General Debate

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

Ironic that that member’s just taken her seat when we’re in the “avoid Government” at the moment. Avoid the letter, don’t talk about the letter. Avoid the letter, do not talk about that. Avoid Ihumātao; so avoid talking about it, avoid the people, avoid going there. Try and sort of throw in a bit of “We’re going to halt the building.”, and then hope that kind of goes away. Just avoid it.

Avoid talking about corrections because, man, have we seen a mess in corrections. The Minister could not even keep the public safe from the worst mass murderer this country has ever seen, from his jail cell, by putting the right checks and balances—that were already there by law—in place. Were questions asked? Were questions asked so that, for such an exceptional criminal in their midst, they would actually do something to ensure that the law was upheld?

So, avoiding this. Avoid talking about that. Avoid talking about the Minister and his responsibilities. Avoid actually looking at the fact that he could further terrorise New Zealanders, quite frankly, and make the victims feel worse—so avoid talking about that. Avoid Reihana and the fact that a double-murderer was let out, without the victims and without the families of the victims actually knowing it and then having to bump into him, because, again, the job had not been done—but avoid talking about that. Certainly avoid debating legalising recreational cannabis. Avoid talking about the fact that the referendum’s coming up—avoid talking about that as a Government and the responsibilities that they take in it. Avoid talking about the mess that is within the Labour Party and the fact that people are feeling that they have to go to members of the Opposition to have their voices heard. But avoid talking about all of these things, and try and throw a dead cat in the ring. This is what we’ve had in politics this week.

So the first thing they tried to throw in was the: “Oh, gosh, we need to change the laws around prisoners being able to write letters.”; no, you don’t—no, they don’t—no, you don’t. Actually, the law didn’t need changing; what had to happen was that the actual law itself had to be upheld. So that one didn’t work, eh? The public weren’t that stupid; they knew that, actually, it wasn’t a law change that it needed; it just needed a Government that would actually do its job, yeah? So they, sort of, didn’t buy that one, and, so, quickly that was dropped.

So the next dead cat that they sort of went, “Well, what can we throw on the table?” is: “Let’s do fuel prices, because that will work, yeah? Everyone hates paying too much for petrol, and we’ll be able to go out there and look really strong on petrol, and I can thump here.” The Government are thinking, “We can go out there because everyone hates paying too much.” What they didn’t bet on is the reason that New Zealanders at the moment are mainly paying too much, especially in Auckland—1.5 million Aucklanders—is because we’ve got taxes being piled on and on and on by the current Government. If they actually cared about people and the cost of fuel, they could do something about it this afternoon. They could drop their fuel taxes this afternoon and take them away, and we would vote for that. Yeah, I’m going to be bold and out there and say that we would support them if they wanted to drop the regional fuel taxes this afternoon—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Shall we drop your ones too?

—we would actually go in there and we would see that happen. There’s a bit of a shout-out from someone there from the Government, and they said, “We’ll drop your ones too.”—meaning the previous Government’s one.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: They’re all theirs. Every bit of tax is theirs.

That’s right. Well, you know, we saw 18c over nine years; we’re going to see 24c over three years under this current Government, yeah? So that’s what it is; it’s pile it on, pile it on. It was Mr Twyford that did a shout-out then—just in case anyone is vaguely interested—and I want to say to him, “With all of that money, have you spent any of it, and could you please build some infrastructure” [Interruption] “and actually some roads for it?”

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

The Prime Minister says that there is not enough—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I did a ruling, listen.

I’m trying to test it out, not on you, though, Mr Speaker; on them, you—competition in the fuel prices. The last time we heard that from a Labour Government, we got Kiwibank, yeah? So, you know, you’ve just got to ask yourself: “Has Kiwibank actually meant that we’ve seen bank profits go down?” Well, no, it’s actually given some choice to New Zealanders but it has not taken away—so is it “Kiwifuel” that we’re going to see next? Is the Government taking over the infrastructure from the fuel companies, and are they going to start building “Kiwifuel” at the pumps and subsidise it for those that they see, while still piling on taxes in other areas? No results—

Order! The member’s time has expired. The Hon Phil Twyford. [Interruption] Right, the member will resume his seat. All members who said boo or something similar will stand up—and not walk out. Right, noted.

This side of the House is becoming increasingly worried about Simon Bridges. As Judith Collins gets closer and closer to Simon Bridges in the preferred Prime Minister stakes, Simon Bridges comes more and more to resemble Donald Trump. We’re worried—we’re worried about him, because he’s not quite right. He’s opposing everything. He is unrelentingly negative. He’s even opposed to the Government standing up for Kiwis at the petrol pump.

You know, for years the big fuel companies have been ripping off New Zealanders. Since 2008, the margins of the petrol companies have been going up and up, and the National Government did absolutely nothing to stand up for ordinary Kiwis. But what shocked me this morning was how brazen Simon Bridges was on Morning Report. He said, on Morning Report, that he could have done something when he was the energy Minister about rising fuel prices, but he said there were no easy options. He did absolutely nothing about it. No Commerce Commission investigation—oh, actually, let me correct that; he sent a stern letter to the fuel companies. Is it any surprise that during the very years he was the transport Minister, and the energy Minister, that importers’ margins doubled during those years.

