General Debate

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

New Zealand is booming. Unemployment is down to 3.9 percent. We have strong wage growth of almost 4.5 percent a year. The minimum wage is up to $17.70. The news just keeps getting better. Over the next two years New Zealand is projected to grow faster than Australia. We are projected to grow faster than Canada. We are projected to grow faster than the United States. We are projected to grow faster than the United Kingdom. We are projected to grow faster than the European Union. We are projected to grow faster than Norway, Japan, Singapore—the list goes on.

The New Zealand economy, despite the global headwinds, is performing exceptionally well under this Government. Interest rates are down. Debt is heading down. Unemployment is low, and our books are balanced—much to the bemusement of the members opposite, who never really understood what it takes to balance the Government’s books, because it wasn’t something they managed very often in the nine long years that they were in Government.

Of course, our Government has restarted contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. We are saving for the future and we are reducing debt. We are reducing the debt that was clocked up by members on the other side of the House. New Zealand is doing very, very well under this Government.

We are tackling the long-term challenges that face this country. We have gotten serious about dealing with mental health; this year’s Budget and the action taken since this year’s Budget is the most comprehensive programme of action taken on mental health by a New Zealand Government ever, and we are incredibly proud of that. We are taking action to ensure that New Zealanders get a consistent standard of cancer care wherever they live in the country. We’re cleaning up our rivers, and we’re making schools and other forms of education more affordable, and we are incredibly proud of that.

Today, at question time, though—I do want to step back just a little bit—I was reminded of one of the darkest days that we had when we were in Opposition, where there was a bit of a contest going on for the leadership and we decided that to be even-handed we would give everyone the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister a question. It didn’t go well for us that day, just as it didn’t go well for the National Party today.

It appears, from question time today, that there are more contestants to be leader of the National Party than there are people seeking the National Party nomination for Botany—and that is quite an extensive list. It would appear, today, the National Party, who desperately need their white knight to fly in on his plane, can’t even jack up a selection for him in a safe National Party seat.

Such is the desperate nature of the National Opposition. The only path to power they seem to see ahead of them at the moment is to talk New Zealand down—to talk down the New Zealand economy because they know it’s not going in their favour at the moment, because under this Government, New Zealand is going well. The economy is in good shape. New Zealand is holding up very, very well, despite the global economic headwinds that we face. We are getting ahead and tackling the issues that New Zealanders care about.

You know what the National Party are focused on? They are focused exclusively on themselves—on fighting petty internal battles. I remember those days in Opposition, because it’s the only thing that there is some days, when they’re in Opposition, and the National Party seem firmly trapped in that particular space.

In the meantime, we’re getting on and dealing with the housing crisis that we were left by the National Party. We have banned offshore speculators from buying New Zealand homes and shutting New Zealanders out of the housing market. What were we told about that by the last Government? It couldn’t be done. We have done that. We have increased the number of State houses—2,000 new State houses this year alone, and the year’s not even over yet, because there is more to come. We’ve increased funding for schools so they don’t have to rely on parental donations, as they were increasingly reliant under the last Government. We have scrapped fees for NCEA so that every student can have access to our national qualification system. We’ve delivered a lot, and—I tell you what—we’re just getting started.

I had high aspirations for that speech today. One of the senior members of the Labour Party—a senior member in their Cabinet—and he started to speak about what the Government’s doing. I thought, “Gee, he’s doing well. We’re actually going to hear a speech from a Labour Party member in a general debate with them talking about what they’re delivering.” But, you know what? He got to 1 minute and 37 seconds. He could do 1 minute and 37 seconds, and then he started talking about us. He started talking about the Opposition. That’s how little they’ve got to talk about in their year of delivery. He’s a senior member of the Cabinet—has got 1 minute and 37 seconds. You’ve got to do better than that, Mr Hipkins.

Let’s talk about the year of delivery. Let’s look at some of the numbers. So the promise to build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 years: two years into this Government, how many do you think have been delivered? Just give me a figure: 286. That’s less than 0.3 percent—the year of delivery.

Plant one billion trees—we heard a lot about the one billion trees in the first six months in this House. How many of those trees have been delivered? How many are up? How many are being planted: 24.6 million. That’s exactly 2.5 percent—2.5 percent delivered.

Over three years, 1,800 new police officers. How many do you think—1,800 police officers over three; how many do you think: 472 new police officers. How many is that? That’s 26 percent—26 percent on deliverables.

This is a sad one: end homelessness—end homelessness. This was a priority for the Government. Do you want to know how many people are on the housing waiting list now? Do you want to know what the increase is? It’s a 154 percent increase on people needing emergency housing.

