General Debate

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

What a start to the day: two weeks out from the end of the year and the Opposition is feeling it. I remember being 16 years old at secondary school and staging walk-outs just like that, but I had principled reasons for doing it, and I’m concerned that, actually, on the other side of the House it’s just general frustration and they’ve given up—they’ve given up.

We did notice who was left behind in their chairs, though, and couldn’t help but notice that it was the members who would probably contest the leadership. We had Judith Collins, we had Mark Mitchell, and who was the other one? I think we had Amy Adams left behind at the end of that wonderful walk-out. Then there were the few who probably have aspirations but wouldn’t have the votes: people like Nathan Guy and Michael Woodhouse. And then, of course, there’s always that one person who likes the drama, and that, of course, was the Rt Hon David Carter, who stayed behind to observe what was going on. But while that side of the House is staging walk-outs in frustration and because, two weeks out from the end of the year, they just can’t handle it anymore and they just want to go home, this side of the House is just getting on and doing the business.

One year into it and here we are, on this side of the House, with quite a lot to celebrate. In fact, listening to my colleague the Hon David Clark responding to questions from the Opposition, it may as well have been a patsy question from that side of the House, because he had the opportunity to talk about the mental health inquiry and the report that’s come out, a report that was commissioned by this side of the House because we care about mental health and we know that it’s been neglected for far too long because of a Government previously who took no action with regard to mental health. He was then able to reply that we haven’t been paralysed because of an inquiry and, in fact, over the course of the last year, he was able to tell Matt Doocey, “Keep in mind, we put $200 million towards district health boards—ring-fenced—for mental health, Matt Doocey.”

Keep in mind that, actually, we just announced the extension of the community services card, which is going to see hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders get access to low-cost primary health care. Keep in mind that we’ve rolled out nurses to decile 4 schools so that more of our children get the care they need. Keep in mind that we also rolled out the Mana Ake programme to primaries and intermediates in Christchurch and Kaikōura. So any accusation from that side of the House that we have been paralysed in the mental health space because of an inquiry is false, and clearly we’ve got lots of evidence to prove that that’s not the case.

That’s mental health. There are so many areas that I could talk about, but the one in particular—given that this will probably be my last chance in a general debate at the end of this year—after a year as the Minister for Social Development, that I really wanted to touch on was, of course, the Families Package. We came into Government very clear about what our priority was, and that was low to middle income New Zealanders. We showed that commitment by, within those first 100 days, committing $5.5 billion to those families. It was a shift away from the previous Government’s commitment to wanting to cut taxes, with a large proportion of those tax cuts going to the highest-income earners in this country. It was much more targeted, and it was the right thing to do.

I want to say that I’m very proud of the fact that we have rolled out changes and lifted the threshold with regards to Working for Families and that we have a new Best Start payment that recognises the importance of babies in this country, in those first three years in particular. I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve rolled out a winter energy payment that’s targeted towards beneficiaries, superannuitants, and those on veterans pensions. I’m very proud of the fact that all of those measures were done under this Government and were done with the right intentions and are targeting the families who need the support in this country.

A year into it, we’re energised. We could keep going. We don’t even need a holiday. Meanwhile, that side of the House is staging walk-outs because they just can’t handle the heat.

Well, one might call this an extraordinary day or they might not, because it’s just another day that we’ve had no answers from the Prime Minister whatsoever on serious issues that this Opposition is putting to the Government of the day. So yes, we want to hear from the Prime Minister what is going on in the Sroubek fiasco and what her involvement is, and whether or not she is going to stand up to a victim—a victim—of that man, and her Government is putting her in danger. So yes, we do demand answers, and, yes, we feel like we stand in this House, day after day, asking straight and direct questions and not getting those answers from the Government.

We will stand here, day after day, and ask questions on behalf of New Zealanders on serious matters that the Prime Minister can duck and can dive and can avoid and can just use a lot of words, but not actually say anything. She can virtue signal and make everyone try and feel better without actually answering the questions that the public deserves, and they know what the questions are. Day after day, they’ve been asked, and they have not been answered. That’s not extraordinary, because we get that in this House pretty much day after day, where we’re not getting answers directly to our questions that we’ve spent a lot of time on. We understand that that’s the modus operandi of this Government and how their “most open and transparent Government”, I have to say, of the day chooses not to answer questions that are put to them straight, but instead to talk around them.

So that’s not extraordinary in many respects, but, yes, it is extraordinary. It’s extraordinary today that we saw the Leader of the Opposition and our shadow leader of the House thrown out of the House, and that is extraordinary. It’s extraordinary in many respects and, I think, a shame for this House, actually, that we’re seeing that kind of thing happen. It’s a shame that, actually, they did call it out, as they needed to. I find it extraordinary that we have had the shadow leader of the House thrown out for what I thought was a very benign comment, but I suppose that’s your judgment to make, and the judgment, Mr Speaker, that you have made.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As someone who’s previously been ejected from the House for reflecting on the Speaker’s decision to eject another member, I wonder whether, in fact, this has gone on long enough. It is out of order to reflect on a decision of the Speaker to ask someone to leave the Chamber.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Speaking to that point—

💬 SPEAKER: No, I don’t need any assistance, thank you. The member can continue. I think it is an important decision, and discussing around the principles of it, I think, is not a problem.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m purposely not repeating the things that they have said because I acknowledge that you have made your call and I respect you for that—in fact, I respect your position in this House. We need a Speaker that is here and that is doing it, and, in that context, I’m going to get back to the Government of the day and the fact that we are not getting the answers that we need.

