General Debate

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

It’s well-known that a Government starts to lose touch in connection with the people it represents when the Ministers from that Government start to believe their own policy rhetoric and ignore the consequences of their policy, and today, from the Prime Minister through, we have seen Minister after Minister denying the reality of the consequences of their policies and referring totally to the rhetoric that they’ve been banging on about for over 18 months now. Next Thursday, we are going to be presented with a Budget that will be entitled the Wellbeing Budget. Well, I predict there’ll be very little wellbeing in it for many New Zealanders at all.

One of the great leaders of the Labour Party was Norman Kirk, a man who was respected on all sides of the House for his care, his compassion, and his commitment to bettering New Zealanders. He had five things that he said his Government and successive Governments should be tested against. They were: housing, education, health, security, and of course the opportunity to work. Going through all of those, there are fails in those five.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: That’s four.

Well, there’s the former primary teacher—no longer one, because he couldn’t count to five—sitting over there. Those are the things that a Government gets tested on.

Let’s just look at where things are at the moment. We’ve just heard the health Minister this afternoon trying to defend the abandoning of targets for elective surgery—trying to explain that, in actual fact, New Zealanders are better off although there are thousands fewer elective surgeries occurring in this country today. If one were to compare that much reduced figure with population stats, it would look even worse, but of course we can’t do that, because the Government have abandoned any hope of having a reasonable census document that might give that information so necessary to test their policies.

We also have the Government crowing about something like KiwiBuild—the opportunity for New Zealanders to get into houses. Well, the reality is that all the KiwiBuild houses are being purchased on special housing area land—purchased by the Government. The ones that the developers can’t sell, the ones that the 25,000 new first-home buyers in New Zealand weren’t prepared to buy—the Government’s buying them. The “Bank of Phil Twyford” is turning up to bankroll the various developers around the country. They were all put in place by a National Government, and those people getting into those houses—the 25,000 last year—were calling on the Home Start grant, the $20,000 contribution to their purchase from a National Government. Not one new initiative from the Labour Government beyond the paltry 70 KiwiBuild houses they’ve managed to build in nearly 18 months.

Let’s look at the job market in New Zealand. Just 18 months ago, there were 10,000 new jobs being created in the economy every single month. That’s now down to 600, and no wonder the number of people on the job seekers—we used to honestly call that the “unemployed” group of New Zealanders. That number now—the “job seekers”—is 11,000 higher than it was just 18 months ago and growing by the day, but you have got Grant Robertson over there telling us that the economy is humming along at a huge rate, and if it’s not, it’s not their fault; it’s somehow a problem of the international environment. There is too much of this blame going on, too much referencing to the sort of rhetoric that we are seeing from these Ministers about what they were so good at in the past.

Let’s look at education. Has there ever been a time where there’s been so much disruption to education in New Zealand? Never. Not ever. Has there ever been a time when there has been so much expectation created by Government, only to have it whipped out from beneath those whom they claim they’re there to insist on the wellbeing for? Let’s be very clear: the fees-free policy is a failure. Fewer students are going to university, tertiary training, and—I have to tell the Prime Minister—into vocational training, as well, as a result of that policy. That’s not working, but we get this rhetoric all the time about how good the Labour Government is for education. I’m leaving New Zealand First out of it because I know that they don’t have as much influence as they like to claim.

Then there is the issue of security. Time won’t let me say it, but, apparently, of 1,800 new police, there are less than 20 percent of that so far, and, on a population basis, closure of 24-hour police stations. Bad news for New Zealanders.

It’s an absolute pleasure to rise after Gerry Brownlee, who is clearly the National Party’s best speaker. I’m just dumbfounded why he’s not on the front bench. Why has he been relegated back there to the second bench? But what I will say is there is one job that is distracting the National Party at the moment, and that job is the Leader of the Opposition. You can see it on their faces. Every day this divided, distracted bunch trundle into this House. It is the only thing on their minds and things are getting desperate.

It’s fair to say that some of us on this side of the House have been through our own years of disquiet—let’s say—around leadership. But even in the darkest days, did we ever have a leader who was so desperate that he tried to engineer someone to leave his own party and set up another one? Even in the worst of times we never got to that point. But these are desperate, desperate times for the National Party. And I guess when you reflect on the fact that the only thing that the National Party is holding on to, and Simon Bridges is holding on to, is “We’re polling 40 percent.”—well, newsflash: that’s all of you. That’s all your mates in the playground consolidated into one group. Forty percent does not make Government.

So what are they trying to do with the invention of imaginary friends? They tried it with the “teal deal”. It didn’t fly. Even the imaginary friend didn’t want them—even the imaginary friend didn’t want to play with them in the playground. So Simon Bridges, in the guise of “Snuffleupagus”, with “Big Bird”, is setting himself up with the imaginary friend of “King Alfred”—“King Alfred”—who is going to lead them into the promised land of Government. “King Alfred”—yeah. I guess it has gone, in a sense, like this: “You know, we need some friends. Go forth, form a party, and what we will do is we will try and get there.” It is not working, but that is how desperate it is.