Now, after our Government actually commissioned an investigation by the Commerce Commission, the Commerce Commission found that the market is broken, it is not competitive, and Simon Bridges wants us to do nothing. Now, National may be happy to defend the big fuel companies, but this Government is more interested in defending Kiwis against rampaging fuel prices.

If only that was all there was. If only that was where it ends. But this morning, we had Mr Bridges on national radio accusing Officers of Parliament of screwing the scrum. He said he wasn’t going to hand over his deepest secrets and his strategies to Officers of Parliament. Now, we’re in trouble, Mr Bridges. We’re in trouble if he thinks that election policies can be secret during an election campaign. Even the National Party in drag—aka, the Taxpayers’ Union—thinks this policy is a good idea.

We’ve seen Simon Bridges become ever more negative and desperate. He doesn’t trust statistics, he doesn’t trust numbers, he doesn’t trust Officers of Parliament, he doesn’t trust Government departments, he doesn’t trust the Commerce Commission. He’s clearly utterly paranoid after spending so long looking over his shoulder at Judith Collins. Today’s National Party is brought to us by the letter D. National Party and Simon Bridges are divided, desperate, distracted, and divisive. But there are more Ds. Simon Bridges has been dog whistling about the PM. So many of their MPs are departing, and now Simon Bridges doesn’t want to share his election policies with the public, and that’s just dodgy. No wonder the Advertising Standards Authority is spending so much time investigating the claims that have been made by the National Party on their Facebook ads.

National are opposed to fuel taxes, except when they’re in Government, and the House knows, the House understands, that the percentage increases that we have legislated in the fuel excise are exactly the same as the National Government legislated for three years in a row: 2013, 2014, and 2015—exactly the same. But what makes it more misleading is that at the very time the National Government is saying they’re going to slash fuel excise, they are promising to build $12 billion worth of unfunded, unplanned, and unconsented roads. That’s why Simon Bridges doesn’t want to share his policies with the new Parliamentary Budget Office, because he doesn’t want to have to explain the numbers to them.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, can I just very quickly acknowledge your ruling around the use of “you”. When you made that ruling, I received this handwritten note from the Hon Ruth Dyson, one of your Assistant Speakers, saying, “Mark, victory for you in the Speaker’s ruling. Ruth”. That was backed up by a whole lot of text messages from my own colleagues, so I’d say that I’m definitely a beneficiary of that ruling, so thank you. Mr Speaker—

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: Thank you—thank you.

Thank you—ha, ha!

It brings me no joy to stand in the general debate today, and raise the issues that I’m going to raise, but what I do want to raise—because it is very important—is let’s talk about the first matter that’s sort of been raised by the deputy leader, and that is Tarrant. That is the worst mass killer that we have ever had on our soil in New Zealand. There’s one fundamental job that a Government has. The fundamental job of a Government is to try and protect its citizens, is to stop it from being subjected to the type of attacks that we’ve seen. It has happened—unfortunately, it has happened. We rallied as a country and a nation around the victims, and their families.

However, we had a Prime Minister that stood in this House, and we all agreed with her—we all got behind her. She stood in this House, she said, “I don’t even want to mention his name. We don’t even want to mention his name. We don’t want to give him any recognition. We don’t want to allow him to have a voice”. Then, she got on a plane, and she flew to Paris. She flew to Paris because she wanted to hold the social media companies to account. That’s why she did that. While she was in Paris, trying to hold social media companies to account, the one part of the puzzle that she controls—which is back here in New Zealand, in our own corrections service—the one part that she and her Minister controls, they were completely ignored—asleep at the wheel.

He was back here, writing letters, spewing his vitriol that was going all around the world, while she was overseas, trying to hold the social media companies to account to stop them doing that. If you can’t see there a massive failure—and I haven’t seen one Government Minister yet, or the Prime Minister, actually just get up and make a heartfelt apology to New Zealand, and say that we have made a massive failure on your behalf. They have retraumatised and revictimised victims that are still recovering and still trying to get over that horrendous attack—in fact, probably never will.

Then we come on to Karel Sroubek. Why does Karel Sroubek have a very high chance next month of being back out in the community? Why is an offender that has been convicted of drug smuggling, drug importation—he’s stolen identity, he’s had serious assault charges laid against him, he’s made threats against his ex-wife, he associates with gang members. Why is Karel Sroubek, who should have been coming out of jail, not being put straight on a plane, and deported back to the Czech Republic—where, by the way, they are very interested in him because they probably want to charge him for some assaults over there. Why is he not getting on a plane and instead he’s coming out and there’s a very, very high risk that he’ll be back out in the community. And is he a risk to the community? Absolutely.

That finally brings me to Jason Reihana. Jason Reihana committed one of the most violent stabbing homicides—double homicides—this country has ever seen. If you talk to the police officers that went to the scene—and actually if you talk to our leader, Simon Bridges, who was the Crown prosecutor; he was responsible for taking this case and prosecuting Reihana in court—if you talk to them they’ll tell you about a scene where there was blood everywhere, splattered up the walls, on the floor. One of them had jumped out the window. There were flailing pieces—there were skin and muscle that were caught on the windows. This was a frenzied attack with the use of three knives that not only traumatised—and not only did he threaten and kill his ex-wife and her new partner and the mother of his children, he threatened the family as well. He made direct threats against the family.

