General Debate

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I don’t know about the rest of the House, but I’m actually almost embarrassed for Clare Curran. I’m actually not kidding. I’m almost embarrassed for her, because that was actually a generally shambolic display of how a Minister should actually be able to control herself and answer questions in this House. The fact that she stands there and repeatedly says that her Gmail was available for her staff is simply, I find, further from the truth. When she answered questions that said she had not had meetings, and she has then had to come out to the Prime Minister and say that she did and that her staff knew nothing about it—did not have access to that information—one has to ask the question: why was she doing Government business through her Gmail instead of through the normal channels that would be expected?

I didn’t plan on standing up here and starting my general debate speech like this, but, actually, the fact that that was so poorly answered and with such obvious discomfort, one has to simply call it out for what it is. It is someone with something else to hide. I’m sorry, but it is someone with something else to hide, and it will be the Prime Minister who rues the day that she didn’t stand up with the courage of the high standards that she should be setting for her Cabinet Ministers and actually cut her loose right then and there.

We also notice the Prime Minister will not answer questions on Meka Whaitiri. We saw it yesterday. When was she advised that there was an issue, when did Meka Whaitiri tell her that there was an issue, has she asked her what actually happened, and can she trust her at her word as to what happened? If she can’t, that woman should not be in her job.

What the Prime Minister doesn’t understand is that this is not an employment issue. This is an issue of a Prime Minister trusting someone enough to give them a warrant to hold one of the highest positions of trust in this country, and any of the previous three Prime Ministers that I’ve known would have sat her down, looked her in the eye and said “Tell me exactly what happened.”, made a judgment as to whether or not that is a standard that she will accept in her Cabinet, and made a call on it. To kick it to touch for two to three to four weeks and then hide behind employment issues because she hasn’t got the courage to stand up as an actual boss—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’ve let the member go once. She is going to withdraw and apologise for the words she used.

I withdraw and apologise. To stand up and not have the conviction of the high standards that she should have with her Ministers is absolutely disgraceful—to hide behind employment issues, to hide behind yet another investigation or yet another one of these working groups that’ll work out what actually happened. I challenge the Prime Minister to stand up and have standards for both Clare Curran and for Meka Whaitiri.

The best one has to be Mike Williams going out there—the great bastion, Mike Williams of the Labour Party—and saying, “It’s not Meka Whaitiri’s fault; it’s Ministerial Services’, because Ministerial Services did not give training to Ministers in how to manage staff.” So we want them to have, what, $280,000 salaries, we want them to be responsible for millions of dollars and potentially millions of people’s lives as they go about their business, but they need training to not physically assault staff—yeah? They need to actually be told it is not appropriate to speak to staff disrespectfully or to allegedly assault them, because they haven’t got the means to do that, so they need training—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! There have been a series of interjections which I think are unhelpful from the Government benches. I think that sort of accusation against a former member who is not here to protect herself is something which is not appropriate.

Feeling a bit uncomfortable, I think we can see, quite clearly, about the truth finally coming out and the gloves coming off and the big shade of fairy dust actually starting to settle and not look quite as glossy as it did a little while ago. And then, of course, we have that wonderful gift that keeps on giving, which is a coalition Government where the left doesn’t know what the centre, what the middle, might actually be doing. Where are we at, by the way, on refugee numbers? So are we at 1,000—are we at 6,000? I hear 6,000 from the Green Party, and then counted—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I apologise for interrupting the member. We’ve had a clock problem. She has about 30 seconds to go.

There is a lot going on, as far as we can see, on exactly where they stand. Who’s going to blink first? Come on, let’s put some money on it. I mean, let’s be honest: the Greens are out. No one’s listening to them; they haven’t got any real stance on this. So here we’ve got—[Interruption] Will Labour fold? Amy Adams calling, “Labour will fold and it will be 1,000.” Someone said, “Maybe 1,250—they’ll compromise.” I reckon Winston, as he constantly reminds them—[Time expired]

Order! The Hon Phil Twyford. [Applause] Order! No, the member will resume his seat. When I call “Order”, I expect order, not ongoing defiance. If it happens again, there’ll be some serious consequences for the members involved.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Good to see a leadership bid come forth from the National front bench. They never clap like that for Simon Bridges, do they? They never do. Well, that was a pious lecture from the member who leaked the personal details of two beneficiaries while she was the social development Minister. It was her office who leaked the details on Hurimoana Denis to try and smear the personal reputation of someone who was embarrassing that Government over its record on homelessness.

Last week, we learnt about the home of Ms Dawn Robbie, her partner Cameron, and her two daughters—a three-year-old and a 10-month-old. They pay $520 a week in rent for a home that has beneath it an ankle-deep swamp underneath the house, an unusable flooded yard when it rains. When water from the swamp evaporates, moisture rises crumbling the home’s polystyrene underfloor insulation. It makes the house damp, cold, and mouldy, and Dawn told National Radio “It’s mosquito, rat infested. We’re living in shit, no offence, but that’s literally how it feels.” It’s been like that for the last 21 months since Ms Dawn Robbie moved in. Her daughter is getting bronchitis at 10 months old. Dawn herself has strep throat. This house is a symbol of the past, and it epitomises the need for this Government’s positive plan to build a better New Zealand, and it’s a perfect example of why we need to overhaul the laws on renting and implement the healthy homes standards.