Then we had the best speaker in the National Party, Gerry Brownlee, stand up and say “We will be judged on our score card.”, that Governments get thrown out when they neglect the things that Norman Kirk laid down. He said “housing”. So let’s have a look at how they did when they were in Government on some of these things. Let’s go through their report card. Housing: we inherited a shortfall of 70,000 houses, because that Government had no plan. Health: health was underfunded by $2.3 billion over the nine years that they were in office. That was a Government that neglected health, and in Government we are setting about rectifying it. Then let’s turn to education: a billion-dollar shortfall to meet the demands for school property alone over the next four years, 214 overcrowded schools, and pay that had not kept up in the sector by a group of people that simply did not care.

But, in only eight sleeps’ time, on this side of the House we will deliver a Budget that is beginning to rectify the neglect that that crowd left this country in—a wellbeing Budget that has people at its centre, a Budget that has the courage to lift its eyes beyond the three-year political cycle, to govern for the next generation and not the next election, because that is all the National Party did when they were in Government. They didn’t think about the long-term benefits. They did not focus on wellbeing. They did not focus on the big issues such as climate change and how we were going to address it. They did not focus on the wellbeing of their people. Instead, all we are seeing from the speech that the best speaker in the National Party gave us is a tirade about us.

I did not hear one thing that “Snuffleupagus”, “Big Bird”, or any of the other divided bunch in the National Party actually want to do to address the long-term issues that we have in this country. They are intent on being divisive, they are intent on making up friends because no one else will play with them, and they are not fit to get into Government. They have no ideas and they do not have the ability to think in the long term and about what is good for future generations.

Well, that is the definition of irony, that the lead-off speaker of the Labour Party accuses our lead-off speaker of talking about nothing except about them and then spends 4½ minutes talking about the National Party. That is ironic in the extreme, but I’ll give her that in the last minute she did give something of a nod to the Wellbeing Budget that we’re going to hear about in eight days’ time. My question to them is this: how is the wellbeing of 81-year-old Kevin Gibson of Gisborne better as a consequence of this Labour-led Government? In December 2017 he was diagnosed with a benign enlarged prostate that required surgery. It’s not a cancer, but it is a very, very difficult condition but a procedure that is very straightforward.

There were four cancellations in 18 months and the Minister today admitted that his Government is now 4,098 procedures behind where they should be just to do what was done last year in our public hospitals, and he doesn’t know if there’s a target or not. He said that there isn’t, despite the Ministry of Health website saying that the target is to do 4,000 more this year than last, which means we’re nearly 8,000 procedures behind and falling. Here’s the inconvenient truth: he can do all the statistical manipulation he likes about minor procedures and injections, but we are on target to do 250 fewer cardiac procedures; gynaecology, 1,800 fewer procedures; orthopaedic surgery, 1,500 fewer procedures this year than last; and urology, the thing that Mr Gibson needs, 750 fewer procedures than last year. The question is: is there a target for elective surgery or not? Well, I think there was and I think it went through what I call the KiwiBuild filter; that is, raise the target, talk about it, and, when one realises that it’s absolutely unable to be achieved, quietly dust it under the carpet, call it an aspiration, call it some kind of other thing, but don’t call it a target.

The irony of that—here’s what I don’t understand—is today the Government proudly announces its targets for child poverty reduction, saying how really important it is that in order to meet that problem head-on, one sets a target for it. Why on earth not do the same for improvements in healthcare? It was done under the Clark Government. Pete Hodgson was the Minister of Health that proudly introduced what were then nine national health targets, which we refined down to six and continuously improved. Where are those targets now? Not achieved, so therefore they remove them.

It would be OK if there was something else, but all we have is a sea of red ink. The district health boards are slowly and surely sinking into deficit to the tune of $500 million, and remember that announcement yesterday—that $21 million for ambulance services? The Deputy Prime Minister asked the Minister—it was a patsy, but actually it was a very good question—“What extra services is the New Zealand public going to get out of that $21 million?”, and the answer was nothing—nothing. They bought the farm when St John said they were in trouble. There won’t be a single extra ambulance officer. There may be one or two extra ambulances with the capital funding. But the unions saw through it like a window. They know that there is going to be no extra pay for ambulance officers and no extra ambulance officers. What kind of announcement is that? Well, it’s one that the Minister has become very good at: funding deficits.

I’m going to talk next week about what’s happening with access to GPs, because that Minister also said this in Opposition. He said that there are half a million New Zealanders, adult New Zealanders, that can’t afford to go to a GP, and he was going to fix it. Guess what’s happened to that number? It’s gone up, not down. There are now 538,000 New Zealanders, 21,000 more than the previous survey showed, that cannot afford to go to a GP.