He was released. We understand and we accept the fact it was on humanitarian grounds because he was suffering from cancer. But the family should have been notified. The families should have been told that Reihana was coming out. Simon Bridges worked hard to make sure that he went away for 21 years. They let him out nine years early. The family should have been told he was coming out. His two sons—the sons that lost their mother through a frenzied knife attack, stabbing attack by their father Jason Reihana—walked into a relative’s house not knowing that he’d been released and were confronted with him sitting there.

That’s three examples of where this Government is letting us down and letting the community down in terms of community safety. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it’s an absolute pleasure to get the opportunity to speak this afternoon in the general debate, and it’s wonderful to actually get to follow on behind Mr Mitchell. Mr Mitchell—Mr Mitchell who has in the last 19 months been my opponent, my opposition, on matters defence and for whom I have—and I was very happy yesterday to finally get a question from Mr Mitchell, as short as it was. But we shouldn’t be so upset and worried, because I think what Mr Mitchell has done is flown the white flag for National on defence. He tried, in the early days, silly little chips at the Government and me, but he has since—and I’ve got to congratulate him on finally putting out his defence policy statement. Wonderful document—the problem was, Mr Mitchell, it was out of date the date that you released it.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

He—“he”—released it, and the only thing that stands out in it is that Mr Mitchell’s going to take the National Party back to their 2016 Defence Capability Plan and back to their 2016 white paper. It’s back to the future of doing nothing. Why is it that Mr Mitchell sits there so embarrassed about things, because for all that time he’s complained and whinged about the capability purchases that he, when he was the Minister of Defence, never completed.

The one thing I can say is that National had a fantastic Minister of Defence in Gerry Brownlee. Gerry Brownlee got stuff done. Gerry Brownlee got the Ministry of Defence reorganised, restructured. I’ve got to take my hat off and acknowledge Helene Quilter, who unfortunately I’ve lost as Secretary of Defence, but under her stewardship, with the resources that Mr Brownlee got—total transformation. With the efforts of Mr Brownlee, Aotearoa—the biggest ship to ever be owned by the New Zealand Navy—will arrive here in May next year and I’m going to invite Mr Brownlee to be there when that vessel comes in, because he did the mahi, he did the work. Network-enabled army—Mr Mitchell stands up and asks me a question about it yesterday. Well, why didn’t he just turn around and ask Mr Brownlee, who got it through Cabinet?

What do I find with Mr Mitchell’s efforts—I come into Government and look through what he’s done. Well, that was a very short look, because nothing had been done—nothing at all. What I did find, though, is a $158 million blowout and a project—get this—that New Zealand First and Labour signed off in 2007, that is the frigate system upgrade, hadn’t started, hadn’t started. Mr Mitchell’s sitting there, the big champion of the Defence Force. The lazy, lazy, useless Minister had it in his bottom drawer because he was too scared to take it to Cabinet, because he couldn’t get it across Mr Joyce.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! He will resume his seat. I think the member knows how he breached Standing Orders. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise, Mr Speaker.

So what we have is my first Cabinet paper I get to take up is asking for $148 million to do the work that Mr Mitchell had failed to do. Now the frigates are in Canada receiving the upgrade to their weapons systems and their defence systems they absolutely need. No thanks to Mr Mitchell—did nothing, not a thing. But here’s the other thing: we had to take the money. So where do we get the money from? We took it out of the littoral vessel. What does that mean? But that was the next question. Mr Mitchell knew Resolution was retiring, knew Manawanui was going, knew that we would have a capability gap of six years—no dive, no hydro. Why is that important? Because when the Kaikōura earthquakes hit, what did we have to deploy? Oh, a hydro vessel. Why? To map the seabed so we knew if we could bring Canterbury in.

Mr Mitchell’s quite happy—

💬 Hon Member: I think he was flying around in helicopters.

—just flying around in Seasprite helicopters, going to dinner at Papakura—eh, Mr Mitchell? He went to dinner at Papakura in a Seasprite helicopter—never mind. But anyway—from his home in Whenuapai, by the way. So he so knows that we have a gap—did nothing. So what did we do? In 11 months, this Government purchased a ship, had it modified and introduced into service, and it’s here now. Now everybody’s looking at it as a strategic asset for the South Pacific.

Look, I could go on: network-enabled army. There’s $5.2 billion worth of procurement running right now. P-8s—done. Hercules—getting done. Network-enabled army—done. Oh, protected mobility—done. The King Airs, four of them, now flying at Ōhākea—done. New simulator for the NH90s—done. All of these projects, and what did Mr Mitchell achieve? Absolutely zip, and he wants to be the leader of the National Party. Please, bring it on, because he’ll be asleep most of the time. He’ll be doing nothing, and we’ll cakewalk through the next election, because he’s tired—very tired.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a very serious week for this Parliament because we have some serious issues to deal with, and yesterday we had a ministerial statement that kicked off the parliamentary session and talked about the letters that had come from the inmate that had been involved in the terrible tragedy in Christchurch. Our thoughts are with the families and communities that are down there that had to suffer through that terrible tragedy.

