General Debate

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

Three months ago today, I stood in this House and described the Government of the day—the Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government—as being a shambles. Well, today, as sort of a quarterly update, can I say that it is now an omnishambles. Yesterday, we had a Government pass a bill allowing a defence for having marijuana on you and using it—loose leaf, any form—if, in fact, you’ve got a chronic pain condition. What that effectively means is that it’s OK to use it, but it’s not OK to supply it, it’s not OK to grow it, and it’s not OK to get it for somebody else. That is a regime that will not work unless, of course, the police turn a totally blind eye to the carte blanche use of marijuana in this country.

It’s interesting that the Minister of Transport stood up today and said, “We’re making great progress on keeping our roads safer.” Well, the road toll doesn’t quite tell you that. The thing he may like to know is that there are more road deaths now where people are killed by drug-impaired drivers than those who have excess alcohol on board, and this Government has just said that’s OK—that’s OK—because the police can’t pull you up, the police can’t prosecute you, and the police will not be around. I can tell the House that all the raids the police had on all those big marijuana crops throughout the country—all off. They’re not happening. They’re all off. On the roadsides, if you see it growing—and you will because everyone’s going to be right into it, and the long acre is going to be full of it—just stop and pick what you want. It’s all good—no problem whatsoever. That’s the sort of Government we’ve got: non-thinking, non-caring about the best interests of New Zealanders.

Then we heard today the contradiction between the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety and the Prime Minister, where she has said she has personally intervened with the parties in the Air New Zealand strike, and he has gone out and said it’s inappropriate for any Minister to intervene in the Air New Zealand strike. Well, what we’re seeing here, of course, is a union, grossly empowered now by the Government and its new legislation that also passed yesterday, exercising the sort of position that they’ve got to really inconvenience the public so that they will, I guess, manipulate some kind of positive result for themselves. Well, what this tells you is that the cloth-cap brigade are back in charge of industrial relations in New Zealand. They’re all there, cloth-caps and all, making all the decisions about when the ferries are going to stop, when the buses will run—and we’ve seen the buses strike—and now when the airlines are going to fly. So of course those ferries will be just next. This is the sort of environment where you do not get the growth in an economy sustained as the Government is claiming they’re going to get.

Then, of course, there is this amazing Sroubek case—so many unanswered questions. Today, the Minister responsible for allowing this ratbag to stay in the country is saying that he will not release the names of those who have been his supporters, who have put in submissions on his behalf. Well, what’s the reason for that—what’s the reason for that? There can’t be one. Well, I’ll tell you what: the decision yesterday around marijuana and Sroubek are connected. Very soon, I predict the registration of “Sroubek Dak”—a new company to flood our streets with medical marijuana for all those people who have got headaches. It will be the new Panadol, no doubt about it. “I don’t want a Panadol; I want some Sroubek Dak.”—that will be the thing. The interesting thing will be to go to the New Zealand Companies Register and have a good look to see who the shareholders are in that company.

What are the associations of the shareholders of that company? That’s the sort of Government that we’ve got at the moment. They’re not letting hard-working people who come to this country to help this economy stay, but a ratbag who’s going to cost us for years and years as he drags it through the courts—and of course that will mean years and years of questioning to Ministers as it goes through the courts. This guy is just going to be a complete drain on our resources.

And then, to top it all off, we’ve got the rising rents. Well, people, the time today is not going to let me go into that whole story, but let me make it clear: when expenses of providing rental accommodation are ring-fenced for landlords, rents will rise. And that’s exactly what’s happening at the moment. People are not going to privately subsidise other people’s accommodation in this country. And you would think the people who’d know that the most are the socialists over there. Apparently, they’ve forgotten.

If there’s a headache—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Despite everything that’s just been said and the wind wasted in the last five minutes, this Government’s had a great year—it’s had a fantastic year. We have a group of Ministers and MPs who’ve been busy getting on with the job and building a productive and inclusive and sustainable New Zealand that we can all be proud of—even those guys on the other side there.

We’re delivering on our promises to improve housing, to lift living standards, to protect our environment, and upgrade critical transport and other facilities. We’re rebuilding the hospitals, the schools, and the public services that all New Zealanders rely on and which for the previous nine years had been run down into the ground. And we’re responsibly managing the Government’s books. I mean, I remember the $11 billion fiscal hole that we were accused of running, and yet our finance Minister has run a fantastic surplus in his first year.

So we’re running surpluses, we’re paying off debt, and we’re making the sound investments we need for the future. And, on top of all this, Jacinda Ardern has been earning acclaim for the way she has been representing New Zealand on the world stage. When you go overseas and you hear people talk about our Prime Minister, saying what a wonderful job she’s doing, what a wonderful example she’s setting, all of New Zealand—even those guys over the other side there—can all be proud of our Prime Minister.

