behind it. They forgot to mention that this was an initiative championed by Amy Adams on this side of the House. It was just a re-announcement of existing policies and, more often than not, underspending.

What it is, effectively, is a litany of completely broken promises. We’re hearing it around housing and even more around social housing, particularly from Phil Twyford—the whole “We’re not going to sell any State houses.” Well, how do you build new State houses if you don’t sell some of the existing ones?

I raised it in the House last week. Let’s look again at the Tāmaki redevelopment project—an amazing, an amazing project. In fact, some of my colleagues from the other side of the House were there. I won’t mention them by name in case they get in trouble from their colleagues. But you don’t build the warm, dry, new State houses without actually having to sell some of the existing State houses. You don’t make houses suitable for larger and smaller families by maintaining the old, damp, mouldy homes, which are not set up for these families. So I’m waiting for that broken promise—because the Government will wake up one of these days and realise that you have to sell some State houses to create the new ones for our people.

Look, the other one that’s coming up—and it’s because the Minister of Health got up—is around this whole issue of GP visits. As you know, I used to chair the Health Committee, which is now, I’m sure, very ably led by another, but Labour was hugely into promising cheaper GP visits, yet here we have already a broken promise. In fact, what we’ve seen in recent days—if I could put my foreign affairs hat on—is that, actually, spending a billion dollars in aid and on a new diplomatic post in Sweden is more important. In fact, there seems to be some sort of feeling—and, I suspect, from the Minister—that, actually, we’re going to be able to compete with China and the Pacific and elsewhere, and their trade, with our sort of measly contribution there.

Where are the priorities of this Government? In fact, we even had the Minister who’s just resumed his chair talking about all the nurses that he met. Well, I am looking forward to that Minister and the Prime Minister confirming to those nurses, as they’ve done in the past, that they will give them a substantial—a substantial—wage increase.

Look, the other element I find as an Auckland MP is the whole broken promise around taxes. Well, they waxed lyrical—I think it sort of waxed boring—around no more taxes, and yet here in Auckland now we’re going to be hit twice in the pocket on a fuel tax: once from the council, who at the moment is sort of prevaricating around the edges, pretending that it’s consulting—no one’s under any allusion that the Auckland Council will proceed with a regional fuel tax—and then we’re going to get hit by the Government. That is over 25c a litre which Aucklanders are going to be paying, and, as I’ve got feedback from my constituents in Tāmaki, they are all most, the man and the woman, opposed to this. There are some who understandably want their cycle lanes and so forth, but, actually, that’s not the point.

Most people in my electorate are using their cars. They choose to use their cars and they do not want to be paying 25c more, plus the GST that’s going to go on top of that, towards projects which don’t make any sense, such as light rail going down Dominion Road. It makes no sense at all.

They can’t even find the money to upgrade the regionally recognised Tamaki Drive, but they can somehow find billions of dollars to put in a little tram route to the airport. Again, even Mike Lee—even Mike Lee from the left—tells us that, actually, heavy rail is the way to go. It’s an absolute dog’s breakfast. There are broken promises after broken promises.

Look, I’m fascinated to see—well, it’s not really promises; it’s just plain suicide attempts, really, as they take out our oil and gas industry. They have mad ideas around trees, though we’re hearing a bit more about apricot fruits at the moment, so maybe Shane Jones will add those apricot trees. They’re getting rid of the cows and stuff—God knows what sort of country we’re being dragged through. And, seeing the Minister of Defence is here, boy, he’s got a few challenges ahead now in terms of promises as our defence forces remain very keen on the P-8s, and he and I know what it’s like flying in those P-3s. We need those P-8s, Ministers. We need those naval assets, and those in the army want their share of the pie, as well.

So I’m very much looking forward to what should be delivered being delivered, but I’m not holding my breath in this litany of broken promises.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I’ll do one better than a photo. I invite—this is a personal invitation—Simon O’Connor to come to Dunedin, and I’ll give him a tour through Dunedin Hospital and show him the leaks. I’ll show him the bits that are roped off because of asbestos, and where you have to wear a hazmat suit to go down to the basement to retrieve any records. I’d happily give him a tour, and I expect him to turn up in Dunedin for it.