Now, speaking of unhealthy homes, you only need to look across the aisle to see the perfect example of a swamp house. National’s caucus would not pass the healthy homes standards. It’s leaking, it’s cold, it’s not a nice place to be, at the moment, quite clearly, and no one living there has the power to do anything about it. National are stuck in a quagmire. It’s their very own swamp house—the perfect symbol for their management of the housing market over the last decade.

Four weeks on from the National caucus leak of Simon Bridges’ $114,000 travel expenses, National is still talking about a saboteur in their own ranks. Well, they need to drain the swamp. For a party that’s so against inquiries, they’re very keen to spend taxpayer money on an inquiry into who in the National caucus leaked Simon Bridges’ travel expenses. Apparently that’s focusing on the issues that matter. It’s very disappointing for them, because you can see it by the way they slump deeper and deeper in their chairs every time this is discussed in question time.

Meanwhile, the Government is getting on with the job and doing what matters, because we’re building houses. At the moment we’re building 6,400 additional public houses. We’re investing $4 billion in building thousands of extra State houses, because that side of the House reduced the number of State houses by 5,000 while they were in office—reduced the number of State houses by 5,000.

We’ve just embarked on the biggest building programme that New Zealand has ever seen—a hundred thousand affordable homes for young Kiwi families; something that they refused to do the entire time they were in office. They refused to build houses that young Kiwi families could afford to buy and to live in. We are on the way to building a thousand houses in the first 12 months of the KiwiBuild program—18 houses unveiled last weekend, another 12 to come by Christmas. Those 30 families will be the first KiwiBuild homeowners. They will wake up on Christmas morning in their own house—an affordable house delivered to them by this coalition Government. We’re also reforming the tenancy laws to make 600,000 rental properties in this country warm and dry.

Well, not even Phil Twyford’s colleagues believe that you can live under a press release or one of his announcements, because when he says with great pride that they’ve just announced a few houses, that’s not the 10,000 every year that they promised. It’s not going to be the 100,000 over 10 years that they promised. He’s become the “Minister for Kiwi Announcements”, certainly not KiwiBuild. That’s symbolic of a Government that after 11 months is looking like they’re tired and they are a shambles.

It’s one thing for him to be talking in most of his speech about the Opposition, but we didn’t hear a lot about the challenges they have holding three parties together in Government. It’s a Government in shambles. The Greens have their heads down on most of these issues. They’re swallowing rats as fast as they’re chucked from one side of the Chamber over towards them, and it is a Government that is lacking cohesion. It’s certainly not seeing the strong leadership that the country is used to over an 18-year period, and they have a crisis of ideas. But, by golly, they know how to spend taxpayers’ money. They know how to spend the money.

You see, the biggest problem they have is we have a Prime Minister that can’t say no to one of the parties in Government—just can’t say no to one of those parties in Government. We’ve a Prime Minister who made a speech last week to deal with business confidence. Two days later, the record low levels of business confidence came out and she has a Minister in her Government from a coalition party that actually rained on her parade. Not even one of Phil Twyford’s press releases could stop what a member of the coalition Government did to detract from the Prime Minister’s speech that very few, if any, of the business community have taken any solace from.

She said in that speech, jokingly, that she is New Zealand’s biggest employer. Well, Mr Speaker, let’s have a little look through at the people, I suppose, she directly employs, because she appointed them and gave them ministerial warrants. It’s a very long list. You’ve got Clare Curran. You’ve got Meka Whaitiri. You’ve got Shane Jones, Winston Peters, and I tell you after the answers in the House today, Acting Prime Minister Kelvin Jones—we’ll add him to the list. They’re all—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Kelvin Davis.

Kelvin Davis. We’ll add them to the list. Yes, that’s a point. Nobody knows his name when he’s standing there acting on her behalf.

Well, let’s go through them one by one. Clare Curran just stood in this House and answered questions. When asked about her Gmail account, she said “to the best of my recollection”. Well, to Minister Curran, that’s what got her into trouble to start with. Her recollection either isn’t there—it’s not befitting of a Minister, or it’s just not convenient for her to come to this House and answer questions and tell people what’s in her diary.

I think there’s a long way to go in this, but there shouldn’t be. The Prime Minister should hold her Ministers to account, as Helen Clark did and John Key did, and when a Minister has misled her not on one occasion but on a number of occasions, as New Zealand’s largest employer she shouldn’t say “Just move offices; it’s proportionate.” She should say to New Zealanders “That’s not good enough for me to have confidence in you. As New Zealand’s largest employer, I no longer have confidence in that Minister.” Anybody who watched Clare Curran in the House today certainly can’t have confidence in her.

