General Debate

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

I want to start this contribution by thanking two tremendous individuals, the Hon Amy Adams and Alastair Scott. They have been fantastic members of Parliament, and will continue to be, in Selwyn and Wairarapa. In relation to Amy Adams, it has been an absolute pleasure to work alongside her, and the significant contribution she has made to New Zealand.

Of course, it’s what flows from that that’s also interesting, and that’s a tale of two reshuffles this week. On this side, what we see is a party that is brimming with talent, with substance, and with depth. I look no further than right here next to me, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, who’s already taking it to the Minister of Finance, and, in due course, will make a tremendous Minister of Finance for New Zealand. Then, of course, there’s Chris Bishop who has done a great job on Stuart Nash over the recent past—whether it’s their failure to deliver on their promises of 800 police officers, which haven’t materialised, or whether it’s the shambles of a buyback scheme from the Government. This side of the House is the natural home for talent, in this party, and doesn’t it show?

And then contrast, on the other side of the House, the Labour Party. We’re told there’s a reshuffle coming tomorrow. It’s going to be—David Parker’s looking at me nervously. Don’t worry, that hasn’t been leaked to me; I’ve had other ones, but not that one. As the Prime Minister tells us, it’s going to be “very minor”, David Parker—“very minor”. Well, I ask the member this: is that because no changes are required?

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: I know a change that’s required.

I don’t think that’s the reason. I don’t think it’s all going so well. Faafoi—see, he’s a little bit cocky because the minor changes may well include him. He’s a little bit cocky, is our Kris Faafoi. Phil Twyford hasn’t stayed for it. Well, I just ask Kris Faafoi to answer a few of these questions. Is it working in housing? Will any of their speakers mention KiwiBuild today? I don’t think so. Is it working in transport? What we’ve seen in transport is all the roads cancelled, none started, and a slowing down of New Zealand by that Government over there.

Is it working in health?

💬 Hon Members: No.

No, no it’s not. What we’ve seen is deficits balloon in this country, surgeries go backward, and New Zealanders moving to Australia and, actually, other countries for their cancer drugs.

So why then is it a “very minor reshuffle” that the Prime Minister is having? Well, maybe it’s because Labour isn’t brimming with talent, substance, and depth, David Parker. Maybe that’s the case. Well, there is Angie Warren-Clark. There’s Willie Jackson. He’s ready to take on more. He’s been so good in his portfolios. But here is the tragedy of all of this, which David Parker is getting ready, I hope, to answer. It’s this: without changes tomorrow from the Labour Party and the Prime Minister, Labour will continue to fail to deliver its promises to New Zealand, through bungling incompetence, through lack of a team underneath Jacinda Ardern that can deliver for this country.

There’s one further point that I want to make in this contribution, and that’s that it’s failing to deliver in its promises in houses, in its promises in transport, in its promises in health, for another reason—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: You can tell by the body language, eh?

—and that’s “Old Naughty”—because the economy is getting weaker and weaker and weaker. “Old Naughty”—the champion of the provinces doesn’t like to talk about the fact that eight out of 11 regions in New Zealand right now are going backwards in terms of confidence.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I don’t think that a member like that should resort to that sort of ageist language, otherwise I might start talking about “Young Stupid”.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaking to the point of order.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, hang on. Is it a new point of order or is it the same point of order?

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, it’s relevant to here, though.

💬 SPEAKER: Speaking to the point of order, the Hon Gerry Brownlee.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, Mr Speaker, that’s what I asked to do. It simply comes down to the question of how is it that the member taking the point of order is able to identify who was being spoken of?

💬 SPEAKER: Well, you didn’t have to be a clairvoyant to follow the line of sight of the Leader of the Opposition at the time. And the fact that he was directing that to an individual member of the House was pretty much obvious. I’d say that I would have had a little bit more sympathy with the Deputy Prime Minister with his point of order if he hadn’t made the out of order criticism of the Leader of the Opposition. So I think what we’ll say is it’s one all, and rather than have both of them withdraw and apologise, we’ll just leave it there.

The economy is getting weaker under this Government—weaker and weaker—and the Prime Minister thinks it’s because of what’s happening in Iran. They should look at the mirrors. It means that everything costs more in this country. It means that the Government is borrowing more. It means that they’re taxing us more. New Zealanders can’t afford—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

The Leader of the Opposition started with his weak attempt to justify the latest evacuation from the National Party. I heard my colleague the Hon Kris Faafoi say “Women and children first.”

Can I pass my congratulations on to all of those in the Opposition who got new jobs yesterday. Of course, some didn’t get the job they wanted, but that’s because Simon’s not ready to give it up yet. This is a trend that we’re seeing in right wing parties all around the world. I think one of the best satirical political writers at the moment, around the world, is a lady, Marina Hyde, from The Guardian. Her articles are very entertaining reading. One of her recent columns was headed: “Heavyweight Tory fantasists up the pace on the road to nowhere”, and that’s what’s happening in the National Party at the moment.

They’ve got more aspiring leadership candidates than they’ve got backbenchers. Who have we had in recent times? We’ve had Steven Joyce. He wanted the top job, didn’t get it—

💬 Mark Patterson: Remember him—packed a sad.