There was a responsibility from that point on on the Minister of Corrections. From that moment on, he was the one that had to uphold the Prime Minister’s wishes in regard to the announcement of the name of that offender. He is the one that had the responsibility to make sure that that offender was in the prison system in a manner which the public would have expected and not in a manner which we have seen as actually being the reality. There is no excuse for that prisoner to have been writing letters to members of the international community, let alone outside of his family or his legal representation. The law is very simple and enables corrections to stop that.

Now, we asked the Minister today what his response has been, and he said that he had asked corrections to monitor that and that he had had updates. Now, if he had received those updates, then he obviously did not do so in a manner to stop the activity happening. He had the responsibility, and today he blames his department once again and says that his department failed him. His department didn’t fail him; he failed his department in setting the wrong aspirations for that department and then not doing his work and his job to make sure they lived up to their responsibilities.

His initial response was that there was a system failure, that there needed to be a law change, and that there needed to be something other than him taking responsibility for his failure to dictate to his department the structures that should be in place. That is that Minister’s failure, and it shows his incompetence at dealing with this major issue that is not only of national significance but also of international significance. It puts the Prime Minister in a bad light, and it puts the New Zealand corrections system in a bad light, and that Minister should not be able to get away with that. When he says he has apologised to the victims, the best thing he can do is to make sure that this does not happen again.

We know that there are some issues out there that are yet to be resolved. There are at least four other letters that have gone out to other people and the Minister doesn’t know where they’ve gone. That inmate has phone calls every week, and the Minister doesn’t know where they’ve gone. Those phone calls could be recorded. That information could be circulating around the world.

That is the deficiency that this Minister has created, and he created that through the culture he has built up in corrections, because this will not be the first example where corrections fails under this Minister. There will be continuous examples because what he’s done is he’s made the prisoner the first point of call in corrections. It’s not, like my colleague said, about protecting our public and creating safe environments for our communities—that’s not his vision of corrections. His vision of corrections is that nobody should be in prison, and we see that through his reliance on wanting to give prisoners the vote. We see that in his wanting to give prisoners incentives not to take on prison officers. We see that in the recent strategy which enables more communication and more accessibility for prisoners and enables gangs to come into prisons—the new strategy enables gangs to come into prisons.

💬 Darroch Ball: Nonsense.

It’s what it does. Read the strategy—read that point of the strategy. It says that gangs can come into prisons. That’s what it does. If you don’t believe me, look at the strategy. It’s in here. It’s in the document.

This is a case where the Minister has let down his department, and he has—

The member’s time has expired.

I totally, totally refute that member’s criticism of the Hon Kelvin Davis. I think in Kelvin Davis this country has the most compassionate and the most innovative corrections Minister we have ever seen. This is not a Minister who is about locking people up and throwing away the key; this is a Minister who is addressing the hard issues. This is a Minister who believes that of course prisons must be places of incarceration but they must also be places of rehabilitation. He sees the good in everyone. He is not a Minister who believes we should be locking people up and throwing away the key. He is addressing the hard issues—the really hard issues—for those most disaffected in society. I take my hat off to Kelvin. I have immense respect for the work he is doing. I think he will change our corrections system in a way that we have not seen for decades.

This is a Government led by a Prime Minister that is addressing the long-term challenges facing this country, and I want to illustrate that by a story. This is a true story. Now, I was the Opposition energy spokesperson, and I did a lot of work around the wholesale margins as they were outlined on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s website. For about 10 years, the importer margins hovered around between 8c and 12c a litre. They hovered. They were sometimes a little bit up, sometimes a bit lower, but around about 10c to 12c consistently for about 10 years. Then they started creeping up, and it got to a point where they were at 40c a litre over Christmas of 2015. We were being ripped off, I believe, by monopolistic behaviour by big oil companies.

So what did I do? I spoke to Grant Robertson, who was our lead on the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC), and, of course, it is no surprise that the man who delivered the world’s first Wellbeing Budget completely got this. This is a man who is showing leadership right across the financial sector. He knew we had to stand up for good, hard-working Kiwis. So what did we do? We went to FEC, which that member—David Bennett—was chairing, and we said “Can we undertake a study into big oil? Can we find out what the hell is going on here?” David Bennett went to his political master, who at the time was the Hon Simon Bridges, the Minister of energy. He came back—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I want to seek an assurance that Aupito William Sio isn’t talking on the phone. Is the member using a phone?

💬 Hon Aupito William Sio: Yes, I am.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, the member will cease.

Phew! OK, where was I? So that member came back and said “No, we’re not going to do a study. We don’t care about good, hard-working Kiwis.”, because the Minister of energy, Simon Bridges—

💬 Hon David Bennett: Oh, come on—do a study, then.

You remember this, Mr Bennett—you must remember this.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

Simon Bridges said “I am going to write a stern letter.”—“I am going to write a stern letter.” Well, you could hear big oil quaking in their boots. You could hear them—or was it roaring with laughter—because the Minister of energy had just legitimised price gouging. He had just legitimised price gouging.

But then, what happened? Simon lost the portfolio, and it went to the Hon Judith Collins. I phoned up Judith and said “There’s an opportunity here”—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member should address members appropriately, or describe them appropriately—not by their first names.