I can understand the pressure that is going over when you can see a Leader of the Opposition that’s actually making a difference and that has an Opposition party that’s currently at 46 percent in the polls—so that makes the Government very uneasy. We can understand that the Prime Minister’s not feeling as strong at the end of the year as she may have been feeling at the beginning of the year and that that pressure is coming on the Government. I mean, we don’t see a plan for this country. Actually, I was thinking that, at best, we see ad hoc policy made, and at worst, what we’re seeing is actually horse-trading going on between three parties. So it’s like “We’ll give you this if you give us that.”, but it’s not whether or not that is the best thing for New Zealand and fits in with an actual plan for how we get this great country of ours actually thriving and going better.

So the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Simon Bridges, will stand up in this House and he will challenge the Government daily, and he has a right to do that. I can acknowledge that the Prime Minister has a right to talk around it and not answer anything, and to think that that’s pretty clever and that that’s pretty smart and that that’s the way that it wants it, but I think that we’re seeing the results of that. I think the public is standing up and saying, “We want some straight answers from the very straight questions that we’re getting from the Opposition.”

Actually, it is quite serious, because this Sroubek fiasco is incredibly serious. There are still questions that have not been answered by either the Prime Minister or the Minister of Immigration, and now there are questions for the Minister of Police as well. We have a woman that is under protection who feels incredibly unsafe and we have officials that have gone there that should not even know her address, and the Prime Minister and the Minister of Immigration should see that for the seriousness that it is and should be asking those kinds of questions. So when our leader today stood up and asked those questions of the Prime Minister after the fiasco that we’ve had from the acting Prime Minister in the House answering on her behalf for the last couple of question times—for that to have been dismissed, then, yeah, that makes him a bit angry.

I want to start off by acknowledging the Hon Simon Bridges, in one of his questions earlier on today, for empathetically relating to someone who was feeling—quote—“vulnerable, exposed, and under threat”. The fact is that right now, as he looks around him, he would know all about that. I want to reflect also on his very, very vibrant support earlier in the week, the Hon Alfred Ngaro’s drive to make life jackets compulsory. They’re very, very useful when you’re about to be thrown overboard.

In a spirit of generosity, though, I do want to turn towards the National Party front bench and acknowledge the clear and decisive leadership, the consistent enunciation of clear, progressive values, and the skilful holding of the media spotlight. That’s right—it’s been a very good 2018 for Judith Collins. The problem that that Opposition has at the moment is that after a year of progress under this coalition Government, they simply cannot move out from underneath the shade of bitterness, anger, and resentment that came over them in October of 2017. Until they can do that and actually move into a more positive mode of engagement with the issues that actually affect New Zealanders, they are going to stay on that side of the House.

That is just fine over here, because we are getting on with the job of investing in the well-being of all New Zealanders. We’re doing that through investing in the basics, in the things that make a difference in real people’s lives in our country: decent and affordable housing, affordable and accessible healthcare, a good quality education system, and making sure that the working people of our country are rewarded fairly for their efforts, which has always been something important on this side of the House. We’ve heard about it today: only this week, on 1 December, a new package of initiatives coming in out of Budget 2018 to make sure that Kiwis have access to affordable healthcare—56,000 thirteen-year-olds now able to access free primary healthcare, and what a difference that is going to make in our communities up and down the country. When you’re a parent, the most important thing is ensuring that your kids are healthy and well looked after, and this is going to take away that barrier of additional cost that was holding back some of our kids from getting the healthcare that they needed. Five hundred and forty thousand community service holders are going to get cheaper primary healthcare—an average of a $20 or $30 per visit reduction in the cost that those New Zealanders will face when they go to the doctor.

That was the different choice, the different priority, of this Government. Rather than putting the money into tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit the most well off, we said it’s the housing, the healthcare, and the education of all New Zealanders that is the most important thing. After one year, we have made so much progress in those areas.

How about the 6,400 new State homes that were funded in Budget 2018? On this side of the House, we know the reality of homelessness and unaffordable housing in this country. It’s a reality that this Government, unlike the previous one, faces up to. We don’t just mouth the words in Opposition; here in Government, we are putting the resourcing in to make sure that New Zealanders have the decency and the dignity of affordable and decent housing. For those Kiwis who are striving away hard on minimum wage jobs, this is a coalition Government across New Zealand First, Labour, and the Greens which believes in a decent minimum wage, which believes in the living wage for more and more New Zealanders, so that those people can put the work in and stand on their own two feet by earning enough to live on with some dignity.

As well as all of those initiatives across housing, health, and education, I think, after one year in Government, one of the things that I am the most proud of is that this is a Government which is in tune with the spirit of justice, decency, and kindness that lies at the heart of the New Zealand national identity. I look back to things like decisions that our Minister of Justice, the Hon Andrew Little, has made, making sure that Teina Pora received his compensation after all of those years of suffering and injustice, when he was treated with callousness and bureaucratic indifference for so many years under that previous Government. I think of the pride that we feel on this side of the House to be a Government that is doing something proactive to try and find out what happened at Pike River and bring those 29 men home if we can.