When the foundations of the new Dunedin Hospital are laid by 2020, this Government can hold its head up high because it has delivered on its promises. That previous National Government sat on its hands and prevaricated and wasted tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of dollars on countless circular reports with no outcomes—no outcomes. If that party was still in Government, Dunedin would still be waiting for a hospital. It would continue to wait, possibly for decades, because it was going nowhere. Now, Simon Bridges is complaining that we’re moving too fast on Dunedin Hospital.

This Government will deliver for the people of Dunedin. As the KiwiBuild homes gather momentum and a plan for emergency housing is in place; as there are new rules for warm, dry homes; and as there’s a winter energy payment, this Government can hold its head up high, because we have delivered. As the hundreds of thousands of new plantings of forestry are planted, this Government can hold its head up high, because we have delivered. As the regions stir and begin to prosper again with economic plans, with investment in those regions, this Government can hold up its head, because we have delivered. As productivity lifts, as there is an actual economic plan in place, this Government can hold up its head, because we have delivered.

The scale of the challenge that we have is enormous, where there are urgent capital needs in hospitals, ageing school classrooms, and a failure to plan for growth in the education system. There are years of neglect. A multibillion dollar funding gap in Auckland transport, the Christchurch rebuild that is beset by problems—we cannot make up for nine years of neglect with just one Budget, but this is a Budget that sets the foundations. It will set the foundations for that growth, and we will hold our head up high, because we will deliver, and we’ll deliver for all of New Zealand—all of New Zealand, not just some of New Zealand.

We have a huge infrastructure deficit in New Zealand—bricks and mortar, trains, transport, jobs, and a real economic strategy—but we also have a huge social deficit in this country. Part of that is a culture issue: a culture issue across many of our Government agencies, which is a sick culture, and a culture issue across our regions, which are sick and tired and lacking in hope. These things take time to rebuild. That is what this Government is rebuilding across our country. That is evidenced by the urgent need for a mental health inquiry and by the need for investment in family violence. There’s huge stress on our social services. That’s what this Government will deliver on, and we will hold our heads up high.

When I camped in my tent in the Octagon last July, in the middle of winter, I had a woman come to me and say that she was told by the Ministry of Social Development to go and buy a tent, and that they might reimburse her. That is the culture that we need to change. That is evidence of the change that needs to happen right across our country to rebuild hope. This Government will deliver on a Budget to reshape the foundations of our economy and our society, and we will deliver.

Soon, New Zealand will see from this side of the House a party of life, stamina, and energy—a party that reminds New Zealanders that over the last nine years, the other side earned the moniker and earned the reputation of being the dead horse party. Why do I say “the dead horse”? Number one, they continue to flog the notion that their policies of giving tax cuts to the rich, starving schools, a monstrous deficit, starving hospitals, a monstrous health deficit, and using the environment as a sewer—consequently, they now are the party of pollution.

Now, pollution is about contamination. That side of the House—not only are they still trying to trot out tired, ill-founded, hopeless ideas, but they have left a spirit of contamination in certain parts of the economy where they believe it’s fine to continue to sell the country to the highest bidders. Those days are over. They thought it was fine to melt down the infrastructure of the country and leave that debt to future generations, which is why—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Like Waterview.

Oh, Mr Smith. I just see Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species book in front of me. In that book, Charles Darwin points out that, occasionally, nature delivers some frightful outcomes—frightful outcomes. If there’s a person in Parliament on the other side of the House who licensed pollution, worsened the prospects of our environment, and enabled the entire farming community to continue to take for granted the fine name of our nation—the social licence that all industries need not only to cherish but to develop—it lies in that sad individual. I don’t want to say any more about Nelson’s product, sending him to Parliament, because the Nelsonians are encouraging me to step forward as the first citizen of the provinces. I have said, “What did Mr Smith do for you over nine years? Why do you continue to support him?” That is why I have encouraged the Minister of Education to offer special education in and around that man’s environment.