Sorry, Mr Speaker. I phoned up the Hon Judith Collins and she said “I will undertake a market study.”, and so she did. So the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) undertook a study, and what happened? MBIE came back and said “Well, you know, we think there’s something going on here, but the oil companies won’t play ball. They won’t give us the data, so we don’t really know.”, and so nothing happened. Nothing happened. A lack of leadership for a second time.

Then, what happened? A change of Government—a change of Government. Minister Faafoi stepped up and said “You know, we’re going to change the law. We’re going to allow the Commerce Commission to undertake these sorts of studies.”, and so they did. What’s happened? The Commerce Commission has come back and said what we’ve all known: “We’re getting ripped off. We’re paying the highest prices in the OECD.” and it is not acceptable.

Finally—finally—we are going to do something about this when this could have been done nine years ago, when the margins started increasing. There were two opportunities when Ministers of energy in the previous Government could have done something about it. They did nothing. It takes Jacinda Ardern, Kris Faafoi, and Grant Robertson to actually do something about this.

But the thing that really disappoints me is that Simon Bridges could have come on board. He could have said “OK, we’ll work with you on this.”, but no. What did he do? He stood up to big oil, and started defending big oil. That is unacceptable.

We are finally, after nine years of neglect—there’s a lot to fix. There are big issues, and we’re not shying away from them. We’re not saying it’s too hard; in fact, quite the opposite. We relish the challenges. We’re going really hard. We’re standing up for Kiwis on the issues that are important. I’m incredibly proud to be part of a Government that is dealing with the big issues.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much. The problem with a Labour Government is that whenever they’re in Opposition, the answer to the voter on every issue is “Just put us in Government. We’ll fix it.” The problem with that approach is that if you just wait to roll round into Government, when you finally get there, you have no plan, and we’re seeing that in mental health.

Interestingly enough, the only thing this Government is going to deliver around a road this term is a roadshow. We’re seeing this in mental health, where they had an inquiry, then they delayed the response to the report, and now they’ve had a Budget announcement in 2019 and they’re going out and they’re asking the public how they would like to spend that money. No plan—no plan in mental health.

You ask the Minister of Health. Currently, we spend $1.5 billion on delivering 3.7 percent access to mental health services in New Zealand. Ask the Minister. The access target in the inquiry report was to deliver 20 percent access in five years’ time. How much is that going to cost? The Government has no idea.

The Government announced a lot in the last Budget. Ask the Government: with all their mental health announcements, how much is that going to increase access for New Zealand’s population by? They don’t have an answer. They talked about mental health in Opposition, made it a big election issue, said to the New Zealand public “All you need to do is put us in Government, and we’ll address the issue.”, and they have no plan.

They’ve announced a new, front-line mental health service. Ask the Minister how much that new mental health front-line service will increase access by for New Zealanders struggling with mental health issues, and they have no answer. Where is the plan?

They talk about nine long years in Opposition. Well, what did you do in nine long years of Opposition?

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

Where is your mental health plan—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—for that? Sorry, Mr Speaker?

💬 SPEAKER: I remind the member that at the beginning of question time—before question time, I made a ruling as to the use of the second person.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to move on also to a press release that came out recently from the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists and the Council of Trade Unions. They’re saying in the last Budget that there was a $55 million cut in the ring-fenced funding for district health boards (DHBs) for mental health. That’s the Council of Trade Unions saying that—a $55 million shortfall for mental health.

So here we have big announcements around mental health and no plan to increase access, and now we have a $55 million cut in the ring-fenced funding for DHBs. Mental health is a big issue. Where is the plan after nine years in Opposition?

I do want to finish on a more productive note, and I just want to acknowledge that next week will be the launch of the cross-party mental health group in New Zealand’s Parliament. I want to acknowledge all the representatives—Louisa Wall, from Labour; Chlöe Swarbrick, for the Greens; Jenny Marcroft, for New Zealand First—for getting that over the line with their respective parties, and for everyone coming together. We’ve got Sir John Kirwan, who’s coming in to launch it next Wednesday in New Zealand’s Parliament.

You might think that’s showing a bit of leadership; I disagree. I think all it is doing is that New Zealand’s Parliament is catching up—catching up to where they think Parliament should be responding to mental health; not every three years changing the focus. Think bigger, think past the three-year cycle, to a longer-term strategy that will address the big issue of mental health. See, there are a lot of people who say, “Well, do we really want to talk about mental health?” But there are a lot of people saying, “It’s about time.”

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, just an apology to you, Mr Doocey; I didn’t mean to interject so unkindly. But I do want to respond to what you had to say. There are three programmes—

💬 SPEAKER: What he had to say—what “he” had to say.

I apologise. I do want to respond to what you had to say, Mr Doocey. There are three programmes: Mana Ake, mental health workers in schools—

💬 SPEAKER: That’s two strikes.

—I’m sorry—and Piki, in Wellington. In 18 months, we have instituted three programmes in the mental health area. So it’s not that we didn’t have a plan; we were just getting started, Mr Doocey.