—packed a sad, and left. Jonathan Coleman—he got out early. Amy Adams—well, she hung around. She didn’t get the top job, but, you know, she’s throwing in the towel because she’s seen the writing’s on the wall—a decade in Opposition, a fruitless waste of a talented life—and so she said “I’m out of here. I’m gone. I’m gone.” Who are we left with? We’ve still quite a few. We’ve got Todd Muller—Todd Muller. We’ve got Mark Mitchell, sitting there in the front.

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Dark horse.

Dark horse. You know, I heard he was coming in from the airport recently, and inquired of the person who he was in the cab with, “Do you think Simon Bridges is up to it?” He knows this is true.

Who else? Who else? Well, what did Chris Finlayson think? Remember that speech a little while ago? He was giving his valedictory. He didn’t make mention of Simon Bridges or Paula Bennett once—not once. He gave the ups to Nikki Kaye—that was his candidate. She’s playing a slow game.

So, really, what’s happening here? It’s the old ABC of politics, and we’ve been through it before on this side of the House—the ABC of politics. So who’s gone? Who’s gone? Well, we’ve had the As: Alastair Scott, Amy Adams. What’s going to happen with the Bs? Who—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yeah, Bridges.

💬 Barbara Kuriger: I’m still here.

Bridges, possibly. Is he going to be in there?

💬 Hon Members: Barb—Barb.

Oh, I don’t know. Normally, you sacrifice a pawn first before the king is sacrificed on the chessboard, so it’ll probably be Paula Bennett that goes after A—B for Bennett—before you get—

💬 Hon Members: David Bennett.

No, I don’t think it’d be David Bennett—no.

Now, the C—well, maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe it’s not an alphabet. Maybe it’s a mathematical equation, because you’ve got to be good at maths in politics. So you’ve got A for Adams minus B for Bridges equals C, which is?

💬 Hon Members: Collins.

Oh, maybe that is the answer: A minus B equals C. Maybe it’s algebraic, or maybe it’s the old one. The old one is ABC: “Anyone but”—yeah, that seems to be the prevailing view. They even took a portfolio off her and didn’t tell her until she’d lost it. That was in the media yesterday.

So the only thing I have heard suggested is that the ABC of politics is a bit jaded and they’re trying to get a bit more sophisticated in the Opposition now, and they’ve gone through D. But the problem is that they can’t get past desperate, divided, and distracted, as well as departing. They’re desperate—obviously, they’re desperate because Simon Bridges just fails to impress. Even other contenders within the frame of ABC are rating better amongst the New Zealand public than the Leader of the Opposition. They’re certainly divided—they’re divided over whether Judith Collins would be worse than Simon Bridges—and they’re distracted. They’re so focused on their internal ructions that they haven’t even asked us a question about the Budget. Yet another pratfall in the debate that we’ve just had was that 800 police was said to be our ambition. It’s 1,800 police, and we’re just about there. They’re desperate, they’re divided, they’re distracted, and they’re departing.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. That’s five minutes that we will never get back in our lives—the unedifying prospect of David Parker having a whole five minutes to waste in this House. Well, there are a number of issues that this Government should be giving their attention to and that David Parker maybe should be giving his attention to as well, and the issue that I want to raise today is around maternity services in the lower part of the South Island.

By the way, the Hon David Parker, back between 2002 and 2005, was the MP for Otago, so this is his patch. David Parker was the MP in the last Labour Government for Otago, until I took over from him in 2005. He challenged again and I beat him again in 2008, and he has not been seen since down in the South Island, around Dunedin and the Upper Clutha and Wānaka. What a shame that is, because now he is a Minister in the Labour-led coalition Government and he should be talking to his friend and colleague the Minister of Health about the appalling lack of progress his Government is making to health services, midwifery services, and the safety of mothers and babies in the lower half of the South Island, in Southland, in Lumsden, in the Upper Clutha, and in Wānaka. Those are the most remote parts—believe it or not—in New Zealand from primary healthcare services.

When David Clark was campaigning back in 2017, as the lion of a health spokesman in Opposition, he campaigned and campaigned on better funding for health. He campaigned on better services for the mothers and babies of the Upper Clutha, and what has he done? He has done nothing. The situation in the Upper Clutha, in particular, and in Wānaka has gone from worse to worse. In fact, in October last year, the Minister of Health admitted to me in a letter that there was a gap in the maternity facilities in Wānaka and the Upper Clutha. Well, that’s a good start—admitting there is a gap—but what has he done about it in this year’s Budget? Nothing—no further funding for maternity services across New Zealand in this Budget.

So, David Parker, we’ll address issues in the Budget. How about more support for health? How about more support for the mothers in the Upper Clutha?

Can the Minister please explain to this House why there is an increasing number of mothers in the lower part of the South Island having their babies in unsafe situations? We’ve had a baby born in an ambulance on its way to hospital. We’ve had a baby born on an office floor in Wānaka, in the office of the midwife, because there were no health services available to the mother. It was an unplanned birth—well, guess what? A lot of them are. So the advice from Chris Fleming of Southern District Health Board, to plan your delivery well—I’m sorry, but babies come when babies are ready to come. There should be facilities for those mothers and babies in Wānaka.

