General Debate

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

I want to talk about something that you won’t hear any of the Government members in their speeches talk about, and that’s the economy. It’s the economy, and we appreciate that maths isn’t their good suit because today, actually, if you look at question time, we’ve had question Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8—they don’t do that stuff so well. But it’s remarkable, actually, that they don’t want to talk about our economy and its growth and what’s happening, given it’s so crucial and it’s so important to New Zealanders and what happens. It’s what provides our jobs—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Speech training.

—and our opportunities. Winston Peters—I think if he actually sits there long enough in deep contemplation, he would understand that young New Zealanders who want to get into apprenticeships for hairdressing, plumbing, and all of these things, who want the opportunities in life—they know what the economy means to them. Actually, older workers who are looking for a second chance and opportunity, who want to get in and re-enter the workforce—and I’m not thinking about you here, Mr Peters, again—they understand what it means—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that member has not been here for a long time, but he should know that he cannot refer to you in the debate, and when he’s referring to me, he should call me by my proper name.

💬 SPEAKER: I think the member realised that he’d made a mistake and corrected himself pretty quickly, therefore I felt like I didn’t need to intervene. And I will remind the right honourable gentleman that it’s my role, not his, to sort that out.

The Government—and we just saw it there—doesn’t want to speak about the economy and the opportunities that there are for New Zealanders from a strong one. We know that’s actually what pays for their health, their education, the safety, and the justice that they need. So today I asked the Prime Minister just a few very basic questions. One of them was: “Is the economy getting weaker?” And then she ducked, she dived. She would not answer that basic question that we should know the answer to. We should have a sense of that. But the facts are clear. Actually, before the last election, Treasury said 3.7 percent growth was coming in 2018; now it’s 2.3 percent—zero GDP growth per capita, per person. In the last week, all of the indicators from the various banks—down, and significantly. The Reserve Bank is making it quite clear that they also see things shifting significantly to the downside. This Government is slowing down New Zealand. We made the boat go faster. They’ve dropped anchor, and the rope is getting tight.

Why is that—why is that? Well, Grant Robertson and the Prime Minister say it’s all international factors—that’s what’s doing all of this. But, as the ANZ’s chief economist said this week, “So far, negative implications of the evident global slowing still belong in the risk camp.”—that is, they haven’t happened. Treasury said just very recently, “Our trading partners have average growth of 3 to 4 percent still coming.”—they’re still strong. So what is it that is meaning we have less growth and, ultimately, we will have less opportunities in New Zealand? Well, it’s because businesses—that we get out, on this side, and speak to every day of the week; small through large—don’t feel confident, at this time, to take on additional people. They don’t feel confident, at this time, to buy extra plant, to take the risks that are required to get ahead and to do well in this country. That is why business confidence in this country is at the lowest it’s been in a long time.

I say to Mr Peters—who props this Government up—there is no other scenario than that it is his Government’s policies that are turning New Zealand’s economy downward. And don’t believe me, Mr Peters—don’t believe me. Ask yourself this: will a capital gains tax be good for business confidence and growth? Will it be that a fair pay agreement, as it’s called—re-unionising the workforce—will be good for New Zealand’s business confidence and growth? Will petrol taxes? Will oil and gas bans? Will foreign investment bans be good for New Zealand’s business confidence and growth? Of course they won’t.

So I say to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, if things keep going as they are, there will be fewer jobs, there’ll be fewer opportunities for young New Zealanders trying to get their foot on the ladder and for older New Zealanders trying to get a second chance. Stop and reassess what you’re doing. Implement pro-growth policies. Work with businesses so that New Zealanders have the opportunities they expect and deserve to stay in our great country.

I’m going to start my debate speech by saying: “Please, National Party, keep Simon Bridges on as your leader.” We heard from the leader of the National Party this afternoon. We heard his very narrow view of what success for this country is, and it’s that narrow view that got us into trouble when they were leading this country for the previous nine years. Economic success so narrowly defined, as it has been in the House today by Simon Bridges, led to rocketing levels of New Zealanders living in homelessness. It saw the degradation of our health system and it saw the running down of our education system. Lack of investment in things that matter to New Zealand and New Zealanders—and he’s trying to scream that that was a success for the nine years that they were in Government. Well, it wasn’t.

We heard from Mr Bridges about an apparent lack of focus on employment and work in this country. Well actually, I’ve been privy to information that cites very clearly that under their watch, agencies like the Ministry of Social Development had a significant but steady decline in things like work-focused case management while they were in Government; less of a focus on actually supporting New Zealanders in work. Part of that was because of the lack of investment in that space, but part of that was because of the fact that under their watch, hardship went up, housing demand went up, and therefore they had less resource to put into supporting New Zealanders into meaningful employment. So I don’t want to hear from the Leader of the Opposition, Simon Bridges, about our apparent lack of focus on employment on this side of the House, because I know that we’re doing it. He wanted to talk about things like apprenticeships. Well, our announcements around Mana in Mahi—that responds to our apparent lack of focus on employment.

