General Debate

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

I say what an absolutely fantastic time it is to be in this coalition Government; this Government, made up of three hard-working, deeply principled parties—the Labour Party, New Zealand First, and the Green Party—and taking on the long-neglected, very hard task of putting in place change, transformation, but, most importantly, improvement for the lives of every New Zealander. We’ve had nine years of neglect and harm and, frankly, destruction of the interests of far too many New Zealanders. It was time to turn the ship around, and boy is it happening. Boy, is this Government making a great difference. So let me count the ways, because what I’m going to talk about is the difference between the good old-fashioned conservatives who bury their heads in the sand and hope nothing will change while the rest of the world around them deteriorates and declines and people are worse off, compared to this Government which is progressive, sensible, thoughtful, inclusive, exchanging, and actually making a positive difference.

Let’s look at what’s happening in education. Now, that’s a long list so I’m not going to say everything, but it is an amazing list of change: bringing our education system and our education institutions well into the 21st century—and long overdue—funding school rebuilds, creating good learning environments for the next generation, creating an effective assessment and qualification regime, making sure that our young people passing through our education system have the skills for the future: the intellectual thinking and creative skills and the practical skills that go with it as well.

What a great thing that, finally, in the 21st century, finally, in 2019, there is a commitment to put New Zealand history at the heart of our curriculum. That was a bold move by a Prime Minister who loves her country—absolutely committed to the next generation—and a country now truly on the journey to reconcile itself to all of its past, all of its history, so that we all get to face the future with confidence. Also, we are fixing the barriers to equality of opportunity in our education system by putting more money into our schools so we don’t have to tap the parents, in many cases of the poorest communities, to prop up the education system; getting rid of those so-called voluntary donations—that’s going to make a huge difference—and putting lunch in schools.

Now, we can’t do everything at once and we can’t put it into every school straight away, but we can make a big difference—all of that stuff. And here’s the clincher: doing something, properly, about vocational education, actually restoring the place of our polytechs, giving the Industry Training Organisations a real job to do of working with industry and employers to make sure that our employment community, employer community, and the business community have the future stream of skills that they need because they’ve been asking it for years. They’ve been asking for that for ages.

In health, we’re starting to restore the infrastructure of that most vital social service, and this year, the biggest investment in one of the areas crying out for attention—mental health and addiction; the curse of the age. We need more support, people need more support, and they’re going to get it.

All of this while, at the same time, working on an economic development strategy—there actually is a strategy, a plan, to increase productivity, increase investment in the things that really make a difference. Through the champion of the regions, the Hon Shane Jones, actually giving life back to the regions again—which proves that, like any good Government, you can actually work with compassion, you can actually look after people, including the most vulnerable, and you can add to the nation’s wealth. That’s what responsible, balanced, progressive Governments do, not like what the last lot did—neglect, ignore, let things deteriorate and leave it for the next Government to have to patch up, which is what we’re doing.

Then you look at housing—one of the hardest and most challenging issues that any Government has to deal with, particularly after the years of neglect that we’ve had. We’ve taken it on, a hard issue, because this is a Government that is not afraid or shy of taking on the most challenging, the hardest issues. If we don’t get it right once, we’ll come back again, because we cannot give up on such a vital area. The first Labour Government was defined by what it did in housing; this Government’s going to be defined on what it adds to the livelihoods of people. That is the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House, because what they’ve demonstrated in the last week—because they can’t stop talking about the Labour Party—is that they stand for nothing. They certainly don’t stand for a positive, wholesome vision for the future of New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s a relatively short list, actually, of attributes that that member was trying to give to his coalition Government. Did we notice they now miss out “open and transparent”? So they no longer list “open and transparent” as attributes that they would put to this coalition Government.

Earlier this week, the Prime Minister announced that Maria Dew QC will conduct an inquiry into the substance of serious allegations involving one of the Prime Minister’s own former staff members. At the same time, the Prime Minister advised that the Labour Party’s own lawyers, Kensington Swan, had nearly completed a piece of work on whether the Labour party behaved appropriately in the handling of complaints. We were told by the Prime Minister in her post-Cabinet press conference that the Dew inquiry would not look at what the Labour Party did with the complaints when they were received, nor the handling of them—that she actually wanted to concentrate on the complaints themselves and make sure that the victims, and, I think, the alleged, actually got a fair process. And, actually, I agree with that. I think that they deserve to have that process actually seen in its own context of what it is.

We were then told that the Kensington Swan review would be based on documents rather than testimonial interviews, and later on, after a question, again she stated that it would be paper only. So, effectively, the party is getting its own lawyers to look at itself, not talking to any of the victims, nor the people they spoke to—basically, do it all on the documents, which, quite frankly, evidence to date suggests it’s fairly dubious within the Labour Party as to how they look at documents. How can you take a review seriously if it actually excludes talking to the very people who played a part in this whole saga?

So why won’t the Kensington Swan review conduct interviews? Well, if they conducted interviews, they would have to speak to Grant Robertson, because it’s become very evident that he knows something that’s been going on. We’ve said before that there are deep alliances within him. In fact, it’s said that the alleged perpetrator works in his electorate as one of his volunteers on his executive. He doesn’t want to have to answer questions because he would have to tell the whole truth, and so it is—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—avoid, avoid, avoid. “Whole”, I did say, Mr Speaker. In the others, well, he says that he can’t say what’s going on because he’s protecting privacy, after the complainants have already gone out publicly—so whose privacy is he protecting?