There was another case where a baby was born in a driving car. A mum and her partner were driving to Charlotte Jean in Alexandra from Wānaka, going through the Cromwell Gorge. David Parker will know what the Cromwell Gorge is like. There’s nowhere to stop. The baby started arriving, so the mum had the baby, and dad couldn’t even stop the car. That is appalling. What if something had gone wrong?

Why isn’t there a maternal and child hub in Wānaka 10 months after it was promised by this Government? Why will there be another hundred babies born in the Upper Clutha—because we know the numbers—before this nine to five drop-in centre in Wānaka is established? It’s not good enough, Minister. It’s not good enough, David Parker, former MP of Otago and former resident of Otago, who should know better. This Government has failed. It has failed to deliver on its promises to—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

I’m very grateful for our Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who has got such a lengthy knowledge of what’s going on in New Zealand politics, that he’s able to drop in little facts, such as who closed Clutha hospital. Who closed Clutha hospital? Now, I don’t know, but I’ve been told, on very good information, by our Deputy Prime Minister that, actually, it was the Nats—it was the National Party that closed Clutha hospital. So the faux outrage that came from that last speaker, Jacqui Dean, is completely unwarranted. The member is suffering from a bit of political amnesia when it comes to that. It would do her well to have a conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister just to get some of those facts on the table, some of those “facty” things that so often get in the way of a really good speech.

But over on this side, we’ve got our chin up. We’re positive about everything that the Budget has gone and delivered. I came into Parliament saying that we were going to be doing some stuff in the housing area—not just one part of the housing area though; the whole spectrum. Remember, the Rotorua area was actually pinned with the tag of having the second-worst homeless rate in New Zealand, and so I came into Parliament saying that we’re going to fix that. So we’ve got Housing First—that’s been extended to Rotorua, so we’re proud of that. It’s one of the first iwi partnership Housing First projects in the whole of the country. So thank you to Lifewise, who were at the forefront of that, and LinkPeople and Te Taumata o Ngati Whakaue, who have partnered up to try and solve our homeless crisis in Rotorua.

Let’s talk about social housing, because over 2,500 houses are going to be built under this Government when it comes to social housing all across New Zealand. It was just the other day that I was in Whakatāne, talking to some of the officials that are at the front line doing the tenancy managing stuff and seeing some State houses appear in their fair town, and they’re saying “We haven’t seen this in such a long time. We are crying out. We’ve been desperate for some action on this front. We know that we’ve had people that have been needing houses but they haven’t had them. So thank you so much to this Government for delivering social houses for our people.” I want to take this opportunity to also thank all of those tenancy managers and those workers that are out on the front line all around the country on behalf of Housing New Zealand. They need to be well looked after because they’re actually the ones that are going into the homes of these people that need so much help and so much support.

You see, because the last Government thought it would be a really good idea to swab the walls and kick them out—and so that’s what they did. Actually, all across the country they were kicking people out because of some dodgy P formula. Under our Government, we’ve had to swing in and clean up that mess.

So I’m proud of the work that we’re doing in social housing. I’m proud of the work that we’re doing with our homeless people as well. Also, let me drop this in here too, because I’ve only got a short amount of time: but, actually, on 1 July, our renters are going to be warmer over this winter, not just because of the winter energy payment that came in under this Government just last year, but all renters across New Zealand are going to have a much warmer winter, because it’s this Government that has stumped up with the policy saying that all rentals need to make sure that they have got ceiling and underfloor heating. We’ve had a long run in under this, and it comes into force on 1 July. So I’m looking forward to that, because we know that when people have bad insulation, when they have bad housing situations—damp, cold houses—that’s where the health problems kick in. So we’ve got respiratory diseases that we haven’t seen in a long time. We’re taking steps to make sure that the whole area along the housing spectrum is going to be taken care of, because that’s what we’ve done for a long time.

Remember, it was a Labour Government that first came up with State houses—saw a housing crisis, and decided that we weren’t going to step back from the problem, that we were going to swing in and make sure that we did something. Some of those State houses are still standing, and we’ve got a bit of work to do to fix those up too. But, actually, we’ve been sorting housing out for a long time. New Zealanders trust us to be able to look after the housing fortunes.

I want to mihi to our Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Phil Twyford. He is swinging in there and helping to solve a problem that the last Government couldn’t. They sat on their hands for nine years, they passed the buck, they shuffled the chairs, they had Ministers moving in between the housing portfolio—but they did nothing. So that’s why he’s got such a monumental problem on his hands, but, actually, he’s swinging in there and he’s trying his hardest to make sure that New Zealanders have got absolute access to their own houses. I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s taking housing seriously. I know it, our Government knows it, and also New Zealanders know it as well. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Over the last week, New Zealand has seen an extraordinary event. From the corporate cockpit of Air New Zealand, we have a skydiver. Now, of course, skydivers don’t ordinarily use Air New Zealand aircraft, but where this aircraft flies, the seats are all first class, the caviar’s rich, and the air’s very thin—so thin that the occupants believe they can levitate, they can defeat gravity. As a consequence of pecuniary power, they don’t need to obey the ordinary laws of political gravity. Skydiving means you dive low, low, and just as you arrive at your destination, you open a golden parachute, and that golden parachute puts you right in the middle of a reshuffle.