I am proud to be in a team that is led by the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. In fact, every single member of this coalition Government is proud of our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. However, I have to say I have yet to hear from a single member of the Opposition that they are proud to be led by Simon Bridges. Simon Bridges: it’s too hard for you, Simon, but not for us. It’s OK; we’re not afraid to tackle the big problems, tackle the big challenges. We’re on the case. This morning, we heard that Simon Bridges said the issue around fuel prices—which he had been investigating in his time as transport Minister—was not easy. So I have penned a letter. This is Simon Bridges writing to the petrol companies: “Dear Petrol Company, your prices are really high. I’m using my strongest words because this is bad. So stop. Thanks, Simon.”

💬 Hon Aupito William Sio: Stern!

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Stern!

So they’re stern words! We, in this Government, are addressing the long-term issues facing New Zealanders. When we first came to Government, we were faced with sewage pouring down the walls of Middlemore Hospital. We were faced with a housing crisis. We were faced with children in poverty, and now we are faced with repairing the Earthquake Commission’s botched repairs. For those of you who may not know this, after eight years of post-earthquake repairs, it has become evident for anyone in Christchurch that the Earthquake Commission (EQC) didn’t always get it right. EQC and Fletcher’s didn’t always get it right, and many of my constituents have come back to me two or three times because their repairs were botched.

Now, Gerry Brownlee—in an interview yesterday, I think it was—said that we have been duped by homeowners and that the botched repairs is a Labour Party construct. So, today, in the House—question No. 5, with regard to onsold—Mr Brownlee repeated that we had been duped. I called my office this afternoon and asked how many constituents have been into my office since the earthquakes, regarding earthquake repairs that haven’t been completed properly. We came up with the figure of around 450. There are at least 450 families today in Christchurch East who are saying—I’m sorry, Mr Gerry Brownlee, we haven’t been duped—that actually the Earthquake Commission did get it wrong. And this Government is taking the action that is needed. It is standing by the people of Christchurch East and saying, “We heard you. We heard you all of those years, and now we are in Government and in a position to do something about it.” So shame on Gerry Brownlee for saying that the people of Christchurch East are duping the taxpayers of New Zealand. Shame on Gerry Brownlee. I would like him to come and face the 450 families in my electorate that my office has personally helped. In fact, there is one family I’d really love him to see. I’ll call them “Family S”. Not one member, not two members, but the mum and two daughters—all three of their homes—have had to have two and three goes at repairs. So when Mr Brownlee says that we have been duped and that botched repairs are a Labour Party construct, I say, “Shame on you.”

So I am proud to be part of a Government that is doing action for the people of Christchurch East, that’s doing action for children in poverty, that is doing action for the housing crisis, and that is putting money into mental health programmes like Mana Ake, Piki, and mental health workers in schools. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, because there isn’t much to thank the Government for. I just want to start by talking about the cost of petrol, which is around $2.20 at this stage in the Pakuranga electorate, and to think that this Government has added 24c of tax per litre of petrol every single time people in my electorate go to fill up their cars—12c in increased excise and 12c through the Auckland regional fuel tax. I can say thank you, Mr Speaker, but not thanks to them. To think that this Government and the Minister of Transport wanted to take his opportunity in this general debate to talk about letters! I noticed that the Hon Poto Williams thought she would also take the opportunity to talk about letters, because it seems that this Government has problems with letters at the moment. They’ve got letters which they don’t want to have released—letters between Ministers which clearly are about particular transport programmes, which they don’t want released—while, at the same time, allowing letters to come out of our prisons which should never ever see the light of day. This Government is a shambles and is failing New Zealanders. So I’d like to talk about a letter. I’d like to use the letter F, and I’d like to talk about that in the context of the Government’s reforms of the vocational education sector.

Firstly, I’d like to talk about funding. How are the changes to the vocational sector being funded? The response and the answer to that is that it’s being funded through the fees-free flop—that’s the three Fs of funding for the vocational education changes: $197 million underspent because fewer students went to tertiary education than was expected, even though the policy was designed to increase participation in tertiary education. But even that won’t cover the full cost of funding these changes. It’s going to need almost twice that $197 million just to pay for the establishment of the country’s single, nationalised institute of skills and training, the mothership which will run our vocational education sector in New Zealand. But the costs are more: it’s going to cost up to $1 billion in ongoing costs. Treasury even said the costs will outweigh the benefits by three to one. The benefits will be a third of what the cost will be for those changes, and the increased costs of running our vocational sector will be approximately $50 million per year to the New Zealand taxpayer.

Secondly, I’d like to talk about fewer apprenticeships, because that’s what those changes to vocational education will actually do to apprenticeships—18,000 fewer learners in industry training, according to the programme business case, and 2,300 fewer apprenticeships which will be available to help with the building and construction needs that our country desperately has, at a time when we desperately need more people going into the trades, at a time when we have houses to be built, which this Government can’t build. We need more tradespeople, but this Government is failing New Zealanders through the changes to vocational education, which will only lead to fewer people going into vocational education.