We’re all about getting people into jobs on the side of the House and making sure that they’re better off. But our focus is on making sure that that’s sustainable, that they get into meaningful, long-term employment that is sustainable, and that, where necessary, they are supported with the upskilling and training that they need to be able to take on that meaningful employment—a much more rounded, holistic focus than that side of the House ever did have when they were in Government.

I want to refer to some of the changes that came in on 1 April—so on Monday this week. This side of the House is very proud of the fact that we have made one of the most significant shifts with regards to the minimum wage compared to any previous Government, shifting it to $17.70 an hour. As of 1 April, there will be 200,000 New Zealanders that benefit from that minimum wage increase, and we’re not going to resile from the fact that that’s a good thing. While we’re on this side of the House trying to drive up wages and make sure that New Zealanders are well and truly better off, that side of the House is still driving towards trying to put those wages down, which makes absolutely no sense to us.

I have to say it’s not just the 200,000 New Zealanders that benefit directly from an increase in the minimum wage but New Zealanders across the country will benefit from that increase. I need to refer to one of those groups being our senior citizens who are on superannuation. We know that rises in superannuation are attached to rises in the median wage across this country, and we saw one of the most significant increases in our superannuation as of 1 April because of the significant increase in wages that we’ve seen in this country. So our superannuitants will benefit from the increase in the minimum wage and wages overall by a 2.6 percent increase because of the fact that we have been able to drive wages up. So I’m sure it’s not just the 200,000 New Zealanders who benefit from a minimum wage increase directly that are out there celebrating but also the 780,000 New Zealanders who receive superannuation who benefited by the 2.6 percent increase on Monday.

We on this side of the House know that New Zealand is heading in the right direction under this Government. This Government is demonstrating, under the leadership of our wonderful Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, a new kind of leadership, proving that it is possible, while not losing sight of issues pertaining to the economy, to be that kind, to be that compassionate Government that makes a difference—

Order! Order! The member’s time has expired.

There is no doubt in the minds of any sensible economic commentator—including the Reserve Bank, including Treasury, including the bank economists—that the New Zealand economy is getting weaker. Everybody knows that; everyone can see it. It is patently clear, and yet both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance utterly failed today to accept and acknowledge the thing that is so clear to everyone, which is that our economy is getting slower. Much as they try and say “Oh, everything’s fine here, but the international stuff is a problem.”, that simply doesn’t bear scrutiny.

You just look back at what Treasury themselves said in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update in December. They said that our trading partners’ growth rate is expected to stay between 3 and 4 percent a year for the next five years. Now, we’re a trading economy. We make our income selling to those countries, and the countries we sell to are doing extraordinarily well. Our commodity prices are up. Our trading partners are buying what we’ve got to sell. So why have we lost a third of our economic growth rate in just a year—a third in one year—under the watch of Grant Robertson?

I can tell you how it happens. It happens when Ministers in the Government ignore the views of business. They say businesses opinion is junk—they don’t care. They say the advice of officials like the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Treasury know nothing. They don’t take the advice on things like the oil and gas exploration ban, because apparently they know far better. They don’t accept that minimum wage rates too far too fast put up prices and help hurt the very workers they’re trying to help.

Well, I would just direct Ministers to have a look at what that New Zealand Institute of Economic Research said in their latest Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion just this week, where businesses are overwhelmingly saying they will be putting up prices. Now, that comes on the back of rents already having gone up $40 a week because of the policies of this Government. So those very workers they say they’re all about are going to face higher prices, higher rents, higher taxes, and a slowing economy.

So when Megan—sorry, not Megan. I apologise—you caught the corner of my eye. When Carmel Sepuloni stands here and says the economy doesn’t matter, that right there is the problem of this Government. They don’t understand the economy pays for healthcare. The economy is jobs to New Zealanders. The economy is what determines whether we can have cancer treatment drugs, how many nurses and doctors and midwives we can employ, and whether we can build roads. It determines whether New Zealanders have incomes that let them get ahead. So when you hear Government Ministers say “We know more than all of the economists, the Reserve Bank, Treasury, and MBIE—almost any source of advice. We know more.” and the economy is going backwards as a result, it is time for them to sit up and listen.

When the economy has lost a third of its momentum in one year, the answer is not put up taxes. That is the only response we’re hearing from the other side of the House: “We need more of New Zealanders’ money to spend. We don’t care that things are getting tougher out there for New Zealanders.” In fact, per person we’ve gone nowhere for six months. None of that matters to the Government. All they want to know is how they can get more money out of New Zealanders’ pockets for them to spend. That is outrageous, it is poor management, it is negligent, and it is real New Zealanders who hurt because of it.