Net zero emissions—net zero emissions by 2050. This is meant to be a Labour-Greens Government who are dealing with climate change. They’re not. They’re failing. We did more when we were in Government. Do you know what the result is? Do you know what the result is? Emissions projected to increase. Coal use for electricity increasing by 500 percent. Great policies by this Government!

Reduce migration by 20,000 to 30,000. Net migration is 620 higher than at the end of 2017. Abject failure. Unable to deliver on promises.

Reduce child poverty. This is one of the Prime Minister’s key core planks as to why she came to Parliament. I’m not going to challenge that or question that. We all come to Parliament for our own reasons, and that comes from the heart. There’s no doubt about that. Reducing child poverty: the child poverty rate has increased from 14.2 percent to 16.5 percent. Child poverty is not going down under this Government. What I’d challenge the next Labour speaker to do is to get up and actually talk about what you’re delivering, because at the moment all the heads are down—right? At the moment no one’s really paying too much attention. Get up—[Interruption] Oh, that got them sparked up a bit. Get up and actually take a call and talk to us about what you’re delivering.

I will tell you what I’ve been talking about in the House in the last two days: another shocking example of very poor decision-making by a Labour Cabinet Minister in his portfolio, which is immigration. It is something, actually, that’s very important to their coalition partner New Zealand First. I’m sure the New Zealand First speaker today will be getting up and making exactly the same points that I am and that is the fact that their partner is letting them down. It’s shocking. The decisions are shocking.

We saw, to this day almost, a year ago, a decision on Karel Sroubek—someone that completely pulled the wool over the eyes of the immigration Minister; not just the immigration Minister. The Prime Minister came down to this House. Do you remember what she said? She said, “Read between the lines.” She told the country, “Read between the lines.” Well, actually the country didn’t accept that. We didn’t accept that, and we put enormous pressure on them and eventually they had to fold and they had to say, “We got it wrong. We made a very poor decision.” We still don’t know what drove that decision.

Now we’re back here, a year later, having to deal with another decision from the same Minister, awarding residency to someone that has driven not once, not twice, but six times on our roads with excess breath alcohol—six times. That’s playing Russian roulette; that’s playing Russian roulette with law-abiding Kiwis’ lives. We all have seen and experienced the tragedy that comes with serious injuries and fatalities on our roads.

That sort of decision making is indicative of how this Government is operating. They can’t deliver on what they promise. They can’t be trusted to make decisions that actually relate directly to New Zealanders’ safety, and we as the Opposition are going to continue to stand in this House and hold them to account. I’ll tell you something: if you look at the recent polls, Kiwis are working it out. They’re starting to work out what’s going on. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

This is Thank Your Cleaner Day and this is going to be a clean-up speech. Could I say the man that Mark Mitchell complains about was brought here by the National Party permanently—he could never be removed from New Zealand—and he has the effrontery to get up here and complain about what they did and blame this Government.

Now, can I just say that Adrian Orr is a Reserve Bank Governor who understands the New Zealand economy, how it ticks—exports and jobs—and not speculation and theory. He knows how to deal firmly but fairly with the Australian banks.

In Australia, bank deposits have a guarantee of up to $250,000, which means they’ve got security. They know they won’t face a run on the banks like what happened in Greece and other countries. Those guarantees are required in Australia, but these same Aussie banks in New Zealand are rifling up and making all sorts of complaints about having to be prudentially sound in this country. In New Zealand the four banks from Australia have run a cynical campaign against the Governor of the Reserve Bank. You’ve all seen the headlines. I want to tell those banks that that Governor is going to be defended doing what he should be doing in the line of duty. We’re not going to stand back here and take a raw prawn treatment from these Australian banks.

Remember the recent Hayne report in Australia, damning of the Aussie banks? Who says they weren’t doing the same in New Zealand? So stop pushing this Government, because we, unlike the former National Party—a sycophant of unbridled capitalism—will respond in the interests of the New Zealand people.

On 27 June, the Governor of the Reserve Bank asked ANZ New Zealand why they breached prudential rules, and why this guy, the former boss, Hisco, was getting the treatment he got. My real question is this: why did his wife get a property, which the ANZ bank had bought for $7.5 million, yet six years later, at a time of rocketing prices, they sold it to Hisco for $6.9 million? But here’s the real rub—Mr Key was sitting on the board of the Aussie bank when he heard about Hisco, and my question is: Mr Key, how come it took you three years to tell the bank in New Zealand that you’re the chairman of the board of? You’ve got a massive conflict of interest. Mr Orr is right, and your colleagues, if they had a sense of responsibility and accountability, would be screaming for the chairman to go, but they’ve have never said a word. That’s the reality here. Why did he take three months to tell the bank that he owed the duty to in New Zealand, when he was the chair of the bank board, what he learnt in Australia? He serves the Australians. He doesn’t serve the New Zealand people at all, and he should go.

