General Debate

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

I want to start by acknowledging the tremendous contribution to this House and to New Zealand by the Hon Nathan Guy. He has been a role model of a member of Parliament, doing an incredibly fine job as the Member of Parliament for Ōtaki. He has delivered for his electorate on the little and the large, and I for one, Mr Guy, will remember those four lanes when I drive down them that have done so much to help people get home on time, get goods to market, get medicines to hospital. You’ve been a great local member of Parliament, Mr Guy. I also want to acknowledge a remarkable nine years as a Minister where he has been an indefatigable—yeah, that’s right: indefatigable—champion of the primary sector and rural communities in this country. What a great New Zealander.

But I want to talk—well actually, there’s been a lot of talk about polls this week and about whether this Government is up to it. And I don’t want to offend Grant Robertson, but some are even saying this is a part-time Government. That’s what they’re saying. That’s what they’re saying. And that’s because under that Government over there, New Zealanders are starting to see a few things. One of the things—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Are you allowed to read a general debate speech?

—Megan Woods, that they’re starting to see is an economy tanking—an economy tanking. And just today business confidence figures out are down another six to net negative 44—the worst since the height, or I should say the slumps, of the global financial crisis. And don’t worry, I won’t be mentioning the Consumers Price Index, Kelvin Davis. You’ll be OK on that one

And that’s as they pile on costs and taxes, whether it’s on rents, whether it’s on petrol, whether it’s on cars, Julie Anne Genter. That is what they are doing because this is a Government that doesn’t understand the economy. They don’t understand the economy, they are not to be trusted on tax, and New Zealanders are increasingly working out they can’t afford this Government because as they get the tax in, as they get the costs in, they are wasting it on shamefully wasteful programmes that don’t make a difference.

The other thing—[Interruption]—no, no, no, no. The other thing that’s going on and that New Zealanders are saying more and more is this Labour Government is failing to deliver on its promises. That’s what they are doing in so many areas. Let’s take housing. How many KiwiBuild have they built—87.

💬 Hon Member: How many?

Eighty-seven—I’ll let you have the answer—87 with the code of compliance, 87 houses under KiwiBuild. How many have they stopped at Ihumātao—480. Now for Kelvin Davis, I’m going to run them through this: 87 minus 480—that’s going backwards. That is going backwards and that’s because New Zealanders are seeing Jacinda Ardern is not serious about building houses that New Zealanders need in this country. In fact, they’re a Government that’s failing to build anything. They’re not building houses, they’re not building roads, they’re not even building rail, Shane Jones. Nothing’s happening under them and National will be a Government of infrastructure that delivers for this country.

They’re not delivering in cancer, and this is a serious matter because two years ago over on that side they talked about world-class services. They were literally going to save the world and they were going to do—and it was the right thing to say—a national cancer agency. So, David Clark, what’s being done?

💬 Hon Members: Nothing.

Nothing. The reality is, nothing has been done. Nine thousand people in New Zealand die a year, and nothing’s been done. In fact, Paula Bennett’s right. It’s worse than that, because when you get past the jiggery-pokery, they’re not even funding the cost of inflation for new cancer drugs in New Zealand. They’ve got rid of the targets and the measures and the ability to actually see what is happening in this area. That’s why I’m proud that we will fund that. We will put a further $200 million in, and we will do—no ifs, no buts; and New Zealanders know we are true to our word—a national cancer agency. You see, on this side of the House, we’ll keep the economy strong and we’ll deliver on it because we know the bottom line is you, New Zealanders.

What a confused and incoherent ramble we just had from the Leader of the Opposition, who doesn’t seem to know what he thinks at all, because he complains that the Prime Minister shouldn’t be involved in Ihumātao, and then he complains that she is, and then he complains that she shouldn’t be there, and then he complains that she should be. Then he complained that she was a part-time Prime Minister, and then, of course, we were reminded that he complained when she made an announcement after 6 o’clock, because apparently, in Simon Bridges’ world, full-time Prime Ministers knock off at 5.

Well, on this side of the House, I can assure Mr Bridges that Ministers are working every waking hour to deliver the outcomes that New Zealanders are looking for from this Government. They want a Government that is tackling the long-term challenges facing this country, and that is exactly what this Government is doing. We’ve dusted off the problems that the National Party put in the too-hard basket and we’re actually taking them seriously—like mental health, like child poverty, like family and sexual violence, and like homelessness. Issues the National Party couldn’t run away from fast enough—this Government is actually taking them seriously and doing something about them.

This is a Government not only addressing mental health and homelessness and child poverty but we’re delivering a strong economy at the same time, despite the global situation that we find ourselves in. New Zealand’s economy is outperforming many of the countries that we would traditionally compare ourselves to. We are doing well despite the global uncertainty. We are delivering surpluses. We are delivering low debt. We are delivering record low unemployment. That’s all happening under this Government.