So I say to the Government this: if you pretend to care at all about real New Zealanders, their jobs, their houses, and their opportunities to get ahead, don’t put more taxes in a slowing economy. You cannot tax this country into prosperity. You cannot legislate New Zealanders to have better opportunities. It only comes when we have a private sector made up of people who would take a risk, put their own money on the line, and create those jobs and those opportunities. They do it despite the Government, despite the taxes, and despite the red tape and compliance. Yet on the other side of the House we’ve got a team of people who’ve never done it a day in their life, don’t know what it is to run a business, and don’t fundamentally get what drives the economy. That’s why in one year this country has lost a third of its success rate, at a time when the rest of the world that we sell to is doing well. That is a tragedy, and it is why on this side of the House we are not going to sit quietly and let Grant Robertson waffle on about well-being while the economy is going to the dogs under his watch. It is not good enough.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tuatahi māku, e tangi mōteatea ana te iwi Māori; te kahurangi Lady June Mead kua ngaro atu ki te pō. Ngā whakaaro nui ki a ia, ā, ko tana hoa, me te whānau pani i tēnei wā.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly for me, the Māori people are grieving; the distinguished Lady June Mead has passed away. High regards to her, and to her husband, and the grieving family at this time.]

First off, I just wanted to pay our collective tribute to Lady June Mead, who passed away in recent days. Not only a backbone for her great husband and academic Sir Hirini Moko Mead, but also an educationalist in her own right—a wahine toa who raised her family and, indeed, a community to stand up for what is right, to represent Māoridom within the education system. I want to express our condolences to the family today.

It was interesting when we heard the debate from across the other side of the House and we listened to the Leader of the Opposition, who talked about a boat. He said that this side of the House is slowing the boat down, and when they were in charge, the boat was going really fast. I’m always reminded of the viral YouTube clip of seven individuals in a speedboat all of a sudden coming to a crashing halt. Now, if you haven’t seen it, simply YouTube it and you will find it there, because it reminds me of what happened when they were in control.

When that side of the House was in control of the Government purse strings, what happened? Sure, they celebrated what they termed a rock star economy. What we’ve seen in our time in Government was that, actually, there was a festering social issue here in this country, and it certainly was more was pertinent to the inequities that are realised in our communities, the inequities that are realised in our society, and on this side of the House we want to address those first and foremost. For what is the point of a productive economy without a productive nation or a productive people? If we want to sit, with regarding issues to mental health and to many of the inequities in our community, then we would have continued to travel on the path that the National Government took us upon. But we’ve picked up the challenge, one that deals with the serious issues—the festering issues, as my colleague has mentioned—that have been ignored for far too long.

In a more positive light—in recent times, the lifting of the minimum wage. Now, as Minister for Youth, this is important. Why? Because our young people right up and down this country are looking for opportunities not just in education but in employment. They didn’t feel valued in the work that they did. They felt that they were being taken advantage of. Now we have a pathway that actually says “We value the work that you do in your community and for yourself and for your family and for your future prosperity.” We want to lift the minimum wage to make sure that those who are working are paid fairly.

Now, Mr Bridges, he mentioned that we don’t believe in fair pay. Well, if ever there was a signal that we do believe in fair pay, it is that we have a plan to continue to lift the minimum wage in this country whereby people can live successful lives, can live lives of purpose and meaning, and I think that’s only fair. As Minister for Youth, it is one of the biggest issues that continues to be raised with me as I travel up and down the country, as young people mention to me that they want to be valued in the community that they live in, and I believe lifting the minimum wage is a way to do that.

Another thing they mention to me is around secondary tax. We know that young people, those at university, those in their senior years at college, often work numerous jobs—numerous jobs. Not just one job at the local fish and chip shop, but numerous jobs, whether it be in the orchards, whether it be in supermarkets, whether it be in takeaways—anywhere in the community, they work numerous jobs, and they’ve always had an issue trying to understand what secondary tax means. We’ve got the answer for them. In fact, on Monday just gone, we’ve made that far clearer for them, and we have a plan to make sure that those who are working in secondary jobs can actually clearly understand their tax obligations and make sure that they aren’t paying more than they need to. I’m excited about that, because as Minister for Youth, I’ve heard it up and down the country.

Finally, they talk about business confidence. I want to just remind the House that, actually, business and the self-employed will be better off through our reductions to the ACC levies, and that’s an important one. In fact, around $100 million over the next two years will be of benefit to business and the positions that they have in caring for and employing New Zealanders right up and down this country. On this side of the House, our leader has shown that we can lead the country in a different direction and a positive one, and I want to commend her.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I remember, in this chair about a year ago, standing and asking the economic development spokesperson for this Government, Mr Parker, what he thought about the falling business confidence levels in this country. It was plunging in the middle of last year down to levels not seen since the global financial crisis, which everybody thought was a bit strange, given the fact that the New Zealand economy had great momentum, was still growing strong, and yet business confidence was falling through the floor. And what did Mr Parker say? He said, “Oh, business confidence surveys are junk—they’re junk, and they don’t mean anything.” Well, funnily enough, since that point—since that point, when business confidence surveys were showing that confidence was falling through the floor—the New Zealand economy has slowed down, and we’ve seen clear evidence of that today and in the last few months. So we’ve seen in the last half of last year New Zealand’s real GDP per person has gone zero—has not grown at all. So as a result of the falling level of business confidence, a result of people keeping their hands in their pockets and not investing in new businesses, not taking new chances, not starting new businesses and buying new plant and investing in growth, the New Zealand economy is slowing.