Finally, these changes are failing our regions. There are Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics across New Zealand which will lose their autonomy, lose their local ability to make decisions as to the courses that they will deliver, and they will lose control over the assets which they have built up through their communities. While the Government has said that they will ring-fence some of the cash reserves, some of our polytechs have invested in buildings and infrastructure which have been funded by the community. I’m sitting here next to Hamish Walker, the MP for Clutha-Southland, who is a champion for the Southern Institute of Technology, alongside Sarah Dowie, and they know the impact that it will have on the Southern Institute of Technology and the wider economic impacts on the region of Southland and the people that it will bring, throughout that community.

I leave with a final remark, with the letter F. These changes will be a fail, a fail for New Zealanders, a fail for our vocational education sector, a fail for apprenticeships. The Minister of Education needs to take a hard look at the changes he’s proposing before New Zealanders give him a letter F.

Just as I sit here waiting for that last speaker to finish, he talked a lot about letters, he talked a lot about the letter F. I’m not sure if it’s parliamentary to sit here thinking “I wonder if some French letters had been used more prudently in the past, whether”—

💬 SPEAKER: No, no; it’s not in good taste.

All right, sorry, Mr Speaker. I’ll get back to my general debate speech, if I can. I’ve had in the past, in my profession, different things, and one of the things I did do was I taught detectives, trained detectives in how to do inquiries. One of the things I always sent them away with was the ABC of investigation. The ABC of investigation says “Accept nothing, believe no one, and corroborate everything.” That’s why when you come into Government you need to ensure that the decisions you are making are based on facts, are based on a position reached through good inquiry. It’s what we do, it’s what we should do, and that’s what we’ve done in this case.

That’s why I’m very pleased to see today that the debate is around the petrol price, because there’s been speculation—several speakers today have talked about what happened at select committees, various decisions made, various letters written—about why or whether New Zealand petrol prices were higher than they should be, speculation about whether New Zealanders were paying more than they should. Well, as a result of the application of the ABC, we now have a report, a good report, which says that we are, and based on that report we’re going to do something about it. That’s the way good Government should be.

I love the old Māori proverb; you know, the kumara never speaks of its sweetness. I look at what it means to be part of a progressive Government. Now, we don’t need to sit here, necessarily, and talk about what we’re going to do. We don’t actually even need to talk about what we’ve done. It’s what we actually are doing that matters. Now, progressive Government—progressive—people talk about progressive Governments. It’s something of a bit of a political tragic term, I think. It’s something that people look back in history and say “That was a progressive Government—that was a progressive Government.” If we look at, ultimately, one of the most progressive Governments in this country, after perhaps Richard John Seddon’s, it was, of course, the late 1930s—our own Michael Joseph Savage, that Government. We look at the Government of Norman Kirk. We look at the Governments going through to the Lange Government. We look at the Government of Helen Clark. It’s looking back and we see the changes that were made at that time.

I mean, just for those who haven’t got a sense of recent history; you know, KiwiSaver, Kiwibank. They are now two things. They are progressive. They’re things that have been done that we’ll look back and say “Boy, they were things the Government did.” Change in education, change in social housing, change in welfare—they’re all things that members opposite, either directly or through their parentage, grandparents, and certainly around this side of House, have all benefited from. That’s what a progressive Government does.

I stand here as a new member of this Labour Government, led by the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. I’m absolutely confident that all of our descendants, all of those who come after us as politicians, as our children, will look back on this Government and say that this was a progressive Government. Again, we don’t need to stand and speak of that, although of course in the modern world we have to counter much of what is spoken about on the Opposition benches. But, actually, it’s what they say, it’s actually what is criticised that actually gives life. That is the sweetness of our kumara, because even today—I mean, I go back to what I said at the start, about something as simple as petrol prices, something that’s been hovering around, something we’ve known, and we have known. No one will be surprised at what they saw in that report. But again, we’re actually going to be in a position now to do something about it.

The mere fact that that has been criticised, on the other side, the mere fact that—I actually nearly drove off the road when I heard what the Leader of the Opposition was saying on National Radio this morning about the petrol prices. I really could not believe what he admitted to, when he saw and he knew exactly what the problem was but didn’t take the time to ABC. He didn’t accept nothing, he didn’t believe nothing, and he didn’t corroborate everything, because had he, he wouldn’t have been saying what he said on the radio this morning. He would have then done what this very progressive Government is now going to do. Thank you.

It’s my pleasure to talk in the general debate this afternoon. I listened to the last speaker, Greg O’Connor, and his comments about this being a very progressive Government. But I wish to ask those members on that side to just pause for a minute, because what members on the other side are talking about is a perception that you on the other side have. I want to talk specifically today about something I have deep concern about, that I’ve spoken to members on the other side of the House about, and that is the reforms that are going on in the vocational sector of New Zealand.

I specifically bring to the House’s attention, and to members in my community who are listening, those reforms and what that will do to the polytechnic sector in New Zealand, particularly the good ones. One of the best in New Zealand is my very own, the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT), a top performer. I’m very proud of the institution in Hawke’s Bay, and if the Hon Stuart Nash had been here I would have assumed he would be as well. The 2018 annual report said that EIT had 4,794 full-time students, 10,335 people in education—a lift of a thousand people from the year before. So the number of people at EIT from 2017 to 2018 went up by a thousand. There are 138 programmes delivered by the Eastern Institute of Technology. It has a balance sheet with $152 million on it, it has no debt, and it has $28 million of cash or short-term reserves. It has 600 staff. It has had two very significant and highly respected CEOs and a number of very significant boards and chairs.