This is a Government which is in tune with that spirit of decency, of kindness, and of New Zealanders working together. We are not a Government that leaves people behind; we bring them along because we are a stronger country when all New Zealanders are brought along on our national journey. It’s been one good year of progress, and on the evidence of today, we are looking forward to many, many more. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

It’s ironic that the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand stood in this House and attacked a woman that was brave enough to come forward and actually tell us, share the information, and say that she had submitted under duress a letter of support to someone that didn’t deserve a New Zealand residency. You know what? They called her a “National informant”, because they don’t get it. They don’t understand it.

I had a gentleman come to my office three years ago. He was a Labour candidate. He ran for the Labour Party. He was coming to see me because he’d been to see his own team—they wouldn’t help him with an issue, so he came to me. Did I say, “Oh, sorry, you’ve been a Labour candidate. I’m not going to assist you. I’m not going to help you.”? No, I didn’t; I actually helped him with his issue, because that’s my job as a member of Parliament. I don’t care whether you support New Zealand First, I don’t care whether you’re a supporter or member of the Labour Party, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, or the National Party—if you come and ask for help and support, you will get it. That’s my job.

The mere fact of the matter is that, actually, the estranged wife of Karel Sroubek has never been a member of the National Party. She has never been involved with the National Party. She’s never been involved with politics, full stop. The first point of contact for her, when she realised that she was in trouble because this Government was making bad decisions, was a retired Labour Cabinet Minister. That’s who she went to for assistance, and, actually, he gave her good advice—good, balanced, objective advice.

I want to take my time to put the record straight. I had a meeting this week with the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway in his office, with three of his officials and with the Hon Michael Woodhouse, who was our immigration Minister for five years—a fair bit of experience there. We could tell immediately that the immigration officials were very uncomfortable with the information that we were talking about and the information that was contained in that original file that the Minister had used to make his decision. It became clear very early on that they felt that they had put up a compelling case. They’d reached the threshold not once but twice with the information that they had in that file.

The Minister was left with no choice but to deport—to deport someone that had come to New Zealand on a stolen identity, had arrived here, had travelled several times back to a country that he said he wasn’t safe in, and when he came to New Zealand, he decided that he’d get involved in the drug importation business. He decided that he’d start to deal drugs. He decided that he would associate with Hell’s Angels gang members, that he’d kidnap people, and that he’d stand over people. He had charges back in the Czech Republic for badly assaulting two police officers and a taxi driver.

So when it came time for him to make his residency application, what did he do to his ex-wife? His estranged wife, the wife that is no longer with him—a Kiwi citizen, a young lady that came to this country at 17 years old—

💬 Hon Todd McClay: For a better life.

Exactly, for a better life. She has become a citizen, has got a very close adopted family around her that, thankfully, have come around and supported her through what’s been the most traumatic time of her life. She realised that, actually, this was a bad guy. She left. She tried to get out of it. He came to her asking for a letter of support, which she declined, and he put so much pressure on her, including a taped telephone conversation where if she didn’t put the content of the letter that he wanted, then she was going to get a visit from people that were going to persuade her to do that—she was going to get a visit from people to persuade her to do that.

When I read that letter myself when I got it—when I read the letter that this Minister of Immigration came to this House and stood here and told all of us that he had reviewed that file and he was going to stand by his decision—I could tell within the first 30 seconds that it was completely contrived. If I was the Minister, the first thing I would’ve done to my officials is say, “Go back and verify this. Go back and speak to the estranged wife, because this looks completely contrived.” Not only was it completely contrived; actually, it was pretty weak. It was very, very weak—which brings us to the next point.

We want to know who the representations were made by. Who made those representations? This is the key. This has got a horrible whiff about it, and every day, as we go on, that whiff just keeps getting strong and stronger. Who made the representations? That’s the real key to the worst decision this country has ever seen made by an immigration Minister. Yeah—you can have that look on your face, Mr Speaker. I defy anyone to show me a worse decision that has been made by an immigration Minister when you take into account public safety and you take into account someone that came to this country on false pretences and then engaged in a life of crime, intimidation, and assaults.

Jealousy is a sin. Jealousy is riddled through the other side of the House. Number one, we have the leaks anonymously flowing day by day; secondly, we have the bullying, the echoes of which grow day by day. In fact, we are now marrying the bullying to the leaking. But how did the leader decide he would quell this new type of destabilising activity, reaching levels we haven’t seen before? He decided, with his top team this morning, that they would stage a deliberate walkout—a clearly conceived, orchestrated campaign, under the rubric of changing the narrative.

Well, the narrative is, number one, a deeply divided, tired group of politicians who have not achieved much of anything on that side of the House as they come to Christmas; a large group of youngsters desperate to seize control of the agenda, and then to go and begin deliberately leaking, like the Wally Haumaha - related leaks. And what did that show? It showed that the man had a completely clean bill of health despite the fact of deliberate, poisonous, insidious leaks from backbenchers on that side of the House.

Now, unfortunately, that drip, drip—not unlike Chris Carter in days of old—is starting to intrude within their own esprit de corps, within their own ethos. But I have read recently—in fact, last week—that scientists in America have determined that alien life is already here on Earth. It’s sitting on the other side of the House. They are alienating themselves from whoever they conceive to be their supporters. They are relying on alien-like sources of information to drip down into the various silos of the fourth estate.