Now, people are taking a while to feel the effects of that because we’ve had such a long period of great growth and the economy continues to have momentum. If you walk down through Auckland, where I live, there are cranes everywhere, and so people see activity. But make no mistake about it. At the last time of the election, it was predicted that the growth in 2018 would be 3.7 percent, and it turned out that it’s been 2.3 percent. Now, this Government does not want to take responsibility for that, but they should, because the 200 working groups that they’ve established on all sorts of topics, most of all on tax, have led to an incredible amount of uncertainty out there in the community.

Again, where do we get our jobs, our opportunities from, here in the public—where do we get our opportunities to get a good income, get a good job, and provide for our families? Well, we get it from somebody somewhere making an investment and starting a business. Well, they’re less likely to do that when they’re not sure whether they have to pay a capital gains tax on that investment. We had the previous speaker saying, you know, “We’ve reduced the ACC levies.” Well, that’s great, but it doesn’t make up for proposing that you’re going to put a 33 percent capital gains tax on every one of the 500,000 small businesses in this country. You spend your whole life building up a business, reinvesting your tax-paid profits in order to grow the business, and at the end of it, you’ll get taxed again for any gain that you’ve made, so why would people do that? So this Government needs to take responsibility for that—for the uncertainty around tax, all the costs that they’ve piled on to business.

We’ve heard about the minimum wage. Yes, of course, everybody wants to have higher wages, but they have to be based on productivity, have to be based on producing something more. Otherwise, if you’re an exporter from New Zealand and your cost is going up 27 percent in terms of labour over three years—well, there’s no magic about it. The people over in Germany or China or whatever who are buying the products can go somewhere else if our costs have gone up 27 percent. We’ll just go out of business. So it has to be related to productivity. If you’re running a cafe or a shop and you’re selling people coffee and your costs are going up 27 percent—well, that’s discretionary spending. People can just stop buying their coffee. If the coffee costs $6, well, they won’t buy it, and so those businesses will go out of business. So it has to be based on reality.

Finally, I want to talk about Shane Jones. People are, obviously, worried about the $3 billion that’s been spent by that particular Minister, who has shown himself to not understand the basic rules around how Ministers should act. He’s been very loose around declaring perceived conflicts of interest in the past, and now, just today, we’ve seen him interfering in an independent decision-making process that the NZTA—the New Zealand Transport Agency—is responsible for over local—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

Well, he’s made some public statements saying that this shouldn’t happen. So most people would normally assume, well, why would you say a public thing about something that the NZTA has got a clear regulatory responsibility for? So I think he needs to be much, much more careful and disciplined in the way that he goes about making public statements as a Minister. He doesn’t seem to have learnt that basic requirement to stick to his knitting. The ministry and the Government make the rules—in the case of the transport agency, they are responsible for prosecutions and actually implementing the regulations—and Ministers shouldn’t be putting pressure on those organisations. So he has to learn that and he has to take responsibility for it. We’ve heard today that he has a connection with the person that he’s lobbying on behalf of. Again, he needs to think very, very carefully about how he acts in his—

Order! The member’s time has concluded.

I’ve never heard so much hogwash and poppycock coming from that side, claiming how bad the economy is. Let’s just clear up the air here: the economy is moving steadily, it is stable, and it is outperforming many other economies in the international community. Our interest rates are low, the fixed rates for two years on a mortgage is less than 4 percent, the floating rate is less than 6 percent, and people are employed and they’re feeling positive in the community. So I don’t understand. The other side think just because they own a business, they know how to run a business; those are two different things. So I want them to understand that this Government is very different in the way that it approaches our economy today.

Firstly, I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and the great leadership that she is providing. I want to acknowledge also the Rt Hon Winston Peters, leader of New Zealand First and the Deputy Prime Minister, and the leadership that he is providing in working with the Prime Minister. I acknowledge also the leadership of the Green Party. You see, for the first time ever, New Zealanders are beginning to better understand what “coalition Government” means. This coalition Government is demonstrating—for all of New Zealand to know—a new kind of leadership, a new kind of leadership that is proving that you can be responsible stewards of the economy and also promote good values: values of compassion, values of kindness, values of aroha, and values of manaakitanga—which makes New Zealand different from any other country.

Compare that to the last nine years that that lot were in Government. They weren’t governing for all of New Zealand; they were governing for a few. They got so fixated with tax cuts that the rest of New Zealand bought into that greed, and what was left was an economy that this Government is now having to fix, an economy where we’re having to rebuild and restore the foundations of health, of education, of building more houses, and of lifting incomes for the workforce, because for the last nine years they kept denying it, because they weren’t governing for all of New Zealand; they were governing for the few. That’s not what this Government is about, and so we are governing for all of New Zealand. This Government is on track to deliver better outcomes for New Zealand.