Meka Whaitiri—this isn’t an employment issue. This is an issue of a Prime Minister that has appointed Minister Whaitiri to one of the highest positions that you can hold in this country, and to say that it’s an employment issue and that the Minister has gone home for a few weeks to her electorate is frankly not good enough. The Prime Minister has to have asked her what happened, and she either accepts her position or she doesn’t. She either believes that Minister or she doesn’t. She can’t say in this House, “I won’t give an answer, because it’s an employment issue.” Certainly, for the poor employee that needs all the support they should get in the very short time in working in this Minister’s office, they need to look at it from an employment point of view, but the Prime Minister needs to hold that Minister to account.

Then this week we have Winston Peters saying that actually the Government’s policy is not 1,500 refugees. The Prime Minister is saying that it is. Winston’s saying she is wrong. The Prime Minister says, “Well, it hasn’t gone through Cabinet.” Nobody knows what’s happening over there. Nobody can believe that Winston Peters and the Prime Minister talk to each other over these things. It is a shambles, and it’s not going anywhere quickly.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. Indeed, it is an honour to take a short call here today and to be part of a Government that is unashamedly focused on one goal, and that is a better New Zealand for every New Zealander. The coalition Government has come together, a diverse range of views and backgrounds, to form a Government that is going to focus on that goal for the 12 years that we will be in Government. We are out there listening, learning, and we are leading.

In my areas of responsibility across the primary industries, I have to say it’s a great honour to shift the focus for the primary sector. What I am trying to do is give them honest leadership. I’m not trying to pull the wool over their eyes. I’m not trying to promise them things that can’t be delivered through market forces. What I am saying to them is that this Government will give them clear guidelines and will help them to get more value for everything that they do. The previous Government simply said “Do more and you’ll be better off.”, without any consideration for the environmental impacts, without any consideration for the animal welfare impacts, or, indeed, the workload, or the inability to attract people into the sector. They simply said, “The market will deliver.” That idiocy can no longer continue.

We are a Government that will lead for New Zealanders to deliver us a better New Zealand. It came to a head two weeks ago in this House when this Government decided to intervene and make legislative changes to the NAIT system. Now—NAIT—you may say, what is NAIT? Well, National Animal Identification and Tracing. It’s kind of “NAT” with an “I” in it—“impotency” is what the “I” stands for, I have to say. The system simply didn’t work. When we got delivered Mycoplasma bovis from the previous Government, we had to go about trying to make some desperate improvements. The changes in the legislation last week that the Opposition jumped up and down about, filibustered on, and misled the farming sector out there about, saying that all sorts of dastardly things would happen, wasn’t really helpful. We’d decided to make some changes that were necessary. That is what we will do all through our term in Government. I want to work through some of the things that we have done.

I’d like to acknowledge my parliamentary colleagues and ministerial colleagues. The Hon Chris Hipkins is getting out and making the changes in education that are absolutely crucial, all the way from early childhood through to tertiary education. The Hon Phil Twyford is building houses for people who need homes. That’s what we will do; we will intervene, and we’ll take necessary action, not sit back on our hands and expect our mates in the markets to deliver, because that’s what a National Government does.

Can I acknowledge my coalition partners, New Zealand First and the Greens, who support the initiatives, the many of them that we are making in this area. We have set up, in the area of primary industries, Biosecurity New Zealand as a separate business unit in the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), because it’s so important. We’ve set up the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, because food safety is so important. Forestry, under Minister Jones, is going to get out and start planting trees and be the industry that it always had the potential to be but languished under the previous National Government.

Can I say that we are going to consider the issues of climate change. The Prime Minister has said it is the single biggest issue of our generation. As we travel around the world as Ministers, I think each and every one of us gets that message, whether it is in Europe or Asia or anywhere. Climate change is driving fear among many people throughout this world, mostly the poor, the people living in low-lying areas, the people who have no options. It is our responsibility to commit to reducing the impacts of climate change and to reducing emissions, and the agricultural sector is being considered for our part.

I know the farmers that are out there just want clear signals. No, they don’t want extra costs, but they see the value of investment for the greater good. They are prepared to commit to their communities. They are prepared to commit to the wider world and the welfare of the wider world. They just need to know what to do. We’re going to get on with that and give them a clear steer on that. We’re going to give them a clear steer on water quality and the tools to assist them. We launched, two weeks ago, in fact, the Extension Service Model Initiative from MPI. That is, MPI will no longer sit back on their hands and expect farmers to change. We will proactively go out there and share the information available that has been gathered from Crown research institutes and universities to share that with the farmers, to assist them to change their ways, and to get more value for everything that they do, not just “do more”.

I am pleased to speak in this general debate. I want to start with the quote from the honourable member, Damien O’Connor, that this is a Government that will be there for 12 years. Well, what about the last 12 months? That, for me, sums up the height of complete arrogance and incompetence. This is a Government—if you wanted to mess things up—that inherited a good economy, strong business confidence, and billions of dollars for public services. How would you stuff that up? Well, point number one: the first thing you would do is build a Government on false promises. We saw the Treasury papers in the last week. The reality is that Treasury are confirming what we have known, which is that this Government cannot deliver on its manifesto promises because they were never costed properly. There is a massive hole. We see it in education. The Treasury papers confirmed this week what Chris Hipkins has not said to New Zealand, which is that they are billions and billions of dollars out in education alone.