Compare that with what you see on the other side of the House, and, in fact, don’t take my word for it at all; let’s see what National’s own MPs think about Simon Bridges’ performance as leader. Let me quote from them directly—direct quotes from the people sitting over there, probably the ones that are slouched down behind their benches hoping that no one will notice that they are there, which is most of them at the moment. They are slouching down, desperately hoping that no one knows they’re there, because they’ve been going around the press gallery white-anting their own leader. We know that because they’ve been reported on it.

Here are the words of Simon Bridges’ own MPs when it comes to Simon Bridges: “The party members don’t want him. The funders don’t want him.” That’s one of his own MPs saying that. It doesn’t get more unequivocal than that. That’s from one of Simon Bridges’ own MPs. But here’s another revelation from one of his own MPs: “Our polling isn’t as bad as it could be. It’s being held up by the belief that most of our voters have that we’re going to change him.” So the theory going around the National Party MPs—these are not my words; these are the National backbench MPs’ own words—is that the only reason their polling is holding up is that the voters think they’re going to get rid of Simon Bridges

But here’s one from another MP, and this one’s got a ring of desperation about it, of course: “There’s no John Key waiting in the wings.” Now, if that doesn’t have a reek of desperation about it, I don’t know what does. But here’s another one that shows you just how divided this caucus actually is, and this came also from a National MP: “This is a leader who doesn’t have a majority support in the caucus.” But neither does anyone else.

So Simon Bridges is still the leader of the National Party simply because no one else can cobble the numbers together. That is how divided the National Party caucus is. They’ve got a leader that hasn’t got the majority backing of their own MPs, but no one else can get a majority to replace them either. That’s how hopeless they are. And, of course, Simon Bridges punishes anybody who he thinks is a threat to his leadership, and we saw another example of that yesterday. I have to say to him, though, Todd Muller is not the only follicly challenged person who might have designs on Simon Bridges’ job. There’s somebody else who fits a similar profile who I’d be more worried about if I was Simon Bridges. In the quote when they say there’s no John Key waiting in the wings, I think “wings” might be the operative word in there, because there’s certainly somebody waiting in the wings who fancies themselves as a future John Key.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, there’s nothing like a Labour Minister standing there spending his five minutes of general debate talking all about the National Party. That means that the Labour Government has got absolutely zero to talk about. If you hadn’t put so many working groups in place and had set your mind to the task, you might have had more to say about your own Labour Government, Mr Hipkins.

Our polling is good, but nothing—nothing—is going right with this Government, and all we hear about is the overseas effects on the economy. We are a small country at the bottom of the world, as Grant Robertson has been reminding us about our previous leader’s quote. We are a small country at the bottom of the world, and yes, we are affected by overseas, but, actually, those are the bits that we can’t control; we only need to mitigate against them. There are so many things that are coming internally for our economy from this Government that have got nothing to do with the rest of the world, and, unfortunately, this Government’s not owning up to their own problems.

So I’ll start off with the oil and gas. We all know that that’s going to have a huge effect on our economy—and, by the way, it’s going to have a negative effect on climate change, because I’ve been to the ports of Auckland and I see more coal coming into this country. It’s not a myth; it’s actually a fact and it’s reality, and it’s going to get worse under this Government. I had an interesting experience last week when I happened to open my Facebook page. When this party was in Government, Simon Bridges as Minister of Transport did a rural road safety programme worth $600 million, and I had been with him on various roads that were opened as they were made safe, on rural roads. Well, last week it took the Prime Minister, two Ministers, and one backbench MP to go and put on hard hats and safety jackets and a cone on the road to stand and make a road safety announcement in my electorate on a road that I had been driving on for nearly two years which Simon Bridges had already done. So if this Government’s going to be authentic, please make your own announcements on your own roads that need fixing. By the way, while we’re talking about roads in the general debate, I’ve heard the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport both talk about doing Mt Messenger. Please make sure that happens, because we are waiting.

So another thing with this Government—and, of course, we have a three-part Government here. If we’re talking about rural communities, rural communities, in large part, drive our economy, and the one billion trees programme is hassling our communities at the moment like you wouldn’t believe. This is a massive number, a big pork-barrel politics episode, that’s got no strategy with it at all. Now, the National Party is on board with planting trees, and we’re on board with mitigating climate change, but, actually, it’s got to be the right tree for the right place. No one’s thought about the rural roads when it comes to logging these, and has anybody thought about what the timber prices might be when we actually go to do something with them? It’s just a pork-barrel, scattergun piece of politics with absolutely no strategy. We already know that rural schools are closing, and it’s going to have a very detrimental effect on our rural communities.

The other thing that’s a bit interesting at the moment is the vehicle taxes on electric vehicles. If any of the members of the Government ever visit rural New Zealand, they will find that there are many utes out there, and utes are a massive requirement for running our rural businesses. You cannot cart large, round bales around on little Suzuki Swifts. It’s very difficult—in fact, it’s close to impossible, and how many electric utes do we see out there at the moment? This Government is having an effect on our economy, not the global economy. We do have to trade. We do have an effect from the globe, but, actually, if we’re going to get methane taxes being pushed at us, if we’re going to get ute taxes being pushed at us, if we’re going to have trees destroying our rural communities and have the schools destroyed that our children are going to, then, actually, it’s going to be the actions of this Government, and New Zealand cannot afford this Government. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Can I just start by acknowledging the wonderful Pacific event I attended last night at the Civic Theatre in Auckland, where 1,800 New Zealanders showed up to watch the premiere screening of a film made by a Tongan film-maker with her Samoan partner called For My Father’s Kingdom. Can I just say that we on this side of the House are very grateful to those everyday New Zealanders for the contribution that they make to New Zealand, not just here domestically but on the international stage. We on this side of the House value the contribution, the skills, and the talents that Pacific people bring to this country.