It’s been a busy year, but we’re just getting started. We’re just getting started on our programme of change. Meanwhile, while we’ve been busy getting on with the job of building a fairer and more modern New Zealand, I ask the question: what have the Opposition been busy doing? What have they been busy doing with their time and their taxpayer-funded salaries? Well, when they’re not busy tearing their own party apart internally, with almost daily leaks and infighting, they’ve been busy wasting taxpayers’ money to try and derail the Government by bombarding our hard-working Ministers with thousands and thousands of trivial questions and information requests that serve no purpose other than to waste time. And it hasn’t worked, because this Government is still going strong, and we are finishing this year very strongly.

So I’m going to give the Opposition a bit of a present—it’s an early Christmas present. It’s something they’ve been asking for all year. It’s my diary, because they’ve been bombarding us with requests for my diary as the Minister for Māori-Crown Relations, my diary as the Associate Minister of Education, and my diary as the Minister of Tourism, asking for the same information, just packaged in a different way and wasting a whole heap of time and energy.

So, here we go. On Monday, 6 o’clock: get up, have a shower, get dressed; 6.15 a.m. have brekky, cup of tea, read the news; 7.30 a.m. get into the office; then by 8 o’clock my first meeting for the day as tourism Minister looking at the package of initiatives this Government has brought in over the last year to ensure New Zealanders get the best from tourism growth. I get an update on the $8.5 million of funding we’ve made available to local communities so they can better manage responsible camping in the peak season that’s coming up. We also discussed an international visitors conservation and tourism levy, which is expected to raise about $400 million over five years for sustainable tourism. How much? $400 million.

Then, 9 o’clock, the first lot of written questions from the National Party comes in for the day, asking me what Cabinet papers I’ve lodged on a Saturday—on a Saturday. That just shows how hard-working they think we are. Then, at 9.15 a.m., a meeting with my fellow justice sector Ministers. We discussed the benefits of a joined-up justice sector and how these benefits are being seen with a significant drop in victim statistics, a drop in crime, and a 10 percent reduction in the prison population since it peaked in March, through safe innovations to make the system more effective.

Then, 10 o’clock, an Official Information Act (OIA) request comes in from the National Party, asking for my “dairy”. My dairy! Yes, my dairy. From 1 September to 1 October they want to know about my dairy! Well, I’ve never owned a dairy in my life, so I declined the OIA. My parents owned a tearooms in Kawakawa in the 1980s. Maybe they were wanting to know about my parents’ tearooms.

Mr Speaker, can I ask you, on behalf of the Opposition, to put the Lord’s name back into the prayer, because thank God that the Minister stopped speaking then at the end of the five minutes.

💬 SPEAKER: No.

Well, we’ll try again. So here’s the thing: there is only one thing that this country can be thankful for to Winston Peters, and it’s him choosing Jacinda Ardern as the Prime Minister. Without that, Kelvin Davis could well have been Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, and wouldn’t that be a concerning, sad day. When the Opposition are asking about a dairy in there, actually, it’s because every time he’s released his diary, all it talks about is the lunches that he has.

On behalf of the Opposition, I’ve got to say that that was a disgraceful speech from the deputy leader of the Labour Party, because there wasn’t a single thing of importance to New Zealanders that he spoke about. Up and down the country, this Government is being seen as ineffective and in a shambles. Winston Peters is about to go off to the US, but what he won’t tell New Zealanders about is what the Government’s position is on a UN agreement when it comes to migration. Does he and his Government accept that the United Nations have had an impact and a say when it comes to New Zealand’s immigration practices or not?

What I want to go through is just a little bit of process here, because what we’ve heard from the honourable Mr Peters is him not giving absolutely the detail that New Zealanders need about his involvement and the involvement of this Government. He’s right that in 2016 there was a process in the United Nations where the United Nations tabled an agreement or a document that went through with all members supporting, and that was about refugees. New Zealand was not involved in the negotiation, and when it was open for signature some 50 countries did sign it; New Zealand was not one of those countries. It dealt with the refugee problem around the world, with great numbers of refugees moving towards Europe and other places. Largely, the things that were in there New Zealand could support because it was more or less in line with our refugee policy. But where we had issues was where the United Nations wanted to start telling countries of the world what they should do around migration and immigration. That document said that there should be more discussion and debate and that a compact could be negotiated that could set out some of these rules.

Now we jump forward to Mr Peters, who is the negotiator in chief when it comes to the United Nations compact that has just been agreed this week. On 20 February of this year, the first round of negotiations took place. On 7 March of this year, Winston Peters received a briefing on the negotiation and he was asked to sign off on New Zealand’s negotiating parameters. He did that. Let me be clear: he is a negotiating Minister. On 13 July of this year, under a New Zealand First - Labour Government, that agreement was concluded. New Zealand was involved with the negotiation of it and its conclusion. Then, on 4 December, we jump forward. Winston Peters said last week that he’s concerned about sovereignty and the effect this UN agreement could have on New Zealand. He said that non-binding agreements have the problem and the challenge of becoming binding over time. He denied receiving any briefings or that Cabinet had made its decision.