Meanwhile, with my characteristic modesty, I toil in the vineyards of the provincial New Zealand economy. I have had the pleasure of showing up how lacklustre and disinterested the Aussie-owned banks are in working effectively with New Zealand businesses. And what do we see from the other side of the House? Defending those stupendous salaries; defending that extravagant, unfettered level of privilege enjoyed by the Aussie banks. But wait: my colleague who sits over here, Mr Faafoi, has a profound body of policy work under way, and I only hope the remit passed by my party, the remit imposing a long-overdue levy on the uncaring Aussie banks that are hollowing out regional New Zealand.

I’m also, I have to say, continuing to plant trees. Now, some might say, as I did on telly, that I’m Hana Kōkō—a bit like Santa Claus. There has to be a bit of colour and personality. I have to say, I am not Oprah Winfrey, but there is probably a tree under your chair, Mr Mitchell.

We will not be deterred from working with NGOs, working with businesses, and working with the banking fraternity that those who seek to redeem themselves—because coming their way is a whole host of bad news from the royal commission in Australia, and when that news comes out, I guarantee you that they will be seeking ways to work more effectively with our Government, because what we smell on that side of the Tasman, it’s impossible that such a taint is not on this side of the Tasman. But that pleasure awaits the banking industry and those reformers, lucid thinkers, and clean pairs of hands, like the first provincial citizen standing before you.

Now, I want to wind up here and say it’s very disappointing that New Zealand voters have seen our colleagues on the other side of the House abandon the ship. They say that before the ship strikes aground, the rats go first. As we say in Māori, ko te kiore puta wau—the rats go first. Well, I’m not going to condemn Mr Simon Bridges to that kind of epithet, but the fact that today he’s seen wearing a life jacket as the waka goes down and they all flee—very portentous—very portentous.

I want to start by thanking the Hon Shane Jones for his sermon today. He may be good at saving souls, but he’s not going to solve the problems the current Government faces. He has another crack at the Aussie banks, suggests they should pay a levy of $100 million because they shut down the odd provincial bank around the country. He’s the associate Minister for State-owned enterprises, and Kiwibank and New Zealand Post are closing branches all around the country—all around the country. There’s a word for it, Mr Speaker—it begins with “h”, ends with “y”. I won’t dare use it; you’ve had enough difficulty today, but it’s fairly obvious to most people who listen to the Hon Shane Jones.

Today, I have never seen a Prime Minister look so uncomfortable. As we continue to ask questions about one Mr Karel Sroubek—

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: I can list many times: Bill English, John Key.

—the Prime Minister dodged all the questions today. She might think the story will go away over the Christmas break; I’ve got a message for her: this story won’t go away over the Christmas break. When we come back in February and work through to March, mark my words, Hon Damien O’Connor: the truth will come out—the truth will come out.

But today, I wanted to devote my time to asking the Hon Shane Jones what’s going on with Landcorp. Landcorp claims to be a leader of the New Zealand agricultural sector. A lot of farmers I know don’t particularly like Landcorp, and after the events of the last few days, most farmers will despise Landcorp, under Mr Jones as the responsible Minister, because what Landcorp did is they went to the Tax Working Group not on time. Somebody asked them to put the submission in. It was one month after all other submissions had closed. Every other submission—6,700 of them—went immediately on the website; for some very strange reason, the Landcorp submission did not go on the website. When we finally got hold of a copy of it, it advocates for a nitrogen tax, a water tax, and a capital gains tax. I ask the Hon Shane Jones, as the responsible Minister for Landcorp, what’s Landcorp doing even making a submission to the Tax Working Group and advocating for three new taxes which will damage the agricultural sector more than any other sector in New Zealand?

Note that Mr Shane Jones has gone quiet on this occasion—the first citizen of the provinces hasn’t got an answer to my question. When he goes back to his office, I suggest to him that he have a look at the board of Landcorp, because he said in the House today that they knew that a submission was being made. He didn’t tell us in the House today whether they knew what was in that submission, but I suspect that if they look carefully and ask the question of the board, he’ll find the board were absolutely hoodwinked by that submission. And if they weren’t hoodwinked, then what he should do is look at the qualifications and the suitability of every board member on Landcorp. Because if they’re going to be there advocating against New Zealand farmers—

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: A bunch of tired old Tories you have there.

It might suit the Hon Damien O’Connor, who’s not respected by New Zealand farmers and not admired by New Zealand farmers—he’s known not to be an advocate for New Zealand farmers—but don’t let the same thing happen to Landcorp.