The second thing that you would do is you would have huge indecision and uncertainty. This Government is now at 150 reviews. There is a culture of arrogance and incompetence, but also of indecision and uncertainty. We see it with businesses. We see it with small businesses—are they going to get the workforce that they need in immigration? We see it around foreign investment—people don’t know what the rules are. We see it in export education. We see it in the education area because they’ve got more than 18 broken promises.

The next thing that you would do to create a culture of arrogance and incompetence, and a bad culture generally, is you would have a coalition partner that undermines you at every single step of the way. Well, let’s work through that. New Zealand First—three strikes—as Tracy Watkins said, pulls the rug out from underneath the Prime Minister. When it comes to the refugee quota, Labour is out there saying there’ll be 1,500 refugees; now nobody has a clue what the number is because New Zealand First continue to undermine the Government. Those are not the only issues, but it’s another brick out of this Government in terms of their incompetence and their arrogance.

The next thing that you would do is you would create complete incompetence around Ministers, and we have seen an extraordinary set in a few weeks. Low standards by the Prime Minister—Clare Curran already in the gun in terms of having secret meetings and not recording those meetings. She does it once, gets a slap on the hand; does it a second time—you would think that she would lose her warrant and that she wouldn’t be driving around in the VIP BMWs, but, no, she still holds that warrant and is outside Cabinet.

We obviously have that serious incident regarding another Minister, but then today I confirmed complete incompetence around other Ministers like Chris Hipkins. We know—he’s warned, in December of last year, about the legal risks in terms of the Waitangi Tribunal. There are Cabinet papers confirming that there are legal risks around the partnership schools policy, and he proceeds to ram through that legislation, puts his head in the sand, and pretends he doesn’t know what’s going on. Now we have major questions to answer about Crown Law confirming they did have legal papers served on them, but, still, he and his coalition partners ensure that we have to meet in recess and deliberate on a bill and not properly consider these legal considerations because of errors by Ministers and agencies.

This is a Government that, after not even 12 months in the role, has created a complete culture of incompetence, of arrogance, and of not taking responsibility. We see that in the way that their coalition partners undermine them, we see that in the 150 reviews that they have, we see that in the many broken promises because their fiscal costings didn’t add up, and we see that in the lack of responsibility and leadership from this Government.

What we have just seen from the contribution by the member who just resumed her seat, Nikki Kaye, is the reality of the National Party. They talk about the Government as if it is a single entity, a single party. This has been the challenge for National, and, unfortunately, even the 2017 election did not get them to understand an MMP environment—the way that coalition and supply and confidence actually works—and that is why they sit on those benches. That is why they have crushed—every partner they had in this House has been destroyed because that party cannot get themselves out of a first-past-the-post mentality. How unfortunate. They are looking at 2020 in the face and they still cannot get up to speed, but there you go—that is how it works.

On 29 August, this Government did something and announced something that is world leading: we announced the new Safety of Children in Care Unit by Oranga Tamariki. We did it because a previous review had shown us that we needed to make sure, as a nation, that we tracked harm to our children that we had taken out of the care of their families, had removed from trauma, and made sure that we were looking after them in the role of their parent for the time that they were in our care. So Oranga Tamariki did something that has never been done across the world up to this point: we have widened and recorded every piece of harm that may happen to a child in our care. That goes from falling over at school, falling off the jungle gym—in one of the incidents, a young person was out on a horse-riding event and fell off the horse—all the way through to: is there harm being done to that child by a carer; is there harm being done to that child by somebody else at their school?

The purpose of it is not only to record it, but within five to seven days action will be taken—if action is needed to be taken—to make sure that we have real-time reporting and that action will be taken, action will be recorded, and action will be made transparent and reported to New Zealand. We will hold ourselves accountable as a Government for the children in our care—world leading. We will hold ourselves accountable for the children in our care, in real time, and report to the New Zealand public, with the first report coming out around 31 December 2018.

This is a turning point for New Zealand Governments and how they make sure that they step up; that they don’t hide or work in secrecy, trying to deny the risk that there is when we make sure that the New Zealand public is aware of the work that we do. This is about making sure that we stand with each other, whether we be an NGO, whether we be a Government department, whether we be Ministers—that we stand up for our children and make sure, regardless of the risks of putting that information out there, regardless of what the risk is of telling the truth and the possibility that some people may actually take issue with that, may decide to take political mileage from it, that we will still stand up for these children; we will still face our responsibilities and hold ourselves to account. That is something that has never been done in this country before. It is this Government that has decided to do so now.

This is the first step and a long step, with the care standards coming; with the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill coming; with transition services coming; with raising the age and the care of mentoring for children that are coming out of our youth justice system up to the age of 25, for them to be able to remain closely connected to carers up to the age of 21; to making sure that we put strong educational facilities into our youth justice facilities—

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: What about our kids with special ed, Mahurangi College, Ōrewa College, Whangaparaoa College?

