General Debate

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

You know, when they play the political gold back over the last few years, that last interchange is bound to be there. That was something special.

There’s one thing we need to remember about this Government in 2019, and that’s that the Prime Minister has said, and she’s made it quite clear, that this is the year of delivery. That’s what it is: it’s the year of delivery. Actually, yesterday, she said—[Interruption]—Grant Robertson—it was the year of striving. That’s where she was—the year of delivery—and so far, we don’t have even a roundabout to Shane Jones’ house that’s been delivered.

So what has the Government delivered?

💬 Hon Members: Nothing.

Oh, nothing. Slushies—Kelvin Davis says 193 slushy machines, at nearly $6,000 each. Well, Grant Robertson drank them all—that’s the situation there.

Well, I want to take you through it: KiwiBuild. Well, at $2 billion for 33 houses, does it—[Interruption] Shh! Shh! Transport is in absolute disarray. On Friday, their mate Michael Stiassny resigned, and, in fact, nearly all of the staff at the New Zealand Transport Agency have resigned because they went there to build roads and not a single new road has been started in the last 18 months. In health, it’s getting worse. We’ve got a situation where we’ve got no accountabilities—they did away with those—where the targets in health have been cancelled, where deficits are growing, and where, right at the moment, all around this country—Winston Peters—doctors are striking, putting lives at risk—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: “Mr” to you—“Mr” to you, junior.

Putting lives at risk, the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Then we’ve got the situation where in education, there’s how many reviews? Eighteen ideological reviews coming at you in that area, and today, from Nicola Willis, we’ve had a remarkable example of the waiting list for preschoolers needing extra help. It has exploded from 74 days to 106 days. As the Prime Minister said, “In the life of a [little] 3 or 4-year-old child who’s [too] hungry to learn, that’s 74 days too long.” Tracey Martin, when asked by Nicola Willis how long it was going to take them to meet their goal of halving that, said something like, I heard the quote, five to seven years—five to seven years, from Tracey Martin.

In the environment, we’ve got nothing happening. In police, we’ve got no 1,800 police officers promised—that’s something the Prime Minister tells us they are striving for. And in the economy, as Amy Adams has made quite clear in this House, we’ve gone from 4 percent growth to 2 percent growth, and today, we saw what that means: 4,000 fewer jobs in New Zealand at the moment. In poverty, more beneficiaries, more hardship, and more housing grants in their thousands, and that in the year of so-called delivery is an absolute shame. And the members over there think it’s a joke that the economy is worse, that poverty is worse, and that the cost of living is getting higher and higher.

Rents under those members’ watch, because of their taxes and regulation, are up some $50 a week, to $3,000. Electricity under his watch is up, and petrol prices are at their highest in six months.

Well, on this side of the House, we’ve got positive plans for this country, and we’ll implement them quickly. We know that bills such as on tax indexation, no new taxes, repealing the oil and gas ban, and many other things will be great for New Zealand.

I want to finish today by talking about Nuk Korako, who’s made a fine contribution to this Parliament and who has been a fantastic chair of the Māori Affairs Committee. I wish him, Chris, and his strapping lads all the very best for the future.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek the leave of the House for an extension of time for Mr Simon Bridges. I’m allowed to do that?

💬 SPEAKER: Order! No the member’s not. The member is not allowed to seek leave for another person to have an extension. That’s been ruled many times that I have been in the House—[Interruption]—and I would prefer that he didn’t make his supportive comments sotto voce.

I seek leave for an additional five minutes.

💬 SPEAKER: Is there any objection? It will be an extra five minutes as consistent with the leave sought by the Deputy Prime Minister, so everyone who is yet to have a speech will still get to have one. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.

The clowns on the other side think that somehow it’s a bad thing if, in the National Party, we highlight, in the year of delivery, that they’ve got no plans, no policies, they’ve achieved absolutely nothing. Over there there’s a muppet called Ron Mark, who’s laughing, but he’s been the poorest defence Minister that New Zealand’s ever had. He wears the medals on the wrong side of his shirt, even though he knows that’s wrong. And there’s Winston Peters putting around a bit of paper like he’s a tough, clever guy, but here’s what we’ve learnt this afternoon—there’s a couple of things. Number one: he’s too scared to go into Pike River mine.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member knows he cannot make that accusation. He will withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise.

But what we’ve also learnt is he still sleeps on the job. I think it was question No. 9, and the deep contemplation went on, on my stopwatch, for one minute and 35 seconds. Catnapping works, according to Winston Peters. I’m glad I’ve got more time, because I didn’t get a chance to run through the 15 things that New Zealanders—what Shane Jones, the guy whose sole contribution as Minister for Regional Economic Development so far is a roundabout to his house, that hasn’t been built. That’s what Shane Jones has contributed to New Zealand.

I heard Winston Peters on Magic, or one of these radio stations, saying “We’ve done this, we’ve done that.” They’ve done nothing. They didn’t do away with Māori seats. They didn’t do anything on immigration. Frankly, they haven’t met a single promise they made at the last election. And Winston Peters says they have. Here’s a challenge. This is not a trick question; there’s nothing tricky about this. You can probably do this with your eyes closed, Winston Peters. Give me one thing—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was trying to be beneficent and charitable by moving the motion, which you said is out of order, but he can’t bring you into the debate. [Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Look, I’m trying to rule on a point of order. This is a robust debate. It’s the most robust debate that we have. We tend to have a little bit of lenience in it, and I am giving that to the Leader of the Opposition.