So when we go into a Budget with delivery as its theme, they better deliver for this health system, this ailing, sagging, health system that has had targets taken away from it, that is rudderless, that has no direction. The cost of that is going to be eye-watering. And if they don’t deliver for the health system, I think members can expect to hear a lot more stories like the one about the lovely Mr Gibson in Gisborne, because there are thousands of them out there—non-delivery in the year of delivery.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Before I get to the body of my contribution, I’d like to do two things. First, I’d like to acknowledge the families affected by Pike River and the mine re-entry—the families who have loved ones still in there. I would like to acknowledge them and their perseverance and acknowledge the suffering that they have gone through over these years. I’d like to thank all of those people who have enabled the re-entry, and I celebrate that this, I hope, will be a victory for these families, fighting tirelessly for answers.

The second thing I’d like to do is to acknowledge the Opposition’s release of their foreign policy document and say that, actually, we were quite looking forward to questions from the Opposition to the Minister of Foreign Affairs arising from their foreign policy document. But, sadly, there was nothing forthcoming—when I say “sadly”, I mean “amusingly”.

This is an exciting time for this Government, but, unusually—unusually—what I’d like to do first in the body of my contribution is acknowledge the work of the member opposite, Mr Goldsmith. I’ll tell you why. As I follow him—well, he hasn’t been out in the regions. As I follow my Minister, Minister Shane Jones, and I go out myself into the regions and the provinces, I have these awkward conversations with what sound like National supporters, or—I’m going to put it this way—probably, they were previously National supporters, asking me questions about the member in National from the big smoke who’s never been in the provinces and doesn’t know anything about our regions, who is attacking the Provincial Growth Fund. It’s an enjoyment of the job, I tell you, because what we are seeing in the provinces is the Provincial Growth Fund making a real, tangible difference already.

I would say that the members opposite who are actually based and have seats in the provinces sit silently because they’ve either been there themselves and been a part of it, or they are actually seeing first-hand, if they get out and about, the benefit that the Provincial Growth Fund is making, not only to the provinces but to the economy as a whole. They sit there silently, and it is confusing their membership, I have to say.

The Opposition would have New Zealand suffer through the vagaries of the world economy right now. We’ve heard from our Minister of Finance that the world economy is going through a downturn, but one of the things that this Government is doing, and it is doing well, is in our fiscal stimulus package. The Minister of Finance, in question time today, acknowledged just what a difference the Provincial Growth Fund is making, complementary to monetary policy and the Reserve Bank. But with what this Government is doing through fiscal stimulus in the economy, we are going to ride this world economic downturn high, and don’t take my word for it; take the word of the OECD, which came out with their report today, speaking of 2.5 percent growth, and then, in 2019-20, heading into the 3 percents—probably 3.2 to 3.5 percent.

Now, that is a strong New Zealand economy, and I want to thank the businesses in our region for that, because they are making a huge difference right now. You’ll forgive me for reading some statistics here, but in the primary industries, trade figures are incredible. Over 70 percent of New Zealand’s merchandise exports come from the primary industries and the food sector. Primary exports are booming. The Ministry for Primary Industries’ latest Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries report showed that revenue for the year to June 2019 is now forecast to reach $45 billion to $47 billion, which is 7 percent higher than at the same time last year.

Mr Brownlee spoke about jobs. Well, let me tell him this: New Zealanders have seen an increase of 70,000 jobs in the economy over the last year. That’s what we are seeing in the New Zealand economy. New Zealand goods and services exports have increased by 10 percent in dollar terms in the last year—10 percent in dollar terms—and 6 percent in physical goods exports. I see that I had a whole page of good news, but I only just got to there, so thank you very much.

I want to talk about the gaping hole between the promise and the performance of this Government. While the Prime Minister talks about it being a year of delivery, all over the place there is massive non-delivery, and I particularly want to draw to the attention of the House the debacle of the Nelson-Tasman fires in my area.

Whether it be the small or whether it be the big, watch out for the gap between the promise and the delivery. We all know the capital gains tax was the flagship economic policy. It was going to improve productivity. It was pivotal to changing the housing incentives. It was what was going to close gaps of inequality. Well, I have to agree with James Shaw that this Government does not deserve re-election for binning that key policy.

Then, last week, we had the issue of tertiary education. We all know that the fees-free policy was one of the big policies of the last election. They said that they were going to increase enrolments from 50,000 to 80,000. Well, what happened last week? Did they go from 50,000 to 80,000? They went backwards, by 3,200.

Then you come, of course, to that policy of KiwiBuild promising a thousand houses in the first year, and in 18 months, they couldn’t get to 80. If I was a building company and I’d promised a consumer a thousand houses and delivered 80, I’d be done for fraud. I would. I’d be prosecuted, and that is why that was electoral fraud.