In particular, and I want members on the other side to understand this, the land that EIT is on was gifted by Arnaud and Margaret Hetley to the people of Hawke’s Bay for a tertiary institution of some form. It was a university at the start. It was gifted to the people of Hawke’s Bay. Two days before the opening of the Hawke’s Bay Community College, the sole survivor, Margaret Hetley, died, and that land has remained with the people of Hawke’s Bay since. So these changes are significant for my polytechnic and my community. It is one of the best in New Zealand. It has no debt. It has growing student numbers and, actually, it should be left alone.

In the business case that’s put up, as an example—and I give you an example of these changes—there is $130 million worth of savings proposed under this reform in accounting, marketing, and back-office. There are 200 of those types of roles at the Eastern Institute of Technology. Some of those roles will disappear in this rationalisation. People will lose their jobs. It is estimated that up to a thousand people in back-office roles will lose their jobs across New Zealand from these reforms.

It’s also important to understand some of the very courageous and unique things that EIT has done: a partnership to build our regional sports stadium, a new campus in Hastings, and a partnership to build a sport and wellness centre at the Hawke’s Bay Regional Sports Park. Does anybody seriously think that some centralised model based in Wellington is going to have that degree of flexibility?

I am violently opposed to these changes, and I want to say to members of the House that what I think is occurring here is very akin to the district health board (DHB) model. You put everything together, it’s controlled by the Ministry of Health—in this case, it will be controlled by a different entity; not the Ministry of Health, but the equivalent—and you will have a few regional boards that will have some say. I ask members on the other side to consider the DHB model, because that hasn’t been that successful either. In the last financial year, it ran at a $500 million deficit, and people right across New Zealand are complaining about their level of service. The same thing will happen to the polytech sector.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to start this afternoon with a little bit of a different tack, because I want to do a shout-out and a congratulations to the Duffy Books in Homes team. This week, Duffy Books in Homes are celebrating 25 years of changing lives, and as a previous Duffy school principal for 11 of those years, I truly know how much they do change the lives of young people in low-decile schools in this country. I have to say that one of my highlights since coming into Parliament in 2017 has been the two Government Book Weeks that I have really passionately participated in. In fact, this year I think I went to about eight presentations of Government Book Week. I was challenged here this afternoon to actually sing the Duffy Books song, but we shall leave that—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: No.

—for another time. No, says Mr McAnulty. But I do think that if you do look on my Facebook page, you might see some videos of that, so maybe you might want to avoid that.

However, I do say that speaking in the last spot of the general debate is usually a wonderful position to be in, because normally you get this opportunity to hear the speeches from the other side and you can pull those speeches apart, but, actually, there wasn’t much content in those speeches today. I do do a shout-out to Mr Yule, though, for his speech on the review of vocational education, because I will be speaking about that in my last minute, so it did give me something that I could speak about here this afternoon.

We’ve had some great news this week, and the great news came from the Commerce Commission, where we know—we know that it’s fantastic when they agree—that there are competition issues in the fuel market. All we’ve heard is the doom and gloom that are coming from the Opposition, who are trying to put attack spin on that narrative coming through. Can’t stop themselves—cannot help themselves but put that spin on it. Deliberate memory loss of the increase of fuel taxes six times over their year nine years in Government, plus the GST that they raised from 12.5 percent to 15 percent, forgetting that that actually went on to petrol prices as well. So they’ve got their lines that they’re sticking to, but their leader, the Hon Simon Bridges, cannot stick to those lines. I did not believe it when I got phoned by somebody in the Tauranga electorate this morning about the Radio New Zealand interview. They happened to mention that interview, and we’ve heard it here a lot this afternoon. I couldn’t believe it, so I went to have a listen. What a train wreck of an interview—the sound of desperation that came from the leader of the Opposition, Mr Simon Bridges, the Hon Simon Bridges, who thought that it was too hard to do anything about that at the time, when he said that he knew all about it. Well, I say to the Hon Simon Bridges, it might be too hard for him, but it’s certainly not too hard for us.

We’re not afraid as a Government to take on those hard challenges. We are up for that challenge, unlike the previous Government. That previous Government, the National-led Government, let New Zealanders be fleeced at the pump. They put the protection of the profits of the big oil over the interests of New Zealanders, and I’ve found it very interesting to be here this afternoon to hear from my colleague the Hon Stuart Nash about how long that has been part of the conversation in the previous Government. We’re going right back to the previous Government. This Government is tackling the big, long-term issues facing New Zealand. We are looking 30 years ahead and not just three—30 years ahead.

This is where I want to talk about the review of vocational education. What a forward-thinking, fantastic piece of work that will take us well into the future, despite the doom and the gloom that we’ve heard from the other side, and we heard that from Mr Yule. He said that he was completely passionate and violently opposed—we didn’t really hear that in his address. We do have some big supporters out there. In fact, I was reading today in the Taranaki Daily News that there was one of our supporters talking of the need for young people to see agriculture as a career. They said what that means is within our workforce—that increasing, demanding even higher levels of skill—you have to have a group of people who aren’t currently equipped for that.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.