But we also need to bear in mind that the term “reshuffle” can be just focused on as “shuffle”. Now, a number of us know the meaning of that word—it’s almost Shakespearean. You know that great line from Hamlet: “in the sleep of death what dreams may come as we shuffle off the mortal coil.” That is the meaning of Luxon’s arrival: a total absence of confidence in anyone sitting over there, a denunciation by Mr Goodfellow, aided by Mr Key. In fact, I have sought advice today as to whether or not the Ombudsman can assist me to provide access to John Key’s emails with Christopher Luxon in Air New Zealand, which we largely own, about Mr Simon Bridges. I believe we’ll link the three of them together.

But, of course, there are deeper problems other than the facts. No one over there enjoys the confidence of the National Party board, which is why they’ve gone for the owner of a golden parachute plonking in the middle. Now, what else has happened this week? There’s now a lot of animus towards Mr Christopher Bishop. He has snaked over 19 other people to go to his current position. I feel very sad for the person who’s going to be facing me to do with forestry, Mr Muller. He tried very hard to get them to agree to our way of thinking about climate change, and what’s been done to him? Cast aside. No greater enemy has been made in this reshuffle by Simon Bridges than that person, who also has aspirations in that regard.

But, of course, let’s come back to the real problem that we’re seeing on the other side of the House. They are defending the board of ANZ. That’s right. They will not speak one word about those gross conflicts of interest. Now, I won’t talk about the chairman, because my leader has said everything that can be said about that individual, but what about Mr Carter? What about the self-promoting other directors? They know. More is going to leak. Time to open—I say to the board members, Joan Withers and others—the corporate kimono and tell the truth, because what actually gets you in corporate and political worlds is not so much the wrongdoing but the cover-up. They will not put one torchlight of honesty on what’s been happening there—not one.

Now, of course, we will uncover what has been happening at the largest bank. It will either happen because Mr Orr, with his independent powers, will open up the crevices, shine a light on all those murky dealings, or we will get the commission of inquiry that our banking sector obviously deserves given the gross conflicts that have been opened up. I know there’s a lot of fear in that sector, but I don’t want the ordinary workers in the ANZ bank to be fearful—the people in the Wairarapa, the people in Te Wai Pounamu, the people in Northland. Although your banks are still being closed down in regional New Zealand, you don’t deserve opprobrium. You don’t deserve criticism. It’s the corporate culture that starts in Australia, imported here, as they have treated our banks as udders.

So, very shortly, although that side of the House is predictably quiet, we’re going to get the answers that we want. So watch this space—time for honesty across the House and in the corporate world.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for leave for a 10-second extension to the previous speaker, Shane Jones, so he could talk about progress in regional development.

Order! No, the member was deliberately disorderly—deliberately disorderly. He knows—he’s been round this place for a long time—that he cannot seek leave on behalf of any other person. He knows he cannot make facetious comments by way of point of order. I would’ve thought, given the fact that he’s gone just about to the top of the class, he would try behaving himself for a day or two. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: I withdraw and apologise.

From a Shakespearean speech pulling out the points of corporate greed, I’m going to transition into a speech that’s maybe more Dickensian in tone but has a similar theme, in fact—that a wellbeing survey from Statistics New Zealand today found that a third of New Zealanders identified that they have not enough or only just enough income to meet everyday needs. That is the other side of the corporate greed that the previous speaker, Shane Jones, was talking about, and that is why I am pleased to be on this side of the House, where we are committed to raising the minimum wage and we have started work on the fair pay agreements that will enable workers across this country to be able to stand together to bargain collectively to get fair wages and decent working conditions.

The reality is in this country that productivity is up and wages aren’t, and if individual bargaining and dismantling of unions and the gig economy worked the way that we’ve always been told by that side of the House that it does work, then that just wouldn’t be the case. We’re always told that that’s the model that’s going to deliver for our people, and we find ourselves in a place where a third of the country is struggling to just get by. That’s a third of the working people in this country are struggling to get by because of the model created and supported by previous Governments, that we are committed to fixing.

The evidence has come in that fair pay agreements and that collective bargaining across sectors supports productivity growth. It benefits working people in enabling them to get more money and their fair share of the productivity gains, but it also supports employers to keep good staff, enabling them to invest in training and equipment to then increase productivity so that everyone benefits from that.

The evidence is really clear: when you give front-line working people more share of that profit, they spend that money in their communities, which delivers an economic benefit on top of the productivity gains for those businesses. When those people are paid fairly, they’re able to just work one job, instead of the two or three that many of them are having to work just to be able to put food on the table. That means that their kids get the benefit of having them at home, of having the resources to be able to go on that school trip, to be able to attend a friend’s birthday party.

When as a country we know that roughly two out of five kids who are living in poverty have parents who are in employment, the real heart of this problem and the way things are set up is exposed. That calls on us to act, and act to support those families to be able to get a fair share, to have the value of their work properly recognised, and to be able to flourish and contribute to their communities.