But let me bring the House back to the worst fires in New Zealand in 60 years. Colleagues will remember the Prime Minister standing up in the House and saying, “We’re there to help. We’re going to promise a $500,000 grant through the Ministry of Social Development.” It was championed with photo opportunities from the Minister of Civil Defence, the Minister of Internal Affairs, and the member of Parliament for West Coast - Tasman. I got an answer from the Minister for Social Development to my question as to how much of the $500,000 had been spent and how many of the 50,000 hours of support had been provided to the property owners. The answer was: zero dollars—not $1, not $10, but absolutely zero. How many hours of work were done to assist property owners? Not one hour. In fact, the Minister said the programme had been determined to be unsuccessful and was closed down in April.

Now, I say to the members opposite, as they roll out these big promises of dollars here and dollars there: look for the fine print, look for the performance. The mayor, the council, the MPs, and the community always said that this policy was a flop. The idea that, in an area where unemployment—as National left it—was only 2 percent right in the peak of the apple and kiwifruit season, somehow there were thousands of jobless that were going to be able to clean up, help build fences, help rebuild driveways, and help do the repair work from the fires, was always a fraud.

Here’s the worst part: the Government hid its non-delivery—absolutely hid its non-delivery. When they were asked by the media in April, the ministry said the programme was going fantastic and that this was really delivering for the community of Nelson-Tasman. The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, quoted that it was one of the great things that they were doing to help the fires. Well, I say Fire and Emergency New Zealand did a good job; so too did the councils do it with civil defence. But what sort of fraud is it when the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Government promise $500,000 and $50,000 of aid for people that are affected by those fires and deliver absolutely naught, and then secretly shut the fund down?

So my challenge to colleagues is this: when they go and announce a whole lot of funding—whether it be for housing or health or sexual violence or others—make sure that you follow up on the delivery. Whether it is in health, whether it is in education, whether it is in housing, whether it is in tax policy, or whether it’s in tertiary education, this is the year of non-delivery.

Well, after all of that noise, I hope that I’ll bring a bit of sense and calm to the Chamber. I’ll tell you one thing: what I am heartened with is seeing a Government that isn’t short-termist; that at last we’re looking out to the future—not just three years, not just 18 months, but we’re looking out for generations.

You only have to look at what we are doing. I mean, at last—where was the last Government? Only today, I’ve been sitting on the Finance and Expenditure Committee considering the Infrastructure Commission, a commission that will, finally, look at the structure of our infrastructure, the huge deficit we’ve got, and do some long-term planning—not just build six-lane motorways, roads of national oblivion, but rather we’ll actually look at some alternative solutions. Yet you only have to look at what our fantastic Minister, Minister Twyford, has been doing, recognising that building roads and 10 bridges to nowhere doesn’t help. What we actually need—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is that what Transmission Gully is?

—is an integrated approach. Now, at last—Dr Smith is over there, yapping away as normal, and I thought he’d be the first, as a member of a region, to recognise the importance of rail. After years and years of neglect, rail is one of many areas that have been left to wreck and ruin. So what we have at last is a reinvestment back into rail.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: National funded the new trains in Auckland.

Hamilton to Auckland, there’s a good idea. Rather than driving backwards and forwards, burning carbon needlessly, at last we’ve got a Government that says, “Here’s a good idea: let’s use an existing rail line and put passengers on it.”

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Why hasn’t it happened?

“Move them faster and more”—that’s right, Mr Brownlee—“effectively.” A sleek, silver train—think about it. Something sleek—oh, yes.

Even in Christchurch, you know, my electorate is left with a legacy of a motorway from the north that’s spewing cars into the middle of my electorate, with no thought about what that’s going to do—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s Garry Moore’s fault.

And you know what—it’s not Garry Moore’s fault at all, Mr Brownlee. Garry Moore stood firm against that, and it was the last Government that finally dumped those cars out from the dormitory towns into Christchurch Central, and now we have to manage it. But, you know, at least we’ve got a Minister of Transport and an Associate Minister who are doing a great job, because do you know what they’re putting first? It’s safety. I’ve heard in question time the Opposition say, “What are you doing about this? Why are you putting safety first?” We put safety first because lives matter. So it might be just a median barrier down Marshland Road or a separate cycleway, but you know what? Looking after the people who are injured and who are killed—two in the past 10 years on that stretch of road, and 13 seriously injured—that’s why we’re focusing on safety, because it’s the right thing to do.

When we look at the fantastic plan for Wellington, I’m almost jealous. If I didn’t have such a fantastic city already, I’d be jealous that Wellington was catching up too fast. The plan for Wellington is fantastic. It’s great to put walking first. We need to recognise that walking is the primary means of transport; almost everyone does it almost every day. So a Wellington city where people choose to walk first is going to be a great city. I’ll look forward to coming here, but not too much.

And, of course, cycleways: I’m really excited about the cycleways that we’re seeing. Wellington needs more and better cycleways, and we now have a plan that’s—and I’ll tell you what else is good about the Wellington plan. Something they’ve learnt, no doubt, from Christchurch, is the joined-up approach: the fact that they’ve got their regional council on board, their city council on board, New Zealand Transport Agency on board, and, of course, the Government right behind it all the way.