Also, the Kensington Swan review will not look at senior staffers that we know the victims have said they have spoken to and they have gone to. So there is no way any of that will be covered in the Kensington Swan review. That is already, effectively, done, and now the only other next stage of that is to actually take it to an independent reviewer that looks at it. But we don’t know if there were terms of reference, what they might have been, or what they covered. What we do know is it’s paper only and it’s documents that may have been emailed, but it’s not actually getting to the heart of who knew what, when, and how that should actually be covered.

We also heard from the Prime Minister on Monday that Maria Dew had said that her review would take four weeks. Given she was apparently appointed five weeks ago and it’s only been in the last few days that they’ve agreed to the terms of reference, I think we should start taking some bets in this House—and I’m sure the gallery might even want to join in—on the actual day that that might be dropped.

💬 Marja Lubeck: Shameful! Shameful! Taking bets on victims!

I’m thinking—what?—the week before Christmas or the week of Christmas, yeah? I’m thinking that maybe they’ll sort of make sure that it’s around a time like that so that they can actually hide from it. The member that’s shouting out “Shame” should, because shame on the Labour Party for how they have actually handled this and how they have actually dealt with it.

I was really disappointed to see media reports earlier this week that some complainants had raised concerns that a witch-hunt is still under way. I can only imagine their fear, their trauma, and their vulnerability. The Prime Minister has said that that will not be happening from staff in her office—that that will not be happening from members of Parliament and from Labour. I only hope that, actually, they have all heard that.

For Mr Doocey’s benefit, the profile demographics 2018 have the age group he spoke about being 605,630. That figure was not in his question, but he went on regardless, the uninformed questioner that he is.

But as for Paula Bennett, can I say this: in 2017, the Hon Paul Goldsmith was approached by a concerned parent. Their 13-year-old child had been contacted on Snapchat by a colleague of Mr Goldsmith. Without their parents’ consent or a teacher’s consent, that member of Parliament organised a meeting with that child in after-school hours. What did Mr Goldsmith do? Nothing. What did Paula Bennett do? Nothing—gets up in this House in a posturing example of Cant and a word that begins with “h”, as if she gives a tinker’s damn.

Who was it that said on tape to Jami-Lee Ross, “I can find more women with complaints if you want.”? Paula Bennett. Paula Bennett, can I ask: where is the National Party’s review into its bullying behaviour? Is that public? Can I ask Paula Bennett: were any women among the National Party caucus MPs actually consulted during the review? No, they were not. And here she has been posing day after day, week after week—their very worst example, the very worst person they could have chosen to pose in the way she has—and she’s not going to get away with it.

Can I just say very clearly: where is the victim-centred approach that was applied where the National Party was concerned—or, dare I say, where Mr Bishop was concerned, on Snapchat. Not a mutter, not a murmur; not a syllable, not a sound. This is the day of facts, not vile rumour and unintellectual, illegal nonsense.

You know, Paula Bennett, when the review comes out, we’re going to find out just how incompetent she is to be even a deputy leader of any political party. She can’t even understand chronological evidence. She doesn’t understand that a witness has got to be a witness; it cannot be third-hand and it cannot be hearsay and it cannot be by rumour. But no, no—she’s touted that day in and day out in this House, and after this great sham—dare I say it, with my friends in the media—they’ve run this nonsense. It’s a disgrace to a whole lot of innocent people.

Now, can I just say, you know, it was actually staggering. It was actually staggering when I was away to actually see an interview on Chinese television by a man called Simon Bridges. It was so staggering because I belong to a country that for all these decades, and down through the years—since 1854 and even earlier—has been a democracy, believes in the rule of law, believes in protection, not persecution, by Government, believes in fairness and equality, and, dare I say it, is a model of transparency. We believe, of course, that that is the New Zealand that, across the party divide, we thought we stood for.

You know, I look back to people like Hamilton and Holland and Holyoake and, dare I say it, Marshall and Muldoon—all who subscribe to that. Yet if they had heard that interview on Chinese TV, they’d have been turning in their graves. I have never heard such obsequious, subservient, grovelling, kowtowing cap-doffing, palm-kissing nonsense. You have to understand it. He says, “Well, the discussion I had with both the members of the Communist Party of China and the Government is that political parties are incredibly important to the running of the country.” Mr Bridges, there’s only one political party in China. Don’t you know that? I mean, here’s the leader of a party who wants to be the alternative Prime Minister—doesn’t even know the most fundamental thing. And then, of course, he got the example all confused. He was talking about a cherry and a watermelon, except that the cherry and watermelon is not President Xi’s example; it’s John Key’s—it’s John Key’s. I know why it’s John Key’s and it’s not the President Xi’s, because before he got to President Xi, he used the same example of the cherry and the watermelon in India on his way there. What an amateur, let loose on an international stage—unbelievable. He said this. You know, as Robert Ayson, a recent foreign policy expert, said, he is “partying like it’s 2008”. Let me tell you it is not 2008; it’s 2019, and we live in very dangerous and different times.