So with that, I do have to say that I was incredibly disappointed this week to see the Leader of the Opposition speaking so dismissively of a Pacific country that is actually part of the Realm of New Zealand. Instead of criticising that country and being divisive, as they continue to do, he should be actually creating some public awareness about the fact that these countries are, and have been for a very long time, part of New Zealand, and we have responsibilities to them. I really feel, actually, for the members of Parliament in the Opposition party that are Pacific, because if I was sitting in that caucus and I had a leader that talked about Pacific nations in that way, then not only would I be cringing but I would be having a quiet word to them. National can’t go out and try and court the Pacific community for the Pacific community’s votes and then go and disrespect the countries that the same Pacific people come from. In fact, if we want to talk about Tokelau, there’s about 1,500 Tokelauans in Tokelau. There are about 7,000 Tokelauans in New Zealand, and all of them are strongly connected to that place that they come from. So can I say again how disappointing it was this week to see the Leader of the Opposition so obviously blatantly disrespecting the Pacific.

I do want to remind this House that not only is Tokelau part of the New Zealand Realm of nations but, actually, it’s incredibly important to recognise that we aren’t just an ocean of small islands. In fact, there was an academic called Epeli Hau’ofa, who said that we will not be defined by the smallness of our islands but by the greatness of our oceans. We should all be on board with that sentiment, particularly when you look at an island like Tokelau, which is 10.8 square kilometres in terms of land but is 318,990 square kilometres in ocean. So we on this side of the House value our Pacific nations and really want to get that point across in the House today.

Tokelau, like many of our Pacific nations, is at the forefront and fighting many of the international challenges that we speak about in this House, including climate change. Why would it not be appropriate that our Prime Minister—our Prime Minister, for the first time in 14 years—would go and visit this country, one of our Realm countries, to discuss issues of international importance, like climate change, particularly given our commitment to that country? We on this side of the House are not about being divisive; we are about making sure that as a Pacific region, we are united on the big issues that matter internationally. We’ve made a commitment as a Government to ensuring that one of our priorities is valuing who we are, and that’s recognising that, actually, here in New Zealand, we are part of the Pacific region. We are part of the Pacific region, and so we will not buy into the divisive rhetoric that we see coming out of the Opposition.

I really want to refer to and acknowledge our Deputy Prime Minister, in his role as Minister of Foreign Affairs, for the Pacific reset that he has undertaken and the value that he places on the Pacific region. In fact, he’s got a great line that I’ve heard him use on many occasions, and that is that we’re not just partners with regards to our Pacific Island nation States; actually, being Pacific is part of our DNA. It is part of our DNA—it’s certainly part of mine. On that, can I just say we have a special relationship with the Pacific region, which we value on this side of the House. It is part of our DNA. We are not only partners, or not just partners; they are our cousins, and this side of the House will not be disrespecting them like that side does.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to talk today to the recently released Government medicinal cannabis proposals, and I want to add to the excellent line of questioning from the Hon Paula Bennett, our spokesperson, and bring some further scrutiny to these proposals. Now, the bill’s not completely bad. There are some good parts to it—namely, the parts that they’ve copy-pasted from our bill, actually. I want to just acknowledge that there is some good thinking in it, but I really want to highlight some of the issues that are really a problem for us and a problem for New Zealanders.

We’ve got two main issues with the Government’s medicinal cannabis bill. The first is around fit and proper persons and a lack of reputational requirements, and the best way to highlight this is with a series of five questions. The first would be: can murderers apply for and hold a medicinal cannabis licence under the Government’s proposals? The second is: can serious offenders under the Crimes Act apply for and hold a medicinal cannabis licence under these proposals? Question three: can active gang members apply for and hold a medicinal cannabis licence under the Government’s proposals? Question four: can a person apply for and hold a medicinal cannabis licence while they are currently addicted to cannabis and in full-time residential rehabilitation? And the final point would be: can business associates of El Chapo hold a medicinal cannabis licence under these proposals? The answers to all of those five points are yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

The only two criteria the Government has in their medicinal cannabis proposals are convictions under the Misuse of Drugs Act and convictions of dishonesty. That, in our view, is too light. It needs to be substantially tightened up. In our bill, we covered “fit and proper persons” with a much more sophisticated approach. We think there are issues of your past history that matter and issues of your current history that are probably important as well. As a licence holder, you’re in a very powerful position. In the past history, we agree that offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act and dishonesty—yes, they should exclude you from a licence. We also add serious offences—these are serious offences under the Crimes Act—and we also add associations that may influence the conduct of the licence holder.