Earlier this week, the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, announced that we were on track and that there is a lot of work that this Government will do. Our focus now is about ensuring that we’re transforming this economy into more modern, more productive, more inclusive, and more higher-salary wages. We’re focusing on ensuring that greater support is given to business, to workers, and to families. So this week we saw $1 billion in R & D tax incentives—15 percent tax credits for those businesses spending a minimum of $50,000. That’s about generating more innovation and more creativity in our economy, increasing the ambition to be modern navigators of the technological world. There’s a drop in ACC levies from 72 percent to 67 percent. Workers will now have better support around KiwiSaver contribution rates of 6 to 10 percent, and more workers will be able to sign up, with 65-year-olds.

The one thing I want to really emphasise is the increase of the minimum wage to $16.70—the greatest increase in history. Why is that important? Because by giving money to those who are the lowest paid of our economy, it’s showing that we’re sharing a bit of the pie here. Workers at the bottom generally put back that money into the economy through rent, through food, and through a host of other expenses. So there’s a ripple effect in terms of when you’re increasing incomes for low-income people through their contribution to the economy. There’s a flow-on effect to that, which that lot there continues to fail to understand and recognise. So when they’re harping on about how “This is going to harm business.”—that is wrong. Just because they think they own a business doesn’t mean they know how to run a business, and, for the last nine years in Government, that reflects how bad they are at working and managing the economy.

The speech that has just been given to the House illustrates very perfectly just why this current Government is not trusted to run the economy of New Zealand. The speech we have just heard from the other side of the House illustrates very, very clearly and underlines just why the latest Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion has got, for the first time in six years, business confidence tanking to below the level of 2008. GDP has slowed under this Government. It has got nothing to do with international trading conditions. It’s got nothing to do with international economies; those are only being signalled. There is only a watch on those external economies. That is just signalling a Government in denial.

I want to go back to the contribution made by the Hon Peeni Henare, Minister for Youth, who talked about the impact of the sudden and significant 7 percent rise in the minimum wage and how good it is for young people. The flip side to that point of view is that it is those very same young people who are just starting out in work who will be the very first people to be let go by businesses who can’t afford to sustain that sudden, dramatic 7 percent increase in their wage bill. If you think about small-business confidence and if you think about that 7 percent increase in the wage bill just on its own, let alone some of the other impacts that this Government is having on small business, it is that hiring intentions are going down. Who’s going to miss out? It’s going to be the young people who are the first to be let go, to have their hours cut at the supermarket. Yes, the supermarket and the fish and chip shop. We all started there or in the corner dairy—in my case, in the fish and chip shop. But they will be the very first people who will find that their hours have been cut or that there is no work for them this weekend because, in a small business, what will happen, and what is happening now, is that the small-business owner will take those shifts themselves because they cannot sustain a 7 percent sudden rise in their costs without doing something.

It is well known—and if only members of the Government actually talked to small-business people, they would find out for themselves—that small-business owners pay everyone else first. They pay people they owe money to first, they pay their wages first, and if they don’t have any money left over at the end of the month, well, they don’t pay themselves, and they do that because the thought is that they invest everything—everything—into their small business because they anticipate, at the end, after they’ve built this business up and they put it on the market, they will get a decent capital gain. There is the reward for the risk they’ve taken, all the hard work they’ve taken, all the shifts they’ve done themselves on the weekend, weekend after weekend after weekend. They can then enjoy the fruits, literally, of their labours in capital gain. Well, not under this Government; under this Government, they will then lose a third—a third—of that, and I can tell you, I can tell the House, that I talk to small-business owners, my colleagues talk to small-business owners, and they are telling us one thing and one thing only: it’s that the policies of this Government are firmly anti-business, and we are beginning to reap the rewards of those policies.

It’s not just minimum wage. It’s labour relations. It’s access to good quality, skilled staff. I’ve got a six-week backlog of work application appeals into the immigration department. Six weeks it is taking them to process immigration work visas. Well, that’s the fruit season done and dusted. It is simply not good enough for this Government to see only one side of the equation. Of course we all support, and in Government did increase, the minimum wage, but it was done at a sustainable rate for small business. Unfortunately, this Government is surely killing the golden goose, and business confidence tanking is the proof of that.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

What a miserable, cold-hearted speech that was, denying the very lowest-earning citizens in our country the right to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

I want to take up Simon Bridges’ challenge from before, because I want to talk about the economy. I am up for that. He talked about the need for the boat to go faster, but if the boat is going to go faster and we’re going to build a strong First World economy, we need to own the damned boat. We are too busy in this country selling off the family silver, and I can tell you, lost in the events of the last few weeks, we have the proposed sale of Westland Milk Products—a 125-year-old farmer-owned cooperative proudly built up by generations of farmers on the West Coast, and I understand the roots of that go back as far as 160 years. So we urge the shareholders of Westland Milk Products to think long and hard before they sell their family silver, particularly those at the most extreme ends of the coast. It is a very big geographical area, and you will end up, after that 10-year period, being price takers at the end of a supply chain dominated by a foreign multinational.