But let me continue about some of the areas that this Budget must address. Why should we have to defend this tawdry, tawdry record from that side of the House, when they made promises to regional New Zealand but couldn’t find more than $11 million? Well, New Zealand, in a very short period of time you will have not only $1 billion, not only $2 billion, but $3 billion to address the neglect, the sadness, and also the broken promises. But wait—wait! You will also have the opportunity to engage in a project of civic pride—nation-building—called the billion-tree strategy.

Now, I am not unlike a leopard: I have spots of modesty that are seen from time to time, and as we prowl around the country we find that there are scared rabbits. There are rodents. Why? Because that’s all that’s been left in some areas of our conservation estate—our local, regional areas. But this Government, it is going to spend the money the last crowd refused to. Why? Because we’ve been given a mandate by New Zealander voters to redress and to meet societal arrears that we’ve been left with. It is absolutely appropriate that every time this side of the House stands and speaks, we sheet home the responsibility where it belongs.

Biosecurity is something that lies at the heart of our nation’s wealth-creating capacity. It was an abject failure under the last Government. They stand every day and try and blame Damien O’Connor. Why did you short the funding?

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: That’s you. That’s him.

Why did you refuse to deliver an appropriate level of funding? It’s a sad occasion when Mr Guy stands up, limply trying to criticise the champion of the West Coast, when he had every opportunity, and his politics and his intellect are like the rear teat on the udder. Thank you very much.

It is a pleasure to follow the “First Citizen of the Regions”. In that same vein, I now want to turn to the “First Citizen of the Pacific”. Yesterday a historic event took place in the halls of this Parliament, when the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the Deputy Prime Minister, delivered a speech entitled “First Steps”. This follows from a recent visit led by the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters round the Pacific, which we call the “Pacific reset”. I want to acknowledge that this is a significant step, even though members on the other side of the House may not see it as such.

You see, Pacific peoples are an integral part of this country of ours. More than 62 percent of the 400,000 Pasifika people who call New Zealand home are born here. This is their home. This is their tūrangawaewae, yet their historic connections to the region, to the islands, is similar to when urban Māori return to the marae or when urban Māori return to their iwi. For somebody like myself, if somebody dies in the family, we return them to our ancestral homes in the Pacific; we return them to our cultural lands in the Pacific. So that’s the context.

I think it really is significant that when we are talking about the essential foundational building blocks for New Zealand—in terms of housing, health, education, and lifting incomes for the residents of New Zealand—by its very nature and the connections of the Pacific people, we also must talk about the Pacific region. I feel that as a proud New Zealand citizen of Pacific heritage, I feel like I should be standing at the top of Māngere Mountain and shouting from the rooftop about what occurred yesterday. It’s not well-known by this region. The other side will throw stones.

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry, we’ve got a slight clock problem. Two minutes.

That’s all right. Just give me five minutes then, Mr Speaker. The other side will throw stones, as if somehow we’re providing some sort of a beneficiary to the Pacific. That is not so. That is so far from the truth. The word that they are missing is “reciprocation”—“reciprocation”. It is never to the benefit to the Pacific; it’s usually benefiting New Zealand. It’s trade that benefits New Zealand; it’s the sports athleticism of the Pacific that benefits New Zealand.

Those family connections are so important but, more importantly, as the Prime Minister, Jacinda, has often said and was repeated—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister’s full name.

The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern has said that climate change is the nuclear-free challenge of her generation. It is self-evident—we saw that with her carrying a child. She is speaking for the future generations yet unborn.

For the Pacific there is a sense of urgency. All of us who have family connection to Tuvalu, to Kiribati, to Tokelau—we are fearful of what will happen to those islands if the world does not get on board and reduce their carbon emissions. Now, we are doing all we can as a nation, but evidently we’ve also got to be looking to the Pacific region, because the emergency that I fear will occur at some stage if the world does not recognise the point of no return is that islands such as Tuvalu, Tokelau, and Kiribati will be knocking at our doorstep. That investment is about not just investing in the Pacific but also in investing for our security, investing for the betterment of New Zealand going forward.