Australia has much more stringent regulations than we were proposing. In fact, when we discussed with industry and discussed with others, we moderated these to help them fit in. Not only do we think the past history matters for a licence holder; we think the present history matters. We just think that if you’re currently addicted to a controlled drug, you’re unlikely to be a fit and proper person to hold a medicinal cannabis licence. That doesn’t seem unreasonable—that doesn’t seem unreasonable. So the answers to all those previous questions are yes.

The second issue we have is the location for the growing of medicinal cannabis—absolutely nothing mentioned in the proposals. Again, we highlight it with three questions. Can medicinal cannabis be grown beside schools under these proposals? Yes. Can medicinal cannabis be grown beside wāhi tapu? Yes. Can medicinal cannabis be grown beside rehabilitation clinics? Yes. There is precedent: even the hemp Act says you cannot grow hemp within 5 kilometres of a residential zone.

So we offer what our proposals to this are, which, again, we’ve discussed with industry and found there’s a moderated approach: first of all, no growing of medicinal cannabis within 1 kilometre of a residential area—that’s for indoor growing—secondly, no growing of medicinal cannabis in outdoor environments within 5 kilometres of a residential area—again, like the hemp regulations—and, thirdly, no growing of medicinal cannabis 1 kilometre from unsuitable areas such as schools and wāhi tapu. We think these are reasonable, and we’d like the Government to consider taking them into account.

One of the issues we have here—and, indeed, David Clark raised it in a response to the Hon Paula Bennett, when he raised the question in the House: “Would the Prime Minister be surprised to learn that the proposals for consultation rule out people with criminal convictions being the licence holder for growing operations…?” That is not true. I’ve just told you that people can have serious offences, have criminal convictions, and they are allowed to hold a licence under the current proposals.

The overwhelming response has been: “Don’t worry, you can comment on that in the consultation document.” No, you can’t. There is nowhere in here that talks to fit and proper persons, or invites you to talk to fit and proper persons. There are questions: in C3, there are questions around industry; and in C4, there are questions around location—but none of them talk to these particular issues. Can I just be very clear: in our hands, active gang members will not hold a licence to grow medicinal cannabis; they are not fit and proper persons to grow medicinal cannabis. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

It’s always a pleasure and a privilege to stand to make a contribution in this House. I just want to acknowledge the last speaker, and it would be remiss of me not to respond to Dr Shane Reti that the previous National Government had nine years to sort this out—nine years to sort this out. It’s only been almost two years, and now they’re throwing at us: “shoulda coulda, coulda shoulda, coulda shoulda.”

Anyway, on this side of the House, it’s all about action. It’s all about a demonstration of what leadership is like. On that note, I am always honoured to be under the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, because many in the world have described her as, actually, what real leadership is like.

In terms of ordinary New Zealanders, I want to go back to 20 July. It was my daughter’s birthday and I had said to her, “Malu, did you know that it’s 50 years since man landed on the moon on 20 July?” She turned around to me and she said, “No, Mum, it’s Sir Edmund Hillary’s and Malu Suisuiki’s birthday on 20 July.”

And may he rest in peace—Sir Edmund Hillary. A quote that I like him saying is that “ordinary people are doing extraordinary things.” We’re reminded, in terms of our national anthem, the song that unites us when we stand—I don’t think that the other side of the House understands or remembers what the second verse is. I’d like to—not to sing, because my voice sometimes is not that great—remind us all of the second verse of the New Zealand national anthem. In Te Reo:

Ōna mano tangata

Let all people

Kiri whero, kiri mā,

Red skin, white skin,

Iwi Māori, Pākehā,

Māori, Pākehā,

Rūpeke katoa,

Gather before you,

Māu e whakaahu kē,

How all our wrongs we pray,

Kia ora mārire

Be forgiven

Aotearoa

So we might say “long live Aotearoa.” In that second verse, it is talking about everyday New Zealanders, and everyday New Zealanders whether you live in Papakura, whether you live in Tāmaki, or whether you live in Tokoroa.

I go back to my first sentence, when I spoke about the “shoulda could, why didn’t, why did she, why did he”—those questions are relevant on this side because actions are coming out from this side.

When we are together as a nation—the best place that we see that demonstrated, as a nation, is through sports, whether it’s through the champion Silver Ferns, we stand together and be proud New Zealanders. We talked about the courageous Black Caps and their conduct on the world stage, we all stand that we are proud New Zealanders.

The leadership of the youth parliamentarians earlier this month, we all stand as proud New Zealanders. I think I’d like to echo the words of the Hon Meka Whaitiri, when she said to us in a conversation, “Did you hear those young people speak in the House, did you hear them speak?” New Zealand has no concerns with leaders. The young people came in here and they demonstrated that they are our future. I want to acknowledge your Youth MP, Mr Speaker; his name is Rayan Lootah. He actually did a fine performance of sitting there very stern and confident in serving as the Speaker of the House with the Youth Parliament. I want to pay a special acknowledgment of my Youth MP, Jennifer Thonrithi—I’ll just put a plug in for Jennifer—as the Youth MP based in Papakura, in Tāmaki. She’s interviewing tonight at 104.6 FM Planet FM the Youth MP for Kelston, Dazhonavah Fa’aumu; they’re having a personal conversation about their experiences in this House.