While the Minister Shane Jones goes back to his office to sort out the Landcorp board, he needs a board that will sort out the management within Landcorp. The environmental reference group, under the chairmanship of a Marnie Prickett, and also supported by the likes of Guy Salmon and Dr Alison Dewes, will not be there advocating for New Zealand farmers. When he has a look then at the chief executive Mr Steve Carden, get the board to ask the real relevant questions. Because I’m told Mr Steve Carden intends to stand for the Labour Party at the next election, and if he does he should resign his job now and stand as a candidate for the Labour Party and take his chances at—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

Mr Speaker, thank you, very much. Whoo! What an afternoon. I was just saying to people over the weekend when they were saying, “Look, we don’t want to watch”—[Interruption] Whoo! When I was trying to convince them to watch the parliamentary TV, then what better TV to watch this afternoon? But can I just say that when I dropped off my 3½-year-old yesterday, it reminded me of just that. There was talking here. They couldn’t hear it properly. Someone stormed out. Someone told someone else. And then the whole lot sort of stormed out of the room from getting the plasticine into the sleep room. Amazing! Who would have thought, 24 hours later, I’m seeing it in the Parliament of New Zealand. But here it is, throwing toys out. God, how exciting! And what was more exciting, actually—I was just watching the member for Hutt South, Chris Bishop there. He was thinking, “Is this my chance—is this my chance?”

💬 Kiritapu Allan: A contender.

No, no, no. He was. He looked around, back, forward, and over there: “Is this my turn?” He sort of had the package ready to go, and to go from there to there—like, “Could I do it?”

💬 Jamie Strange: He had the press release ready to go.

Could he do it? He had the press release ready to go, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, anything else, and he was ready to go—Heather du Plessis-Allan as well, over here. But look, he was ready to go and I thought “Is this it? Am I going to witness an historic moment?” But it wasn’t to be. Look, this could have been true history in the making, but not today. So the anger, the frothing at the mouth, the kids play, the toys—whoo! I’m excited.

But what I want to say is this: I’m really excited at the fact that it’s taken me about six months to get a speaking slot in the general debate.

💬 Hon Member: And you’ve wasted half of it.

Yeah, yeah. No, no. They always save the good ones for the exciting moments, and that’s why I’m here today. They roll me out because they know that today is going to be the big day, and it happened when I last spoke and it happened again this afternoon. I always get the big days. I love it. I don’t know why. It’s karma. I don’t know why. But in that speech I talked about the dark clouds over the Rongotai electorate, but guess what? On Friday, the dark clouds were removed because the Rt Hon Prime Minister came and opened my electorate office and instantly, the 150 people—National Party voters, I have to say, were added into that list—looked up in Newtown and the skies opened and what they saw was hope. They saw heart. And that’s what the Prime Minister spoke about. She spoke about hope and heart, and I thought “Now, that’s a Prime Minister giving people the real message.” Look, I was just so relieved that when I looked up, I thought, “No more. No more dark clouds. We’ve given people hope.” She talked strongly about an MP who had heart—that’s me, by the way. It was me. And I thought: what can we put on the electorate office wall—maybe a painting of a heart or my photo with the Prime Minister? But I digress. What I want to talk about, really, is the hope that she gave and that this Government is giving to at least the people of Rongotai but, I know, all of New Zealand.

Look, I come back to that familiar ground that I love talking about, and that’s housing. Everywhere I look in Rongotai, there’s houses being built and I think “Thank you.” to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development—this new cut-through agency, the Urban Development Authority. What a name. It’s going to get building, it’s going to look after tenants, and it’s certainly going to work with the private sector and the community, to say “Let’s get building again.” I have the electorate where the first State house was built and opened. I only wish they’d open the first KiwiBuild house in Rongotai too. Never mind, there’ll be a new initiative and I’ll make sure that Rongotai gets the benefit of that too.

But I digress again. This is a Government that’s delivering hope, with MPs and members of a coalition Government who truly have heart. Look, can I encourage those who are watching—all seven of you—that this is the channel to watch. This is where the excitement comes from. And, look, when I’m back in nine months’ time, Mr Speaker, you can expect another riveting speech—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Look, I’m very pleased to speak in this general debate. I just want to start by following on from the member that we’ve just heard, Paul Eagle. [Paul Eagle gestures to another member] Why doesn’t that member—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat, please. That sort of action between two members is not appropriate within the House. If the members want to carry on that way, they should leave the House.

I just want to follow on from that member and ask that member if he really would turn up to the tens of thousands of teachers in New Zealand that have said they’re going to be striking at the beginning of next year and tell them that this Government is about hope and heart, given that we have had not only three offers that have been rejected by the teachers but also that this Government has, what I consider to be, a bit of a five-step plan for those people that disagree with them.

The first step in that plan is to blame National. Despite having billions of dollars in surplus—billions of dollars in surplus—they will blame National even though we had the global financial crisis and the earthquakes. We see that on every issue. We’re 13 months in. There is no responsibility whatsoever taken by one single Minister. Every time they get up—and we hear it from the members of the public—it’s always National’s fault.

The second thing that they do is they run a mile from their promises. So in education alone, as I said before, we have got strikes looming. They made huge commitments. They said they were going to end donations. Chris Hipkins went and told Hilary Barry he was going to end donations in the first Budget. It hasn’t happened. They promised that there’d be a special education coordinator in schools. They’ve scaled that back. They promised that they were going to modernise every single classroom. Again, we don’t hear anything about that.

The third thing that they do is they run down anyone that criticises them. And we see that all the time, in Opposition. An example of that is these videos that have appeared around the strikes. We’ve never heard of this before: Ministry of Education propaganda videos around the Government’s offer. But, again, they run down those people that criticise the Government, because that is part of their strategy to stay in power.