So I pose the question, albeit that question time’s over in this place today, to the Rt Hon Winston Peters. It’s a question that he should be able to answer when he stands up, with his eyes closed: name one thing—one thing—that he promised in the election campaign and that he’s delivered, that has actually happened in New Zealand today. That’s why, on our polling last night, he’s on 1 percent.

See, on this side of the House, we’ve got the policies, we’ve got the plans, and we’ll make action when we get into Government. We will ensure no new taxes. We’ll ensure tax indexation, so that as cost of living has gone through the roof under that Government over there—rents up $50 a week for the people who can least afford it, electricity up, petrol prices, I think, at $2.25 today around this country, the highest they’ve been in some six months. About 16, 17c of that is tax imposed by the Rt Hon Winston Peters. We’ll ensure that they are safe from those cost of living rises, through my tax indexation bill. We will repeal the needless restrictions around foreign investment. We will repeal the barmy oil and gas ban that means Winston Peters won’t get a single vote in Taranaki. Not even his family will vote for him in that province. We’ll repeal any changes to the three-strikes regime.

Here’s a radical thought: we’ll introduce, again, just a little bit of accountability into the health system, into the public sector, so that, actually, we know how long people are waiting in emergency departments and how many cancer treatments are happening. Right at the moment, with doctors striking, there is absolutely no way to know, honestly, how many people are being hurt by that. We’ll repeal the ridiculous industrial relations changes that are being made by the Government that are slowing this country down, that mean, when they were laughing earlier, actually, there are 4,000 fewer jobs going on in this country.

We’ll also make sure we introduce a comprehensive medicinal cannabis regime that’s incredibly—

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

The Green Party has long fought for an end to oil and gas exploration. That’s why we are certainly not celebrating the recent onshore block offer in Taranaki. Globally, if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to keep at least 80 percent of the current fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Knowing this, exploring for new oil and gas reserves just doesn’t make sense.

We have been warned for years and years that climate change caused by humans is leading us on a worrying trajectory. We know that continuing with business as usual will have a disastrous outcome for planet Earth and humanity. It is time to act.

Here in Aotearoa, the Green Party is proud of its achievements in getting real action on climate change. We have achieved a ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration. Now, this wasn’t in our confidence and supply agreement; this is something we negotiated and won as part of being in Government. It’s a shame we were not able to convince our Government partners that onshore oil and gas exploration should also cease, but the people of Aotearoa and the world are calling on us to do better—and the Green Party is listening to that call. My co-leader and the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw, will be ready to introduce a historic piece of legislation: the zero carbon bill.

Here in New Zealand, we need Kiwi smarts and ingenuity and boldness to step up and ensure that we can look our kids and mokopuna in the eye and say that we did try our best to protect this planet. We need to be able to tell the thousands of students who marched and striked for the climate on 15 March, around this country, that they did not march for nothing. They are asking for system change, not climate change. They’re asking for us to choose a liveable future for our whenua, tamariki, and communities rather than supporting the out-dated and dangerous business model of fossil fuels.

The Green Party will continue to fight hard for a swift transition away from fossil fuels, from all forms of oil and gas exploration. You will see more announcements about the progress we have made in Government in the coming weeks. We will also continue to fight hard for Government to support people through that transition and allow them to harness the opportunities that are safely available.

We look forward to the Just Transition Summit in Taranaki next week. New Zealand has to be able to hold its head up high and say that, at a critical crossroad, we did the right thing, the enduring thing. We are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change, but we are also the last generation that can actually stop it, and we must be able to say that we did just that. This will mean we’ve done our part on the world stage to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius, slowing the melting of our ice caps that would lead to climate change disaster. The Greens have pushed to extend our oil and gas ban to include onshore prospecting and fracking but didn’t get this over the line. If we care about our future, about our mokopuna, we need to end all oil and gas exploration. It’s that simple. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Well, it has not been a great start to the year for the Government, you’d have to say, wouldn’t you? I mean, here we are. In January, the Prime Minister came out proudly and said, “Well, never mind the first, sort of, 14, 15 months of our term—this is going to be the year we get some stuff done.” Then what did she do the very next day? The first item of business in the year of delivery, she came out and said, “Do you know all those KiwiBuild targets? Yeah, nah, just kidding. We’re not actually having those because we can’t meet them.” So that was the first item of delivery.

Then we had a $2.5 million Tax Working Group that was going to deliver the greatest reform to a fair and just tax system. What did we get after 18 months of Michael Cullen on a thousand bucks a day and the Prime Minister telling us this would be the great transformation? Oh, now they don’t believe in it any more. No, they’re not going to do any of that—none of that’s actually happening.

Then on Friday, we’ve got the Welfare Working Group coming out. Again, about another $2.5 million of a long working group with all of the worthies in a room trying to figure out how to fix the working group, and I can tell you now that there will be zero action on the recommendations of that report. I tell you now that it’ll be another report where the only delivery this Government knows how to do is set up a working group, consult, consult, and then do nothing—a do-nothing Government.

This isn’t the year of delivery; this is the year of deterioration. Every single core stat that actually talks to the well-being of New Zealanders is getting worse. You can talk about well-being all you like, Mr Robertson—you can stick a well-being bumper sticker on your Budget as much as you want—but the numbers don’t lie.