On 10 December—Monday of this week—the Prime Minister tells the media that no decision has been made to support or sign this UN compact, and she’s seeking legal advice. On 10 December, the UN Secretary-General put out a statement saying that the migration compact has been adopted by countries that include New Zealand, on that list, and that it is going forward. On 11 December, Winston Peters denies that it’s been adopted, and on 11 December, Winston Peters tells the media that a decision around New Zealand signing off an adoption of it has been pushed out.

Here is the issue. The issue here is that this Government is not being clear with New Zealanders. I think they’ve decided to sign up to this, but they’ve seen that Australia and many other countries have concerns with it and have said they won’t sign it, and they’re not being upfront with New Zealanders. Why is that? Because Mr Peters knows that he made pledges to the New Zealand public, when in Opposition in the last campaign, around immigration and migration. The public knows that Winston Peters has made pledges over many years that he doesn’t believe the UN should have a say on New Zealand policy. Here is an agreement that will actually force New Zealand to do things it may choose not to. Winston Peters is on his way to America at this moment. Mark my words, New Zealand will sign this agreement next week. It is not in the best interests of New Zealand.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Today, I stand, along with my Ngāti Maniapoto relation Nanaia Mahuta, to support our Ngāti Maniapoto relation Simon Bridges. Simon Bridges needs support at this time and, as part of the Māori caucus and in the spirit of Christmas—[Interruption] No, no, we support Simon. OK, he’s at 7 percent. He’s 7 percent, but he used to be 6 percent, and, you know, the way he’s going, he could get to 8 percent.

We’re saying—the Māori caucus is saying—“You hang in there, Simon Bridges. Don’t buckle.” I know he’s got leakers at one side and Mark Mitchell is organising the other leakers, and they’re cutting each other’s throats, but what a leader. What a leader—handsome, Brylcreem-ed. You know, there’s a real future for him, so the Māori caucus want him there, right till the end, which will come—well, we don’t know when it’s going to come. But in terms of relations—and Nanaia and I can’t pick our relations; we can’t help it—we’re proud of what he’s doing.

We weren’t so proud of him as a Minister. He was the most useless transport Minister in the history of transport Ministers, and we’ve had to fix that. We’ve got Phil Twyford fixing Auckland now—fixing the infrastructure that the former, useless Minister of Transport Simon Bridges effected. So now we have the Hon Phil Twyford, who’s doing the business—doing the business for the people of this country—because poor old Simon Bridges stuffed it all up.

However, his transition to the leadership has been good, despite the National Party leaks and despite National trying to cut his throat every day. Poor Simon Bridges, he can’t even last question time. He’s going back to his office to check his email, to check what Gerry Brownlee’s been doing, and to check what the young fullas are doing. They’re such a traitorous, vicious lot on the other side, unlike this side, where we’re united, tight, and all together. We’re all united, and we’ve got a strategy going forward.

I’m so proud of this Labour Party, that’s done the business over the last 12 months. I’m most proud of the Families Package, where we’re putting money back into Kiwis who have been suffering. Up to $75 a week is going into the pockets of New Zealanders who were starved by the last Government, which forgot about people in South Auckland and forgot about people in west Auckland and put them in homes that wouldn’t have passed any day of the week. We’ve now ensured from our healthy homes bill that they’ve got warm homes and they’ve got comfortable homes, and in our health package, we’ve put billions back in—$28 billion—in terms of infrastructure. We’ve put $28 billion into the health system, where we’ve had rotting hospitals and where we’ve had an infrastructure that was totally stuffed up by the last Government.

So I’m rapt with some of the work that’s been rolled out by this Government, including some of the work that the Hon Chris Hipkins—I’m just looking at him—is doing in terms of reforming the education system. And in terms of employment, we’re so happy that, finally, we are getting our nephs off the couch. We’ve got a reduction in terms of NEETs from 80,000 to 70,000, so we’re pulling our nephs off the couch, as Shane Jones talks about, and we’re talking about more women now in employment and more Māori in employment—much more than we had before. We’re on the rise here, and it’s all due to the investment that we’re making in terms of our people in the regions and in youth.

In terms of what’s happening in the regions, I’m so proud in terms of what we’re doing with regards to He Poutama Rangatahi, where we’re deciding to get behind our young people in the North, in the Tauranga area, and on the East Coast, where we’re giving them an opportunity. We’re absolutely supporting our young people, and who would not support Mana in Mahi? Even that useless lot on the other side, they support Mana in Mahi. Why? Because it gives an opportunity to people who never had opportunities before, and that is the difference with this Government.

This is a Government that rules for everyone. It’s not just a Government that looks after their rich mates, as Gerry Brownlee and his mates have done for many, many years. It’s a Government that wants an economy that can fulfil the promise and look after everyone who should be looked after: young people, Māori, Pasifika, women, the people in the disability sector—the people who have been forgotten are the people that this Government supports, and I’m proud to be part of it. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Firstly, Mr Speaker, can I take a moment to wish you and all members in this House a very merry Christmas. But look, what I wanted to say at the outset is that on the back of that member Willie Jackson’s speech, this is one of the most shambolic Governments in our nation’s history. It’s a Government of spin. It’s a Government of broken promises. It’s a Government that is drowning in reviews.