The momentum and the leadership that we need to support our young people, it is about how the world describes our Prime Minister as a Prime Minister for our times who is leading and showing what leadership is like—leading and showing what leadership is like.

I’d like to end with saying that the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern listens with her heart and acts with intelligence, which is some advice that I might give the other side of the House: a bit of intelligence and a bit of wit in your speeches and your behaviour would be firmly appreciated by all everyday New Zealanders.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. When I shifted across the House, this afternoon, and came and sat up here, I was reminded I was on skid row—I shan’t be back here again for a while! Some of my neighbours weren’t very complimentary about the position I was sitting in.

I wanted to begin today, though, by acknowledging one of them, who was sitting on this very same row, and that’s the Hon Nathan Guy, who has been my neighbour; I suppose, my friend; my mentor, even; and my adviser, and a Minister, for quite some time as my neighbour in the Horowhenua. He also was on the Horowhenua District Council at the time I first got into council and became a mayor when he left the Horowhenua District Council; it’s gone backwards ever since. The Manawatū District Council has gone forward ever since.

I also wanted to just congratulate Todd Muller on his appointment to what I consider to be the most important portfolio in the New Zealand Parliament at a critical time in our history. I’m about to outline some of the issues that I think are hugely important.

As a rural MP, you get to know the feeling of your electorate pretty quickly. I have the fortunate position of having an office right across the road from the Feilding Sale Yards, where in excess of a thousand farmers every week walk through those saleyards gates, and you get to talk to them—easily that—quite often, and they never hesitate to give you their opinion. I don’t think in my time I’ve ever noticed—in my 50 years in agriculture, probably—the uncertainty that we’re seeing on a daily basis right now in rural New Zealand. Those farmers that come through Feilding come from all over the lower North Island, and the upper South Island.

There can be no doubt that this nervousness is not caused by a downturn in prices, because I’ve never seen prices for, particularly, lamb—beef is in great order, and even the milk price is holding up—I’ve never seen the agricultural sector—in fact, you can go right across the board—in great order.

💬 Greg O’Connor: Must be what they’re getting in the mail from the National Party.

So it is in good order, and the old left-arm googly bowler from over there’s not going too good. No, this nervousness, uncertainty, and lack of—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: No, sorry. I was signalling the member—I accidentally pushed the Opposition whip’s phone, but I meant the Government whip’s.

Ha, ha! I thought you’d signalled no-ball, Mr Speaker. The uncertainty, and lack of confidence to invest is caused by a Government, who, in my view, are moving at a pace into the unknown. Potential changes to the banking system, driven by an idealistic Reserve Bank, putting pressure on bank portfolios, the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which has, in its current form, the potential to strip some $50 billion out of the sector in the next 30 years—yes, $50 billion—with its current methane targets included at present.

An ill-conceived tree planting regime, brought about by poor settings in the carbon trading scheme, and the plantation forestry policy statement, driving forestry, and carbon farming investors, to plant land that should not be in trees. This could be fixed, in part, by appropriate incentivising of native planting in red zone land. I think we could do a lot with our native planting that would improve the situation here dramatically. The great concern here is, if the carbon price is freed up and allowed to find its real value—or, it’s potential real value—under the current policy settings, we may see massive increases in planting on land that I think, in 50 years’ time, we’ll seriously regret were ever planted in trees. A better use of land-use planning would also help a great deal in this area, and I think there’s room for us to revisit the way we plan our land use in New Zealand, and, probably, the way we plan the use of our oceans as well.

That’s not all. The changes the overseas investment regime have ensured that much-needed foreign investment has deserted agriculture other than the dreaded trees, except, of course, they still have carte blanche opportunity to buy up our processors—in my view, the quickest way to turn our farmers into peasants we’ve ever thought up. Then we have the proposal to charge a climate change levy or tax at the processors’ gate and this, of course, in my view, sends completely the wrong signal to farmers, as only those fronting up with product at the gate get to pay the levy. The rest get off scot-free. I expect that farmers will find a way of overcoming this challenge. The way they’ll do that is to produce more than ever; exactly the wrong answer, and one we don’t accept.

All this, and the Government hasn’t released its freshwater plan yet. There’s no doubt the farming sector feel they’re under siege, and they are. We, in rural New Zealand, accept we have a vital role to play in change. However, if the pace of change is not steadied, the demands are not eased, and the real discussion engaged in, we’ll see our productive sector take this country quickly into recession. That will be disaster for all, not just our farmers. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It’s raining outside, but you wouldn’t know that in here. You’d actually never know the state of the world, or the state of the rest of Aotearoa New Zealand in here, in this Chamber. There’s a guy standing in the rain with a few friends who have joined him. He’s been there for 77 days now. His name is Ollie, and he’s been there for, now, three months outside of Parliament, calling for us to declare a climate emergency. Ollie is the CEO of a company that he can run remotely from Parliament’s lawn. He’s 55 years old, and he’s got five children. Ollie is just a regular New Zealander, who’s asking for this House to do the bare minimum, and acknowledge the reality of urgent and immediate action required to set up sustainable, ongoing work to tackle global warming.