Even the OECD has acknowledged now, as quoted in the recent Business and Economic Research report, which was released yesterday—and I’ll quote them—“There are better labour market outcomes from a system of organised decentralisation comprising sector wage agreements, providing a broad framework for firm-level bargaining of detail provisions.”—basically, fair pay agreements. They’re telling us that that model delivers for people, for communities, for families, and for business.

I am so looking forward to the next stage in this work and for us to be able to really challenge that unfair inequality that’s been created not from any failure of people in our communities but through Government policy privileging the corporate interests, as so beautifully articulated by the previous speaker, the Hon Shane Jones.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to rise. Do you know what? I am absolutely shocked at the contribution of the Government members and the coalition partners. When they actually get up on their pins and start talking, I wonder who’s actually in Government, because they keep talking about how terrible the situation is. Well, the Government is actually the Labour-led Government. They have been in Government for nearly two years, and what have they actually delivered for New Zealand?

💬 Dan Bidois: Nothing.

Nothing—who said that? Nothing. They’ve actually delivered nothing.

In my particular portfolio for example, in communications, there is no Chief Technology Officer that they promised. There is nothing. There are actually three digital advisory groups—the Digital Economy and Digital Inclusion Ministerial Advisory Group, the stakeholders in that work—and even the Prime Minister’s informal group that advises her on the digital needs of our nation. What have they actually done? Nothing—zero. There are actually 5G auctions. When are they going to happen? The Minister cannot actually tell us when they’re going to happen. Apparently they’re going to happen sometime next year. There’s no public media funding commission that the Government promised. They promised a public media funding commission. Where is it? It hasn’t actually happened.

So this Government has a terrible record for delivering. They are absolutely not delivering, and they claim to care. I am shocked at the—I think it was question time last week when Mr Phil Twyford actually mentioned that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development spent $21 million on KiwiBuild policy and the work that they’re doing. I said, “Work that they’re doing?” How many KiwiBuild homes have they built? They’ve delivered less than 150 homes—less than 150 homes—and I have to actually say that when the Prime Minister talks about this Government building more houses than any other time since the 1970s, she is actually talking about the private sector. Yes, the private sector is actually delivering for New Zealand, as always, but this Government is certainly not doing that.

When we’re talking about houses the Government’s actually responsible for in social housing, I think what this Government has actually built—they’re actually talking about the houses that the National Government put in place. What this Government has actually done—they promised 1,000 KiwiBuild homes in the first year, 5,000 KiwiBuild homes in the second year, and 10,000 KiwiBuild homes in the third year. So far we’ve literally only got less than 150 homes, and they’ve spent more than $21 million on administration. That is so typical of a Labour-led Government, and when Ministers get up and say, “Oh, it’s a terrible thing; the world’s in a terrible place.”—the National Government came in after a global financial crisis, a world economic failure, and we managed to put our books into the positive. We returned our books into the black, not red. But this Government is set on destroying this country’s economy.

You know, whenever I actually go out and go to the local restaurant, the takeaway bars, the coffee shops, the local employers actually say, “When are you going to change this Government?”, because they’re in a worse off situation. More people are homeless; businesses are suffering. Not long ago, I had a phone call from a desperate constituent who was actually trying to help someone who was homeless for more than 80 days—87 days, to be exact—and this Government was doing nothing. This Government was absolutely doing nothing. There are more people living in their cars, more people living in caravan parks, and this Government claims that they are doing something. I’d like to know when they are actually going to start measuring their performance as a Government, as leaders of the nation.

The Prime Minister and the Ministers talk about this Government being kind. All they have been doing is finding excuses and blaming the previous National Government, and that’s all they are doing. I would like to start from the top, actually. I would like the Prime Minister, and all of the Ministers—actually, maybe tomorrow. There’s a big reshuffle, so I don’t know. Maybe some of them are actually going to say, “Well, it’s not my responsibility any more.”, and I wish good luck to Kris Faafoi. Hopefully he will actually get a Cabinet post. But this Government is failing New Zealanders.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. For a while there, I fell asleep listening. But I came to when I heard, “What is this Government doing, and what have they built?” Well, I can tell you: 2,700 social houses under build currently. What did your side do? What did the Opposition do when they were in power? Well, I’ll tell you what they did: they sold them off. They stopped building. In fact, we have had the strongest build since the 1970s, and it is incredible to me that the Opposition constantly bang on about us not doing anything and not delivering, and yet this morning when we heard from Housing New Zealand, who came to talk to us about what they’re doing, they talked to us about the transformation that they have under way internally and what they are managing to create, and the trust. Didn’t we hear 6 percent trust up since 2017? This is a Government that is leading with compassion, but we are also a Government who is leading change across our country.

Now, I came to Parliament for one particular reason. I came to Parliament because, at a time in my life, as a manager of Tauranga Women’s Refuge, I kept hearing from that Government at the time, from the National Government, that there was no housing crisis—that there was no housing crisis, and I heard it day upon day. Yet the experience that the families that I was working with—those most disenfranchised, those least able to help themselves, those most vulnerable—I heard that they constantly could not get a house. They looked everywhere. In the nine years under National, we had five social houses built in our community.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: How many?