I want to talk about education, because it is getting near Christmas, and I thought I would be in the Christmas spirit for education. Firstly, I want to acknowledge that I’m hoping that all members get home to their families, given that we do have the Air New Zealand strikes. While I like you, Mr Speaker, I don’t want to be standing around the Christmas tree at Parliament with you; I’d rather be back home with my family.

But the first Christmas present that I want to acknowledge—I want to acknowledge the Hon Chris Hipkins. In terms of second languages, it is a great week for New Zealand to see the dream closer for parents and students of second-language learning in our primary and intermediate schools, so thank you very much for that Christmas present, Chris Hipkins.

Can I now acknowledge that other people have had Christmas presents this year that may not have deserved them. I want to start with tertiary students. They got the largest Christmas present you could imagine: several billion dollars. And what do we know? There has been no increase in participation. What did we find out today? Potentially $50 million was wasted in withdrawals or student failure as a result of this fees-free policy.

The next Christmas present that we had this year was teacher strikes. Despite having billions more cash, there have been three offers rejected in primary and several offers rejected in secondary, and so what we know is that teachers are facing a more uncertain Christmas because we are staring down the barrel next year of multiple strikes, despite the Government having a whole lot of choices that National didn’t have due to the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes.

So what is the Ministry of Education’s gift this year? What is their present? Their present has to be drowning in reviews. There are more than 19 reviews in education, so my hope is that next year the gift that the Minister can give is certainty in many of these areas, because people want to get on with the job in education rather than be drowning in reviews.

The next gift that we heard of this year was to the partnership schools in New Zealand. Their gift, despite doing huge amounts of great work for disadvantaged students—we heard from Sir Toby Curtis, we heard from Dame Iritana, and we heard from the giants in Māori education how we should keep these schools. Their gift was to be disestablished and closed down despite doing huge amounts of great work for disadvantaged children.

So my message to the Government is: on the back of billions of dollars of extra cash, stop prioritising tertiary students and start to focus on teachers and ensuring that you deliver the 19-odd promises that at the moment people are seeing as broken—like your commitments around donations, like your other commitments around modernising buildings, and like your commitments to making sure that we don’t have continued and multiple strikes all next year. The gift that this Government could give next year in education, instead of spending a year dismantling everything that National has done—from communities of online learning to cohort entry, to national standards, to partnership schools. Next year would be a year where we could come together and agree on some common priorities in education. That would be a great gift for our country. That would be something that parents would welcome.

While I’m on parents, it is important to mention the Tomorrow’s Schools review. The reality is that while National sees some good stuff in that review and we are not arguing for the status quo, we are deeply concerned about not only the stripping away of power from parents in our education system but also the stripping away of principals and teachers, and that’s not a great gift in terms of Christmas.

So I say again that the challenge and the opportunity for next year is to not have an ideological year where people are put through huge amounts of disruption, where students are prioritised over teachers, and where the schools of disadvantaged children who are getting a huge chance in life are closed down. The opportunity is to work together for a greater education system, one where we can agree on some common priorities, and that would be the greatest gift that we could give parents, boards of trustees, teachers, principals, and all of those hard-working support staff and volunteers in our schools next year.

Normally I relish the opportunity to stand up and rebut the contributions from the Opposition members, but I think the contributions today speak more eloquently about the lack of contribution, the lack of depth, and the lack of understanding about what this Government is about and what we’re actually achieving than it does about the thought that they’ve put into their own contributions. So perhaps it’s apt to speak about Alice in Wonderland. I look into the eyes of the Opposition members over there, and I can see—I can see right now—how they must feel like Alice as she tumbled down that rabbit hole. They must feel it themselves as they tumble deeper and deeper down that hole.

Now, the problem here—and this is all about timing. This is all about timing. But the problem here is I think the Leader of the Opposition went down that hole first. Right, so he’s gone down, he’s got nothing to hold on to, and clearly there’s no support base for him amongst his own party membership let alone his caucus, and so there he is. The other problem he’s got going down that hole is that there seems to be a leak filling up the hole. So now he’s there. He’s got his head just above water. But what I can tell you is as his caucus colleagues come tumbling down, many of them will choose to deliberately land on top of him. Ha, ha! Why will they do that? Well, they don’t want to drown. They don’t want to go under the water themselves. And so the leader will take the damage and be pushed under the water as the leak continues to flood.

So I wanted to talk about what it is that this Government has done and what this side of the House stands for since coming into Government from the last election. This is a group of people, a group of Ministers and MPs, who came in with their eyes wide open. We were not sitting there like the Opposition was at the time denying a housing crisis, for example. We were not sitting there denying that our hospitals were not safe and sound for the people who were using them. So the Opposition still don’t really seem to understand that this is the real world, and on this side of the House everyone wants to get on with the job.