Of course, this Government has not been a passive bystander. We have sought to get alongside Westland and offer some financing to allow them to progress their value-added strategy, but alas. Of course, the National Party don’t care; they’ve got previous on this—Silver Fern Farms, our biggest meat exporter. They waved that goodbye without even a song or dance, without even a fight. They were prepared, as they always are, to sell us out to the highest bidder. I was involved in that deal, and I know that there was a consortium of New Zealand companies ready to step in, and they could have facilitated that and they did not.

Foreign investment can, of course, be positive. It is not necessarily all bad. It can provide capital where it’s needed and access to markets, but you can get too much of a good thing, and every year we get to repent as we send $5 billion a year away in dividends to our foreign-owned banks. Anyone in Bowen House or the Beehive, look out your window and see that pile of logs sitting on the port—70 percent ownership of our forestry industry. Our own timber mills cannot get access to the logs, because those foreign-owned logs are going offshore to create jobs for other countries and for other companies. So even Fran O’Sullivan, that doyenne of neo-liberal economics, is now calling today on our Government to have a national strategy around these economically significant companies. Why is that important? Yesterday, it was Silver Fern Farms; today, it’s Westland Milk. What happens if tomorrow they’re coming for Alliance Group, the world’s biggest exporter of sheep meat? What happens if they come for Zespri or, heaven forbid, if they come for Fonterra?

I am calling on Minister Parker to bring forward the second part of the Overseas Investment Act. He acted decisively in the case of housing, where we noted that it was not in the national interest to have foreign buyers bidding up houses, putting affordability of housing beyond our own people. He has acted decisively before and I know he believes in this stuff. He is, in many respects, more New Zealand First than New Zealand First, and I call upon him to act. If we don’t, we will be, as John Key referenced—pretty holey I might add, because he didn’t do anything about it—we will turn into peasants in our own land.

We must own those value chains. The reason we must do that is because the margins are much greater nearer the consumer end. If we don’t own those value chains then we just risk being those price takers at the end of supply chains. As farmers, particularly, we’re vulnerable; we are a collection of small businesses. If we don’t have the protection of those significant—particularly those cooperatives that are motivated to return the highest dividend to their farmers, then we are incredibly vulnerable. Our biggest industries, the ones that pay the bills, the ones that pay for the health, and the education, and the superannuation, they are our key industries and we need to make sure we have some control and we are protecting them. It is time for us to act.

This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to stand up since the events of 15 March, so I would like to acknowledge the appalling loss of life, the courage of our police officers, the commitment of our ambulance and hospital staff, and the love and care of not only Christchurch but of the wider community, including Tauranga, in the response that has occurred. There has been a remarkable response in this House too. Can I acknowledge, in my view, the exemplary response from the Prime Minister. Can I acknowledge the Christchurch MPs, who, yet again, when their community are confronted with an extraordinary amount of pain and loss, have led, collectively, a response which this House is proud of. They do themselves and this House proud.

This spirit of bipartisan response has continued on in the gun reform laws that we’re reflecting this week. Can I acknowledge Simon Bridges and our caucus for playing a particular part in ensuring that we have a bipartisan approach to what is clearly a critical issue in this country. I think what it does is it brings into acute relief the fact that there are certain issues that, because of their scale, global complexity, and challenge, call out for a bipartisan approach, if at all possible, to the dealing of them and the managing of them. I’m involved in one of those issues at the moment: climate change.

I would like to say that we have been involved very closely in a process over the last few months in working with my opposite, James Shaw, to see if we can collectively design an institution, a climate change commission, that would stand above the day-to-day politics and advise successive Parliaments in terms of how you wrestle down the emissions. We are still in that conversation. We are certainly closer to the end than the beginning, and I remain confident that we will be able to land an outcome that meets the public’s expectation of bipartisan approach to an issue of that substance.

But I think the real test will be beyond the establishment of an institution in climate change, and as to whether there is any capacity for this House to have an alignment in respect to the policy responses that ultimately have to be considered when you reflect on climate change.

I’ll give you three examples. The first example is the application of science—not just some science but all science—to what is described as one of the great challenges of our generation. We have scientists now based in Palmerston North that are on the cusp of some fantastic innovations that can be applied in the medium term to be able to manage our response to this issue. I think the test, from a policy perspective, is: are we going to run to our particular corners around opposing aspects of science because they don’t deliver against our historic political narrative or, actually, are we going to see the opportunity collectively to apply all of the science and innovation of tools that are at our disposal to actually manage this particular issue?

The second example is how we approach agricultural emissions. However you look at this, there is, ultimately, a judgment around sequence and pace. Firstly, you need to be able to measure effectively. Then you can manage if you have that clear picture, and then, if you have tools available to be able to mitigate, you can bring those two approaches together to make some difference. There is opportunity, potentially, for some alignment around how we do that, but that requires some consideration around what is the appropriate sequence and pace.