Thank you. It’s an honour to follow the Prime Minister. Two weeks ago, the Government launched a document called Action for healthy waterways, and we’re proud of that document. It is a discussion document that lays out a number of proposals that we hope will restore the reputation of New Zealand for having pristine—not pristine; that’s unfair: having good, healthy waterways throughout our country, and healthy beaches. It puts pressure on rural and urban people in this country to do their bit to try and clean up the waterways.

I’m not a farmer at the moment—I wouldn’t call 20 acres a farm—but I have been a farmer, a sharemilker, and the one thing that really irks me is that on that side of the House, the party that claimed to be the champion of farmers has spent the last two weeks discrediting farmers up and down this country. They have said that this will be the ruination of farmers, they’ll have to walk off the land, this is going to cost them a fortune—implying that every single farmer in New Zealand is going to have to spend a fortune to do this. Well, they are wrong, because there’s a huge number of farmers in this country doing the right thing. They won’t have to spend money. There are some that will, and some that are doing the right thing, because we do have some environmental challenges ahead of us.

Can I just make one quote by an aspiring young leader: “One of the big long-term challenges we face is protecting the environment … We can have a world-class economy and the prosperity to pay for education, hospitals, infrastructure, social services and care for our vulnerable. But none of that is worthwhile if we haven’t protected the natural environment as well.” That aspiring young leader in 2018 was Simon Bridges—Simon Bridges. Well, I wish you’d carry out and follow through on that in Opposition, because your bleating, along with Federated Farmers and others, to oppose what we are putting up here as a discussion document, is a reflection—and an inaccurate reflection—on every farmer in this country.

Can I quote from those farmers—a couple of them—that are doing the right thing, and I thank each and every one of them. We do appreciate it, and a couple have come out in the media recently. One Christopher Falconer—he’s from, I think, the Waikato somewhere, and he says, “I don’t make climate-change based decisions on what we do on-farm. I don’t. But as it happens, there’s a great deal of overlap between what is good for the climate, and what is good for all sorts of other things.” This is the kind of healthy new-generation thinking that we are seeing right through the farming community in our country. They’re getting on and doing the right thing because they know it’s good. “Breeding [better] cows that produce milk more efficiently is another tick. That’s great for your farm system … it’s also great for climate … because it’s less cows, producing the same amount of product.” Can I quote from him again? “This is almost like collateral good that goes with so many of the things that are good with your farm.” He comes from the north Waikato. Thank you for fronting up and telling the people of New Zealand who don’t live on a farm the good things that are happening. I doubt whether Mr Falconer is going to have to spend a hell of a lot of money at all. He spent $250,000 on an effluent system. “We’re still producing the same amount of milk, so we’ve got more efficient.” That is the kind of approach that we want to see across the farming system.

There’s another one, and I’d like to acknowledge the important work and, as I say, of standing up—Becks and Richard Tosswill. Farming with their children, right? Great people. Yep. “They have retired areas unsuited to stock and have planted over 28,000 trees” on their property. “They use GPS co-ordinates to pinpoint where they need fertiliser and other areas, like waterways, where they need to avoid using fertiliser. ‘We use technology day-to-day, to give us the best advice and help us make the best decisions, which ultimately have a positive impact on our environment and climate change.’ ”

These are the kinds of new-generation farmers that we need to learn more from. We need to share their wisdom, advice—not go around the country saying, as the National Party and Federated Farmers are saying, that this proposal to clean up our waterways is going to destroy agriculture. That is far from the truth, because the vast majority of farmers are on that path—they’re moving down that path. They want clarity, which they did not get from the last Government. The two things that Federated Farmers and the National Party campaigned against were a fart tax—and they got an emissions trading scheme—and against National Animal Identification and Tracing, and we’ve had hundreds of millions of dollars of expenditure because we haven’t had traceability. That’s the kind of vision of this National Party and Federated Farmers organisation that we have.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. On Friday next week, thousands of schoolchildren will come to the forecourt of Parliament to protest for stronger climate action. Rangatahi will fill the sidewalks and the streets of this country, marching to their town centres to ask adults to grow up and do their job. Our job is to protect our kids. We say that we are protecting our kids when we slap R18 labels on things they should not watch, they should not listen to, and they should not do. We say we are protecting our children when we compel them into the education system and when we punish their bad behaviour. We raise our kids according to ideas that we as a society share about what’s acceptable. But our ideas shift and change; the natural laws of physics, not so much. While we prohibit children, young people, from engaging in our political realm, with the mainstream wisdom to belittle their engagement as they do not yet know enough about life, science does not have an age barrier.

The science is clear—the science is clear—yet somehow it’s framed as anywhere from boring to hysterical and apocalyptic to talk about the reality if we do not limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. The hare-brained short-term goals of day-to-day politics cannot compute the reality of the end of this world as we know it.