So while this Government protects New Zealand homeownership, for example; whilst we build new homes; whilst we celebrate—I think it’s tomorrow—1,000 graduating police officers; whilst this Government works to save Auckland from stifling and suffocating under its own weight, and I use the example of Aucklanders spending a month in traffic every year—every year—and then a billion of lost productivity every year in Auckland; that’s what they were happy to continue with on that side of the House, but we can’t let that continue. Whilst we work with our provinces and rural communities to grow and thrive in the regions and to grow their dignities again, whilst this Government works to make our hospitals safe and sound again and to do the same in our schools, in our classrooms, and, as Minister Davis alluded to in his contribution, to build infrastructure for the ever growing and amazing tourism market, the Opposition sits on the other side of the House, moans and cries, and does nothing but use illogical arguments to say that we’re not doing our job.

Mr Brownlee looks at me confused. Mr Brownlee is an example: just today, in his contribution in the House, he spoke about the undermining of the rental market and how no one’s going to want to own a rental property because of what this Government’s doing. And then, in the same breath, he talks about how rents are going to go up. Well, how is that not good for owners of rental properties? Come on, make an argument and stick to it.

On the other side of the House, the Leader of the Opposition and the finance spokesperson can’t agree whether it’s the Opposition’s good work from the previous Government with the economy now or whether it’s this Government’s run. There are just contradictory statements all the time, and I can’t believe I’ve already got out of time. This is a Government that’s doing great work, and I’m incredibly proud to be part of it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think I’ve got to differ from my colleague the Hon Gerry Brownlee when he talked about this Government being chaotic. It’s shambolic, even. What worries me about this Labour - New Zealand First Government is, in certain areas, the deafening silence of nothing.

What I would like to say before I start out is that I do like the Hon Jenny Salesa, and I think she’s a well-intentioned Minister, but I am increasingly getting concerned about what is happening in the building and construction industry. It is a very vital part of it, and of course we want KiwiBuild to succeed; we want to see houses being built in New Zealand. But, unfortunately, I’m reminded of that Texas saying with regard to Mr Twyford—unfortunately, it’s “All hat and no cattle.”

The lack of progress in KiwiBuild is a real issue, and if you go to the KiwiBuild internet site, what it actually says they’ve achieved so far is 33 completed homes and 77 homes being under construction now—a bit different from what we heard earlier in question time today. But, by this time, by the end of December, they are meant to have built 500 homes, using his own target—500, and they’ve only completed 33. The Minister for Building and Construction’s role is closely aligned to that of, obviously, the housing industry, but, unfortunately, we have a Minister asleep at the wheel.

When I go around conferences and talk to those builders who are actually building something, the issues in this industry are blindingly obvious, and I think the most important one is the issue around skills. It’s a large industry—250,000 people—and what worries me is that in the time this Government has been in power there has only been a net increase of just over 3,000 people involved in training in the building and construction sector. I think that’s a worry. The Minister said that is her prime role; she’s convened this great big working party of, I think, seven Ministers. They had a lovely photo opportunity a couple of months ago—all these Ministers in hard hats—but, unfortunately, I want to know when we’re going to see some more people come into this industry. Soon, I hope.

The other thing is that when you talk to builders, they talk about the issue of consenting, the lack of site inspectors, and the time it takes to issue codes of compliance. It is the bane of their lives. Many councils are slow to process consents, the cost of consents is increasing, and the delay of getting inspectors on site—just things you hear all the time. But what do we hear from this Minister? Zip—zip. And that is also another worry.

The third issue is about the non-conforming products that are flooding into this market. We need innovation, but these products are coming in that don’t meet New Zealand standards, are often sold on the internet, and the current cost of them is estimated at between $100 million and $230 million because they have a long-tail liability to them. And what is the issue with CodeMark? We’ve seen the issue around the aluminium composite panels earlier this year. I was concerned. I questioned the Minister back in June. What she said to me—this issue about this product, which affects the safety of buildings—she said it was an operational matter—an operational matter—not one for her to be concerned about. But I am worried about it. Finally, we’ve seen a little bit of action, but we’ve still got a CodeMark system with only six people involved, although one has currently been deregistered. And 50 percent of those consents have all been undertaken by one Australian-based certifier. I am concerned that we’re not making progress on that issue.

The last one I want to talk about is subcontractor arrangements. We’ve seen the recent failure of Ebert Construction. The Minister has been absolutely silent on this issue. She needs to be protecting subcontractors. Those are four issues in the building and construction sector, and I’m increasingly coming to the view that the Minister for Building and Construction is following the lead of the Prime Minister when she is just saying I hope that something is going to happen.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Point of order.

Point of order—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: I’m only joking!

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare—very nice to see you sitting in the seat there. It’s a real pleasure to take a call in this general debate, because so many good things have happened lately. I know that the many people listening and watching this debate—and my parents, up there in the gallery—will be hugely surprised to hear of all the good stuff that this Government has done in its very first year.