Five—and the sad reality is that we still currently only have 2.5 percent of stock when we know that we need, for social housing, at least 4 percent, and that’s just to keep up. So there is a massive, massive build that has to occur. But we also know, when the massive sell-off occurred under that Government, the organisation that purchased those houses was not able to inspect them. Well, let me tell you: when I was campaigning, and also as manager of Tauranga Women’s—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t tell me—don’t tell me. Tell the House.

Sorry, ma’am—let me tell the House. When I was campaigning, and as manager of Tauranga Women’s Refuge, going into State houses in our city was shocking—it was shocking, and I cannot understand how the members who represent our community could’ve allowed those conditions to continue. Housing New Zealand was decimated with staff. They were told that they should have their relationships only over the phone, and an 0800 number would be the number that they should call.

So these people were looking for repairs. They were looking for maintenance. We didn’t have enough houses, and that Government told us there was no housing crisis. The women and children I worked with, in order to support them, my job was to look them in the eye and make them homeless so they could get far enough up the list in the Work and Income needs assessment to get them a motel for a week—a motel for a week. I had to throw those people out on the street to work with the bureaucracy in order to get them homes.

That was the reason I came to Parliament, because the party that I belong to and this Government have said “Enough.” We have put in place and are building 2,700 homes currently. We have said “Enough.”, and we will not allow our people in our community to continue to live in this way. Now, it’s going to take a while, but we are up for it. We have the plan. We have the leadership. We have everything we need to get going and to get this right. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Well, I would love to see that party across the other side actually do something about what those values were. We have an issue right in front of this country at the moment where that party is not acting, and that is the Westland Co-operative Dairy Company will be sold to overseas interests. Those parties in Government have the ability to do something about it now and are not acting. They need to actually get out there and do something. Where’s New Zealand First at this time, the party that rallied for New Zealand ownership? Selling our second-biggest dairy company overseas. Where is the Labour Party, talking about trying to save New Zealanders and their assets? Selling New Zealand’s second-biggest dairy company overseas. Where is the Green Party that is about to sell New Zealand’s second-biggest dairy company overseas?

What has happened in that case? An international buyer has come in, seen a company that has got low capitalisation, and offered them a much higher share value. That could easily happen to Fonterra. That could easily happen to our biggest company, our co-operative Fonterra, and—

💬 Michael Wood: Not without shareholder approval.

Oh, it just needs shareholders’ approval. There’s nothing to stop it actually happening. That Government over there has always said, “We’re going to stop these things happening.” That’s what New Zealand First has always argued upon. If we lose Fonterra, we lose the New Zealand ownership of the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of our biggest export product. That is what can happen when this Government sits idly by and lets things go, as they are now. There is an opportunity there for that party and those coalition parties to do something now, and they’re sitting down and letting that asset go. Once we lose our dairy industry overseas, it will be like the beef industry and other industries for export that have been lost overseas to overseas ownership. New Zealanders will not have the control and the operation over that and the opportunity going forward in the future. That is a big loss for New Zealand, and they are putting our country at risk at this time.

It’s time to relook at the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act. It’s time to relook at our rules, and I want that Government to actually start doing something instead of all that rhetoric, and then, when they get in office, they’ve got the power to do something—they do nothing.

💬 Dan Bidois: All hui, no doey.

Exactly. But what have they done in the overseas investment in the last two years? Guess what the number that they’ve sold of New Zealand assets overseas is? It’s $9.61983456 billion. It’s $9 billion of assets they have sold in two years overseas—$9.6 billion New Zealand First, Labour, and the Greens have sold overseas. In fact, it would probably be over $10 billion dollars now, because that figure was a couple of weeks ago.

But guess what the approval rate on forestry applications is? There’s a 100 percent approval rate on all forestry applications from overseas. They have denied not one forestry application that has been made to New Zealand to purchase land for forestry from an overseas buyer. Not one has been denied. They have 100 percent. They have sold 210,000 hectares of land into forestry to overseas interests. That’s the equivalent of selling the whole Waipā district and Hamilton City Council put together. That whole zone of land they’ve sold in the mere two years that they’ve been here to forestry. So go have a look at a map and put it in the middle of a map, and that’s the region that they have sold overseas. Not one of those applications have been denied.

New Zealand needs to look strategically forward, and the Westland sale, I believe, is not in the best interests of New Zealand. We’ve had Ministers say that on the other side of the House. Why don’t they act on it? Why don’t they do something about it? It is up to the shareholders to determine in the end, but the Government has the option of doing something about it. Why don’t we have New Zealand cornerstone investors in there? We’ve got large iwi that could invest. We’ve got New Zealand corporates that could invest in that. Why don’t we have rules that safeguard the ownership of one of our flagship industries, and not sell it overseas, as we know is going to happen under this Government? They have proven themselves to have gone to the public and said they were going to stop these sales, and when they got into Government, they have done exactly the opposite.