And when National Party MP Marilyn Waring brought about a snap election in 1984 by crossing the floor of this Parliament to join with the Labour Opposition, my dad was 14 years old, and the issue was painted as black and white. It was about nuclear or no nuclear. But with climate change we don’t have that simple binary. Humans have already pumped so many emissions into our atmosphere that we are going to have to deal with the consequences, and the only decision left is where we cap those consequences. So the question really is: just how hard do we want to make the lives of our kids? What actually happens when our kids and scientists are saying exactly the same thing? When do we look in the mirror and realise that we are the ones standing in the way?

If I have learnt anything in my nearly two years in Parliament, it’s that science and politics are barely ever compatible. I have sat on the Environment Committee, as actually every major party in this House has, and we have listened to over a thousand submissions from the general public and vested interests on our pathway to carbon neutrality. A whole lot of people want to see greater political will and greater ambition, more recognition of the science, but they have questioned whether our politics is up to it.

The Opposition National Party continue to say that they want the science, particularly when it comes to setting out 2050 biogenic methane targets. Well, let’s get the science and let’s be bound by it. Science isn’t about convenience, and here the science is actually rather inconvenient. In the newspaper today, National Party MP the Hon Dr Nick Smith said, and I quote, “It is far too easy for politicians to promise what will happen in 40 years’ time when they know full well they aren’t going to be anywhere near government then.” If anything, it would seem that’s political consensus: that you cannot trust politicians when it comes to climate action. So let’s end the politicising of science. With the zero carbon bill, many people have urged the Environment Committee to empower the independent climate commission to automatically set binding emissions budgets on a five-yearly basis. The only arguments that exist against doing this is that politicians, ourselves or others, in the future might not want to comply with science, and that’s not good enough.

So, National, here is the opportunity. My dad was 14 years old when Marilyn Waring crossed the floor to trigger our nuclear-free moment. My little brother is twelve years old and nobody should be crossing the floor on this issue, which is actually far more clear-cut than one of opinion or one of values. This is an issue of science, and here pretty much every single New Zealander has asked us to grow up and stand together. Kia ora.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. What is clear is a level of growing frustration around New Zealand at a Government that is in complete shambles and chaos. As the Prime Minister departs to go offshore, she leaves behind a Government that is in complete chaos and people in New Zealand frustrated with a Government that is not responding and not managing the issues that are important to them.

Look at the fiasco we had today around vaccines for the measles outbreaks. How many anxious parents are there around New Zealand looking for the Government to respond and show leadership? The Associate Minister of Health, Julie Anne Genter, said very clearly in the last few days that the new intake of vaccines of 52,000 was enough to last till the end of the year. Well, if that is true why was their announcement of 100,000 today? Clearly, it was because what she said was not correct, and we knew it wasn’t correct because the maths did not add up. We’ve distributed 54,000 vaccines this month alone. How were 52,000 vaccines going to last till January?

And what’s the most cynical part of the story? It is that the PR to announce the 100,000 vaccines from the Ministry of Health was sent out at 2.38 p.m. today, during question time. They’ve been caught out. Their maths doesn’t add up. And then, just to add insult to injury, the Rt Hon Winston Peters gets up and doesn’t believe we have one million 15- to 29-year-olds in New Zealand. Well, he’s right in one way, because it’s actually 1,013,750. I know he wants to take us back to the Muldoon era of the 1970s. He gets up and says there’s only 600,000 15- to 29-year-old New Zealanders alive.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

What generation does this Government live in? What generation, when you think there’s only 600,000 15- to 29-year-olds in New Zealand. And then they block the tabling of the document from the Parliamentary Library—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member knows he can’t refer to those decisions. Well, maybe he doesn’t. He does now.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So here we have an absolute shambles for an important issue, and many parents around New Zealand will be appalled to know that the Government is incompetent in delivering lifesaving vaccines for vulnerable young New Zealanders.

But we know they are a Government where the numbers don’t stack up. And that’s a frustration that New Zealanders are saying to us out on the streets of New Zealand. When you see things like the lack of investment—and this is the problem with the shambles in the beltway we have in New Zealand at the moment—how that impacts on regional and provincial New Zealand. Look, an example in my electorate: the Government came in and cancelled the much needed Belfast to Pegasus motorway, including the Woodend bypass. They just scrapped it. You know, you’ve got a State highway where parents take their primary school students across a State highway to the school, and there’s not even a pedestrian crossing. This Government comes in, cancels that motorway, but then they say, “Hold on. What we’re going to do is have a safety improvement programme.”

Yet we had a public meeting in the last few weeks with the head of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for the South Island. The safety improvement programme that they’ve had three consultations on now in the last two years is going to take up to four years to roll out—but wait, there’s no guarantee of funding. NZTA says their budget is oversubscribed. That’s the desperation round regional and provincial New Zealand. Why? [Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! One speaker at a time.

Because this Government stripped $5.5 billion out of State highway funding—vital transport infrastructure into the regions. No wonder people around New Zealand are frustrated, because decisions made in the beltway of New Zealand are being effected in the provinces. Vaccines, health, vital roading infrastructure, transport—they’re the real issues that affect New Zealanders. And so, as the Prime Minister takes off next week, she leaves behind a Government—a shambolic Government—that is not responding to the real domestic issues facing New Zealanders and New Zealand.