The third example of an issue that I think needs to be relooked at is the oil and gas ban—$27 billion worth of economic impact. I think many of us know in this House that that was predominantly a position that was driven by political rhetoric and optics. There is so much oil and gas contribution to the global economy that is expected to still be front of mind over the next 20, 30, and 40 years. So the question should be: do we collectively have the capacity to look at an issue like that and acknowledge that if you have made a political statement that will ultimately cost an economy a huge amount of money, do you have the capacity to revisit it under the framework that is being proposed, so that when we look at issues as material and significant as climate change, we bring the best of our thinking collectively to the issue of managing it in the future? Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Despite the doom and gloom that the Leader of the Opposition was trying to convince himself of, and the rest of New Zealand, the sad news for him and members opposite and the good news for the rest of us is that New Zealand’s economy is doing well, particularly relative to many of our counterparts and especially given the current context, which is one of global volatility. We’ve heard from the finance Minister that the books are in surplus, unemployment is low, and even if we’re not immune to them, we are in a position to withstand economic headwinds.

That being said, what’s even more exciting is what we’re actually doing with that economic growth. As members before me have said, we know that as of Monday net superannuation and veterans pension rates went up 2.6 percent. We know that New Zealanders are living longer. We know that about 780,000 people are receiving either one of those benefits and must be able to lead fulfilling lives and to age positively.

We also know that the minimum wage increased by $1.20 to $17.70 on Monday, which was the biggest increase in dollar terms at one go. That translates to about $48 per week for those on the minimum wage who work a 40-hour week. Compare that to a total of $3.75 over nine years of the previous Government, according to Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment data that we have. Now, why is it important? Why is it important that we actually work to increase the minimum wage? We know that the cost of living has gone up, but what does that actually mean? It’s gone up steadily over the last decade. We know that food prices fluctuate because of different seasons, because of weather conditions, because, also, the previous Government increased GST from 12.5 percent to 15 percent to pay for income tax cuts. We also know that rent has increased faster than inflation, we’re told by people like the New Zealand Property Investors Federation. We know that power has gone up drastically since 1990. Residential prices have gone up 79 percent when adjusted for inflation.

What does this mean for people, though? It reminds me of an elderly Indian woman I met last year, who told me she works for a company that I won’t name, but it’s a big company. She’s worked with them for about 26 years, and for 26 years she’s been on the minimum wage. So if Governments don’t increase the minimum wage, what it really means, and we can stand here and argue ad nauseum about—what was it, hiring costs or whatever—

💬 Hon Jacqui Dean: Intentions.

—intentions, thank you, Jacqui Dean—hiring intentions and things like that, but if we don’t increase the minimum wage, it actually boils down to people not being able to eat. So for an average family of two adults and two children, after you take away the various costs of living, what I’m told is that they have about $40 to live on, on average. If we don’t increase the minimum wage, people cannot eat.

So I’m incredibly concerned and incredibly worried when I see, for example, a tweet by Henry Cooke, who’s a senior political reporter for Stuff, who said yesterday, and I quote, “Simon Bridges refused to rule out lowering the minimum wage if elected in 2020 when I asked him today,”. That was yesterday. So an Opposition, a previous Government, that makes noises about how people should be cared for and that they care for those on the lowest wages and so on and so forth—but their leader will not rule out cutting the minimum wage if they’re elected. So I think of the 200,000-odd people who have benefited from this increased $48 that this Government has put in place for them, and I say that we should all be very afraid.

We should also be afraid when the Hon Amy Adams talks about the Minister of Finance “waffling on about well-being”, and I say to her: he aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. We need to walk the talk, and the well-being of the people that we’re elected to serve in this House should be central to all that we do. We shouldn’t just be talking the talk. We should actually put that into principles and make sure that everything we do here benefits the people we’re elected to serve. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s not often that in a general debate you get to stand up and talk after one of my own colleagues, and it’s somewhat a wee bit limiting, because I have to say I absolutely totally tautoko and agree with what my colleague has said. So it’s hard to get anything out of what the other side have said at that time. [Interruption] I know, Mr McAnulty. I, though, would like to go back to what some of the Opposition have said about confidence being low. Well, that’s certainly not what I see when I’ve been out working and talking to businesses. And having been a small business owner myself, that’s not what I hear when I’m around the traps.

In fact, talking with people last week on the journeys that I was doing and the discussions that I was having during our time back in our communities, one particular discussion that I want to talk about was a hapū of Ngati Porou, actually, on the Coromandel. They talked about the conditions being right now for them to advance their rangatahi, their young people in their hapū. They talked about initiatives. They talked about the confidence that they have with the climate that’s around them at the moment and the climate of this Government wanting to move conditions forward, the economy to go forward—that their young people can survive, and not just survive but thrive. And that’s what it’s about and that’s what this Government’s about. It’s about giving opportunities. It’s about moving our economy and moving our country forward.

At the beginning of this week, in a year of delivery we had a day of delivery: 1 April was a fantastic day for us here, when so many initiatives that had been announced came to light and came to fruition. It was wonderful to see the realisation of us wanting to see businesses innovate and grow and seeing our workers get a fair pay for a fair day’s work. And, actually, I have to agree with my colleague Mark Patterson over here that some of the speeches have been quite mean about that, and even more mean when I hear that the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Simon Bridges, has refused to rule out the lowering of the minimum wage. I think that’s a really mean aspect to that.