It is just so telling that not a single Government member, including the Minister that’s just resumed his seat, the Hon Aupito William Sio, has been able to answer the question that’s on the minds of every New Zealander and member of this House, and that is: why has the Government prioritised diplomats over doctors? Why have they been prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars—nearly a billion dollars—on indulging the ego of Mr Winston Peters rather than meeting the commitment that that member and every other member of the Labour Party made to New Zealanders over the cost of going to a doctor on 1 July.

Let’s be really specific about what Jacinda Ardern promised. She said that on 1 July every New Zealander would pay $10 less to go to the GP, and we’ve now had the Minister of Health admit that that promise—that was repeated tens of thousands of times in advertisements, it was in the leaders’ debate, and it was repeated by Labour candidates up and down New Zealand—is being ratted on. Well, I’ll give some advice to members opposite: ratting on promises is political suicide. We saw it with the Labour Government. We saw it with the Labour Government back in the days when it sold assets when it said it would not. I openly confess over the issue of surtax. It was highly erosive, and that is why—that is why—the Clark Government and the Key Government were so careful to say what they mean, to mean what they say, and to deliver on those commitments.

So I say to the new Labour member down the back there: what’s your excuse for breaking your word; for telling people to vote Labour on the basis of cheaper doctors’ visits, when the Government’s not 12 months old and it’s ratting on that promise? And to rub salt in the wound, members opposite are saying opening a new embassy in Stockholm to pay for gin and to pay for cucumber sandwiches is more important than Kiwi families being able to get to the GP.

Let’s just remember the background: our party introduced free doctors’ visits for under-fives. We said we would extend that, in the 2014 election, to under-13s by 1 July 2015, and we did it on time.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: You’re not correct; 2005’s supply and confidence agreement—New Zealand First and Labour.

What is the excuse, Tracey Martin? What is the excuse for your Government breaking its word? How often have I listened to comments from New Zealand First that said that honouring your word is all-important? Well, of course, New Zealand First will be more interested in indulging the ego of Winston Peters than in the Labour-led Government doing what it said.

We remember. You see, we’ve been round this paddock before. The Labour - New Zealand First Government, in 2006, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and you know what’s interesting? Look at the books—they couldn’t spend the largesse that was given to them. They underspent in 2006, in 2007, and in 2008—they were so awash with cash. So what we have is a Government that is more interested in feeding the ego of Mr Peters than helping families get to the doctor and helping families in the way in which they said.

This is shaping up as the “Budget of broken promise”. We’ve seen it in housing, we’ve seen it on the fuel tax, but it’s no more graphically illustrated than their promises over doctors visits.

What a pleasure it is to follow on from the Minister who presided over the biggest housing crisis that this country has ever seen. His main criticism seemed to be that this Government is planning on doing more than one thing at a time, and I can tell that Minister that this Government will be delivering better health services as well as delivering a foreign service that is capable of building and enhancing our country’s reputation on the world stage. Of course, it’s understandable to hear that from that Minister, because he was incapable of doing the one thing that the people of New Zealand needed him to do, which was to build the affordable homes that our families lack so badly. At the end of that Government’s time in office, the homeownership rate in this country was the lowest since 1951—that is the record of that member, and that is the record of that Government, which we have, thankfully, replaced.

I am very pleased to be here just one week away from the new Labour-led Government’s first Budget in office, and what a Budget it is going to be. We’re going to rebuild the social, the economic, and the infrastructure foundations of New Zealand that have been left so tattered and so underfunded under that previous Government. I just want to speak about a few of those important foundations.

The first one is having foundations for a transport system that finally gets Auckland / Tāmaki-makau-rau, our biggest city, moving after years of gridlock and neglect under that Government. What a great thing it was to see the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, and the Minister of Housing and Urban Development and Transport, Phil Twyford, standing up today, only six months after this Government was sworn into office, with a fully-funded $28 billion infrastructure plan to get Auckland moving, and that sits alongside a transport plan for all of our country.

We’re going to invest to make sure that we have safer roads to get the record road toll down, that was left to drift upwards under that Government. We’re going to invest in our regions because they deserve safe roads, good regional rail, and proper transport networks as well. We’re going to invest in urban growth because, unlike that party over there that has such a myopic, conservative, and miserable vision of our cities, we believe in investing in urban growth so that we have international cities that can compete on the world scene and that have high-quality public transport. We are going to get Auckland moving.