If there is a shambles in the beltway, I say that it is on that side of the House, which could only be characterised as an “evidence-free zone”, where, if they don’t know something, they just pluck a number out of the air and use it. So I think that it’s time to set the record straight with some evidence as to what is being done on this side of the House to make this country better for all New Zealanders. I have some real numbers.

Let’s start with this number: 2,206—2,206—new State houses that have been built in the two years that we have been in Government. That’s 1,103 a year. And how does that compare to what was done when that other party was in Government? In the nine years that party was in Government, they built 338 State houses—338 State houses. That’s 37.5 State houses a year. In fact, let’s put it in perspective: we are building 122 times as many State houses as they ever did when they were in Government. That’s the attention to the real needs of New Zealanders. That’s the evidence of a Government that is working hard for all New Zealanders.

That’s not the only thing we have done in the housing space. We have banned offshore speculators. We have extended the brightline test to five years. We’ve gotten rid of unfair letting fees. We’ve gotten rid of the tax breaks around rental properties. And what effect has that had? Well, it’s working. House prices are now stable. They are rising for the first time in many, many years. They are rising slower than rent. We are starting to make sure that housing is affordable. That’s the evidence of a Government that is taking action.

It’s not the only space where we are taking action. We are taking action on mental health. We’ve set up the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. They got rid of the Mental Health Commissioner in 2012; we have replaced it. We’ve established a suicide prevention office. We’ve put in place a mental health care package that ensures that 170,000 New Zealanders will be able to access mental health care at their doctor.

Moving on from mental health, let’s try education. We have at last—at long last—established that New Zealand history will be taught in all schools. We are putting more operating money into the schools, and we are doing that through a policy that ensures that parents no longer have to dip into their own pockets to support schools, because we are funding schools’ properties. That’s what our donations policy does. We’ve gotten teachers wages up. We’ve got new classrooms for 100,000 children. We are establishing 600 positions for SENCOs—special educational needs coordinators—to ensure that children who have special learning needs get supported. We are developing prototypes for getting free lunches into all schools, starting in 30 schools next year and developing the prototypes, and in time we’ll be rolling it out. That’s the kind of action on this side of the House.

When it comes to child poverty, we have established legislation that ensures that we will measure and report on child poverty—legislation that was agreed to by 119 members of this House. We have actually supported families in need by ensuring that we increase their incomes by increasing the money they get. We’ve done that through our Families Package so that 384,000 families with children are better off. We’ve established the winter energy payment. The list goes on and on. And this comes to us because of the inspirational leadership of our Prime Minister.

We have heard so much criticism of our Prime Minister telling people that she achieves nothing—that the Christchurch Call is just so much hot air. But the Christchurch Call has taken effect. We have seen that today: when Facebook itself is taking moves to ban violent extremism. And here’s what Facebook itself said as to why it was doing this. It said, “To honour the Christchurch Call To Action made by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, we have announced restrictions on Facebook Live and the investment of $7.5 million in new research partnerships … designed to improve image and video analysis technology.” They are supporting the call. Why that call? Because they want to ban online extremism, and they are doing it because our Prime Minister, our inspirational leader, stood up on the world stage and had the courage to make that call.

This is a Government that is taking real action and is achieving right across the board. We are delivering for New Zealanders, and we are delivering for the world. I am so proud to be part of this Government.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to rise in this general debate and actually maybe put some facts into the debate. One of the things that that member Dr Deborah Russell mentioned was that she is very proud of this Government’s record on the world stage. Let me actually put that notion to bed. The Prime Minister, when she was speaking at the UN, talked about how the Me Too movement should be a “We Too” movement. Last week, I think the Prime Minister actually admitted that that was the first time that she had heard about the sexual assault issue that involved a staff member who was actually at her office. I think, you know, either she is incompetent or she is just not interested in what is actually going on.

Deborah Russell talked about leadership. I think it is not just about the words that a leader speaks but the actions that she actually takes. Often when she is asked about what is going on in this country, she blames the nine years of the previous National Government or the world issues that are impacting it. Let me say that, actually, during the nine years of the National Government, we had major disasters. We had earthquakes in Christchurch, earthquakes in Kaikōura. We had the global financial crisis, but what we left this country with was 4 percent growth in the economy. What this Government has actually done in the last two years is chop that in half. The economy is not growing that fast. It’s actually tanking. It’s going downwards, and this Government seems to be very proud of the performance.

Let me talk about some of the leadership issues. The Prime Minister talked about the fairness, the diversity that she is really, really proud of. Apparently, that doesn’t actually translate into the actions that she provides. In the Government’s Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, we were asking questions about how much diversity actually exists in her Prime Minister’s department. Apparently, 82 percent of the staff that work in the DPMC is Pākehā, 1.17 percent is Pacific Islander, and 1.5 percent is Asian. I say that 1.5 percent of New Zealand’s population isn’t actually Asian, and 1.17 percent is actually not Pacific Islander in terms of population. If she was talking about real diversity in her own department, she would be changing that issue. Apparently, 100 percent of senior staffers, management staff, in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is in fact Pākehā and not of other ethnicities.