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: And it would call it a hypocrite.

I couldn’t possibly say that word, Mr Henare, but yes. With the rising of the minimum wage to $17.70—like my colleague here Priyanca Radhakrishnan, I too have known people who have worked long term in businesses and are still remaining on that minimum wage. The businesses have seen this as being the ceiling. People have seen the minimum wage as being the ceiling, and yet these people are still loyal to the businesses after 20 or 30 years’ work, and over time it has actually become much harder with rising costs for those people to survive. We need to acknowledge those people. We need to support those people. And that’s exactly what we have done in raising that minimum wage.

We’ve also, as I said, talked about backing our Kiwi businesses to innovate. So when we hear that we’re not backing businesses, one of our major, major announcements that came to fruition on Monday was the backing of our Kiwi businesses to innovate. This is the biggest and largest ever investment in research and development ever. Over a billion dollars was announced in Budget 2018, and here it is. I’m very proud that we on Monday saw that coming to fruition. This will incentivise work results in new knowledge, new or improved processes, services or goods. This will have spillover benefits to New Zealand, and we will see that happening time and time again.

I just want to finish by saying here that we want to grow the economy and we want to improve the well-being of New Zealanders, and we are committed to actions to see this happen. The first of April was one day of delivery and 1 April continues the delivery of our plan as a Government to build a modern New Zealand that is sustainable, productive, inclusive, and fair for everyone.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to talk third in a trio, or a hat trick, of excellent speeches, so thank you for that opportunity. Look—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I mean, if the member’s saying that, he’s probably finished.

Oh, I will carry on, Mr Speaker. I would like to begin my speech talking about seniors. I’d like to acknowledge everything that the seniors in our country—those over the age of 65—have given to our country over many, many years: building our country, paying taxes, building our infrastructure, supporting their children, their grandchildren. I’d like to mention one in particular; a woman by the name of Janet Franks, who, unfortunately, just passed away in the past few days. She was the chair of the New Zealand Russian (Waikato) Friendship Society, and did a lot of work building relationships between those two countries.

This Government is helping seniors in the following way: the first one, the winter energy payment. Now, this came in last year. Seniors receive four months’ worth of the winter energy payment, and I received a lot of positive feedback about this. There are a number of seniors who, for whatever reason—well, I mean, put it this way: there are a lot of seniors who are on fixed incomes, and it can often be challenging. A rise in that income certainly helps a lot, and the winter energy payment was one example of that. This year, the winter energy payment will be rolled out from May to October—so six months—which is $20 a week per person, or $30 per couple. A second thing we’re doing for seniors is we’re raising superannuation by 2.6 percent, and that was from 1 April. So a couple has gone up $15.82 per week, to a total of $632 per week. The third thing we’re doing for our seniors is developing a new, improved SuperGold smart card.

The second point I’d like to touch on is the Provincial Growth Fund. I’d like to acknowledge the leadership from our colleagues in the New Zealand First Party for their passion for the regions. As a coalition Government, we’re working together with New Zealand First around our regions. One of the key things the Provincial Growth Fund has been doing—and I’ve seen it in my region, in the Waikato region—is it’s stimulating activity. So we have regions who have been struggling, sometimes for a number of years, and now they’re getting together and they’re starting to lift their heads up and they’re starting to say, “What could we do in our region? What could happen?” Aspiration is growing. There is an opportunity for them to develop business cases, develop feasibility studies, work on projects, see projects develop—projects that may have stalled for many years—see progress in those.

A couple of examples in the Waikato region: the Te Aroha area—they’ve received a million dollars from the Provincial Growth Fund around tourism. Now, this is an area where we have springs of water coming forward, and, from time to time, the odd person might go there, but they haven’t had the capital to be able to expand this. Now, with the Provincial Growth Fund, they are doing just that.

I’d like to touch on the well-being Budget, which is being talked about right across the world. It’s something new for a country, and I’d like to acknowledge the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, for the great work he’s doing around the well-being Budget. One point I’d like to pick up on is mental health—mental health will be a priority in this Budget, as we’ve heard. Now, mental health affects all of us, whether you’re in business, education, whether—you know, we see people who are homeless; sometimes there’s issues there around mental health. It affects all of society; it affects security. Making some positive changes in mental health will benefit all of our society. As someone who used to work in education, I often worked with young people, and, unfortunately, we’ve got some of the highest suicide rates in the OECD. This should not be the case, and I’m proud that as a Government we are taking mental health seriously, and that it will be a priority for this upcoming Budget.

In my final few seconds, I’d like to touch on the aspect of climate change. I’d like to acknowledge all of those young people who took a stand and said, “We must do something about climate change.” This Government is serious about climate change. We are passionate about having a clean, green economy. We’ve already announced a number of policies in this area around doing our part. We will be a leader. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.