It’s very interesting. Mr Mitchell is shouting out about things to do with education, when I am talking as the Minister for Children about the most vulnerable children we have in this country, but Mr Mitchell choses to try and divert to something that is important only to him.

This is a large moment for this nation. We’re proud of the way we’re going to stand up and protect our children. We’re proud of the way that this Government has decided to be open and transparent and upfront with New Zealanders, and we’re going to put our children first.

Nothing is more depressing and humbling than having to follow Tracey Martin in the general debate, because there is a person whose greatest claim to fame was that she was a member of the board of trustees of Mahurangi College before she came into Parliament. As we all know, she is utterly incompetent as a Minister.

I was trying to work out, the other day, the dynamics of this coalition Government, and then I worked out the answer, because it reminds me very much of that excellent play by Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus. Doctor Faustus is the person who sold his soul to Lucifer in exchange for a few baubles, but at the end of the day Lucifer demands his price. He wants the soul of Doctor Faustus. You, Mr Speaker, from your outstanding academic days at Onslow College, would remember Faustus’ last speech: “Ah, Faustus, now thou hast but one bare hour to live, then thou must be damned perpetually. O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!” because Satan has come to claim his soul.

That is the dynamic in this coalition Government. [Interruption] Well, I don’t what they learnt at Petone Tech, but that’s what Greg O’Connor and I did at St Patricks College. I don’t know that Greg O’Connor actually went to class very much because he was too busy down the front grounds smoking. But I digress.

This is what happened in the negotiation with New Zealand First. They sold their soul to “Old Nick”, to Lucifer, whom we shall describe as the Rt Hon Winston Peters—the vanquished member of Parliament for Tauranga and Hunua and Northland—so that they could have the baubles of office. When they got there, they said to themselves, “Great, we’re here. What are we going to do?” And they had no idea, because they weren’t prepared for Government, but, slowly but surely, “Old Nick” has called in the favours. [Interruption] I’m not talking about Dr Smith; he’s “Young Nick”.

So we have the refugee debate. We have the debate about whether or not a building should be built behind Parliament. Everyone was in favour of it. Mr Peters was opposed to it, but what Winston Peters says goes. That’s the dynamic of this Government, and it’s a tragedy. I said to Russell Marshall the other day that the Labour Party has so much to be proud of in its history. Probably the best economic Government, other than John Key’s Government, was the tremendous Government that you, Mr Speaker, were a member of between 1984 and 1987, which did some wonderful work to make the New Zealand economy actually grow, and the Labour Party can be very proud of it.

But what they have today is a party that has sold its soul to New Zealand First, so they have to sit around the same table as the Tracey Martins of this world—she is demonstrably not up to holding the portfolios that she holds—who make a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to inquiries, and so on. And Fletcher Tabuteau is poncing around the world on behalf of Mr Peters, attending inaugurations—for example, of the President of Chile. These are people who, in most circumstances, wouldn’t even qualify as chairs of the rabbit board at home, but instead they’re holding ministerial portfolios—simply not up to it.

That is why I feel so sorry for the Andrew Littles of this world—because people who can make a contribution are shackled with these dreadful people, and, indeed, we have people like Clare Curran and others who have got into ministerial office, who simply haven’t got a clue about what they are to do—and the Meka Whaitiris of this world. It’s a tragedy for the Labour Party. It’s a tragedy for New Zealand. This is a Government that took office when it wasn’t ready for Government—people who weren’t ready for the great responsibilities that ministerial office demands of them. They haven’t got a clue about what they want to achieve in terms of policies. They’re reliant on old codgers like Michael Cullen to come up with ideas in the tax area and so on. All these reviews—it’s hopeless.

Malo ‘aupito, ‘Eiki Sea. Malo e lelei. This week it’s Tongan Language Week, and I greet the House in the language of my ancestors. The theme for Tongan Language Week in 2018 is “Fakakoloa ‘o Aotearoa ‘aki ‘a e ‘Ofa Fonua—enrich Aotearoa with the love of duty and service to country, community and people.” This, indeed, is the approach that underpins my life and my service as a member of Parliament, and as a Minister of the Crown.

When we came in to Government, we inherited a whole lot of issues. You heard from the Hon Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Phil Twyford, about the plans and what we’re implementing to address housing issues. We also inherited a lot of issues in terms of health and education. After nine years of not building enough houses, not investing enough in hospital infrastructure, not investing enough in the maintenance of our schools, there is, indeed, a lot of work for our Government to do.

We have a clear plan, though, to address these, and we are getting on with the job. We are a Government of action. We are addressing these issues and—just to go back to the housing issues—one of the things that we were confronted with when we came in was the fact that we were short 71,000 residential houses across Aotearoa. We also, as a country, are number one in the OECD for the rate of homelessness.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish.