Earlier, my learned colleague Matt Doocey talked about measles. It was actually asked as a parliamentary question as well today, and I got up to ask a supplementary question. There is a huge issue. There is an epidemic in this country, and the Minister can only talk about how we have enough supply. Well, apparently her priority is actually children. One of the questions that I asked in the supplementary was about the fact that the priority is definitely not children when you happen to be of Asian descent, it seems, because in Auckland when Asian parents—some of them have actually contacted me—go to the doctor wanting to vaccinate their children, they are turned away even when they want to pay for the vaccinations, because they don’t actually have the supply.

Those are prioritised for Māori and Pacific children. So I asked a question of this Government: are they really going down the path of the racist policies that they’ve—actually, an example that I can give you is the whole issue of Asian-sounding names, in terms of the ability to buy a house. Apparently, Asian people—Asian-sounding names—were the reason why house prices were going up. They blamed the Asian people. Denise Lee sounds like an Asian name—certainly not Asian, or Chinese, sorry. Melissa Lee sounds like Chinese. I’m certainly not Chinese, and to the Malaysian-Chinese parents of those children who went to the GP’s office to get their children vaccinated, who were turned away because they weren’t Māori or Pasifika, apparently they’re not a priority.

After the question, the Minister came and sat next to me, and admitted that that should not happen. Perhaps she should let her officials know that that should not be happening in this country—a system that presumes, that prioritises certain children—and say that New Zealanders of all races, all ages should be equal. Well, it seems they’re not, if they happen to be Asian. I say shame on this Government. Shame on this Labour-led Government, who say, “Asian people are not welcome in this country”, it seems. Well, I say shame. Apart from the measles epidemic, I mean, I think Deborah Russell talked about—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What a marvellous time it is to be in Government. What a marvellous privilege it is to be a member of one of the three parties that are supporting this Government, that is delivering on addressing the long-term challenges that are facing this country. You know, there’s one rule in politics that’s always true: it’s cyclical. If you can’t learn from the mistakes of the past, you’ll never evolve and succeed in the future. That is a lesson that the National Party are not taking on board at the moment. For nine years, they were in Government, and they saw the Labour Party struggle to go up in the polls, and they are repeating the same mistakes that we made, because they are negative—they are negative and they are inward-looking.

We learnt from that, and now we’re in Government, and what are they doing? Sitting there, and whingeing, and wishing things were different. But the fact is that their scaremongering and their empty words are not ringing true. You only need to look in the regional areas of this country to see how things are not living up to what the National Party are saying. Primary exports: up $9 billion. But if you listen to the National Party, there’s no future in agriculture—a 36.3 percent increase in dairy, a 34.8 percent increase in forestry, a 22.2 percent increase in horticulture, 11 percent in seafood, and 10.5 percent in meat and wool. So much for a dying industry. These are the facts—the facts are that rural New Zealand is thriving under this Government, and the only playbook that the National Party can even consider doing is whingeing.

They could get behind this Government’s approach to cleaning up our rivers, because there is a clear economic argument to do so when New Zealand depends on, overseas, the most discerning consumers to buy our products. The only way in which we can increase the value that we expect and want to extract from our products is to live up to demand. They demand environmental sustainability. They demand that their products are coming from a country that is doing their bit to address climate change. They expect high nutritional, and safe, food. They expect animal welfare standards to be the best in the world, and they expect the industry to look after their staff. In every single one of these areas, this Government is delivering, and what do they say? “This is bad news”.

That is the negative approach of the National Party. They cannot see—at the moment, anyway. They’ve changed their tune—now that the proposals that this Government is making are going to ensure the long-term sustainability of agriculture in this country. I say they’ve changed their tune, because I see a quote here from their now agricultural spokesperson Todd Muller, who says, and I quote, “My view is that there is a waste product that we can easily reduce, reuse, or recycle in some shape or form to help drive an environmentally sustainable economy”. It was important to them then, but not so much now. He continues: “We should be striving to do so. That is what responsible economic and environmental stewardship is all about”.

Why—I ask why—when they were in Government were they saying these sorts of things, and now, when we’re in Government, and they’re our ideas, they’re opposing them? Why? Because they are barking up the wrong tree and chasing every car that’s passing. We’ve seen it today in the general debate, the things that they’re talking about. They’re not focussing on the long-term challenges that are facing this country. Their commitment to this conservative political approach, and the desire to maintain the status quo, will not deliver for rural communities. It will not deliver for agriculture.

Both my grandfathers farmed in Eketāhuna. One was Labour and one was National. When I told them, as a young man, that I was interested in politics, they both said the same thing: “Make sure you look after the farmers and the communities that they live in.” That’s a true story. But what this shows is that, regardless of what colour you are, you can have the same aspiration, and people that live in rural areas, and farmers, know that the proposals that we’re making are for their long-term economic sustainability. They know that the National Party, with all their claims, and all the hyperbole, are just simply yelling into a void. It’s not resonating. People do not like negativity. That was a lesson that we learnt. It is clearly a lesson that National has never learnt thus far, and I suspect they will not learn it anytime soon.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m sure it won’t have been lost on the three New Zealanders who were still listening at the end of Mr McAnulty’s contribution that he began by telling us that he didn’t like whingers, and he then spent five minutes doing nothing but.