Now, I don’t want to say much more than that, other than to say that this man’s got form. Do you remember when he was the head of the SIS and the GCSB and there was a raid on a man called Kim Dotcom? This Minister said he didn’t know. That was a circumstance where if you were the Minister, you’d be getting the two heads in and saying, “You tell me, sunshine, why you didn’t tell me, because if you haven’t got an explanation, you’re gone.” No, he claimed he didn’t even know it was in his own electorate—he didn’t know. Here’s this guy Hisco being outed in Australia by the Aussies, not New Zealand. He’s on the Aussie board at the time and he never tells the bank back in New Zealand that he was the chairman of. This is a disgrace. This guy’s got form.

Can I also say, if you read the papers this morning very, very carefully, you’ll see that a military officer called Jim Blackwell says he informed the inquiry into Operation Burnham that he had told the former Minister Mapp about civilian casualties that occurred in that operation. Mr Blackwell says that there’s an email trail. So if it’s true, here comes the next question, ladies and gentlemen, for the National Party: did Mr Mapp tell Mr Key? I know Mr Mapp’s modus operandi. He was always telling the ninth floor what was going on. So there’s Mr Key again, right behind this issue, and when this gets out and the evidence comes in and you see the trail, we’ll see what Mr Mapp—

💬 Brett Hudson: Take your tinfoil hat off.

Well, at least I don’t show any damage from a tinfoil hat on my head.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Do you see what I mean? Some people lead with their chin; he leads with his head. Unbelievable!

Can I just say, Mr Mapp would have told Mr Key—he was infamous for telling the ninth floor—and Mr Key didn’t do a thing about it. So here comes the Burnham inquiry, which I’m proud that this Government had the courage to order in the first place, even though it was going to be difficult and I had a Minister of Defence who was on the side of the Defence Force, but we said in the end that we are, in terms of our military and defence forces, there to do one thing. It’s about international peace and security and First World order and the rules of decent law, and that’s what we’re standing up for here. But, Mr Key—what did he do? Nothing whatsoever. I’m saying it’s time that Mr Key was told to go from the New Zealand bank, because he can’t serve the Aussies and us. Mind you, there are other National Party members all overseas serving the Chinese banks. You know who they are. There are three of them. [Applause]

I thank the New Zealand First members for the applause; it’s welcome. But I want to talk about something quite serious. In a Government, a sovereign country, one of the main responsibilities is control of the borders. That’s a very serious role that’s held by the Minister of Immigration, and unfortunately our Minister of Immigration has let us down. We heard from the previous National speaker, Mark Mitchell, about the recidivist drunk-driver who has been granted New Zealand residency. As my colleague said, he’s playing Russian roulette.

The risk to New Zealanders is very real. This man is a repeat drunk-driver. He’s driven while disqualified. We just have to hope that the worst doesn’t happen, but if it does, it’s on that Minister’s head. That follows on from the Karel Sroubek debacle, which we still don’t have an explanation for, but I deeply suspect the Minister was doing what he was told from those above him—in fact, we know that’s the case, but he’s yet to admit that.

But this person is here in New Zealand. He now has residency, and as has been pointed out, it did go across the desk of the previous Minister, Michael Woodhouse, but the only reason it would go across his desk would be because he was looking at an application for residency, which he obviously didn’t grant. I think the Minister needs to really think very seriously about what he’s done. He’s got a track record now of putting Kiwis in danger, and I think that’s a terrible position for someone who helps control our borders.

He also has sat by on his hands and watched visa delays grow. Now, one of the speakers earlier said that the visa delays are going down. Well, in 13 out of the 14 visa categories, the numbers are far worse than they were under the previous administration, and that is despite having $11.7 million extra funding to try and clear that backlog—that hasn’t yet made a dent. This is having a real impact on Kiwi employers. In New Zealand, we rely on skilled migrants coming in to help fill roles and help keep New Zealand businesses running. The people that are coming in on those visas have a choice. They have very marketable skills. They can go anywhere in the world and work if they choose to, and with these delays we are seeing some of those people deciding to go elsewhere. Why come here? Why subject themselves to such uncertainty about their future and their plans? So, they simply do go elsewhere.