We see homelessness, Hon Nick Smith, when we go to every single city, including out in the regions. You only have to walk through the shopping centre and you’ll see people who are homeless, right there, Hon Nick Smith. We are a Government that has come in to address those issues. It will take us a few years to build the houses that we need to house all of our people.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s getting worse.

About 50,000 people, we estimate now, Hon Nick Smith, are homeless, and it will take years to build houses to house all of our vulnerable people.

But I’d like to get back to education. The previous Government left us a billion-dollar shortfall to meet the demand for school property over the next four years. I’d like to acknowledge the honourable Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for the work that he is doing. He’s doing a whole lot of work, and he is leading a whole lot of work in the area of education—and today is also his birthday. Happy birthday, Mr Hipkins. One of the things that both the right honourable Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and Minister Hipkins did in the last couple of weeks is they went across Aotearoa and announced a whole lot of new school buildings—for instance, $24 million to modernise Wainuiomata High School, an additional $13.7 million to rebuild Redcliffs School in Christchurch, and $47 million to modernise Otumoetai College in Tauranga. There is a whole lot more. Mr Speaker, you heard the honourable Minister earlier on speak of the fact that there are about 100 other classrooms across Aotearoa. This Government is indeed getting on with the job.

This Government has also in the Budget of 2018 invested new funding, over $200 million, to support a further 1,000 of our Kiwi kids with high or complex needs, an additional 2,900 who are deaf or hard of hearing, and 1,500 low-vision students. This Government has also provided the first universal cost adjustment for centre-based early learning services, including for our kōhanga reo, since 2008, and this will benefit over 200,000 of our children and over 4,100 of our providers.

When we speak about hospital infrastructure, one of the previous speakers spoke about how we should listen to advice that comes through from Treasury. One of the pieces of advice that we’ve been given from Treasury is the fact that it would cost up to $14 billion over the next 10 years just to get our hospital infrastructure in all of the district health boards across Aotearoa up to the level where it should be. So it’s not actually a matter of whether this Government is actually investing in hospital infrastructure; we are. In the Budget of 2018, we put aside $850 million for infrastructure. You compare that to the previous Government: they put aside $150 million. So we are focused on what matters to our people in Aotearoa, and we are doing our best to ensure that we serve all of our people. Thank you so much, Mr Speaker.

This afternoon, I want to draw the House’s attention to the report tabled at 2 o’clock. Far from what the last Minister, the Hon Jenny Salesa, said in the House—that the priorities are housing, health, or education—what this report recommends is the biggest increase in the funding of Parliament in over 25 years: a 20 percent increase, an extra $13 million a year. It’s an insult to taxpayers. It’s a recipe for the parties in this coalition Government to rort the taxpayer for their political positioning.

The first thing this report proposes is deeply ironic, because in the controversial electoral law changes, members opposite have lectured us about the importance of the party vote; that the number of MPs must absolutely reflect the party vote—except when it comes to funding of political parties. What this report recommends is a guaranteed level of funding regardless of how many votes you get at the election. It is a rort for the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party, whose support is falling in the polls, and this report says that they will get 8 percent of the funding, even if their public support is a fraction of that. I say that is nothing short of a rort by Government parties to secure taxpayer funding.

And then we come to this next proposition, and that is that list MPs will get the same funding as democratically elected constituency MPs. Now, just by coincidence—just a coincidence—we have the first Government, after eight elections, dominated by list MPs. And guess what? They want to help themselves to another $5 million—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The report the member refers to is not a Government report. It is a report that has been prepared by an independent panel. It does have a former Labour MP and a former National MP on it, but it is not a Government report, so to attribute it to the Government is misleading and inaccurate.

💬 SPEAKER: It is misleading and inaccurate, but I think for me to stop a member because another member disagrees is inappropriate. If the member thinks that the Hon Dr Nick Smith is deliberately misleading the House, as opposed to accidentally misleading the House, then he knows his remedies.

At the beginning I made absolutely plain that this is a report tabled in Parliament today, of which the dominant influence is Annette King. It is a stitch-up job by this Government to get extra funding.

Now let’s come to the next point, and that is with respect to ministerial offices. What this report proposes is an extra 31 staff in parliamentary offices. They say that when they switch to being Ministers, their staff expands. I’ve done it twice as a Minister. Your staff goes up considerably, and they want to grab that extra funding.

There are also two very subtle changes. This report proposes that Parliament should not have to face the normal budget scrutiny for additional expenditure. It says that there should just be automatic increases for Parliament’s own purposes. That’s wrong. Parliament should have to face the same budgetary scrutiny for public money as every other Government agency. And I have to express concern that rather than the rules and the policy of funding being determined by neutral public servants, they are being politicised under this report. Now, it’s justified on this basis: that somehow we have to increase the funding for ourselves—that somehow the ratio of MPs to the population has radically changed. It has not changed. From the time of first past the post there was an MP for 30,000 people; it is about the same. The level of funding as a proportion of GDP has not changed.