With our focus on supporting the well-being of all New Zealanders, we started this year with the announcement of the Families Package in December 2017. This package was rolled out on 1 July. It’s making a huge difference to people because it’s also our response to child poverty, and, after nine years of neglect, this is really overdue. We’re getting on with the job, and we are making a real difference. The Families Package is lifting the income of 350,000 families. What it does is it lifts out of poverty 64,000 children, 26,000 more families are now eligible for Working for Families, and we have 384,000 families with children that are, basically, better off by $75 a week, on average, and this is amounting to the largest income boost that we’ve seen in a decade.

On top of that, we’ve also had the winter energy payment, which is warming an extra 1 million people during the winter months. It’s helping people that either are on benefits or are having to make do on super with their bills to heat their homes, because what this Government doesn’t do is it does not accept that we have people in New Zealand that are getting sick and ending up in hospital because they are living in cold, damp houses. We are making sure that renters are getting a fair go with our Healthy Homes Guarantee Act, which is starting in July 2019. This Act will require landlords to ensure that there are minimum standards for insulation and heating, because people need warm, dry places to live in.

They also need affordable homes, and this is something else that we’ve been doing. We are bringing property speculation to a halt. We’ve stopped the State house sell-off and we’re helping young Kiwi families to get into their first homes.

What we’ve also done from today is we’ve removed the letting fees to make life better for renters. Over these summer months, when a lot of people are looking for different homes, tenants won’t have to worry about the pressure of having to come up with all that money, and this will make a huge difference for families that are currently struggling.

We’ve also lifted the minimum wage. That started in April this year. We lifted it to $16.50, and that is a start to making some improvements to their struggles. But what is going to make a real difference are the changes that this Government has made to the Employment Relations Act. Only last week it was passed, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, or, as my colleague—fabulous colleague—the Hon Clare Curran likes to refer to it, the “Fairness Bill”. That is quite appropriate, because that’s exactly what it does. It brings fairness, respect, and dignity to the workplace. So what this new Act will do is it will do simple changes like giving working people a break during their working day, but it also has a very important change in it with regard to collective bargaining towards higher wages for working people.

Now, of course we know that rents and mortgages are astronomically high at the moment, but wages have not kept up with rising costs. Over the years, we’ve seen a decreasing share of the economy go to working people and their families, and we’ve seen a common theme amongst low-wage workers where they can’t provide for their families. They can’t afford to make ends meet. We’ve heard during the select committee process from families that are living off noodles, toast, and eggs in order to feed their children. It’s absolutely appalling.

Undermining the working conditions over the last years has, basically, put us in a race to the bottom, and that is going to stop, because pay rates can’t stay low while the economy does well. Now, the evidence is really clear that the best way to get a pay rise is actually through collective bargaining, and the stats are really clear on this. [Holds up chart] People on collective agreements—that’s the lines in blue—are twice as likely to get a pay increase as the people on the green lines, which are the individual agreements. So, once again, it pays to be with a union because virtually all jobs in collective agreements—virtually all jobs that are with unions—are getting a pay increase. It’s really good to see union membership is up, from 381,500 to 411,500.

We are very proud of this coalition Government, which is doing so much for this country and for working people. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It would be fair to say that taxpayers’ money is supposed to be used to support the people of New Zealand with the provision of services that care for the oranga, or the well-being, of its population. It would also be fair to say that taxpayers’ money should not be used for the purpose of paying a dividend or a cash payment to shareholders; that is reserved for profit-making private businesses, not for organisations that are all about people. Whānau Ora is not a private profit-making business. It never has been; it never will be. It is a great initiative, yet here I stand today ashamed that a Government agency has allowed this to happen.

I’m shocked that the Minister has allowed it to happen again, because in this year’s financial annual report the dividend is to the tune of $988,000. I’m stunned because the very Whānau Ora providers that work on the smell of an oily rag are denied access to these funds. I’m actually speechless that a Government organisation can tell me that commissioning agencies can do what they like with any surpluses as long as they have made and completed their contractual obligations and/or outcomes. What I want to know is: why hasn’t the Minister intervened? I think it is quite a cheek when the Minister says on Radio New Zealand that the ability to pay dividends was in the contract and the contract was going to go for two years, yet there was no commitment to intervene. It needs to be intervened on by this Minister, and I’m really surprised that the Prime Minister has not called the Minister into her office, demanding that he fix this now—right now.

This also brings to mind the various conflicts of interest. As we know, the Hon Willie Jackson, who became a Minister after the 2017 election, saw his former organisation benefit from dividends paid in the 2017 report and the 2018 report. Yet nothing was said and he only resigned his trustee role with these authorities in February of this year. It’s not good enough. I want to know why the Prime Minister hasn’t also asked Minister Jackson to come into her office and please explain. I think, actually, that the most amazing part of the whole Whānau Ora commissioning agency rort is that, when I asked Te Puni Kōkiri if Whānau Ora was best placed with them, they said, “Yes, it is.”, because they have all the connections. I think that is a long, long, long bow to draw for that organisation to say that, especially with what has been revealed.