They also have issues with their partnership visas, often for people that have residency here or who are, effectively, Kiwis, as well as Kiwis that are born here, with partnership visas which have been slowed down. But I do note that New Zealand First has joined in on the year of non-delivery. The promise of getting net migration down to 20,000 has failed by quite some margin. The net migration figure is 54,000. So I’m pleased that that’s one thing they are missing the mark on.

We also have the New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which has just come in recently. People from those countries, jurisdictions offshore, get an electronic visa, and that was also brought in to collect the $35 tourist and conservation levy at the border. But, unfortunately, the Minister was warned not to bring this in in such a short time frame—three months is the time frame he brought it in on—and, of course, the inevitable has happened. It has become a huge issue, and the Minister has gazetted a notice—didn’t tell anyone about it—that, actually, he would give a waiver to that electronic authority for those that didn’t get it in time before boarding their flight to come to New Zealand. That would be waived. So what happens to the $35 tax that they’re supposed to pay, and what happens to the people that followed through, did what they were supposed to, applied for their electronic visa, and got it overseas? They have been disadvantaged. They paid $35, and those that didn’t do their job, weren’t able to do it, came through and didn’t have to pay that tax. It’s only fair.

As I listened to that speech, I thought, “Why is it that right-wing parties, when they’re not getting traction with the community, start focusing on scaremongering, and particularly on migrants in this case?” That’s what I was hearing from that particular speech. It’s just doom and gloom, moaning and whining, and I have to say there are some wonderful things happening in this country. First of all, this is Niue Language Week, and so can I say to you fakaalofa lahi atu ki a mutolu oti. Right across the whole country, our Pacific communities are celebrating, and I see that you are wearing the beads of Niue particular to that particular island, Mr Speaker. I acknowledge that.

It’s coming on two years since this Government came into office, and many of you will recall the naysayers, particularly on that side of the House, who often would say, “That lot would never last. They’re not going to be able to work out their differences.” I am proud to stand here today and say how wrong they were. I am proud, and it’s a privilege to be a member of a Government, a strong coalition Government, a Government that is led by Jacinda Ardern, who is promoting and holding all of us accountable to have good, strong stewardship of the economy but also promoting compassion, principles of te aroha. Again, the naysayer says that doesn’t work in politics, but I have to say, proudly, as we work our way round the country, round the Pacific region, on the global stage, the leadership that she is providing and the principles that she is providing and holding up are so refreshing in the political arena, and people are looking to us here in New Zealand.

I want to acknowledge the wonderful support of the coalition partner—and love working with the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as our support partners, the Greens. We have inherited a mess off the last Government, but it’s a mess that we’re not shying away from. It’s a mess that we’re prepared to tackle. It’s a mess that we are realistic enough to know we’re not going to be able to fix in one Budget or two Budgets. We need to look not only three years out but 30 years out, and at the moment, we’ve started to lay strong foundations. This year’s Wellbeing Budget was one of those strong foundations that we will now continue to build on.

Mental health is a big issue. I was amazed at the UN General Assembly this year: we are one of only five countries in the entire world that is including mental health in our speeches and seems to be promoting it. This was the feedback from the United Nations, and how wonderful it is that we’ve begun that work involving that.

Cancer care: new investment. Cleaning up our rivers: new investment. Making schools more affordable: more investment. We’re doing all of this while keeping the economy in good shape despite the uncertainties at the international level. I just want to say again, despite what they’ve said, this Government, the coalition Government, is strong. We can look at wages—they’re rising, unemployment is falling. The most recent Quarterly Employment Survey shows that average hourly earnings increased by 4.4 percent, the biggest increase in 11 years. Our Stats New Zealand say the reason for the big increase is the boost the Government has made to the minimum wage and the effect of some big collective agreement settlements, like the nurses, coming into force. We’ve got a goal of lifting the minimum wage, and we’ve done that last year. This year, we are on track to achieving $20 an hour by the year 2021. On 1 April this year, we made the largest-ever single increase to the minimum wage, raising it by $1.20 and putting an extra $48 a week in the pockets of a full-time worker. When workers earn more, their families are better off. When families are better off, the whole economy is better-off.