Here’s what the numbers are telling New Zealanders about actual well-being. Child poverty—the Prime Minister said child poverty was what she was all about. Well, there are nine child poverty measures; seven of them have got worse under this Government. Seven of nine have gone backwards—and, by the way, seven of nine got better under National. There are now 4,000 fewer jobs in our economy. Now, this is an economy that’s growing. There are more people here, but we have 4,000 fewer jobs for the people in New Zealand.

KiwiBuild—what a shemozzle that has been. Wasn’t it going to be 10,000 houses a year? I’m sure they said 10,000 houses a year. Well, they’re 18 months through their term, and what have we got? Thirty-three—33 houses—an utter fail.

The census, for heaven’s sake. The census, the core data building block of all of our systems of Government and funding—they have made a complete omnishambles of the census. The Minister is still in utter denial as to whether the census is viable or not. He still stands in the House and tells us it will be the best census ever. I’m sorry, Mr Shaw, wake up. You’re the only one who still thinks it.

Then look at today with the revelations from Nicola Willis. Waiting times for special education services and early education—this Government told us that 76 days is too long and they would halve them. What’s happened? They’ve almost doubled. That is not improving, that is not delivery, that is not well-being; it is total and utter incompetence and it is letting down the people of New Zealand. It is the very opposite of well-being.

You don’t have to look very far for the story to go on and on. The Provincial Growth Fund—every single day, it seems that Shane Jones is caught out in another mess of his own making—

💬 Brett Hudson: Another dodgy deal.

—no process, dodgy deals, no transparency, hidden funding. This week we learn that they’ve tried to give money to companies who haven’t even asked for it. That is how desperate Shane Jones is to get some runs on the board. No jobs of any note being created, no projects being delivered—all we’re seeing is dodgy process from a dodgy and incompetent Government.

This is not the year of delivery; this is the year of debacles. It is the year of decay. It is the year of actual well-being getting worse and worse under this Government, and I have no doubt that the people of New Zealand see through the spin. They see through the nonsense, and they know that when you’ve now got 300 percent more people needing emergency housing help, things are getting worse; things are not getting better. They know that when you’ve got 13,000 more people on benefits, 70 percent more people turning up for emergency hardship help, things are not getting better; they’re getting worse. So if this is the year of delivery, then the rest of this country will be saying “Bring on the election.”, because the incompetence, the failure, the debacles, and the arrogance we’re seeing from this Government isn’t helping the well-being of New Zealanders at all.

That member, Amy Adams, started off by saying that the numbers don’t lie. Well, we on this side of the House might tend to agree with that, actually. With 5 percent in the polls, or just scraping 5 percent—actually, behind, I think, Judith Collins as the preferred leader on that side of the House—the numbers don’t lie: he’s not popular with the general public, and we know for a fact that he’s not popular with his own caucus. We know that on that first Tuesday back from the Easter break, it wasn’t Easter break stories that they were sharing over their long caucus meeting. When they put to us that we’re a debacle, that there’s decay on this side of the House, I have to challenge that and say the “D” that we need to be talking about with regards to that side of the House is “dissent”—dissent. We will see more of that play out over the coming months, I am sure.

This side of the House is committed to delivery, and there already has been much that we have delivered. I’m very proud of the fact that today, 1 May, marks the second year of the roll-out of the winter energy payment. That payment is one of the—if not the—biggest payment that has been pushed out through the welfare system, and we will see close to 1 million New Zealanders benefit from that winter energy payment. So that is part of what we’ve delivered.

The previous speaker mentioned that, on Friday, the expert advisory group will be reporting back with their welfare report, and that will go public. I’m really excited about that. That is going to help inform the overhaul of our welfare system that we have committed to as part of our confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party. We will be taking those recommendations seriously, and I’m very grateful to the chair of that group, Cindy Kiro, and all of the members of that reference group who have helped inform that report. But the report is not all the overhaul. Some work has already begun, and I want to touch on some of those things to lay the platform for the work that we will continue with the recommendations that come from the expert advisory group’s report.

We, last year, launched the Families Package. That saw 384,000 families better off by an average of $75 per week and will lift 64,000 children out of poverty by 2021. As part of that, we saw the Best Start payment to help with the cost of children in the early years, and, of course, the winter energy payment, that I’ve mentioned, to assist with heating costs over winter. We saw extended paid parental leave. We saw increases to the accommodation supplement and increases to the orphans benefit, the unsupported child’s benefit, and the foster care allowance. So please don’t tell us on this side of the House that we have not delivered anything as of yet.

Alongside that, my ministry has been focused on the cultural change shifts and service delivery that they had to undertake. I have to say that under the previous Government, what we saw was an absolute focus on getting people off benefits, with no regard for whether they went on to a better situation and whether or not they and their families were better off. What that ended up creating was a shift away from that duty of care that we should naturally see through our welfare system and which we are attempting to put back.

As part of that culture change, already we have seen changes to the layout of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) offices. We have seen the eligibility guide launched so we can make sure that the New Zealanders who are eligible for support from MSD are actually getting that support. We have taken steps to ensure that benefit recipients are treated with respect in all of their interactions. All of those who access support from MSD should be treated with respect and have their dignity upheld, whether or not they are an unemployed young person, a superannuitant, a disabled person, or anybody else that needs to seek out the support of MSD, and we are focused on making that happen.