This is a Government that’s looking out to the long term. It is supporting local government, and it’s supporting other agencies and finding solutions that will last. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. We’ve got a huge deficit. But we’re taking the right steps in transport and elsewhere. We’re putting an infrastructure commission in place. I’m so glad at last we’ve got a Government that cares about today, tomorrow, and the future. Thank you.

The member who just resumed his seat, he started to speak so well. He promised that after all that noise, he would bring some order. Then, like George Orwell’s animals, I looked from Webb to Smith and Smith to Webb and Smith to Webb again, and still I could see no difference. I could hear no difference because they sounded exactly the same.

I’ve had quite an interesting week, I’d have to say, and it actually has taught me one thing: the great line out of the great movie Thank You For Smoking, “Let it be known, the public beating has not gone out of [fashion].”

It seems that an MP can’t even say that another MP who wants to regulate what you can say—and it does include you, Madam Deputy Speaker; it includes all of us—should somehow be a menace to freedom of speech. If one says that, then one deserves a public beating. You see, if one says that—an honestly held view about politics and the future of our country, which is what we’re supposed to be here to express—then one is responsible for violence and thuggery.

The logic of that is that we should have our speech regulated by the thugs and the bullies, because, if anybody makes a threat, then the victim of the threat is not allowed to be criticised—that they should have their participation in political debate curtailed and become a no-go zone. We allow the thugs and bullies to win, because we can’t debate things that they have said they are going to use violence against.

The reaction: well, let me say again, a good old-fashioned public beating ain’t gone out of fashion, even in this country at the time this Parliament’s talking about bullying.

You know, it started with a real surprise. Judith Collins, someone who can usually be relied upon to stand up for freedom of expression, thought it was more important to criticise how I said it than what I said. The specific threat to freedom of expression in this country—oh, that could have a free pass, but saying that somebody who wants to regulate all speech is a menace to that freedom, that’s a major problem.

Then, the next thing that came along was the media, and they didn’t ask the questions. They didn’t ask the question how an MP had to have a security detail. They didn’t ask why the first thing that happened was that they, the media, were told. They happily trotted out the narrative that it was because of the evil David Seymour’s innocuous debating points. A public beating hasn’t gone out of fashion.

Then came a real surprise—actually, there was one more expected one. The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians wrote to me. They didn’t ask any of those questions and said I should monitor my behaviour. Well, I’ve written back to them and said I do that all the time and, actually, it’s up to them to start asking the question: is it right that women in New Zealand should feel afraid to engage in debate because they are threatened and be held to a different standard if they’re victims of threats?

Then the surprise came. Even the Speaker of the House of Parliament weighed in and said that I was a bully. Well, a public beating hasn’t gone out of fashion here in New Zealand or in this Parliament.

What all of these people have done is very clearly demonstrated why it is so important that an individual has the right to express their thoughts and their feelings freely, so long as they do not directly incite violence, so long as they do not defame anybody, and so long as they do not directly threaten somebody. We have that freedom, and we must preserve it because, as we’ve seen in the last 48 hours, you can’t rely on other political parties, you can’t rely on the Speaker of the House, you can’t rely on the media, and you certainly can’t rely on the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. All of those people are happy to indulge in a popularity contest where the winners get to put the losers perhaps even in prison with the sanction of State power.

That is a future that we cannot afford in this country. That is the reason why we must continue to stand up for freedom of expression, and that is why, when people issue the kinds of disgusting threats that have allegedly been made against one member of Parliament, rather than politicising the issue and attacking each other, we should be united in condemning those people, we shouldn’t absolve them of any responsibility by accusing each other, and we should be investigating what those people have done and punishing them—not ourselves and not freedom of expression in this country. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

It was not part of what I was going to talk about, but, in light of that particular speech, I feel that as Minister for Ethnic Communities I must comment on the previous speaker, David Seymour, before I go on.

March the 15th is still fresh in all of our minds. There are some of us that get all sorts of comments—be they online, be they in person—mainly because (a) we’re women and (b) we are from ethnic minority backgrounds. We know that racism is linked to bullying. We know that the schools, actually—and this is something I found out when I was going around talking with ethnic communities directly and with Pacific communities directly late last year. What our young people, what our parents, and what our teachers were telling me is that discriminatory behaviour, racism, is rife for them and their children. This is an issue that as a country, we as parliamentarians—there are things that we could do to address it in a systematic way, and there are things that we also could do to address it as people, as human beings, and as members of Parliament.

But if I can just go back to the three things I wanted to cover. We’ve come into Government, and there are a lot of things that our Government is doing. There are a lot of long-term issues that we are addressing, and there are three things I want to talk about: building and construction; ethnic communities is one of those; as well as Pacific people in terms of health and Māori health as well.