Some people, particularly that lot there—they said that when we would increase the minimum wage, somehow, we would see more and more unemployment. They are wrong. The statistics show that. Our economic appraisers show that. They are definitely wrong. We now have the lowest rate of unemployment in New Zealand in 11 years, and there are now 92,000 new jobs coming. So, again—pleasure to be part of this Government.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it’s quite a day in the House, when a Minister stands up and wilfully misleads it, and we saw that today with the Minister of Police.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The member knows that he is out of order. There is only one way to raise an allegation of that sort—well, there are actually two ways: one’s by way of motion in the House, and the second is by way of letter to me. If he continues that approach, he will be in serious trouble.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, the Minister of Police—

💬 SPEAKER: No, no—withdraw and apologise first.

I withdraw and apologise—I withdraw and apologise. Thank you, Mr Speaker. So the Minister of Police had something interesting to say to the House today, and we may yet see him back here this evening. He tried to claim today that his mythical target of 1,800 new police is just new people that weren’t there before, and yet what we have from Minister Nash in response to a written question, written question No. 14509 (2018), his reply: “The striving towards 1,800 target is for growth in the number of Constabulary employees, i.e. Police will recruit enough Constabulary employees to replace those that leave each year, with the 1,800 growth as additional recruitment.” Further to that, in the Estimates hearings in 2018, I quote Minister Nash: “As you alluded to, Mr Bishop, in the House—and I’ve always been very clear about this—this isn’t 1,800 police minus attrition; this is 1,800 police as well as attrition. So we’ve got to train … about a thousand police a year.”

To back him up, the Commissioner of Police, in the November annual review hearing, had this to say—and I quote—“That’s over and above what we had before, so that includes the people that we have left. So we have an attrition of about 5.5 percent. So to bring in the 1,800, we are aiming to recruit about 1,000 people a year (a) to maintain our previous level but also to meet the commitment of the 1,800.” Mr Bishop responded, “So 400 leave per year, you hire 1,000, your net’s 600 times three—that’s the aim, right? So what did you say—348 in the last year?” Commissioner Bush: “Over and above where it was before—yes.”

So for the Minister to stand in this House today and claim he’s going to meet the target of 1,800 next month goes against every response he has given to official questions on our written parliamentary questions, in Estimates hearings, and, indeed, in his commissioner’s annual review. I think the gentleman has some answering to do.

Another part that’s within that, and is equally concerning—I wouldn’t say “more concerning”—is the attrition rate that’s actually holding them back. Using the figures the Prime Minister used yesterday of 9,723 front-line officers, they’ve actually only delivered a net 707 since 1 November 2017. They’re seeing attrition of experienced officers at around 50 percent of the rate of new recruits they can bring in, and that’s why they’ve only delivered 707. But what that says is that experience is leaving the force. That’s bad for the police force, it’s bad for New Zealand, and the Minister sticks his head in the sand and says, “It’s OK, we’ve got recruits.”

Meanwhile, meth supply is up and prices are tumbling, but no more gang members are being prosecuted for those crimes. They see it as a lucrative business. Under this Government and this Minister of Police, almost 1,400 more patched and associated gang members have emerged in this country, and they’re not coming in from overseas. Only 22 of the deportees from Australia are gang members. This is a home-grown issue, and the Minister tries to claim that he’s winning.

What’s more, he’s telling the public that people who are already obeying the law will obey the law even more if he simply makes some more, and that somehow that will make the public more safe. Meanwhile, he’s done nothing in two years of any real substance to look to get firearms out of the hands of genuine criminals and gangs. Not only did he vote, himself, but he got other governing members to vote against our firearms prohibition orders member’s bill last year, but he and his colleagues refused leave today to debate it this afternoon.

All the while, the firearms buy-back is continuing to fail. It’s only averaging 100 firearms at each collection because the Minister ignored expert advice, and he’s still refusing to listen to good sense and amend the scheme to lift compliance. He’s a Minister that is failing to deliver, like the rest of his Government. It’s time for him to take his head out of the sand and do some sensible things.

Fakaalofa lahi atu, Mr Speaker. Today is Thank Your Cleaner Day, and I actually want to thank all the cleaners, and the cleaners in our Parliament, particularly. I describe them as the invisible but essential workforce, and they do deserve our thanks.

What a bunch of negative Nellies.

💬 Hon Hon Member: Awful.

They are. I’m a bit fired up, actually, because there are attempts by the National Party—pretty concerted attempts—to trivialise and, in fact, negate the neglect that occurred under their watch. When you start reading articles in the paper that say, “ ‘Nine years of neglect’—oh no, it’s become a cliché”, then you know that there’s a concerted revisionist campaign under way, and that’s dirty politics, actually.