We on this side of the House believe that if you treat people right, if you support people in the right ways, then, actually, you will support them to be able to take up meaningful opportunities for themselves and their families. We do not believe in the punitive culture that the previous Government undertook, and the evidence supports the fact that it did not work.

There is no better illustration of the non-delivery of this Government in their year of delivery than in the health sector. Last month, I went to the Southern District Health Board’s board meeting, where I found out that on a year-to-date basis, their elective cardiac surgery target was behind by 45 percent. They had only achieved 55 percent of their year-to-date target. So I did some back-of-the-envelope math, and I asked the Minister for some answers. That equates to over 70 people who should’ve got their elective surgery by now and who haven’t. There are another 30 to 40 people in the Canterbury region—over 100 people who should’ve had their cardiac surgery by now that haven’t.

For the first time in 10 years, we are on track to do fewer elective surgeries than in the previous year, on both a numbers and a case-weighted basis, and yesterday, in question time, the Minister said that it was going to get worse. Another 2,300 elective surgeries have been cancelled this week alone as a consequence of the junior doctors’ strike. He also said that he was aware that there had been people who had been cancelled not once, not twice, but even more than that. So it’s not overstating it to say that in this year of delivery, people’s health and even their lives are at risk as a consequence of this Government’s mismanagement of the health sector.

But he was happy to be responsible for the cheaper GP fees for more than 600,000 New Zealanders—fair enough—but what he didn’t say was two things: it was six months late, and, actually, what they promised was cheaper GP fees for every single New Zealander. Four and a half million New Zealanders were going to get cheaper GP fees from this Government, and they let them down by about three million. Remember Dr Clark wailing and gnashing his teeth in Opposition at a survey that showed that one in seven New Zealanders were not able to go to a GP because of affordability? And what’s happened—the number of people who can’t afford to go to the GP has gone up, not down. Over this Government’s time, it’s gone from 14.3 percent to 14.9 percent—non-delivery.

Where’s the world-class cancer care they promised? Where’s the response to the mental health and addiction report that the Minister has had for months and has been delayed three times? Now they’re saying they’re going to fold it into Budget 2019. That’s OK, but there are a number of very good recommendations in that report that don’t have any financial impact. They could have been doing it now—not delivering. Where’s the free health checks, and the free eye checks for our senior New Zealanders, and the increase in the age for breast-cancer screening to the age of 74, which is in the New Zealand First - Labour coalition agreement?

💬 Erica Stanford: Where are they?

Nowhere to be seen, not delivered on, and don’t even start me on medicines-funding.

Where’s the money for Dunedin Hospital? We all looked at each other in Budget 2018 when it came out and said, “No money in the budget for Dunedin Hospital”. Well, I’m going to make a prediction: at the end of this month, in Budget 2019, there’s going to be no money for Dunedin Hospital. This is from a Minister who, in Opposition, petitioned the previous Parliament that the Government should have started the rebuild of Dunedin Hospital in 2017 and, two years later, not a thing—non-delivery.

That’s because this is a Government that’s got its priorities completely wrong. It’s given fees-free in student fees to the children of millionaires, but it didn’t let the millionaires miss out either; if they were over 65 they were going to get the winter energy payment whether they needed it or not. My colleagues who are still having children, who are still high income earners—some of them on several hundred thousand dollars a year—are getting a baby bonus. In the meantime, elective surgery is going backwards. The removal of national health targets that the Minister said created perverse incentives has created even more perverse incentives. People could be dying because the Minister does not want to set expectations for throughput of our DHBs—non-delivery in surgery; non-delivery in cancer care. We had Blair Vining standing at the Cancer Care at the Crossroads conference where his wife said her husband would be dead if he had kept to the appointment that the Southern District Health Board had given them. This is a Government that is not delivering and it’s not got its priorities right.

What a load of rubbish from a former Minister who wouldn’t know what today is. Today is May Day—

💬 Hon Members: May Day.

May Day. But that former Minister—he’s running out now—tortured workers for nine years in his role. Shocking—it was shocking, the type of things that he brought in: taking away rest breaks, taking away meal breaks for workers. Who would ever envisage that a Government could do that type of thing? They took away the reinstatement area for workers—

💬 David Seymour: Ask Mike Williams.

Shocking stuff. Ninety-day trials—Mr Seymour would have supported that.

💬 David Seymour: That was a great policy.

No, it’s not a great policy. It’s something that this Government has addressed seriously over the last year. Now, I’m proud to be part of a Government that has brought balance back to the workplace—

💬 David Seymour: But he’s not part of the Government.

Yes—who’s not part of the Government? Get a life, Mr Seymour. You’re not even part of the Opposition. But in terms of bringing balance to the workplace, that’s what this Government has done. We’ve had to do it because of the shocking work of that previous member who had no aroha at all for our workers. We’ve brought the minimum wage up to $17.70; $20 by 2021—isn’t that just great? We’re going to bring parity, we’re going to give the equity to workers, and we’re going to restore balance to our Employment Relations Act by reclaiming basic modern workplace conditions for our workers. We’re increasing Working for Families by $75 a week—$75 a week—and rolling that out to up to about 26,000 families.

💬 David Seymour: He’s running out of steam already.

We’re increasing paid parental leave, Mr Seymour, from 18 to 22 weeks. So I’m proud of the work we’re doing.