I’ll begin with building and construction. When we came in as Government, we were confronted with the fact that we are short by 30,000 skilled people in the building and construction sector. It takes a few years to train electricians, plumbers, and builders—everyone that we need to build the houses, the roads, and the infrastructure that we need. We have begun that work.

When we looked at the building and construction sector, it is really fragmented. What have we done since we came in? A few things. One of them is we’ve actually got a construction sector accord signed. This is the first time ever that you’ve seen seven Ministers of the Crown coming together with leaders from industry and agreeing on nine areas of work. Our Government are leading two of those areas. First, we’ve said that we would use our procurement, and that’s $40 billion to $41 billion a year that we can utilise to ensure that as we procure, as we contract out, there are certain things that we could do to assist and to work with industry. The reality is we know that we need industry to help us train our apprentices. It is not something that we simply sit around here and say this is the policy and we can train those workers. So it is really important that we have come in partnership with industry.

The second thing that we have said we would lead as Government is looking at the Building Act 2004. Now, since that Act came into force 15 years ago, it has not really actually been amended in a major way to address a lot of issues. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is out consulting with the sector right now on my behalf up until the 16 June. It is open to the public to let us know what it is that we would need to do to ensure that the Building Act 2004 is indeed fit for purpose.

I want also to touch on rheumatic fever as it relates to Māori and Pacific children. On Saturday—earlier on this week—I announced that we will invest, from the Wellbeing Budget of 2019, $12 million to address rheumatic fever for Māori and Pacific children. I’ve got to actually acknowledge the former Government because they did put into place programmes to deal with this issue. However, in 2017, that particular programme—the targets for it were retired, put to rest, and the huge funding that was actually invested to ensure that the rates came down was, actually, not really continued.

So when we see the rates—37 percent Māori children affected by rheumatic fever, 57 percent of our Pacific children affected by rheumatic fever—this is an initiative that is absolutely needed in order to save more of our children’s lives. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Well, 2019 was supposed to be the year of delivery but all the Government is delivering is a nightmare for New Zealanders—failure after failure. Do you know what? Today we learned that, apparently, New Zealand police have started the gun buy-back programme some weeks and months ahead of finalising the regulations for how much they should actually pay.

New Zealanders might well ask themselves—in this year of abject let-down—which Minister could possibly be worse than the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, who, with his “Kiwi failed” programme, has delivered a mere 80-odd KiwiBuild homes? Who could be worse than that? Well, it’s the Minister of Transport. Last Thursday, the Minister of Transport—who happens to be the same person—announced, finally, the Let’s Get Wellington Moving initiative. Well, it should be called anything other than “moving”. It is a programme that is both underwhelming in its detail and what it will deliver, and completely overwhelming in the cost burden it’s going to place on Wellingtonians in the city and across the region. Apparently, we’re getting some things, and those things include mass transit, a second Mount Victoria tunnel, and something around the Basin Reserve but we don’t know when. Some time, at some point in the future, Wellingtonians are going to be blessed with some largesse from Mr Phil Twyford that is going to do some things.

We do know, however, because it was the National led-Government that instituted the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme—a programme that was put in place to give an integrated approach and solution for the transportation issues between Ngauranga and the airport, as well as some public transport improvements including mass transit. Well, the programme that’s been announced can’t possibly deliver that. As Mr Twyford confirmed yesterday, the indicative package he announced does not include the second tunnel at the Terrace, it does not include the Te Aro undergrounding from that tunnel to the Basin, and—guess what?—looking at the New Zealand Transport Agency’s (NZTA) documents, which are the Minister’s documents, it doesn’t include the fourth southbound lane from Ngauranga to the Aotea Quay off-ramp either. It simply cannot deliver on the promises of Let’s Get Wellington Moving, which were unlocking productivity into and out of the city. It can’t deliver it because it leaves the major arterial route—not just for Wellington but of the country—State Highway 1, which remains blocked at the end of the Wellington motorway because they are not doing anything about it. They have this strange obsession with loss-making light rail that they will set aside all of the productivity gains that could be generated through this programme for their little $1.44 billion toy train set.

Now, the Prime Minister ruled out a regional fuel tax outside of Auckland. So Minister Twyford, along with the Labour Wellington City mayor and the former Labour MP chair of the regional council, got together and they cooked up this tricky alternative to a regional fuel tax. So instead of levying Wellingtonians on the amount of fuel they consume, they are going to put a regional transport tax on their rates and other charges such as parking—$2.6 billion. This is extra money for roads that Wellingtonians will have already paid for through their fuel taxes. Oh no, Labour-elected members have never met a tax they don’t like, and they’re going to slam Wellingtonians with another $2.6 billion.