He’s invited nearly every parliamentarian to go out and speak to him about the importance of climate change and this climate emergency, but next to none of the representatives in here have. Because next to none of you have gone out there to see him—maybe because it’s been raining, and windy, and these seats are more comfortable—I’ve brought his plea in here. This whiteboard is one that he brought on day 30 to keep track of the number of days that had passed whilst we’ve been ignoring him. His simple request is that we declare a climate emergency now. We have a responsibility to tell the truth as representatives of this country, the least that can be expected of a House of Representatives with access to science, research, and evidence.

Overwhelming international scientific consensus gives us a handful of years to act. The climate is changing, whether we like it or not. It’s time for us to act, and to change as well, because, if we do not act to reduce greenhouse emissions, we will trigger irreversible feedback loops. If we do not act, our polar icecaps will melt to the point that they can no longer mirror the sun’s rays back out of the planet’s atmosphere, meaning more heat is retained, and those icecaps melt more, and more sun’s rays are continued to be contained within our atmosphere. If we do not act, this planet will continue to exist, but we won’t.

This is the science, and, if politicians in this House don’t trust me, they can listen to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If they don’t trust international scientific consensus, they can listen to the more than 50 New Zealand scientists who sent all of us an open letter, calling on this Parliament to declare a climate emergency. If they don’t trust the literal science, then they can look inside their own caucuses, because every political party in this Parliament has said that they accept the fact of climate change. The fact is, the truth is, that it requires urgent action. If you don’t trust or retain the positions that you have spoken about publicly in this Chamber, then look to our nation’s children, because thousands of them have marched in the streets to demand that we put a stake in the ground to be held accountable to act on the climate emergency. A few weeks ago, our very own youth MPs, in this Chamber, declared a climate emergency, and, after that, the vast majority of them sent us an open letter asking for us to follow their lead.

The effect of a declaration of a climate emergency is a bald-faced statement of intent. If we can’t even say the words, if we can’t look Aotearoa New Zealand’s scientists in the eye, if we can’t look our children in the eye—heck, if we can’t go out and stand on Parliament’s lawn for a few moments to chat to a guy who has spent three months asking for us to do this—and we say, looking them in the eye, that we have heard all of them, then what on earth is the point of this place? This is not leadership. This is an impediment to progress. It takes more energy to block a climate emergency than it does to declare one. Human beings created this situation, and the measure of our leadership and our integrity will be whether we can put aside silly politics and act.

The most important job that a local member of Parliament has is to be an advocate for their community. It’s a role that I take extremely seriously, and one of the responsibilities of that is to meet regularly with New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) officials locally. Now, I did that twice last year, and it wasn’t just about four lanes between Ashburton and Christchurch. There’s a whole range of very serious safety issues on mid-Canterbury and South Canterbury roads.

One of those, as an example, is the very dangerous intersection now at Rangitata, of the corner of State highways 1 and 79, where there’s been as many crashes in the last six months as there were for the previous four years combined. Another important project is lights at Tinwald, where there’s now a lot of additional traffic coming through from Lake Hood. There are also other important projects like replacing the roundabouts at Walnut Ave and, of course, a second bridge crossing over the Ashburton River.

So I met with them twice last year, and earlier this year I invited my local NZTA officials to again meet with me in my office. I was told there’d been a change of process and that I needed to go off and ask the Minister’s office, which I duly did. The response came back: no, I wasn’t able to meet with NZTA officials. I asked the reason. He claims they’re too busy to meet with me twice a year. So I thought that’s very interesting. I’ll ask some questions about this. So I did, and I found out that he’s done it on eight previous occasions—eight previous occasions. But, when you look at the list of the eight MPs who have sought meetings, one thing becomes very, very apparent. What do you think it is that those eight MPs all have in common? They’re all National MPs—all MPs from the Opposition. So it turns out that local NZTA officials aren’t too busy to meet; they’re just too busy to meet with Opposition MPs.

So I ask MPs opposite—Labour MPs, who have been, most of them, I think, in Opposition—what possible reason do you think there is for a Minister to prevent Opposition MPs from meeting with their local NZTA officials? Why is it that you’ve got a Minister trying to stop Opposition MPs from doing their job locally? Well, there’s one very simple answer, and that is the Minister is embarrassed.

He’s embarrassed that they’ve taken $5 billion out of the State highway network to instead invest in Auckland rail and cycle projects. He’s embarrassed that they’ve cancelled important upgrade projects the length of this country, including four lanes between Ashburton and Christchurch and including the very important Woodend bypass, just north of Christchurch, which is so important for keeping their community safe. They’ve cancelled the Northland motorway, which is so important for unlocking the economic growth and potential of that region. He’s embarrassed because he’s made New Zealand roads less safe.