But the public deserve to know that when Government members talk about nine years of neglect, they should be able to provide evidence, so here’s some evidence. In health, no money and no plan to fix our rundown hospitals, and for three of them, Dunedin Hospital, Middlemore Hospital, and Taranaki Base Hospital—and there are many more—plans are already under way to fix them. No plan to tackle cancer—they scrapped the New Zealand cancer control agency. No new radiation machines. No action on mental health or addiction. They underfunded health by $2.3 billion—and in mental health, for too long you had to reach crisis point before you could get any help. Young people were falling through the cracks, support services were absolutely stretched, and, in 2014, the cost of neglect on serious mental illness was $12 billion, or 5 percent of GDP.

In education, National let the costs creep up for parents. They didn’t adequately plan for growth, meaning that schools had to make do by using libraries and halls when their school rolls increased, and there were critical skill shortages in polytechs and they were going broke.

In housing, we know that first-home buyers have been locked out of the market—the worst homelessness in the OECD. Families sleeping in cars—I’ll go on and on—and in the environment, rivers you can’t swim in. In transport, increased congestion. They invested 40 percent of the transport budget into hand-picked motorways that only carry 4 percent of vehicle journeys.

So what have we done? What have we done? What are some of the things that we have done in those two years since?

We’ve made huge investments in mental health so that people can get help, starting with their local GP. More addiction treatment beds and services. New cancer treatment equipment like radiation machines. New cancer drugs.

We’ve started to clean up our rivers—we’ve got so much to do in that area. We’re supporting farmers to fence the waterways and plant trees, and we’ve just passed legislation yesterday in the House to increase school funding so that parents don’t have to pay for school donations or pay for NCEA fees.

We’re supporting businesses to invest in innovation and diversification. We’re investing in trade training.

We’re banning offshore speculators, stopping the sell-off of State houses, building more public houses—and I think we heard today there were 2,500 new public houses this year, after nine years of neglect, and that’s only that evidence. There’s much, much more evidence than that, but I don’t have time to go into all of it.

After nine years of neglect, too many issues have been ignored, and I say to the negative Nellies across the aisle, stop talking down the economy and stop opposing everything. How about coming up with some of your new—not yours, Mr Speaker—ideas? Come up with some new ideas. Our economy is in good shape. We know we’ve got big problems to tackle after nine years of neglect. We are tackling them. We know we can’t do it all at once, but we’ve made a damn good start.

We know how defensive the Government has become when they start to attack the media. My favourite from Clare Curran was in referring to the article in the New Zealand Herald this morning that said that the “nine years of neglect” had become a “tired cliché”. Clare Curran said that was dirty politics. When the New Zealand Herald holds the Government to account, it’s dirty politics. Well, I just want to talk about some facts, after two years of this Government in what has been deemed the year of delivery.

I’m more than happy to start on the area of housing, because the big flagship policy of the incoming Labour Government was the 10,000 houses a year, or 100,000 houses, and we’ve got 286. Let me give you the percentage: it is 0.3 percent of what has been promised—0.3 percent. It’s a sick joke.

And then, what about the one billion trees? Members, remember the promise of the one billion trees? Let’s ask the question after two years: how many of those are planted? Look, I accept it is better than the 0.3 percent on housing. On the billion trees, they’ve got to 2.2 percent.

What about the 1,800 police that my colleague Brett Hudson referred to? They’ve got 472, or 26 percent. Two years through the term—only a year to go—how many members of this House really believe the 1,800 police in three years promise is going to be delivered? Of course it is not.

And then I have a bit of an interest in electric cars—I happen to own the oldest electric car from more than 12 years ago. How is the Government going on its commitment that all of the Government fleet is going to be electric? Well, here are the numbers: we have 78 out of 15,473 cars—78 cars in two years, and the Green Party in Government says it’s a climate change emergency. They’ve declared a hundred million bucks and haven’t spent a cent—but remember: it’s a climate change emergency. It is extraordinary.

And you know what? Here’s even better, and I challenge the member on this: a 500 percent increase in the burning of coal to produce electricity by this Government, in respect of the issue of climate change.

Then you come to the issue of child poverty. How are they getting on on that commitment two years in as Government? Actually, child poverty by the Government’s own measure has gone up by 15 percent in the first two years of this Government.

Then, my favourite from my friends from New Zealand First. We heard them year after year challenge the issue of immigration. The big promise of the New Zealand First Party was they were going to curtail immigration, and the figures out this week actually show the level of immigration has gone up. There is only one figure in those immigration numbers that have indeed gone and reduced population in New Zealand: the number of New Zealand citizens leaving has trebled during the last two years.