To me, this whole thing smacks of underhanded deceit. Heads need to roll—the heads of those who knew it was wrong yet let it happen, heads who had the power to intervene and stood by and have done nothing, heads who say they are best placed to do this work yet failed in their duty to keep Whānau Ora safe—and that is the main, main crux of my speech today.

I would like to advise the Minister to be careful on what he actually responds to when I ask him the questions, because the whole population is judging. They’re standing and they’re judging. I can say that this whole business stinks. It stinks because of an inexperienced Minister who is not across his portfolio, let alone the conflicts of his colleagues. I think Minister Henare and Minister Jackson have both let Māori down, the very people who put them into Parliament this year. I want to say that I cannot see how both of those Ministers can espouse Whānau Ora when they have both failed in their duties to Māori. It would be safe to say that Ministers Henare and Jackson are both now on notice from this country.

I also want to add to the debate today that I’m asking the Minister: where is the Whānau Ora review? We have waited all year for this. We were told it was going to be here in November; then Te Puni Kōkiri said they had given the report, the draft report, to the Minister on 1 October. It is nearly the end of December, we are only a few days away from rising, and we still have not received the Whānau Ora report. There are providers out there who are sitting on the edge of their seats wanting to know whether their contracts are going to be safe, and nothing has come out. I ask the Minister to give us that Whānau Ora report. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s with a bit of a heavy heart that I rise in this House again to talk about the issue of violence against women and children in our country, but this is a conversation we are having as a country at the moment, and I believe it’s an important conversation to keep having in this House. One in three women in this country are likely to experience violence from the person that is supposed to love them. We know there were 121,000 family violence call-outs in the last year to the police, and that’s one every four minutes; that between 2009 and 2015, 92 women and 56 children were murdered in this country; and that those involving partners—for 98 percent of those women, there was a recorded history of abuse by a male partner. We knew that they were being hurt, and we failed them. In the deaths of children where a man was convicted, in 77 percent of those cases, there was also a history of that man abusing his female partner. We didn’t intervene, and we failed those children.

Every single person in this country has a born right to live free from fear and violence, but we have to face up to the fact that that is just not a reality for too many of our women and children in this country—and some men as well, but it is mostly our women and children. We have to do better by them, and it’s going to take all of us in this House and in our communities to make that difference. Every year, there’s a campaign of 16 days of action to end violence against women between November and December, and this year, in this country that, in some ways, is a village, two women were murdered just during those 16 days. We don’t know how many other women died without being directly murdered.

I am proud to be in this Government, to have the position in this Government to focus our efforts on ending this violence, for restoring our faith in each other and our ability to do something about this. I am proud that within our first year in Government, this Government has created that position and has increased funding for front-line services by 30 percent to ensure, through New Zealand First and Labour’s coalition agreement, to make sure that those services are able to respond. We’ve passed three pieces of legislation: a world-leading domestic violence victims’ protection bill and workplace protections that other countries are now coming to us asking us for advice on how they might do it; protection against forced marriage of children, that was initiated by the National Party and supported unanimously by this House; and a transformational change to our family violence legislation, involving new offences that have already come into force, including strangulation, which, already, from 3 December, we’ve had 26 charges on that one offence. We are making a difference—

💬 Tamati Coffey: Wow—26?

Twenty-six already—this is happening, and this is us responding and engaging. We have set up a Family Court rewrite to actually make sure that that system is working to protect and ensure the support and the safety of our women and children. And we’ve set up a whole-of-Government response, a new way of working in Government that for the first time ever will have the Government held accountable by the Opposition for our actions on family and sexual violence, which has never happened. We are committed to turning this around and look forward to the help of other New Zealanders.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call in this general debate. I’d like to go back to the theme that we have been talking about, which is the omnishambles of this Government. This week, the Government has reached 200 reviews, working groups, and all sorts of other types of groups of people having a look and doing their policy work on it—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Not true.

Actually, it’s true—it’s not true, sorry; it is not true. It’s actually 201—it’s 201. That’s right. It’s 201, because yesterday the Government passed legislation to set up a working group to put in place the marijuana regulations for medicinal cannabis. So it’s 201—thank you for the correction, Mr McAnulty. I really do appreciate it. And what’s the cost of that? It’s $279 million, wasted by this Government; $279 million—that’s almost $1 million every single day that this Government has been in office.

This afternoon, I’d like to talk about the fees-free fail that this Government is continuing to pursue. In education, there are 19 reviews. About 10 percent of the reviews are being done in the tertiary sector, but one area that this Government decided to implement policy without a review—about the only area, I think—is the fees-free policy. Yes, they implemented the fees-free policy without undertaking a working group or a review or something else before setting it up, and what an omnishambles of a policy that has been. This policy was meant to increase student participation and enrolments at our universities. It was meant to increase the number of people who were going to university, going into tertiary qualifications and trades. It was meant to make a positive difference to New Zealand.