As well as that, we’re going to invest in skills. We’re going to invest—we’ve got a skill strategy in terms of people in this country. Mana in Mahi, He Poutama Rangatahi—you name it. We’re doing great work in the provinces now. Shane Jones is doing a fantastic job right around the area.

💬 David Seymour: He’s run out of material.

You wouldn’t know out there because you don’t understand the impact that the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is having with the regions. It’s just fantastic. They say to me, “National did nothing. They didn’t care. They didn’t care about us.”

💬 Hon Member: Who says that, Willie?

They say that all the time.

💬 Hon Member: Who says that?

Jim Smith from your area. They say it all the time—how the PGF is having an effect. The regions know about this. That’s why so many members are attending some of the hui that we have out in the regions.

So I’m proud of the work we’re doing, and it’s great to celebrate it on May Day—a day where we, again, examine the divisions within the National Party. We saw it on display today. Simon Bridges fighting for his life—Simon Bridges. But I want everyone to tell Simon today: the Māori support him in Labour. He’s got our full support. Peeni Henare has offered to do a waiata for him. Willow-Jean Prime will help him with his reo, because it’s so tragic. We will support Simon, even though the National Party won’t.

Look, I understand most of the Māori in the National Party are useless. We understand that—apart from our good man Nuk Korako, who’s going today. What a good man. It’s so sad he’s being booted out of the National Party because he supports tino rangatiratanga and the Māori in Labour. So the only good ones in there: Nuk; Shane Reti, because he delivered Peeni Henare’s babies; and Harete Hipango. That’s about it. The rest are useless. Paula Bennett—well, she doesn’t know if she’s a Māori. Some days she does and some days she doesn’t. Dan Bidois—he needs to go back to Italy. And Jo Hayes—Jo wouldn’t have a clue. A great example of that with Jo was when she did her Whānau Ora attack on us and failed miserably. She was even told to shut up by Nuk—I think Bill English got to her too—but she carried on, carried on, carried on. The Auditor-General gave us a full clearance, much to the embarrassment of the useless Jo Hayes, and Nuk Korako apologised to me for it.

So I want to say to the National Party today, who are split and divided: yes, you have useless Māoris—but the good one is going today. One of the best, Nuk Korako, is going today. However, we’re backing Simon. Please get that message to him, because he’s desperate. We saw him today. He’s desperate there, grovelling for more support—shocking, the way he was insulting us. But he’s from Ngāti Maniapoto, I’m from Ngāti Maniapoto, and I’m obliged to help him. Kia ora tātou.

I call—

💬 David Seymour: Madam Temporary Speaker, you can call whoever you like.

TEMPORARY SPEAKER (Erica Stanford): I call Matt Doocey.

Thank you—very good choice, Madam Temporary Speaker. Very good choice, Madam Temporary Speaker.

Today, I want to talk about mental health. As the country and the mental health sector waits for the report back from the Government and waits for budgetary decisions for Budget 2019, I want to propose that, in fact, only one figure will be acceptable for mental health in Budget 2019, and that figure is $1.5 billion. I believe that if the amount of $1.5 billion is not announced for mental health, they haven’t delivered in that area, and the reason for that is their own inquiry.

The main recommendation said they wanted to increase access for mental health services from 3 percent of the population to 20 percent of the population over five years. Currently, in Vote Health, we spend $1.35 billion in delivering to 3 percent of the population to provide them with access to mental health. Taking those members’ number one recommendation for their inquiry report, to increase to 20 percent would require an extra investment of $1.5 billion a year for the next five years, and I would state that is the reason why we’re hearing nothing about mental health—silence.

When they were in Opposition, it was the biggest issue; now, in Government, they’ve had their inquiry and they don’t like the recommendations. We can even look at the coalition agreement that states the target for mental health is to “Ensure everyone has access to timely and high quality mental health services,”. That goal in the coalition agreement for mental health is that everyone in New Zealand will have access to mental health services. How is that achievable? They overpromised and under-delivered, and that’s why, unless we hear an announcement of $1.5 billion for mental health in Budget 2019, they will have under-delivered. Not only that, they will have let down every submitter who made a submission to that inquiry—

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: How much did National give to mental health?

—and every person who works in the mental health sector.

We hear a call of “How much did National put in?” Well, interesting—that came up today, because we heard from Ross Bell from the New Zealand Drug Foundation, talking about the bill that was in front of the Health Committee. When we talked about those who have complex needs from synthetic cannabis use, Ross Bell talked about, really, the fact that the only policy that will work with that complex client group is to have social housing and wraparound support, and we’ve heard about that, haven’t we? That was one of the 17 mental health initiatives that got announced for $100 million in Budget 2017, and that’s what this Government has rolled back.

They took out $100 million from mental health—17 mental health initiatives that would have been making a difference on the ground today. How about the policy and the programme of pairing emergency responders with mental health professionals? The police were disappointed when that got rolled back by this Government. That would’ve been a game-changer.

Those were 17 mental health initiatives that would have been game-changers. They were developed by the mental health sector and the Chief Science Advisor. That Government came in, and those members had talked about mental health while they were in Opposition. They talked a big game, and here we are, 18 months in—silence. We’ve been told successively, “December, February, March, April—you’ll get the report back on the inquiry.” Last week, we got told, “Because it had budgetary expectations.” Well, actually, no—not all the recommendations do. Repealing and reviewing the mental health Act doesn’t. You could have come out with your report on that.