Then, I just cannot note, over the recess, the meltdown that has occurred in the New Zealand First Party—disclosure of membership. We’ve not only had the Labour Party president go; we’ve now had the president of the New Zealand First Party go—claims of financial impropriety within the New Zealand First Party. That’s exactly what the president of the New Zealand First Party said, and I just challenge the next New Zealand First member to give this House some explanation. When you can’t run your own party, how can you run the country? If you’ve got the president of the New Zealand First Party saying they’re rotten on the inside, why would New Zealanders disagree?

This is a Government, two years in, that is in a shambles. Both presidents of both parties have resigned in the last month—an extraordinary series of events. No wonder they are in trouble in the polls. This has turned into a year of non-delivery, of which New Zealanders are sick of the talk, actually want some action, and they’re not delivering.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and as we celebrate Niuean Language Week this week, fakaalofa lahi atu. Oh, my Lord, how much doom and gloom have we had to sit through from members opposite, who have had no plan and just negativity? The current Opposition just barks at every car and mocks everything that this Government does. It is pitiful.

I, however, along with other MPs, have been going out and about visiting a number of organisations and schools. We often stand up on this side of the House and talk about what we’ve done. I actually want to talk about what they’ve been feeding back to us in terms of what’s worked, because that’s what we’ve been going out to do—what has worked, what are the challenges, and what more work do we need to do in those spaces to address the wellbeing of New Zealanders. Organisations that provide a whole host of services both in the electorate where I am based, in Maungakiekie, but also across the country have been talking about, obviously, housing, what’s working in the State housing and public housing space for them, and the need to do more. We absolutely appreciate that, and I’ll go into some of the work that this Government’s doing in that space.

One outstanding piece of feedback, though, constantly was about the winter energy payment and the real difference that that has made to the lives of New Zealanders who previously couldn’t afford to stay warm over winter, the school lunches programme to fix thousands of school children who have been going hungry, and schools in Maungakiekie have told me about the fact that they’re grateful for the fact that school donations and NCEA fees have been cut.

Now, getting to housing. Given the amount of time I have, I just want to focus on housing and safety, two specific issues that have come up. So we’ve banned offshore speculation, as we’ve gone into that. We’ve stopped the State house sell-off and built 2,178 State homes this year. Members will remember that in Budget 2018, there was an increase in funding to public housing spaces, to increase spaces—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can the member say the words “KiwiBuild”?

—by 6,400 places over four years. That is, on average, 1,600 places a year.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Tell us about KiwiBuild.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! That’s enough.

We’ve built 2,178. So you talk about targets—there you go; there’s a target that’s absolutely been smashed. We’ve expanded Housing First with an additional 1,044 places. That’s a total of 2,700.

Can I just remind members opposite who are smirking that this is actually people’s lives we’re talking about. This is addressing homelessness. This is addressing transience. Today we went out and met social housing providers through the Social Services and Community Committee, where we had a man in tears who told us about the building project that they’re undertaking that actually means that families can now say that—he told us about a child who said to him, when they moved into a new house that had been built, this child said to her parents, “This is too nice a house, Mum. When will we have to leave this house too?” And that man who told us this story was in tears that they’re actually providing housing, Housing First places that have been provided for by this Government, to house people. So let’s just remember that.

In Maungakiekie alone, there are close to 760 new State houses that I drove around and visited; a major housing project that’s coming up that will increase housing by 1,000 in Oranga, that has now also talked about the fact that they have a choice to return policy, which was something that many of us advocated for—the fact that when people are moved out of a major housing project development area, they must be given the choice to return to the support networks that they’ve built. That is now being given to them as well.

In terms of safety, dairy robberies were a huge issue that was brought up to me time and again. Since 2017, this Government has supported over 500 businesses with extra security and peace of mind—financial support for fog cannons. What we’ve seen is aggravated robbery drop by 40 percent and the number of serious injuries to shopkeepers drop by 85 percent.

All this, while ensuring that the economy is in good shape, that we can withstand global headwinds, with an economy that’s growing faster than those we compare ourselves to—we’re doing incredibly well. There is a lot more to do, but this Government’s making a huge amount of progress, and I am so proud to be supporting them.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Government talks a big game—they talk a big game. If this was an Olympic sport, they would be the world champions. So I’m going to call them the “Gonna Party”: they’re gonna do this and they’re gonna do that. But their spin doctors, they’ve got to come up with some more lines. This “nine long years of neglect” thing—that’s wearing a bit thin. Like the media said, it’s a cliché. It’s wearing thin, because it’s simply not true. The numbers do not match the rhetoric.