While they’re doing it, they’re going to put in a massively expensive light rail system—$1.44 billion. Now, despite their protestations, it can’t be anything other than light rail because bus rapid transit would cost about one quarter of that amount, and everyone knows that even trackless trams would be hundreds of millions of dollars less simply because they don’t require steel rails in the ground—$1.44 billion. This is despite the Public Transport Spine Study in 2015 recommending bus rapid transit—that study being re-validated in Let’s Get Wellington Moving just a couple of years ago—and that original study finding that a light rail system from the airport to the railway station would lose between 90 and 95 cents on every dollar spent on it, and that was when it was half a billion dollars cheaper. This is simply going to absolutely gouge Wellingtonians for no benefit at all.

Talking about no benefit—the ones who are really worst off out of this, certainly in Wellington City, are the people all across Ohariu. They pay a disproportionate amount because, using their vehicles more, they would be paying more in fuel taxes, as well as their share of this regional transport tax, and they get absolutely zilch out of it. No southbound lane, no Terrace tunnel. Eventually, when they get to the Basin, things might be a little bit better, but it’s going to take them as much time in 10 years’ time to get there as it takes them today.

I could think to paraphrase someone about this plan: never in the field of human endeavour will so much be taken from so many for so little.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you for this opportunity to speak in the general debate. I want to take the next five minutes to talk about a couple of recent announcements which I am so proud of, and which make me so proud to be part of this Government. Just last week I was at Ngāwhā Prison. It was a very emotional and confronting day but it was one that was also full of hope. I was standing alongside my colleagues, my whanaunga—the Hon Kelvin Davis, Minister of Corrections, and the Hon Peeni Henare, Minister for Whānau Ora—where we made an announcement for $98 million for a Māori pathway to address Māori reoffending and recidivism rates in this country.

When I came to Parliament I shared a story in my maiden speech. When I was at university I opened up the newspaper—a two-page spread in that newspaper was full of faces and names of wanted and convicted criminals. The majority of them were Māori and Pasifika, and the majority of them were young. Many of them, I could tell from their last names, were from Ngāpuhi, and when I saw that I just couldn’t believe it. This is not how it should be for my people.

I remember when Ngāwhā Prison was opened, and it was very contentious at the time. The promise that was made to the people of Ngāpuhi was that that would be a place for rehabilitation of our Māori offenders in the hope that they would not be recidivists and they would not be back there again. I am so proud of the announcement made by the Hon Kelvin Davis and Peeni Henare. We are taking a different approach, not just a 16-week programme—one from the beginning to the end of their sentence, one with a joined-up Whānau Ora approach.

I was also proud, on Monday, to welcome the eight new graduates from the Royal New Zealand Police College who will be servicing our communities in Northland. We have focused on our community safety and wellbeing, investing and recruiting and training more police officers and putting them back on our streets. All whakapapa to the North. It was so beautiful to hear their stories—the challenges of undertaking the training so far away from home but the pride that they were returning home to service their communities.

At that graduation the district commander commended the Government for our announcement of the $320 million investment to eradicate sexual and domestic violence in this country. I remember, four years ago, joining the Hon Kelvin Davis on a hīkoi that he led to eliminate sexual violence—men speaking up in support of that kaupapa. So on Sunday, when the announcement was made for $320 million to be invested in this area—the single largest amount in a single Budget ever—I was so proud. We are tackling the long-term challenges, the long-term problems. I really want to acknowledge my colleague Jan Logie, who is in the House, for her work in that area. The feedback we have had has been overwhelmingly positive.

We are focused on wellbeing. We are focused on people. We are putting people at the centre of everything that we do. We are building a New Zealand that we can all be proud of. Yesterday I listened to the speech from our Prime Minister on the climate legislation that we have introduced on setting targets. It was an amazing speech—speaking directly to the young people, for they have been the ones that have been challenging us to do something. I heard a comment earlier in the Hon Dr Megan Woods’ speech where she said that we are governing for the next generation, not just the next election. How true.

We have banned plastic bags. We’ve banned offshore mining permits. We introduced climate legislation yesterday. We are working on a kinder, more caring society. We saw the images of our Prime Minister leading change globally in terms of social media to ensure that it is no longer a platform or a place for violent, extremist thoughts and ideas. How proud I was to see her leading that, the Christchurch Call, after, as we heard today, on 15 March, we had such a devastating event in this country. What that showed me after that event was that all of us as New Zealanders really want a kinder, more caring society, and I am proud that we are putting people and wellbeing at the centre of everything that we do. Kia ora, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I sat in a room with the likes of the Employers and Manufacturers Association, the Chamber of Commerce, National Road Carriers, and Penrose Business Association, and we wanted to hear from Minister Twyford, and we did, about the East-West Link. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a major road that links up State Highway 1 and State Highway 20, because there are frozen freight—that’s the current circumstances right now. We sat in that room in March, and we were told that by May we would have four options that we’d all be looking at. That was May a year ago, and what has happened since then? Absolutely nothing. We have had nothing. Now, if you think that this is just another road—no, think again. This area is New Zealand’s second-largest contributor to GDP. It is a major engine room of this economy. If you had trucks delayed on Neilson Street alone for 15 minutes every day, that’s about, conservatively, $35 million a year of lost productivity. It has taken years to get to this point, and a $50 million process to go through the Environmental Protection Authority and get it signed off. So what’s happening and what’s the plan? Nothing. We’ve got silence.