So, as I said, as we wait for Budget 2019, there’s only going to be one figure that will show this Government has delivered for mental health, and that will be $1.5 billion of extra funding.

It’s amazing that after nine long years of being in Government, that side has only now just realised how important mental health is. This Government has identified mental health as one of five key priorities in the upcoming Budget. In 18 months, we’ve recognised and the work has been done, and so I would just say, hold your horses. It is a priority, but I’m amazed that it’s taken the previous Government nine long years to suddenly have somebody here in the House recognise that it is a priority.

When Sir Bill English stepped down from the office of leader of the National Party, there were many people from that side of the House that raised their hand and wanted to be a leader: Paula Bennett, Amy Adams, I think my friend Mark Mitchell himself had his hand up, Mr Simon Bridges, and Ms Judith Collins. I remember Mr Simon Bridges walking in front of the House, and, although I’m not a member of the National caucus, in the spirit of parliamentary comradeship, I called out, “I’m supporting you, Simon. I’m going to give you my vote”. But alas, after 18 months, there was a lot of expectation—high hopes, the slick hairdo and that, and the early days of his ministerial role; there was high expectation—but all we are now hearing is that he’s failed to support and to provide the kind of leadership that their caucus requires. In fact, now there’s talk of Judith Collins taking the role, and, I suppose, when a leader starts calling members of your caucus useless behind the scenes, I suspect that what they now want is somebody who can tell that to their face. So rather than speaking behind the scenes, they want a leader that can be upfront, say it to their face, and just crush the living daylights out of them.

But, when I’m listening to the speeches in this general debate, it’s amazing how, suddenly, after nine long years, in 18 months they’ve found that they now have a heart. They are raising issues which we raised when we were in Opposition. But in nine years, their Government entrenched poverty, entrenched hopelessness, entrenched unemployment, and entrenched low income. In 18 months, we’ve managed to lift the well-being, from the package—the Families Package—that was introduced when we came in to Government. In fact, on this day, today, we’re raising the winter energy payment. A million people will benefit from the winter energy payment: older people, those who cannot afford to pay for power to warm their homes. Those are the people that they’re now claiming to have a heart for. But in nine years, they never did anything to address the poverty that we are now having to address.

So the nine years of neglect is what we are now laying the foundation, in the first 18 months, to build on to restore confidence in the public services, in housing, in health, in raising income, and in education. We know that by and large, the citizens of this country the length and breadth of Aotearoa recognise that after the harm and the damage and the neglect and the under-investment they produced in nine years, it’s going to take more than that to address the neglect. So I’m proud that not only has the winter energy payment gone up; superannuation has gone up.

The income levels: this is significant, and Mr Willie Jackson identified the fact that we’ve reduced unemployment to the second-lowest in the last decade. In so reducing unemployment, we’ve also raised wages. Those two things are really, really important because, in their nine years, not only was unemployment high but the incomes of the workforce were low, because what they did in their nine years was skewer the system so it benefited the top 10 percent of income earners in New Zealand while everybody else had to figure out how to survive for themselves.

So 18 months—lots of work has been done tackling the neglect that that previous Government produced in nine years. But we know that there is much more work to do, and it is the year of the delivery, and we will deliver, for the first time ever, the well-being Budget in New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So the parties across the way, when they came into Government, tried to sell New Zealanders a dream. What they are delivering is an absolute nightmare. We’ve got a softening economy, weaker job growth, and we’ve got rising costs of living, particularly for beneficiaries. The very people that those parties have always purported to represent are feeling the most pain under the regressive approaches and the increased costs that this Government is imposing upon them. Things like fuel excise taxes going up—talking about regional fuel taxes. These are the things that hurt low-income New Zealanders and beneficiaries the most. It’s not just in the weakening economy; it’s in health, it’s in education. We’ve heard today about blowing-out waiting times for young children—pre-schoolers—who have special education needs.

Under this Government, despite them throwing some money at things, things are getting worse, and with transport the story is no better. The only thing moving slower than the Government’s transport plans are the vehicles that are stuck in the traffic that these things were supposedly going to fix. Wellington is a great example of this. The only thing they have managed to do is, effectively, rename the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme the “Let’s Get Wellington Stalling” programme. It’s already over a year late. Wellingtonians are still waiting to hear what this Government is going to do to make their lives easier getting to and from work, getting their children to and from sport, and living the lives that their families want, and the economy is waiting for some productivity to be unlocked with a decent transport network. All we’re getting are a few reports that the Government is prepared to do half a job—half a job.

We hear that they will address the problems at the Basin Reserve, that they will put a second tunnel through Mount Victoria, but that they won’t, for at least 20 years, and possibly longer than that, do anything about a second tunnel around the Terrace. So just bear in mind that everyone today from the north and east of this region who is currently stuck on the Wellington motorway trying to get off at one of the few exit points—well, woe betide them if they have to exit at the end of the motorway through the current Terrace tunnel. They are going to be sitting and waiting for a couple of decades for any real relief.