I just want to add one thing on that note: one member on that side of the House who I haven’t heard any criticism of the light rail plan from is, of course, the Hon Nikki Kaye. I suspect that she is about the one member in that caucus who actually understands some of the urban growth issues that Auckland faces as the MP for Auckland Central, and I look forward to her contribution and seeing whether she rubbishes the light rail scheme as much as her colleagues on that side of the House have today.

The Budget next week is going to build the foundations for the health and well-being of all New Zealanders, and one of the things that I am most proud of is that this Budget is going to put our kids first. This Government has actually got the spine, has actually got the gumption, to embed in our Budget targets for child well-being and reducing the stain of child poverty in our country. That is something that grew under that Government over nine years. It’s a problem they wished away. It’s a problem they wouldn’t face up to. It’s words that they wouldn’t even utter—they couldn’t utter the words “housing crisis”; they couldn’t utter the words “child poverty”. This Government says we acknowledge those problems, after nine years of neglect, and we are going to do something about them, and we’re going to hold ourselves to account to them as well.

The health and well-being foundations that we are rebuilding have been mentioned, as well, by colleagues like Clare Curran, who’s pointed to the $1.5 billion investment in Dunedin Hospital. We believe that people, no matter what part of this country they are living in, deserve access to modern, First World, first-class health services—that is the ambition of this Government. Yet as I sat in the Finance and Expenditure Committee with some of my colleagues in the Chamber this morning and we read through and heard from Treasury on their four-yearly Investment Statement, we heard that 19 percent of the buildings in our health sector are rated by Treasury—by Treasury themselves, not by the Labour Party; by Treasury, who have looked at this independently—as not being fit for purpose. Through our investments in health and education we are going to undo that record of neglect as well.

Finally, I want to say that we are going to rebuild the foundations so that every single New Zealander has a warm, dry, and decent place to sleep. We’ve invested, already, $100 million in emergency housing to make sure that we don’t have the scandal of homeless people dying on park benches again this winter because of neglect and homelessness, and we are going to work to make sure that every single family in this beautiful country has a decent place to live. We’re proud to be rebuilding those foundations. Mr Speaker, thank you.

I think the last week can be best summarised with the four Cs: carpet, cows, compensation, and cost. So let’s go through those.

In terms of the carpet, this is all about Winston Peters gaining $900 million through Budget 2018 to ensure that there’s New Zealand carpet in every embassy and high commission around the world. Can’t you imagine that Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials will be coming into his office saying, “Here we are, Minister. Can you select a carpet for the embassy in Sweden. It’s all New Zealand wool.”

This is all about Winston Peters’ retirement. When he goes up, in retirement, into the Pacific, he’ll get one of those flash titles, and he’ll be able to swan around the Pacific and they’ll all say, “Oh, Mr Peters. Isn’t it fantastic what you’ve done for us?” Yes, we admit more needs to be done in the Pacific, but surely you would think that cheaper GP visits would be more important to New Zealanders than opening an embassy in Sweden.

Then, if we move to the next aspect which has been the focus on cows this week, we had David Parker on Q+A actually musing on the fact that he wants to see a cow cap. He would really quite like to see one million less cows in New Zealand.

💬 Hon Member: Fewer.

Fewer cows in New Zealand. When you equate that right through, that would cost about $3 billion. Then, if you roll that through those big dairying regions in New Zealand, that is a massive cost and job losses in regional New Zealand.

I want to know where New Zealand First are in this whole debate. We don’t hear from them. The so-called provincial champion of the region, Shane Jones—what do New Zealand First think about a cow cap? What we haven’t heard is the Government acknowledging the great work that New Zealand dairy farmers have already done: excluding livestock from waterways, riparian planting, nutrient budgets—the list goes on—upgrading their effluent system. That is all lost in this debate. Yes, farmers need to do more, but so does business and so does urban New Zealand. The most polluted water body is in downtown Auckland. Is that acknowledged? No it isn’t.