Only a fortnight ago the Prime Minister announced that MPs would be giving up their pay increase. There was a saving of less than $1 million a year. This report proposes increasing Parliament’s rations by $13 million a year, and I challenge members opposite to say they will not support this report, that is nothing less than a rort of public money for party political purposes. During the time of the Clark Government, the expenses, in real terms, of Parliament went up by 25 percent. Under the nine years of the National Government, they went up by 5 percent. There is no justification for this big increase. Far from being concerned about the issues of New Zealanders, what is being proposed is the biggest increase not for education, not for health, not for infrastructure, not for security, but for Parliamentary spin doctors and political propaganda, and that is a very—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

I seek the leave of the House to table analysis that I have received from the Parliamentary Library on the real expenditure for Parliament since MMP was introduced.

The question is that leave be granted. Is there any objection? There appears to be none; it may be tabled.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Malo e laumalie, ‘Eiki Sea. For too long Aotearoa has been putting up with substandard rental properties for our citizens to live in, not the least the neglect that the previous National-led Government showed towards tenants in this country. I think we have to be very up front here that this House alone is actually not representative of people who need to rent to be able to live in a home, and especially not the previous Government. So we’re going to fix that mess up, and it is a heck of a mess. It is a heck of a mess that has harmed people’s lives and has interrupted people’s well-being—not least of all the children of this nation.

We heard the Minister previously speak about the “swamp house” in Papakura. We know that parents and families send their children to bed wrapped up with beanies and thermals. We know that people are sitting in homes where in the winter when they breathe they can see their own breath because of how cold it is. We know that over 56 percent of rental properties are mouldy or hard to heat. So we’re going to fix that mess up. Now, a lot of that could have been fixed in the previous nine years of a Government that had power and resources but not the political will and certainly not a connection to people who need to rent a home to live.

So we’re going to do that. We are doing that and I’m really proud to be working right alongside Minister Phil Twyford and his initiatives to make sure rental homes are more secure, that we have families who are actually able to put down roots whether they rent or own, and to also make sure our homes are warm and dry. These are two particular points that the Green Party has been strong on for nearly 20 years—for nearly 20 years—not the least going back to the 2004 Parliament where Jeanette Fitzsimons championed home insulation. Also, a shout out to my colleague Gareth Hughes, who has long been talking about energy efficiency—making sure that we have homes that are reasonable to heat without putting people into further hardship—and of course Metiria Turei’s member’s bills and campaigns for renters’ rights and secure tenancies.

So I am incredibly pleased that we are showing that we will actually do something about one of the most pressing issues for our people, to the point where we know that the previous Government has to sit there uncomfortably and try and find other things to nit-pick about—and I get that. [Interruption] All our Ministers do need to be up to standard—gosh, we would need extended urgent House sittings if we were going to talk about all of their Ministers falling foul of how we should behave in this House.

So, anyway, we’re getting on with the work of fixing up our rental issues in this country, because more and more people are renting: over half of our country—over a third, but over half are Māori, over two-thirds are Pacific. Renters are more likely to have children, to be women, to be disabled, to be on lower incomes. And so renting’s going to have to be a dignified way of life, not a second-class option. Rental laws that the Minister, with the support of myself and this Government, will be pushing through are going to enable us to have a warmth standard. Hello—something that that Government previously had nine years to do something about, we passed a law on within a year of coming into Government.

💬 Chris Bishop: We did it. We passed minimum rental standards. We passed minimum insulation standards.

There was no warmth standard. There was no warmth standard. For a long time, it has been recommended that we need to have something between 18 and 20 degrees as a minimum standard in these cold New Zealand homes, so we’re going to do all of that.

What we’re really doing here is making sure that homes are homes, that if you’re going to use houses as a business then you better be up to standard in running that well, and actually most of our landlords have been doing well. But for those who are exploiting tenants, are running a rort, and they’re causing harm to our families, well we are going to fix that up. It makes me incredibly proud to be able to stand here and be a part of that work, which is about turning our values to where they need to be. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, huri noa te whare nei, he mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Ā, tēnei te mihi o te whanauka o Te Moananui-a-Kiwa, e te whānau o Tonga, malo e lelei.

[Greetings Mr Speaker, and all in the House, greetings to you all. I greet you as a relative of the Pacific Islands; to those of you from Tonga, malo e lele.]

It’s really hard, trying to understand where this Labour-led coalition is going with their Māori strategy, taking into account that the Māori voters returned to Labour in droves at the last election. Now, if we look at it out in “Flax-rootsville”, what we actually see there is that they are bitterly disappointed in what has been served up to date. Even when we look at respected leaders in Māoridom like Sir Toby Curtis, Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi, Dame Tariana Turia, they are all becoming very, very despondent with this Labour-led coalition, and that is more about—when we look at the history, they have more Māori in Cabinet on that side of the House than ever in the history of this particular Parliament.

I think one thing that really scares them is when they hear things like “We have to legislate for the majority of people. We don’t live, in our world, around a measly, targeted Budget.” So when we look at that, what that actually refers to is that it was that Government that actually slashed the Māori budgets, and that is why it was such a measly Māori budget itself. And why did Labour slash that particular budget? One of the things that’s really important here is that it was very much around this policy of assimilation, because what they’ve done is they’ve taken a lot of the targeted Māori funding and put it into the general budget. And they’ve changed the narrative also. The narrative when we were in Government was “What’s good for Māori is good for New Zealand.” Here, they’ve turned it completely around and they’ve got, now, “What’s good for New Zealand is good for Māori.”