Now, during all of that time, these are the people who, through their fuel excise charges, are actually paying for whatever “Let’s Get Wellington Stalling” actually delivers. They’ll pay through their fuel taxes for the Basin upgrade. They’ll pay through their fuel taxes for the Mount Vic tunnel. They’ll pay through their fuel taxes for some form of mass transit. And if there is one small piece of relief and good news here, it is the rumour that at least it won’t be a hugely expensive and hugely loss-making light rail system, but still they’ll pay for a mass transit system that they get no benefit from at all. But they still get half a solution—half a solution—because the traffic from the north and the east cannot possibly benefit from a little mass transit system that runs from the railway station to the airport. They get nothing but they’ll pay for it all.

Part of the reason for this is that the Government stripped $5 billion out of State highway improvements to throw most of it into light rail ideology, and as a result of that, not only are they not going to get the second Terrace tunnel but two other incredibly important Wellington transport projects have been shelved for at least 10 years. The Melling interchange that, just last year, the Minister of Transport visited the site of and said it ticked all the boxes has been put on hold for at least 10 years. The Pētone to Grenada link road, a road that would take more than 20,000 vehicle movements per day off State Highway 1, off the Wellington motorway, and that would free up traffic congestion for more than half the residents of Ōhāriu has also been shelved for at least 10 years. The Government hasn’t even committed funding to design either of those projects.

So the rest of Wellington gets stalled, and projects that would help unlock productivity for the region and unlock the lives that people want to live are put on hold for 10 years. Where are the voices of the Government MPs on this absolute travesty? Absolute silence, or near silence. Nothing to be heard from a Government MP in Ōhāriu, and all we get from a Government MP in Hutt South is “Great news that it’s going to be put off for 10 years.” Wellingtonians deserve better, and it’s the National MPs in Wellington who are delivering it for them: myself, Nicola Willis, and Chris Bishop. We’re advocating for the right things for Wellington. This Government is a disaster.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real privilege to be taking a call on this very special day today, and that is because there’s a lot of good stuff happening today, 1 May. My colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni already mentioned the winter energy payment, which is starting today—a fantastic support structure that kicks in today—with about a million New Zealanders protected from the cold with 22 weeks of payments to help them to heat their houses through the cold winter months.

As my colleague the Hon Willie Jackson mentioned today, today’s a very significant day for working people, because today is called May Day. It’s the recognition of a day as International Workers’ Day, celebrated by many countries all over the world. I think it’s also important to mention that it was only three days ago that we actually had the International Workers’ Memorial Day. That’s a day when we remember those killed or injured on the job and also the families that have to deal with the aftermath of those tragedies. We remember the people that went to work simply to earn a living and never returned from work. It’s because poor working conditions kill and injure people, and that’s why it’s so important that we do everything possible to protect workers from work-related injury and illnesses.

It is a fact that unions play a vital role in this. Oh, I see some people sparking up when I mentioned the “U” word. I recently put a post out with regards to this, and it got a bit of attention. The post actually read, “There are many reasons to support unions and one of them is the clear international evidence that unionised workforces are safer. When [Opposition] MPs [say] they like a world ‘without unions’, they’re [basically] saying they don’t believe in [health and safety] for working people.” Now, it was in fact WorkSafe, during their annual review, who told us at select committee that international research shows that unionised workplaces are safer, but, despite that evidence from all over the world put in front of the Education and Workforce Committee members, Oppositions MPs are choosing to remain in denial, and that shows how out of touch they actually are with regard to working people and the situations they find themselves in on the shop floor. It shows the dislike of not only unions but actually of working people, and my colleague the Hon Willie Jackson touched on this.

It’s evident, from nine years of undermining and eroding employment legislation, undermining bargaining power, increasing insecure work practices for people that are trying to get ahead, that the Opposition parties showed so clearly that they just don’t like our working people. There were many changes made during consecutive National Governments, and they actually exacerbated already existing inequality in New Zealand. Actually, it’s a shameful, shameful statistic that New Zealand is in the bottom third of the OECD for income inequality, and behind that statistic—because you can say “It’s just a statistic.”—are many hard-working people in New Zealand who are just trying to get ahead and provide for their families, trying to make ends meet and they just can’t. And that is something that this Government is clearly addressing.

So, today, 1 May, International Workers’ Day, we are celebrating the contributions of those working New Zealanders. We are letting them know that they actually have a Government that cares, a Government that is committed to making changes for the better. One of the things that we’ve done is we’ve lifted the minimum wage to $17.70 and are very clearly on our way to $20 by 2021. This is boosting the incomes of more than 200,000 workers. We’ve already lifted the incomes of 350,000 families with the Families Package. We increased parental leave from 18 to 22 weeks, up to 26 weeks by 2020. We are supporting victims of domestic violence with 10 days of paid leave per year, something that the previous Government voted against, and we are also progressing with our pay equity legislation. Next week, on Monday, the majority of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill changes will come into force, and that will also make huge improvements—legislation shepherded through by Minister Iain Lees-Galloway.

Unions together with working people fought and achieved a lot of the working conditions for our people in New Zealand: the minimum wage, the eight-hour working day, paid holiday, sick leave, maternity leave—you name it. The Opposition would like us to forget about that, but we don’t. It pays to be with a union, especially because those on a collective agreement have much more chance of getting a pay rise. This Government has a lot of things to do, but we’re getting on with the job and improving things for working people in New Zealand.

General debates are about bringing things to this House that matter and that are important to your electorate and are important to New Zealand. I’m going to use my short time to highlight a really significant issue in my electorate and in my city of Hastings in this year of supposed delivery from this Government. That is around housing.