Let’s look at this particular issue. If you’re a teacher that thought that you were promised more than 19 education promises that haven’t been delivered—what they then do is they give their money to their coalition partners. So who’s getting money? In November alone, we have seen—and I take the Minister’s point—somewhere between $700 million and $900 million more expenditure. Who is that going to? It’s going to Shane Jones and other members, to ensure that the Government stays in power. It’s going into trees and racehorses, rather than supporting teachers around their workload and pay. The reality is that that is part of their plan to stay in power, and that is a bad culture.

Look, many members in this House—as I’ve said before—come here to make a difference. We want to support teachers. The reality is that there are teacher shortages at the moment. National did an amount, but we need to ensure that, through this collective bargaining, we do support teachers. This Government has billions of dollars in surplus, and it is not OK to say—like Chris Hipkins said—that there’s no more money, when more than $700 million has been announced in the last month alone; when $2.8 billion has been given to tertiary students, and might I add that that is a failed policy because we are not seeing the participation and we are not seeing disadvantaged groups being helped. So it’s quite right for a number of teachers to be out there saying, “What about us? Why are we not the priority?” And I’ll tell you what, parents support them. The conversation that I’m hearing at the school run and the conversation that I am hearing on the ground is that this Government rode into power with a group of coalition partners that promised a kinder country, and the people that they are not supporting are teachers. When it comes to pay and workload, at a time when we’ve got larger choices, they have the least priority.

Trees are a priority, racehorses are a priority, tertiary students are a priority, but what does Chris Hipkins say? He basically calls them greedy. He goes out there with a propaganda campaign. Well, here’s my message to the Minister: people remember broken promises. You have a once-in-a-generation chance to ensure that we do the right thing around workload and pay. Teachers have sent a very strong message with three rejections of the offer. Get back to the table—unlike what he told us today—and provide another offer so that we can ensure that we’ve got teachers in classrooms and that we don’t continue to have the disruption that we’ve had.

This is a Government that runs down critics. This is a Government that doesn’t prioritise areas like education. This is a Government of failed promises.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I want to speak about the most recently released—released yesterday, actually—report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction. It was, obviously, released yesterday. This report encompasses the findings—having spoken to 2,000 people at 26 meetings around the country, and of 5,200 submitters.

I want to speak to the breadth of this consultation because I think that it’s incredibly important to drive home that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The last inquiry which we saw into mental health in this country—the last nationwide inquiry—occurred in the 1990s, after the 1980s through 1990s closure of a number of institutions, whereby people who were institutionalised were released back out into their communities. A kind of moral panic response resulted, and it was important that we as a society looked into how we best look after each other.

However, this inquiry goes far broader than those past inquiries. It has far wider terms of reference, particularly in looking beyond the health sector and services and into social determinants of mental ill health. But, notably, it also goes further than just looking at mental ill health by itself, and includes the problem of addictions and abuse of alcohol, gambling, substances, and other drugs. Notably, 50 to 80 percent of New Zealanders will experience mental distress or addiction challenges or both in their lifetime and a large number of people will experience those two things coexisting. I just want to point to something which is mentioned in this report as a result of those numbers of submissions, where the inquiry board says “We were told that addiction is the opposite of connection, a taniwha that isolates users and holds them in its grip.”

What are we talking about when we talk about mental health and addiction? I think if we flip the issue on its head, ultimately we’re talking about well-being or, perhaps, a lack thereof. We’re talking about things like community, care, kindness, empathy, connection, purpose, and meaning. And those last two are critical, because purpose and meaning are critical to a sense of identity and a sense of belonging and a sense, indeed, of well-being. But it is difficult to find that purpose and that meaning if you can’t navigate your way through life under enormous amounts of stress and strain. Over the past few months, I’ve been travelling around the country speaking at hui, particularly to university students, on the issue of mental health, and I think someone put the point most eloquently when they said that they can’t afford to make mistakes.

When you can’t financially, emotionally, or otherwise afford to make mistakes, you can’t find your feet. When it’s too expensive to do that, I think that it’s a matter of course that people are experiencing mental ill health and issues. These environmental factors of income, health, education, and housing are critical, because more and more research and evidence is showcasing that that’s how most mental health issues end up emerging, and even if you have underlying psychological or biological susceptibility, it is exacerbated.

The biggest factor that informs the environment that we as people and society live in is our culture, and culture, by definition, is a shared set of values. We do not presently have a culture that values or prioritises well-being. We do not currently have a culture that values or prioritises people. Instead, we seem to have a culture which values individualism and competition—which isn’t by itself a bad thing, but is when it runs away from us and turns into a culture of isolation.

I think that this culture is, unfortunately, perhaps, most manifest in our Parliament and our parliamentary culture, which, I note, is supposed to be representative of Aotearoa New Zealand. In this House I have sat here and I have listened to jokes about the mental health of other members and about the drugs or medication that they may be on. Today I am standing up and saying that that is not good enough, and we, as representatives in this country, have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. I presume we will have a conversation about the expenses inherent in this report, but good manners don’t cost anything. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, this morning Chris Hipkins, the Minister of Education, announced the co-location of Marlborough Boys’ and Girls’ Colleges on the Bohally McLauchlan Street site, which is a very good decision which I applaud. However, while the announcement has been welcomed, I note through my Official Information Act documents that I requested that, in fact, the Minister delayed this whole process by going back and revisiting the business case. So we are now 12 months down the track and we have exactly the same position that we did prior to opening that up. So we’ve lost 12 months; the work is virtually stopped where there was a whole lot of work that could be done before a site was selected—and there were some problems in finding a site, I admit that, and it was quite difficult to find an appropriate site. However, one has been found and Bohally will go over to Marlborough Boys’ College. We’ll have two colleges located on the same site, which will be a massive opportunity for the education prospects in Marlborough, because we can now have a wider range of subject choices with the two colleges being co-located.