The reason why this particular coalition Government—Labour, particularly—do not want to see successful Māori is because they want to make them dependent on the State. They want to make them dependent on the State. So why would Labour want to reduce their voters by working for Māori success? Why would they want to do that? Well, they don’t want to do that, because successful Māori means less Labour voters. That’s how it is. I’m sure that when we look at this targeted funding, it’s both reduced and assimilated, and that’s part of the grand plan to keep Māori dependent on the welfare State.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Say hello to Don Brash.

Listen to them. Now they bring up Don Brash, absolutely. But look at you. Have a good look at yourself. National was always the party of tino rangatiratanga, and the situation there is that—what is tino rangatiratanga? It’s an expression of enterprise. It’s an expression of self-responsibility and hard work, and to do that, to get out of that and to have tino rangatiratanga, these people cross to the other side. These parties of the coalition don’t want to see that, whereas on this side we want to see independence from welfare and State handouts. We want to see independence from broken families, lack of housing; independence so that they can utilise their own land. And what have they done? They’ve taken away—they’ve thrown away Te Ture Whenua Māori Act reform. They called it the dirty, rotten, filthy Te Ture Whenua Māori Act, and saying that just sums up the disdain for Māori financial and economic independence. In their own words, they believe if you’re actually economically independent as Māori, well that’s dirty, rotten, and filthy, just like they said around Te Ture Whenua Māori Act.

At the end of the day, this particular tino rangatiratanga—that’s what we built on when you look at Whānau Ora, when you look at those education numbers, and when you look at the fact that we put more money into Te Reo Māori.

Malo e laumalie, ‘Eiki Sea. We have just seen from Nuk Koroko an example of why employers should invest in their staff and why personnel development is so important. After six years in the job, that member’s gone backwards in his ability to communicate effectively in this House. What a shocking example to our youngsters out there—that they might aspire to come to this House, and they look across the benches to the Opposition and they see that example of how to express and articulate someone’s views and vision. What a woeful excuse.

But it wasn’t an isolated incident. We have an opportunity for the Opposition to put their best foot forward now. They have had a pretty poor four weeks. After it was requested from their leader—rather poor judgment, in my view—to have an inquiry into which one of his MPs leaked the expenses two days before it was due to come out anyway, you’d think that they would take an opportunity today, on members’ day, here in the general debate, to show the country that they are a party that is forward-focused.

💬 Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Did they do it?

No, they did not. No, they did not. What we saw was an example of a party that is backwards-looking. One cannot tell me that rolling out Chris Finlayson as an example of the future, that rolling out the likes of Todd McClay—

💬 Darroch Ball: Nick Smith.

—sends a message to the populace that this is a party that our young party should aspire to. What about Dr Nick Smith? In 28 years I’m still struggling to understand what the member has contributed to his party and to this Parliament. They are a party that is focused entirely on internal issues, watching over their back, and trying to stop the knives going in, and today’s a prime example of just that.

They are not talking about the things that matter. They’re not talking about housing. What did the National Party have to say when our Minister—this Government’s Minister, this coalition Government’s Minister—the Hon Phil Twyford announced the largest investment in a long, long time in 6,400 more public houses across this country, up to 2022? It is a huge investment. It’s a recognition that there is a housing crisis facing this country that the previous Government, over the last nine years, totally ignored.

What does it say to their representatives of certain regions, like, I don’t know, their MP from Wairarapa, Alastair Scott? What does it say about his advocacy for his region, when over the last nine years there has been no investment in public housing? Yet as soon as there is a new Government, there are 80 new public houses in the Wairarapa electorate within the first year—just like that. That’s what happens when you get a Government that actually advocates and delivers for the things that matter to people here.

Let’s look at transport, another portfolio for the Hon Phil Twyford—a record $16 billion investment in transport across the country. In my patch, that is something that we’ve been screaming out for for years. We are a food-producing region with one particular difference to any other region of a similar ilk: we are in close proximity, with a commuter rail link, to the capital city. That rail link has been screaming out for investment over generations—successive Governments. All we heard from the previous Government was lip-service—promises of something, but never anything guaranteed or delivered. Within 12 months, this Government has invested—guaranteed the money to double-track up to Upper Hutt and invest in the Wairarapa rail line up to Masterton. It is exactly what the region wanted, what the three mayors have been screaming out for, what the regional council has been screaming out for, and what the previous Government completely ignored. They failed to give anything that’s going to give Wairarapa a chance.

Now, as a result of this coalition Government—one that invests in infrastructure, invests in housing, and invests in education—the people of Wairarapa have something to look forward to: economic growth, businesses and families moving to the region; actually giving people a chance. That’s what happens when you vote for a coalition Government and you ignore the neglect that National placed on this country over the last nine long years.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.