In 2016, the Hon Phil Twyford, as a member of the Opposition, said he wanted a state of emergency declared around housing in New Zealand. On 23 May, in an answer to question No. 6 in 2018—almost one year ago—he was critical that the waiting list for State houses in Hastings had gone up by 86 percent. On 1 May this year—this day, nearly half-way through the Government’s year of non-delivery—we have one hectare of vacant land in Hastings completely serviced and ready to go, and no houses on it. In fact, in the last 12 months, six houses have been built by Housing New Zealand in Hastings—six. One-hundred-and-twenty have been built under a papakāinga housing development, which I supported when I was the previous mayor.

In 2019—this year—do you know how many houses Housing New Zealand are going to build in Hastings? Seventeen—seventeen. And next year, they are going to demolish 15 and build 51—a net addition of 36. Yet, at the very same time, in Hawke’s Bay 440 of our children are living in motels, many of them for over one year. There are 615 people on the waiting list, and the Hastings District Council CEO thinks we’re about 1,800 houses short. This is a national and New Zealand disgrace. It is outrageous that in my community 440 children are living in motels for this winter, and for many of them, for over a year.

I accept—I accept—that the National Government, when it was in power, didn’t get everything right in Hastings. I was the mayor at the time, and I could see what was happening. Houses were taken down and advice was given to the Government that there wasn’t a demand. Well, guess what: the Labour coalition Government is in charge, and in the first 12 months—actually, 18 now—they have built six houses.

In my view, what has happened in Hastings is a New Zealand disgrace. This Government, so far, in its first 18 months in office, delivering for my people, when they had all the land available, all the services there—for them to deliver just six houses is incompetent. It’s incompetent at a ministerial level, and it’s incompetent at a senior bureaucratic level. I like the people in my electorate that work in the Ministry of Social Development and housing. They’re working hard. But when I see 440 children in Hawke’s Bay living in motels and vacant land, we have got something seriously wrong.

When I listen to oral questions in this House being asked about Wānaka, I hold my head in shame. When KiwiBuild can build 211 houses in Wānaka, put 11 on the market and sell five, and I have 440 children—children—in Hawke’s Bay living in a motel, I hold my head in shame. It is shameful what’s occurring in Hastings. I am pleased and thank the Prime Minister and other Ministers for coming to Hastings a couple of weeks ago, but can I say to them: I put them on notice. The housing situation in New Zealand, in Hastings, is a New Zealand disgrace. And the performance of this Government so far in this space is nothing less than a shambles.

I am gobsmacked at the gall of the member who’s just resumed his seat; for him to come into this House and to say about incompetence, to say about the disgraceful things happening in Hastings, and for him to talk about a housing crisis, when for nine long years his Government denied there was a housing crisis. That member was the mayor who presided over people who were poisoned by water that wasn’t safe to drink, and he comes into this House, brand new, and starts criticising this Government. Well, at the end of 2017, we were elected to have the privilege of leading this country as the Government—our three parties working together, a shared set of values about where we want to take this country, and an energy and passion that hasn’t been seen in this House for a long time.

But we discovered the huge shortfalls that were caused by the neglect of the previous nine long years of a National Government. The health system was underfunded by $2.3 billion over nine years. And we know the consequences of that underfunding.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Rubbish.

There was a shortfall of 70,000 homes. The National Government’s policies were rubbish—the Hon Anne Tolley is exactly correct. The National Government gave our country rubbish, and we are working to fix it. New Zealand had the highest homelessness in the OECD under the National Government, and, at the same time as that, their Government was selling off State houses. The number of teachers in training dropped by 40 percent—40 percent—over those nine years; teachers leaving their profession in droves because they were so undervalued by the National Government.

And the National Government froze the police budget—this is the party of law and order—for five years. What does that do to the numbers, the quality, and the morale of our police? They deserve better.

Our three parties have achieved a lot in the last 18 months. We’ve lifted the incomes of over 350,000 families by an average of $75 dollars a week—$75 can go a long way when families are struggling against increasing rent and a higher cost of living. Our Best Start payment: we know when babies are born that it’s a big expense on a family. Those parents now get $60 a week for the first 12 months of their baby’s life. That is a huge start.

The winter energy payment starts today. For a single person, it’s $20 per week, and for a couple, nearly $32 per week. That will go a long way to giving people the security they need to turn the power on and heat their homes. What more could we want than people to be warm in winter? It’s not a big ask, but that’s what we’ll be able to deliver.

Over 200,000 workers are better off because of the minimum wage, and we have backed our neglected regions. I’ve heard National criticising the Minister who’s responsible for the Provincial Growth Fund, but I have heard such praise in the provinces that at last they are getting noticed and supported so that they can thrive and the workers in that area can live decently.

But I want to conclude by giving a particular note of thanks to our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern; my friend and colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods, Minister in charge of Christchurch regeneration; and the Hon Dr David Clark, Minister of Health, for funding the manaaki support in Christchurch and Kaikōura. Some people might not know what it is, but it means that in every school—219 primary and intermediates—for every year 1 to 8 child, they are now getting direct access to mental health support. That is a huge contribution to the well-being of those children and their families, to the resilience of the communities, and to the betterment of our region. We’ve been through a lot, as this House knows, and we’ve had huge support from Parliament, but that specific support has been long asked for and has been delivered by our Government. So thank you for that. On behalf of the Canterbury and Kaikōura communities, it is making a big difference.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.