This is a fascinating place to work, and it is of great surprise to me—and, I suspect, the member in front of me, David Seymour—to learn that it is now the policy of the National Party to have more restrictive rules on the sale of New Zealand property and businesses to offshore interests. I was fascinated to see the reaction of the honourable member for Hamilton East’s colleagues sitting around him who were not moving a muscle during those weighty proclamations that he made and the commitments that he made on behalf of his party to introduce a more restrictive scheme in respect of overseas investments in New Zealand. I’m sure that members on this side will be very pleased to inform the Hon Nathan Guy and Milton Friedman’s lovechild, the new National Party finance spokesperson, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, that this is, in fact, now the new policy of the National Party. I think it really does speak so much to the chaos and confusion that is reigning on the benches of the National Party of the Opposition at the moment that we had a major speech from a former Minister of the previous National Government taking that position at the same time that a person of such absolute free market pedigree as the Hon Paul Goldsmith has become the finance spokesperson of that party.

I want to, at this point, just acknowledge in all seriousness the contribution of the Hon Amy Adams, whose pending retirement from this House was announced earlier this week. She’s a person who on this side of the House we have a range of policy disagreements with, but she is a person who has respect and is taken seriously and has a degree of economic competency about her that was not evident in the previous speech. So we wish Amy Adams well in the next steps that she takes in her life and her career. The National Party could seriously do with someone of Amy Adams’ calibre in that respect, and, really, I think it speaks volumes about the state of the Opposition at this point that a person of that competence sees the best move is to move away.

I’ve had the privilege of speaking a couple of times this week in the Budget debate, where I’ve focused on many of the significant wellbeing initiatives that this Government has been very, very proud to stand behind in the Budget last month. Finally taking mental health seriously—a $1.9 billion investment to ensure that Kiwis get access to community-level primary mental health care when they need it. Serious action to lift our children out of poverty—and these are major wellbeing initiatives, but I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about the fact that sitting alongside those, this is a Budget that seriously delivers in terms of a balanced approach, in terms of running the books well and having an economic plan and vision for New Zealand. I think one of the things that the Opposition has really struggled with over the course of this Budget debate is that here is a Government, a cross-party Government, that is committed to the wellbeing of New Zealanders and making those investments in our public sphere, but that is also doing an excellent job of managing the books.

Because let’s be clear: this is a Budget which continues to see sustainable surpluses into the coming years so that New Zealanders can have security that the Government has money for a rainy day. This is a Budget which sees sustained economic growth above the level of most of our trading partners. This is a Budget which sees net Crown debt reducing to 19.9 percent, lower than that previous Government ever got it, and meeting the Government’s Budget responsibility rules. This is a Budget which sees unemployment down at 4 percent—again, lower than that previous Government ever got it—giving Kiwis an opportunity to get into meaningful work. Here’s the really good news for those Kiwis who are in work: the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update tells us that average wage growth over the coming years is going to be over 3 percent, well above inflation, meaning that we are making a real difference to the living standards of New Zealanders.

That is the economic track of this country under the coalition Government, and I acknowledge our partners in Government, the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party, for their contribution in helping us to reach that sweet spot where we are meeting the wellbeing needs of New Zealanders while managing the books and the economy well—something that the OECD acknowledged in its report this week, and New Zealanders can take a lot of confidence from that.

What the OECD also acknowledged is that as well as managing the purse, managing the books, well at the moment, there’s a long-term economic plan here to deal with productivity. This is a Government which is investing in the research and development tax credit to drive productivity and to drive the high-value businesses and jobs that will give New Zealanders prosperity in the long run. This is a Government which is investing in vocational education to give Kiwis a chance, and it’s put up the Venture Investment Fund to help our businesses get off the ground and grow and export. I am so proud of the Wellbeing Budget. It invests in the wellbeing of New Zealanders and it has a serious economic plan and good fiscal management.

Well, is it going to be Milton or Michael? It’s going to be Milton, I think, and I’m talking about not Michael Wood but Michael Cullen—you know, the author of the most extractive capital gains regime in the world. Thank goodness they came to their senses and dropped that one. This Government has got it wrong, but why are we surprised? A 100 percent renewable electricity policy, though technically feasible, is economically untenable. But don’t worry, because molten salt is on its way, just like lava lamp storage, and what about flux capacitors? We should hear that coming from the Government as well.

This week we learnt that New Zealand will have to pay dearly for the 100 percent renewable electricity goal that this Government has been talking about. Residential power prices—up 14 percent. Commercial power prices—up 29 percent. Industrial power prices—up 39 percent. For residences, every household, what that means is a $300 increase per year, an increase which disproportionately impacts low-income households.

You know, the editorial in the Taranaki Daily News and, in fact, the Manawatu Standard, the Marlborough Express, The Press, Nelson Mail, Waikato Times, Dominion Post, Timaru Herald, and Southland Times said the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) has advised that 100 percent renewable electricity by 2035 in a normal hydrological year could be technically feasible, but getting there will be incredibly expensive and likely counterproductive to our aim to reduce carbon emissions. They went on to say in this editorial, “The ICCC report should be applauded for restoring sanity to the discussion”. Isn’t that amazing, that an editorial right through most papers in the country said that this report is restoring sanity to the discussion? Yes, the goal may have been aspirational, may have been ambitious, but it’s untenable. In fact, it’s going to hurt New Zealand. It’s going to slow us down from achieving the goals that this Government thinks that they want to achieve. In fact, the goal has shifted from being an absolute goal to an aspirational goal. Hamish Rutherford from the Dominion Post said, “Back in April, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern began referring to the 100 percent renewable target as ‘aspirational’ ”, which some in the industry are saying looks like she’s clearing the ground to soften their position.