Also, there is the opportunity for a major step change with the likes of the New Zealand School of Winegrowing which is operating in Marlborough, which is quite an innovative innovation in Marlborough where level 2 students can do their level 2 NCEA with a wine focus. So they get their literacy credits through doing geography, for example, on wine regions of the world. They can do the chemistry credits through doing wine chemistry, and who would not find that interesting to do a practical experiment that they can see the outcomes for. And I see you’re smiling there, Mr Speaker; I can assure you they’re not able to drink the wine while they’re at school. But children need to have that link, and students do—when we can see a purpose, we can see something at the end of it, they will engage much more. To keep people engaged in the education system is a great thing, and there are more opportunities to tailor our education system in that way to keep young people engaged. So I applaud the decision, but I think we have let 12 months go by which, perhaps, shouldn’t have.

Now I’d like to turn to Landcorp. We heard the Rt Hon David Carter speak about this earlier in the debate. Landcorp owns 385,000 hectares, with a book value of about $1.7 billion. The last two years it hasn’t returned a dividend to the Crown. I think it is a leading farming organisation—it’s leading the low returns stakes. It’s a waste of New Zealand’s resources to have all that money tied up in Landcorp. Now, the reasons Landcorp is there are historical, and, certainly, some of the land that’s there has been held aside for Treaty settlements. That’s right and proper, and we should ring-fence some of that land for future potential Treaty settlements. However, we went into the last election with a policy of freeing up that land to sell for lease-to-buy options for young farmers and using the profits from those sales to really get into the bottom of highly efficient and innovative farming methods, which is something that Landcorp could do. Having our money—that is, the Crown’s and the taxpayers’ money, ultimately—tied up in an investment like that which could and should be in private hands—and I think it should be a fair way of going about it.

Incidentally—and I’m sure, Mr Speaker, you will remember—there were balloted farms back through history, through the wars and post-war periods, to allow people to get on the land, and this is a perfect vehicle to do that. It’s not people getting a free ride, but it is an opportunity to get the land back into productive individual farmers’ hands. They would have to work hard for it at market rates, but it’d be a stepping stone for those people to get on that ladder, and I think it’s high time that happened.

I’m absolutely appalled that they went to the Tax Working Group in what we’ve now heard was a very secret way—where their submission wasn’t published, they came in with a late submission, and then, ironically, they submitted on a nitrogen tax when they were responsible for the clearance of a massive area of forestry on the central plateau, which led to very real concerns about nitrates in the Waikato catchment. And now, to turn around and say, “Well, you know, we really should have a nitrate tax.”, it’s a bit rich, I think. And then, when they talk about a capital gains tax, which would not actually apply to them, I think it’s appalling. Thank you.

The Bible tells us that when Jesus was crucified, the veil was torn from top to bottom and people got to look into the tabernacle. Today, the veil was torn from the National Party, and we got to see what was behind the veil. What did we see? We saw an Opposition in disarray. We saw an Opposition, because they didn’t like the answers they were given, take industrial action. We saw the National Party showing their true colours: a party for the unions—a party for the unions. We saw what sits just below that veneer: that they want to be united. They sort of drifted out, one by one. It was a bit of a messy sort of movement. But we saw behind the veil.

I fully support the right of the National Party MPs to take industrial action, and I suspect they will now support the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which is up next.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Yeah, that’s up next, and the member’s not going to refer to it again.

Apologies, Mr Speaker. I’d just like to help the National Party just a little bit with a couple of slogans that they could maybe work on, you know, for their new union-based party.

First of all, who’s going to be the boss of this party? I had to look around and I thought: who is the hard-core union boss? I looked at Mark Mitchell: that steely look in his eye, the firm hand—Mr Mitchell, I believe you’re the man, maybe with your sidekick Erica Stanford.

But let’s look on to what the Government’s been doing this year. What a year we’ve had. In contrast to the Opposition party floundering around, we have a Government who are organised, we have a coalition Government who have a clear plan, and we’re getting on with the job of governing.

I’d just like to highlight a couple of key points here. The first one is housing. At the election in 2017, we heard loud and clear from the New Zealand public that people wanted action on housing. The previous regime were floundering around the edges not taking action. This Government, in the first year, have already taken action on housing. Our Minister the Hon Phil Twyford has done a number of things. The first one is he’s starting to address homeownership. There is a huge issue in this country about people being able to afford their first homes. In the city of Hamilton, where I’m based, 42 percent of Hamiltonians are renting, and the vast majority of them would like to own their own home, but it’s getting out of reach. I am proud that this Government has started a scheme called KiwiBuild.

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: KiwiBuild’s even more expensive.

We’re under way, Mr Mitchell. We are under way, and the targets—we’re on target to reach them.