Meanwhile, Minister Twyford and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) head off in another direction to a small footbridge in the area, and that footbridge—they’re about to spend $25 million breaking construction ground for that, and that was signed off four years ago by the public; consulted four years ago. Now, what’s wrong with that? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that. Since then, we’ve got a $1.8 billion east-west project and a $6 billion light rail project, and that footbridge takes neither of those into account. Why are they forging ahead with a footbridge in the same area that does not line up, does not match up, with billion-dollar projects? What’s the plan here? I wouldn’t know, because I was shut out of a meeting by NZTA to find out what the plan is.

This is the so-called year of delivery, but more than halfway through this Government’s term, Phil Twyford has no plan whatsoever for his delivery. Traffic and congestion is lining up and building up in Onehunga, and there is no plan. We haven’t heard a single thing about their alternative for the East-West Link. Meanwhile, 6,000 trucks a day are sitting in congestion in this area. They’re forced to drive through the suburban streets of Onehunga.

We haven’t even seen the business case for the $6 billion light rail route. They’ve realised how difficult and costly it really is. But the one thing that they’re doing is pushing ahead with the old Māngere footbridge. They’re pushing ahead even though, as I said, it was designed and consented all the way back in 2016. NZTA have admitted that they haven’t taken into account the East-West Link and light rail when pushing ahead with the footbridge. All three projects intersect in the same place—my patch, Onehunga, right next to the harbour—and there is no alignment between these projects. Phil Twyford’s too blinded by his dream for light rail and he’s taking a “make it up as you go” approach to Onehunga. Well, Onehunga deserves better, and so does New Zealand, because this is a major contributor to the GDP in this country.

Finally, all politics is local, is it not? Countless local intersections in Onehunga that used to be quiet suburban intersections are now experiencing high-risk, rat-running, seriously unsafe conditions. Here’s how I know: I started a petition to fix one of them up. Now, I’m pleased to say that Auckland Transport listened to me. Unfortunately, Phil Twyford’s not listening in a bigger way, but Auckland Transport did, and that intersection is being fixed up. But it’s caused by the congestion of inaction and no plan by Minister Twyford as the Minister of Transport. That intersection is in the top worst intersections of all of Auckland. I’ve done something about it. What is Phil Twyford doing for the rest of the transport projects? There’s a lack of action, there’s a lack of plan by Minister Twyford. He’s outside catching the sun rays while, meanwhile, a major engine room of New Zealand’s economy is grinding to a halt.

Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just really, tonight, want to mark what I hope will become a really significant moment in this country’s history—a commitment from the whole of Government to lay the foundations to end family and sexual violence in this country. I really hope that this is a turning point, and that our children in the future will look in their history books about a time where there were a million New Zealanders who were affected by family and sexual violence, and that they read that with a sense of horror and incomprehension that that could have been the case, but that they see a point in time where we all came together as a country to change that.

I hope our Budget announcement on Sunday will be a clear signal of that change. It was one of the proudest moments for me, personally, in my life, to be able to stand with the Prime Minister and announce the largest single Budget commitment in this area by any Government in one Budget ever. It represented not just one person’s work, or one department saying it was going to do this initiative, but, actually, eight different Ministers’ and agencies’ work, all committing to coordinating our actions, working with initiatives that exist in our communities, and working with our communities to turn this around.

This is a game-changing moment, because we know that there are some issues in our society that are so complex and difficult that they cannot be solved or even adequately addressed by a siloed approach. We hear stories from people in our communities of nine cars up the driveway coming to “fix” them. This announcement doesn’t represent another car in the driveway; this announcement represents the possibility that the right person will turn up in the driveway to be there to provide what is needed for that whānau for them to be safe and supported.

When I hear from the community of the case of a survivor who was undergoing, and I use that word advisedly, or having five different intensive case management programmes imposed on her—we are not adding another. We are providing the possibility of, actually, her getting the support that she needs, informed by all the expertise from all those different agencies, but not being overwhelmed by a whole lot of conflicting different messages. It’s the hope of actually having person-centred policies and responses from Government, that we hold our people and our collective safety and wellbeing at the heart of our work. So for me, this is a moment to celebrate.

I often feel cynical about politics. I did before I came in here, and I still do sometimes, but I really want to acknowledge that this is one of those moments where I feel some hope that we can do this differently. I want to acknowledge, too, the Opposition in terms of laying down some of the groundwork for this new approach, and I do hope that New Zealanders can see—because I know they want to—that we are all responding together to turn this around, because everyone in this country deserves to be safe and free. That is at the heart of wellbeing for the entire country. Kia ora.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.