This is from a Government who said that their number one priority in transport is to make our roads safer. The road between Ashburton and Christchurch—the highway between Ashburton and Christchurch—is now the second most dangerous stretch of highway in the country for fatal crashes and serious accidents. The response from this Government has been to do nothing—to do absolutely nothing—to say it is fine as it is, keep the road at two lanes, and, actually, potentially make it more dangerous to cyclists by putting a median barrier down it.

This is a Government that has turned its back on mid-Canterbury, turned its back on South Canterbury, turned its back on Southland, and turned its back on Otago.

When we are re-elected to Government, we will not forget important communities in the South Island. We won’t forget the need to make our roads safer. This is a Government that is embarrassed that they’ve pulled funding—important funding—out of the State highway network and out of keeping our roads safe. This is a Government that has failed New Zealanders.

I’ve been extremely excited about being able to offer some of my thoughts this afternoon in this general debate. I’ve been excited about this opportunity because it doesn’t come around very often and, when you do, you get to sit on the side of the House and actually spend some time reflecting on how well this Government is going. What I want to say is that when I’m out there in my electorate in the mighty East Coast, what the people are saying to me is “Thank goodness that this Government is finally listening to the people, listening to the regions, and listening to those areas that were for so long forgotten and left behind by the last lot.” Now they’ve gone and they’ve rallied up their rural MPs for this general debate, and they’ve made them all trot out with their lines to say just how more woeful things are in the regions. Why are they doing that? They’re doing that because we are getting it right and they are scared. They are running scared of what this Government are doing.

I want to say basic things, like, for example, the people that voted this side of the House in, they were pleading to be heard under the last lot on basic things like the area of mental health. Now, this Budget delivered immeasurably. This Government delivered immeasurably. This Government listened and heard the pleas of the many out there in regions like mine, like Gisborne, that had been neglected. And what did it do? It invested $20 million, for example, in a small town like mine.

Now, the previous member, Andrew Falloon, he just wanted to talk about the roading down South. Well, I’ll tell you something: ever since 2010, in regions like mine, that were loyal and loyally gave them the blue vote every single election. They took and they took and they took that roading and infrastructure budget away from little regions like mine and they redirected it to the urban centres. They redirected it to Wellington, they redirected it to Christchurch, and they redirected it to Auckland. But now this Government is delivering, with over $300 million that’s just been injected into our roads. So we are pleased.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about, because everyone knows how wonderful we’re going. What I wanted to do was share with the people that’ll be diligently watching at home that it’s an interesting thing sitting in this Chamber because we get the privilege of seeing up close and personal what’s happening on the other side.

Now, we’ve been talking for a little bit about the four Ds. They have been desperate, divided, destructive, and divisive. But this week—oh, and the last couple of weeks—we’ve seen an extra couple of Ds added to the list. They’re deserting—they’re deserting in droves. Well, actually, the smart ones are deserting. The Hon Amy Adams, she knows, well, they don’t have a show of getting in next election, because that’s what all their polling’s saying. That six percent—their leader’s got nowhere to go. But the smart ones, they are jumping; they’re deserting ship. The Hon Nathan Guy: just the other day, he announces he’s deserting too.

But the thing is—the thing is—what happens when the writing is on the wall? I guess, the leadership, they start to get a little bit desperate. They start to get a little bit desperate and they start to get a little bit worried, and I guess all the polling is showing that they should be worried. So what do they do? Well, without talking to them, the leader strips their best performers—he strips their best performers of their portfolios. Poor old Hon Judith Collins, she had no idea she was losing transport and infrastructure, and out of the blue just swished away. Why was that? Because she’s polling at 6 percent. She’s neck and neck, and I think she got one up at the last poll. What about the next contender that’s doing pretty well? Whilst he looks like Chris Luxon, it isn’t—no, no, no. The man that the party want, the man that the party have been calling for, he’s sitting all the way up the backbench there, the Hon Todd Muller, who has diligently, for the last year, spent a lot of his time and energy devoted to climate change. Now, there is a man that could have taken both the primary production portfolio, which he has exceptional credentials to do, and the climate change portfolio and actually delivered a comprehensive plan, but they screwed him because they were scared of his potential.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

There perhaps was a threat that he was going to do exceptionally well.

But, finally, I just want to say the Opposition leader has made some disparaging comments towards women, some disparaging and dog-whistling stuff. Now, I look at the member up the back there, Maureen Pugh. Now, I know that she has been the victim of some disparaging comments. I look at what he said about the Prime Minister this week, and I just think dog-whistling—it’s desperate. They’re done.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’ll try and keep this quiet. This is a Government that has clearly lost its way, but I have to give the Labour-led Government some of its dues because it has been successful in some areas: it has successfully grown a very long list of promises that it’s failed to deliver on. Now, we continue to hear about these promises, we continue to hear about aspiration, and we continue to hear about delivery. In fact, this year has been dubbed the year of delivery, but that delivery must still be with New Zealand Post, because it hasn’t turned up here yet. I think Postman Pat and his black and white cat might actually do better at delivering than that lot over there. Now, delivery hasn’t turned up for hard-working Kiwis—not those Kiwis that go to work five or six days a week, those Kiwis that raise their children, that buy their homes, that volunteer in their communities in all sorts of ways. Delivery hasn’t turned up for people that want to put petrol in their car. What was the first thing that happened after this year’s Budget?