Residents of my fine city have long known, and visitors to our town quickly come to discover, that Hamilton is the most desirable city in our country. I’m pleased to say that we are still doing very well, thanks to the fact that our citizens work hard, they see great opportunities, and we’ve got a steady influx of people coming from around the country, wanting to share what we have, and live there. But my constituents are noticing that their great efforts are not being matched by the Government’s.

We had, at the beginning of the year, the Prime Minister telling us that this would be the year of delivery. Well, it has been anything but. Sadly, because it’s not very funny, what has become very, very clear is that, despite their good intentions—and it is very clear that the Labour Party campaign slogan next year will be, “Well, it was the thought that counts”—they are all utterly out of their depths, and haven’t a clue about what they are doing. Today, Mr Little began this debate by crowing about the so-called achievements of his Government, but couldn’t really name any. He really spent most of his time just attacking us on the other side.

Well, let us look at what has happened. We’ve had KiwiBuild abandoned, and its Minister sacked, because it was such an abject failure. They didn’t even get close to starting meeting their targets. The Ministry of Health recently published its 2018-19 quarter three health target data file on its website. It came, pretty much, quite a few months later than was expected—there’s a story about that as well—and it showed that the health sector has been going steadily backwards in the time that David Clark has been the Minister. Importantly, we’ve seen elective surgeries going backwards. We’ve seen vaccination rates falling behind, despite the fact that, at the moment, we have a major epidemic around the country, particularly in my part of the country, and north of there, with measles. No wonder the escalation is happening if the Government can’t get on top of vaccination rates. We’ve got 17 of the 20 DHBs showing poor immunisation rates since before he became the Minister, and 13 of them showing poorer performances against the faster cancer treatment targets.

The National Party, when we were in office, pledged to increase police numbers and we were doing that. Labour came along and said “Oh, anything you can do, we can do better”, but they haven’t. They haven’t got close to delivering on what they promised. Their gun buy-back scheme is, increasingly, raising concern around our communities. Good, law-abiding people are doing as expected, but what we are seeing is that the gangs and others, who we definitely don’t want having firearms in their possession, are not fronting up to the buy-back opportunities, and we should all be deeply worried about that, because the Government hasn’t got a clue how they’re going to sort that out.

Now, Mr Speaker, Hamilton West, as you know, is an urban electorate, but we do provide vital services—particularly to the dairy industry—and we definitely appreciate that farming has long been the backbone of our economy. Well, inexplicably, it’s becoming clearer by the day that the Labour Party hates farmers. This Government is determined to impose methane emissions reduction targets on our farmers that aren’t supported by science, that are not those which are being recommended by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—they’re far higher than he is suggesting—and that, if adopted, will simply drive our vital food production offshore to less efficient, less emissions - friendly countries, and, at the same time, this Government wants to hammer our primary sector and damage our collective livelihood with freshwater proposals that ignore the steady improvement we’ve been seeing in our waterways which began under National, and which will impose huge costs with no economic analysis and which are causing huge anxiety in the farming sector. That feeling of anxiety is palpable, and when I sat on the environment subcommittee in Hamilton a couple of weeks ago, I became aware of just how widespread the distress is.

We had a Budget earlier this year that was utterly underwhelming. It promised to deliver wellbeing, but it actually has delivered very little. The first bill that they passed—under urgency, of course—was another fuel tax increase. They are great at the tax idea. They’re great at announcing, with a big head of steam, that they’re going to spend money on this, that, and the other, but they have not been delivering. They do not have a plan for what they are supposed to be doing. They haven’t a clue how to govern the country, and I look forward to this time next year, when the country will, quite rightly, be throwing them out on their ear.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. It’s an absolute privilege to stand and speak in this House of New Zealand lawmaking debates. First of all, I want to acknowledge the passing of the Tongan Prime Minister, and I’d like to do that in the Tongan language. Fakafolau atu heni ‘eku faka‘apa‘apa mo e fie kaungā mamahi ki he taufa kuo tō ‘i he fonua ‘o Tupou. ‘Ofa lahi atu ki he kāingá hono kotoa.

I would have loved to attend the funeral in Tonga, but there is a Tongan saying that says “Ko e lava pē ‘a ‘Ulukālalá ko e lava ia ‘a Vava‘u Lahí.” Our Tongan saying is about Vava‘u, which is the biggest island in Tonga. ‘Ulukālala is its highest chief. When ‘Ulukālala is satisfied, so is the rest of Vava‘u. So I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Hon Jenny Salesa and the respective parties who are representing our country and showing our respect as a loving neighbour to the country of Tonga, which is where I was born.

But let me come back to this House. I have sat here through the speeches, and all I’ve heard from speaker number one was conspiracy theory number one. Paula Bennett—conspiracy theory. Instead of going to those authorities, she conspired to go to the media. Two, Matt Doocey, who is supposed to be the leading champion of mental health for the National Party, had a conspiracy theory about Labour doing nothing—about Labour and this coalition Government doing nothing. Three, Melissa Lee talked about conspiracy theory number three, about National delivering—I don’t know; I couldn’t remember—and, fourth, the member for Hamilton West. He started well when he spoke about the people of Hamilton West, but after that it was conspiracy theory number four.