Let’s look at some of the results which we’ve seen from this $2.8 billion policy—$2.8 billion, and here’s the results: 2,500 fewer students studying at university—yes, 2,500 fewer students studying at our universities—1,188 fewer at our wānanga, 674 fewer at our private training establishments, and 4,740 fewer students undergoing industry training—4,740 fewer people undergoing industry training at a time when we have a construction boom here in New Zealand—all at a cost of $2.8 billion. So we have thousands and thousands fewer students going to university, going to study, and going into industry training, and yet the Government continues to dogmatically pursue a policy which they failed to think about before they implemented at the end of last year.

And what did we learn at select committee earlier today? Fifty-three million dollars has been wasted. The Tertiary Education Commission was before the select committee, and we’ve learnt that this policy—at least $53 million of it has been wasted just in this last year. Thirty-five million dollars from the cost of students who took up fees-free but have failed, and $18 million from the cost of those who have reviewed.

There are 2,619 students who successfully enrolled in fees-free and then have decided to unenrol and withdrew from their studies part way through the year. That has cost the taxpayer $18 million over the last year. And there’s a good question from my colleague Andrew Bayly: how many houses could you build with that sort of money? How many houses could you build with $50 million—probably a few more than what they have built. The 33 that they’ve managed to build—that’s over $1 million per house. I’m sure Andrew Bayly’s got some better housing policies than our friend the Hon Phil Twyford and his pipe dream of houses.

Then we have the number of students who have filed false declarations in order to receive fees-free: 246 learners filed false declarations in order to receive fees-free this past year. Well, that’s the 246 which have been found out and caught. The Tertiary Education Commission said there may be others; there may have been others. So that’s only the ones which have been caught, and I just want to applaud the work of the Tertiary Education Commission in actually undertaking that serious review and making sure that they catch as many as possible and the good work that they’re doing there.

This is a Government which is wasting taxpayers’ money left, left, and left. They’re wasting taxpayers’ money everywhere, and, on top of that, we’ve seen the constant reviews, the constant omnishambles, and if there was one policy that should have had a review it should be this one—the fees-free.

When Gerry Brownlee got up at the beginning of this debate and said he was introducing a new word—“omnishambles”, which, actually, I’ve heard lots of times before—I thought he was talking about the National Party because it’s been a long time since that party, that caucus, has had to do any real thinking, and the National Party, that Opposition, is all over the place. So I’m going to introduce a new phrase this afternoon and that’s called “cognitive dissonance”, which is, really, that they can’t work out what they think. Are they liberal or are they conservative?

Are they liberal? Last week, they staged a walkout and then, hours later, they voted against the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which will stop employers from being able to dock the pay of workers—stop employers, and they walked out but they voted against the bill. So it’s one rule for them and another rule for everyone else. Or are they conservative? This week, Simon Bridges described the medicinal marijuana law as decriminalisation by stealth. I’d note that this bill sets up a statutory defence to allow those who are close to death in palliative care to consume illicit marijuana with a legal defence if prosecuted. But Simon Bridges believes it’s a slippery slope resulting in big chunks of people smoking dope outside schools with the police unable to do anything about it.

That reminded me of my seventh form year and the dire warnings of my then principal, Sister Ambrose, whom I describe as a bit of a militant nun, warning us as seventh formers of the perils of burning incense, which led to going to boys’ flats, taking drugs, having sex, and ending up at the venereal disease (VD) clinic! But that wasn’t the worst thing. I don’t know if everyone knows what VD is—I think we all can guess—but that wasn’t the worst bit: the worst bit was ending up at the VD clinic in your school uniform! That was the heinous sin! These days we’d be encouraging a visit to the health clinic or the GP if you had a sexually transmitted disease and making sure that you were provided with good information about safe sex, and that’s the approach that most schools would take and, no doubt, parents. But, to my mind, Simon Bridges is stuck somewhere in the 1970s and keeping up appearances rather than addressing the core issues, such as pain relief and quality of life left for the terminally ill and the chronically sick—Mr Cognitive Dissonance.

I recognise the phase that the National Party is going through, because we were there, and my advice is: dig in. It doesn’t get any easier. Do the genuine work on policy and try—and this is a message to the backbenches, to the newbies—to stay out of the nasty cliques, and no matter what happens to you, your own sense of dignity and self-respect is actually what really matters. Senior MPs set the tone for the behaviour of the newbies. They come in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed mostly and they want to make change happen, but they get caught up in the place. There is a dark side to politics, and don’t let yourself be dragged there. That’s my advice to you. Don’t—not just because I’m giving you that advice, but because your constituents don’t like it, and the public don’t like it.

This is a Government that is cohesive, strong, collegial, and it does know what it stands for. It stands for a better life, for more opportunities for New Zealanders, and we’re getting on with it. Of all of the things that we have done—and I could read you a big long list; I know others have gone through a lot of those things—three things stand out for me: the winter energy payment, which has made a real difference; extending the royal commission on the abuse of children in State care to faith institutions—a huge difference; and the culture and attitude change that I’m seeing, and that my constituents are seeing, in Work and Income staff treating people with respect and care. I thank the Minister for Social Development and the Prime Minister for that; 2019 will be the year of well-being.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.