Then we move to compensation and costs—and this is where you get interesting politics to do with Mycoplasma bovis. This is a big issue for the Government, and now it’s about political management—political management for overseeing fast and fair compensation for farmers. It’s been too slow. The banks are circling. The Ministry for Primary Industries won’t give a letter of intent to the banks to say that compensation is coming. Farmers are hurting. We’ve had an example this afternoon in the House from Lawrence Yule, whereby one of his farming constituents was saying he couldn’t even purchase rugby boots for his family to get to sport on the weekend or buy a washing machine for their family home. This is what is happening because the Government is not ensuring that compensation is happening fast enough.

Also, we had an example last week where the Minister Damien O’Connor got the cattle industries into his office and said, “Don’t worry about the Government-industry agreement (GIA) that you’ve signed up to.”—and 16 organisations have, which is all to do with a framework for funding biosecurity response and costs and things like that—“That’s all out the window. I need you to pay 40 or 50 percent of these costs.” That is not fair. That is outside the mandate that Cabinet agreed to in 2013, and industry and farmers and growers are now wondering whether the GIA is actually on toast—whether it’s going to be parked up because of political interference. These organisations went back to their farmers and growers before they signed up and said, “We need a mandate to sign.” So I will be fascinated to see, when they get back in the Minister’s office in the next week or two, whether they get bullied by the Minister to pay even more than what they should. Yes, we realise this is a big cost on the Government, but it’s hugely important—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

[What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.]

It is with pride that I rise today to take my first call and contribute to a general debate, and it is indeed with pride that I speak in this week, in the lead up to this Labour-led Government’s first Budget announcement.

Before I begin, though, I just want to address a point made by the previous speaker, Nathan Guy, who’s just resumed his seat, who, basically, has been quite vocal about the fact that he feels this Government cannot both invest in foreign affairs and also in the health sector. I’d just like to point out to him that we are the Government of “and” and “and”. We actually can invest in multiple sectors to make sure that all New Zealanders are better off. If he thinks that trade and that foreign affairs are not important to us, to New Zealanders, he should actually talk to some of his colleagues who were part of the delegation that, in fact, you led, Mr Speaker, recently, where we went overseas and talked about opportunities for New Zealand, many of them trade opportunities, from the point of view that we are a small country, that we are geographically distant, and that we are heavily reliant on trade—and it is important for us.

That leads me, actually, to my next point, which is this. During the campaign trail—and we’ve heard from members opposite what members on this side of the House have been talking about up and down the country on the campaign trail—I’d just like to remind them that their candidates waxed lyrical about the fact that New Zealand has enjoyed a strong economy. I just want to say this: it’s true, but the problem is that too few New Zealanders have benefited from that strong economy. On this side of the House, we do believe, in fact, that we need a strong economy here in New Zealand, because we believe strongly in shared prosperity. We cannot invest in the sectors that have seen nine years of underfunding and neglect if we don’t have a strong economy—and we get that. What we want to focus on, though, and what this Budget will lay the foundation for, is an investment in our people—which is the whakataukī that I started with. What’s the most important thing in the world? It’s our people, it’s our people, it’s our people.

As I stand here today and I look forward to what our Budget announcements will be, I reflect on the stories that people have told me of their lives. I reflect on the young mother I met in Maungakiekie who had moved overseas, like many; started a family; came back home to New Zealand with her children; and moved in with her family as a temporary measure, thinking, you know, “This is the suburb I’ve grown up in. I want to be close to my family. I’ll find a house and move into that.” A year later, when I met her, she was still sharing the three-bedroom house with 16 other people. She was afraid to uproot her children again from school and move somewhere else, because she couldn’t actually find a place to rent that she could afford, in a suburb that was one of the most affordable.

I think back to the principals of low-decile schools who have told me about their children coming to school hungry, who can’t concentrate. Where’s the learning if a child goes to school without any food? That is what we heard today as I sat through submission after submission on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. People who work in the sector told us how poverty affects children’s cognition, ability to function, health, and every potential indicator—every indicator—of the people that they are and the people that they are going to be.