The kūmara doesn’t speak of its sweetness, so I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the New Zealander of the Year for 2019, Mike King, and what Mike King said about the Labour Government. He said “nine years of lip service and … nothing.”, about the National Government. He said, “this Government did in two years what the last Government didn’t do in nine years.” So all the conspiracy theories that were said on the other side in the first four speeches were about National delivering nothing, delivering no plan. They have stood there all day today and have not set out a future for what National’s going to do for New Zealand when they get in, whenever. Actually, if you generalise their statements, they spoke about nothing, nothing—delivering nothing. One could say that’s a lazy Opposition.

Anyway, I was so privileged on Thursday to be at the unveiling of that plaque that acknowledges the New Zealand Wars, and I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge you, Mr Speaker, because it takes leadership and understanding to achieve that. I want to say kia ora, malo ‘aupito, thank you, Mr Speaker, for your guidance in that.

It would be great if, as the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern—whose leadership I’m privileged to be under—said, we were to be the last generation to grow up in this country not knowing our history, because we announced last week that from 2022, New Zealand history will be taught in all schools and kura. It’s been a long time coming, and we are proud to finally make our stories a formal part of the curriculum. I do hope that the story of Kuramārōtini, Kupe’s wife, who actually saw New Zealand and named us Aotearoa—I do hope that the leadership of women is also told in our history. I hope that all the grandchildren are privileged from having that.

Also, I’m glad to say that we’re putting the free into education. We are funding more decile 1 to 8 schools with school donations—adding additional donations into that—and the reason why it’s decile 1 to 8 is because it’s much needed. It’s much needed in that community. The deciles 9 and 10 schools actually said that they have more in school donations than they would have under what the Government is proposing. The reason why it’s an insight and an understanding that the poorer part of our country needs a hand up to assist and what schools are now working—in the last nine years, they were on the smell of an oily rag, and they are passionate to deliver the best for New Zealand.

I’m running out of time, but I had a great proverb and I’ll use it in another kōrero. Malo ‘aupito.

New Zealand is a great country. We are world leaders in so many areas and ways. We wish our best to the All Blacks with the Rugby World Cup coming up, and, of course, Team New Zealand—what an amazing boat they have launched. We wish them the best in defending the America’s Cup, and—

💬 SPEAKER: Thanks for your help.

Yes, indeed. It was a great morning to be there. Even if we read in some legislation, talking about being world leaders occurs in some aspects of legislation, which I’m not so sure about. For example, if you read through the Cabinet papers on the zero carbon bill, you will read a statement that says, “Codifying the 2050 Target in primary legislation and having a detailed plan for meeting it could assist in: … ensuring New Zealand is world leading”.

We all want to be world leaders, but sometimes we have to think about how we’re going to get there and what it’s going to cost. Let me tell you about an area, members of this House, where New Zealand is world leading in terms of climate. We are the first and perhaps the only country that is leading the transition away from gas to using more coal—think about that. What we see in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE’s) New Zealand Energy Quarterly reported not long ago was that natural gas usage for electricity generation for the year ending 30 June 2019 decreased by 19 percent. The haters of hydrocarbons will say “Fantastic! We’ve seen a decrease in the use of natural gas.”, but the same Energy Quarterly also reported that coal usage for electricity generation for the year ending 30 June 2019 increased by a whopping 62 percent. Mr Speaker, I know you enjoy commentary around the energy sector. That is a graph that I have produced from MBIE’s data.

So seeing a decrease in the use of clean-burning natural gas is, I think, a loss when you see an increase in the burning of coal, which has twice the carbon dioxide emissions. The country is using more coal because there is not enough gas—let’s be clear about that. In the midst of a primary fuel shortage—because this is what we do have in New Zealand—the Government, in their wisdom, decided to ban the search for more gas, which I disagree with. In fact, I think that was a reckless decision.

I actually think that using gas instead of coal is a better way to transition, and, in fact, MBIE said that in their advice to the Government last year, in April. They said, “Gas has a role to play in transitioning to a lower-emission economy. Halting exploration”—they went on to say—“would also close off the option of using New Zealand gas supplies to reduce coal use.” Here we see, a year later, that is exactly what is happening. I say that it was a big disappointment that we did not have that thorough advice-listening consultation process and we did not do the proper economy analysis.

A lot of people got upset about that. They got upset because they thought that they were intelligent, committed, science-based New Zealanders and companies—and even the offshore ones—who had some contribution to make. It wasn’t just an offence against their intellect, it wasn’t just an offence against democracy, but it was an offence against the solution that people could find. So single-mindedness can be an offence against a solution. This is why we have a Parliament. This is why we debate. This is why we have officials. This is why we consult. This is why we take legislation out into the community. This is why we have a select committee process. It’s so that we can find a solution that fits and works for New Zealand, and what we’re seeing now is the very thing that we don’t want to see.

Coal is not our future. Yes, it’s used at the moment because we do not have enough renewables and we have depleted gas supply. Whether that’s through infrastructure or whether that’s actually through a lack of nature resource, it’s affecting us. So what I say, in terms of this energy space, around the policy that we need to have, is we need to have a broad conversation. We need to see natural gas as a very important component to transition, and we need to see that it is supported, and we need to look for more in this country and not close off that future, which I think can lead us into a better, more sure transition. Thank you, sir.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.