💬 Dan Bidois: Cop-out.

Yeah, it’s a cop-out. I spent two weeks over the Easter recess visiting countries which are facing energy transition. I included a meeting with the UK climate change commission. I included a meeting with Ofgem, which is the Government regulator for gas and electricity markets in Britain, and I met with their counterparts in Japan and Norway. I came away highly impressed with one thing: their sanity—their sanity, their pragmatic approach. It was science over religion. It was. It was rationality over ideology. They were facing the challenge of transition and they were understanding that it’s going to be small interim incremental steps that need to be made rather than single leaps into the future to successfully achieve a low-emission future.

I just want to read out some comments. Back in 2007, under Helen Clark’s Government—and Megan Woods, the Minister of energy, has received this advice. This is the advice of Government agencies back in that time. The key finding of this work was that cumulative generation and transmission costs increased significantly with higher levels of renewables. For example, they increase by $1.5 billion at a 95 percent target, compared to the $7 billion currently spent on electricity. It’s a 21 percent increase.

This sounds so familiar to what the Interim Climate Change Committee has presented to the Government today: 14 percent up for residential power, 29 percent for commercial power, 39 percent for industrial power. What it means for those industries—the impacts on the viability of their businesses, their ability to grow, to compete, to employ, and to pay the Government taxes on their profits—is that all the numbers are going the wrong way. We need to be smarter. We need to think incrementally. We need to think about steps that will enable this economy to succeed to reach those goals. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I’d like to conclude this debate by just slowing down the tone a little bit and making my point with a brief story. My parents, John and Patricia Andersen, were school teachers in primary school for their entire working lives. They taught predominantly in poorer areas in New Zealand and predominantly in rural parts of New Zealand. They finished their over 90 years’ teaching experience combined in a small part of Northland, a place called Ngātaki, which is 60 kilometres north of Kaitāia.

When they arrived there, the first thing my father noticed was that the sandpit was in disarray. It was not in a good shape for kids to be playing in. It was overgrown. So, quick as a flash, he ordered a trailer, a high-sided trailer, with some fresh sand to be dumped and put into the sandpit. He went online. He hadn’t looked for sandpit toys for quite a while, but he was stunned to find the array of amazing sandpit toys now available to modern New Zealand children. There were wheels that spun. There were different types of physics arrangements you could do to these amazing different sandpit toys. He spent quite a significant amount of money to have a really good range of sandpit toys.

When the bell rang for the first interval and the kids were released, they ran to the sandpit and they loved the toys. They played with them like never before. And when the bell rang again and they went back inside, my father went over to inspect the sandpit and was astonished to find that every single toy was gone. The whole lot had vanished. So he called a special assembly to find out where the sandpit toys had gone, and he called a couple of the main kids over to ask where they had gone. They dug down. They dug down about half a foot, because they’d buried them. They’d buried them because they never thought they would get those toys again, and they wanted to play with them.

That story has always stuck with me, because I’ve always wanted New Zealand to be the best place in the world to be a child, and I am absolutely determined in the fact that I do not want to see a culture of poverty evolve in New Zealand. What has worried me over the past nine years before I came into this House was that that is exactly what we began to see happening in New Zealand: a divided society where children don’t have the basics they need.

That’s why having things like child poverty targets is so important. And I would like to remind this House that time and time again under the previous Government it was put in the too-hard basket to measure child poverty. There was a refusal to meet international covenants to try and measure child poverty. The Prime Minister of this Government has taken a lead in that area. We have legislated targets and we have put into it, as our annual reporting as part of the Wellbeing Budget, that we will be measuring child poverty as to how that’s tracking, and we will show our success in that area and we’ll be held to that by showing our account in that space.

Number two—the Best Start payment. Let’s look at that. It is $60 a week for the first year of a child’s life, and that will continue into the third year for those on lower and middle incomes. After that third year, we’re going to tack into a part that was a legacy from the previous Labour Government: 20 hours’ free early childhood education—so important for mums and dads who want to get back to work but can’t afford to pay for full childcare. It is so important.

Paid parental leave is yet another one: 22 out weeks delivered by this Government, with a promise to take it to 26 weeks by 1 July 2020. Can I remind members that that was vetoed. The financial veto was used under the previous National Government to stop that coming through. The Families Package—the Families Package delivers to 385,000 New Zealand families with children another $75 in their pocket every single week to put food on the table, to buy important things like nappies, like shoes, like schoolbooks. Those are the things that are announced—right down to the announcement today by the Hon Tracey Martin that has put money into intervening early into childhood and making sure that if there are learning disabilities, if there are issues with our children’s learning, we are identifying those before they even get to school, because we know we can change a child’s life by making sure they can hear, they can listen, and they can learn.

We are investing in our children’s future. I’m proud to be a country that makes New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child, and I’m proud of the fact that we have turned the ship around, away from a culture of poverty.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.