I reflect on the international students who are sold one story, come to New Zealand, and find that the qualification that they end up with will neither get them a job here nor back home, but whose families are so entrenched in debt because they believed that they were sending their kids to New Zealand to get a world-class education. Our export education is actually a brilliant thing, but was jeopardised by the actions of the previous Government.

I think back to the small-business owners who have been robbed, who were assaulted, and who live in fear each morning as they open their shops that that will be the day that the offenders come back to finish their jobs. And I reflect on the fact that at a time when crime was actually increasing, the previous Government reduced police numbers.

I think back to the time that I spent in the family violence sector, where, as the member Jan Logie pointed out, often there were only two of us to work with women who were in incredibly unsafe positions, who have lauded this Government’s announcement of the first significant funding boost in 10 years. I reflect on the fact that this will be a Government of kindness and investment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would just like to remind the member who just spoke, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, and gave the Hon Nathan Guy a barrel about trade that the party on the opposite who is now the Government—or part of the Government—actually stood against the Trans-Pacific Partnership when we were trying to do it last year. And I would also like to make a comment—again, the Hon Nathan Guy brought up about the wool carpets. And every question I’ve put in to the Minister for primary industries about wool has come back very vacant about what’s happening with wool, and I have to say that was a broken promise that the New Zealand First Party were talking about—wool carpets—and they can’t call themselves the provincial champions when they go round breaking promises like that.

But what I really want to talk about today is the golden egg. That Government over the other side talks about the golden egg. It’s welfare. OK. We’re going to give everybody everything! I know there’s a fable out there, and perhaps this Government could learn a lesson about the goose and the golden egg. This Government is going through the process of killing off the geese that are laying the golden eggs.

And the Hon Damien O’Connor, who’s over there, was at the same farmers’ forum that I was at yesterday, and the Hon Damien O’Connor would’ve probably heard Cameron Bagrie giving his presentation in the morning. I don’t know if the Minister was there for that part of the presentation, but the message was that we are going to end up with a growth void.

Yes, we have to change. Every industry is looking at change, and every industry accepts that climate change exists, but we cannot jump to the idealistic state, and that is exactly what this Government is trying to do. We are going to end up with a growth void, and we are going to end up having no money to fund the social policies that this Government believes that they are going to fund. We will not change the climate of the world by killing our economy. We have to come down to scale.

We forget how small we are. We forget that we have some of the most efficient farmers in the world. And while we might not be a large country, we have a large, large impact on the export market. So what happens if we kill that goose that lays that golden egg? We will have less efficient farmers across the world supplying food products, and guess what that’s going to do for climate change? Absolutely nothing. It won’t reverse it, and it will probably, at some point, increase it.

I want to say the same thing, although this message has been said time and time again in this House, and doesn’t seem to be getting to the other side, which is that if we cut off our gas supplies, which are going to cut off much quicker than what this Government believes they are—because what happens is the horses are being spooked, and we can stand here and think, “Oh, well, that’s fine. We’ve got 30 years.” Actually, those permits do go out 30 years, but if we don’t build that bridge and we don’t get that transition, we are going to have a growth void. Because do you think that some of those companies are going to hang around in this country for 30 years and wait? And some of the science that we need to solve some of our issues doesn’t even exist yet.

So yesterday we heard that horticulture is going to be the answer to everything, and our leader, the Hon Simon Bridges, asked the Prime Minister about horticulture and who is actually going to be the people who are going to harvest the apricots. So another broken promise.

We talk about immigration. We heard a lot during the election about immigration and about how we’re going to cut the numbers in immigration. And, hold on! We’ve got nobody—nobody—who’s going to be wanting to pick our fruit. We’ve got nobody—we’ve had people getting up and talking about no jobs in regional New Zealand. Well, tell somebody who doesn’t go there that. Because I’ve got jobs in my electorate for plumbers and electricians and truck drivers and you name it—farmers, all those sorts of people. We have got to get our students and our children transitioning out of school into those jobs.

So the warning is that this may be a nuclear moment for the Prime Minister’s generation, but if the geese that are giving us the golden eggs kill our economy and then fail to reduce climate change, then it well may be a nuclear moment—[Time expired]

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.