💬 Dan Bidois: Fuel tax is up.

A new tax—correct.

Let’s turn to some of the big-ticket items that I want to cover in my contribution today. One of them is education, the one that they thought they had sewn up—113 separate promises made in the education space. Now, I’m not going to say that they haven’t achieved any of them, because they did. They achieved 25—25 out of 113 delivered in nearly two years. Now, in any school report card, 25 out of 113 would get an F—an F on that report card in this year of delivery.

Health—that gets another F. Failing to deliver to the kids in Northland with meningococcal vaccines, failing kids again by not funding cochlear implants, and failing mothers who are birthing on the side of the road in Lumsden. On the West Coast, we are already 104 surgeries behind where we were last year. And what about the cheaper doctors visits? It’s not in their DNA, because it did not appear.

We have another issue that gets a big F and that’s an abysmal flop, and that’s in housing. Like Simon Bridges said in his speech earlier this afternoon, 87 KiwiBuild houses delivered with their code compliance certificates in 21 months compared to the 16,000 that this country was promised in the first term. Now we await the reset, but Postman Pat must have that too, because it’s been six months since that was announced and we’re still waiting.

I want to turn my attention to somewhere a lot closer to home, and that is the great West Coast - Tasman electorate. Now, we’ve had a coalition partner down there waving his chequebook around, and that’s been absolutely fantastic, delivering on some of the projects that were in the 2017 Economic Development Action Plan that National produced for the region. But here’s the trade-off—here’s the trade-off: no new mining on stewardship land. Now, for those of you who don’t understand, stewardship land is not conservation land in terms of national park; it’s mostly scrub land, and what this Government over here has done as part of its ideological policies is it has said no new mining. But the problem is we still need the products that we mine on that land, and so what are we forced to do? Import them. We saw that with Huntly—importing cheap, dirty, Indonesian coal when we actually have perfectly good thermal coal here in New Zealand. But what that policy has done is it has stripped half a billion dollars’ worth of productivity to this nation, and it has stripped $350 million in terms of the lost spend just on the West Coast. It’s gone.

What’s the next thing to be gone? Well, I’m putting Coasters and I’m putting residents in Golden Bay on notice that I believe that the next thing we’ll be fighting to keep part of our tradition is the right to gather our traditional kai during the whitebait season. I am desperately concerned that we are going to be battling the whitebait on the West Coast, to keep it as our traditional kai.

This Government gets an F, and it’s an F for their delivery; it’s an F for their performance. They are a “fail”.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, we had quite a prominent protest here on Parliament grounds, and I’d like to mention something that I don’t think that anybody else has in regards to this situation, this argument. We have to stop blaming Oranga Tamariki (OT). We have to stop blaming those social workers. Something that I found incredulous, and one of the reasons why I’m speaking about it today—everyone has the right to protest, but no one has the right to threaten and to intimidate. Over the last four months or so, social workers’ children have been bullied at school due to social media and mainstream media outlets’ continual bias and one-sided headlines and stories. They’re one-sided headlines and stories because the social workers themselves cannot defend themselves—the social workers themselves cannot defend themselves. Where is the voice for the social workers, and when have they had a chance to defend themselves?

It’s got to a point where extra security has had to be brought in for the OT staff. OT management and the Public Service Association have advised social workers and OT staff that if they are feeling that threatened, they can consider working from home. The Wellington OT office was in lockdown during the protest, and it is absolute testament to those social workers’ dedication to those children and to those families who it is their duty to protect that they put their personal safety second and their personal wellbeing second to ensure that they can still do their job. They still go to work and they protect those families, and that responsibility comes first for them. There has been, also, severe and unpleasant content posted online, including threats to social workers and their families. As I said, security has been increased. We have lost sight of who those social workers are and why they must do and continue to do what they have to do.

The fact is that OT has a duty to keep those children safe. We need to understand that uplifting of children is the very last resort, the very last choice that OT has. It’s not the social worker’s choice. They have gone through many steps before they get to that point, the endpoint being a court order. We need to make it clear that Oranga Tamariki will not stop uplifting children if there is a continued danger for those children, whether that danger be that they are being abused or the potential for being killed. There is no apology for that—there is no apology for that. The fact is that every two days in this country, whether people want to believe it or not, a child is admitted to hospital with non-accidental injuries. That’s the sharp, pointy end that our social workers have to deal with, and it is disgraceful and unfortunate that they have been lost in this argument, that their wellbeing has been lost in this argument.

New Zealand First and, I’m sure, every other party in this House back Oranga Tamariki and the hard-working, selfless, right-minded social workers who do a great job in this country in very, very difficult circumstances.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.