Another area is rental fairness. I’ve been a landlord. My wife and I have had a number of rentals over time, and we understand the importance of the relationship between the landlord and the tenant. It’s important that we have fairness in the rental market. There is a power imbalance, and we’re working hard around that. Healthy homes is another area we’re working on. It’s important that homes are warm and dry, particularly for children. That would be healthy.

The second one I’d like to touch on is the Provincial Growth Fund. I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Shane Jones for the wonderful work that he is doing in this area—the champion of the regions. And I know the Opposition are absolutely obsessed with Minister Jones. They’re excited about the work that he’s doing. In my region—[Interruption] I can’t hear what the members—you’re all talking at once. The discussions that are taking place within the regions—there’s a lot of excitement around the Provincial Growth Fund. Business cases are being formed. Feasibility studies are being done. For the first time in a long time, the regions are being listened to. The regions have a voice.

I’ll finish on the economy. The economy is in good heart. GDP growth: 3 percent per year forecast. We’re running a surplus. The Opposition have short memories. The previous Labour-led Government ran nine years of surpluses, and this coalition Government are running surpluses, and I expect that they will continue. We’re putting money aside for a rainy day. I’m proud of what this coalition Government has achieved.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Wasn’t that a fantastic speech. I had every intention of responding to Jamie Strange, but I think we’ve heard from the Labour Party research unit about four or five times today. What I’ll do instead, though, is I really enjoyed the contributions by my colleague Stuart Smith and also by—I was going to say Paul Quinn—Paul Eagle, across the Chamber. Not Paul Quinn any more, thankfully.

💬 SPEAKER: It’s all the same, really.

Paul Eagle, across the Chamber. What Stuart was talking about—what I thought was fantastic, actually, because he’s been pushing it for a very long time and, finally, we have the Minister of Education catching up and putting a very significant investment into Marlborough through a joint college. Of course, Paul Eagle, our colleague from Rongotai, was very excited because the significant investment in Rongotai is a brand new electorate office. After 14 months, he’s finally got an office. So well done, Paul.

But I want to talk about investment in mid-Canterbury and South Canterbury this afternoon because we’ve seen significant growth in that region in the last seven or eight years, in particular, largely under a National Government. What that’s meant—what that growth has meant—is there now is enormous pressure on the existing infrastructure that exists, particularly north of Ashburton, in relation to State Highway 1. It’s a critical transport corridor of the South Island, and it’s become far more dangerous.

Just to put some numbers on that, over the last 15 years alone, international visitors into New Zealand have doubled, and we are seeing a lot of that transport—a lot of that traffic—now flowing down the east coast of the South Island as more and more international visitors get out of buses and move into independent transport. We’ve also seen a lot of growth around Timaru, with PrimePort, where the number of ships entering in to PrimePort has gone from 350 just a few years ago to now 500, and that’s being reflected across the whole South Canterbury economy, particularly as that transport moves through to the inland port of Rolleston.

All of that traffic has increased and caused traffic numbers to have doubled in the last 20 years—traffic volumes have doubled in the last 20 years on State Highway 1 between Ashburton and Christchurch. The unfortunate effect of that is that the road has become far more dangerous, and I get people coming into my office every week saying that they no longer feel comfortable travelling on that road, because they feel too nervous about it. Unfortunately, those numbers have been reflected in statistics. We’ve seen, since 2000, 128 fatalities and serious crashes on that road, making it the second-most dangerous stretch of highway in the country.

So what’s the Government done since they’ve come in? Well, unfortunately, we had plans to four-lane that highway between Ashburton and Christchurch to reflect the huge growth that there’s been. So what’s the new Government done?

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: Nine years of National—nothing done. Outrageous!

Well, unfortunately, they’ve shelved it, and the reason they’ve shelved it is they’ve ripped $5 billion—$5 billion—out of the State highway network. They’ve taken it out of regional economies and put it into Auckland—solely into Auckland rail and cycleway projects.

Mr O’Connor—he’s gone very quiet over there, because he knows this. He knows about the significant investment we put into the Coast through the new bridge, which that member never did when he was in Government. But that won’t happen under a Labour Government because the money just isn’t there.

That’s not the only thing. That’s not the only handbrake to growth in the mid-Canterbury and South Canterbury economy at the moment. The second one is immigration. Before the last election, the Labour Party came out with a plan to reduce net migration by 20,000 to 30,000 per year. Unfortunately, that’s now started to bite. We’ve seen immigration numbers come off by about 10,000 since they came into Government. I look at my electorate of Rangitata, particularly in Ashburton, where you’ve now got 500 vacancies in a district of 34,000 people—34,000 people and 500 job vacancies. It’s having a serious impact on the growth of our economy. It’s holding back employers from future growth.

So what’s been the response to that from this Government? Well, unfortunately, we’ve had silence. Iain Lees-Galloway came down to Timaru in March. We haven’t heard a peep from him since. He promised new immigration settings would be in place before the end of this year. Well, it’s now December and we haven’t seen anything of it. What’s been his focus? His focus has been defending his botched decision to grant residency to convicted drug smugglers.

So in the House today, we had front-bench National MPs asking serious questions of this Government about that process, and they refused to answer. They refused to answer. There was not a single straight answer out of the Government about why Iain Lees-Galloway granted residency to that convicted drug smuggler, and not a single answer about the protection of his estranged wife. This Government has refused to answer basic questions. That’s their responsibility, and it’s our right to ask them.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.