In fact, things have got worse under this Government. Just about everything has got worse. Business confidence has plummeted down to the levels of the global financial crisis. Costs have rocketed. Homelessness is up. Everything I’m saying is the truth. Hardship grants have doubled, if not trebled. There are 15,000 more people on the dole. Rents and costs of living have gone up. Less people are getting their cataract operations and their hip operations. Less immunisations—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member means “fewer”.

Fewer. Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s more misery—there’s not less misery; there’s more misery. They promised 100,000 KiwiBuild houses. What are they gonna do? A fraction of that, and they’re all in the wrong places. More people are being taxed—more tax, more tax—but nothing is being built. Twelve vital roading infrastructure projects have been cancelled or postponed. Oh, but they’re gonna build a train track from Dominion Road to Māngere. Big deal. Broken promises, broken promises.

But let’s talk law and order. They promised, at the election, 1,800 new cops—not 1,800 cops minus the ones; 1,800 cops on the total. And what have they delivered? Somewhere between 400 and 700. That’s not even half, and those cops were the ones that we promised and funded in the 2017 Budget. But I heard at question time today—I could not believe what I was hearing—Stuart Nash saying, “No, we didn’t say 1,800 on top of; it’s just 1,800 trained.” I could not believe it. That is outrageous. He is going to be coming back to the House and correcting that comment, because he has made those statements in the media, in select committee, in this House, and in answer to written questions. It’s 1,800 cops on top of the existing number. They can’t dial that back and they can’t back-pedal. But I could not believe that they said that.

But you know the other thing that they’ve done? I understand that the PCT, the police competence test, has been dropped as a recruit, so you don’t have to pass it to get through the recruiting stage until you get to police college. Now, I was a policeman. That PCT is a basic test. It represents jumping through windows, walking along balance beams, climbing fences, dragging bodies—all those sorts of things that are part and parcel of being a cop, and that is a minimum requirement. If you can’t pass that, you do not deserve to be a copper. But now they tell me you don’t have to get that PCT test until you get to police college, and then you have to pass it in police college. But what happens if someone gets to police college, goes through the training, and can’t pass the test? What a waste of taxpayers’ money. It’s a bare minimum.

But why I think they’re doing it is—the police are doing it because they’re getting pressure from this Government to pump more recruits through, and so they’re going to drop standards. But you know what—because it is a dropping of standard, because if it isn’t, why drop it? I don’t want to be in a country where the standards of police are dropped. You know what happens in those countries. We want good, well-trained, high-standard policemen, because we need them, because we’re getting a whole lot of extra gang members—1,400 gang members, to be exact. And I can tell you this: gang members—not all of them, but most of them—are prolific criminals. They’re some of the most evil criminals we’ve got, and we’ve got 1,400 more of them. I have dealt with plenty of them.

So our society is getting a whole lot worse. Where is all this heading? I don’t know, but I’m really concerned. What’s this Government gonna do about it? Not a lot, I’m guessing.

Fakaalofa lahi atu, Madam Speaker. What a bunch of whingers we have on the other side. They’re whingeing, whingeing on. When my children whinge, this is what I say to them—I say, “Solve your problem.” I say, “What’s your idea?” And I’ve been listening very carefully to this debate, and I’ve been listening for some ideas from the Opposition. I haven’t heard one idea. We acknowledge—we acknowledge—there are some challenges in health, housing, and education. They’ve built up quite clearly over the past nine years, but the previous Government want to hark back to yesterday, the past nine years.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

But now I know they’re here to stay.

We’re living in today, and today we are addressing some of those challenges. We have ideas and we have action, and I’m just going to list some of the things that we are doing, because I’ve heard no ideas in this debate from the Opposition.

The first aspect I’d like to touch on is mental health. This Government invested $1.9 billion into mental health. We’d heard for a long time that there are big challenges in mental health—areas like youth suicide; areas like some of the challenges in the workplace, the lack of productivity; areas in our schools. We’ve invested $1.9 billion. We’re moving to a space where someone will be able to walk into a GP clinic anywhere in New Zealand, whether it’s urban or rural, they will see their GP, the GP will recognise there’s some mental health challenges, and they will, literally, walk them down the corridor to get that help and that support right there and then. We’ve started that process. We’re investing in the Taranaki hospital, $300 million for a capital project there; Dunedin Hospital, $1 billion. We’re investing in Middlemore, and there’s further announcements to come over the next month in the health area. So we’re investing in health. The health sector was run down—it was run down over nine years, and we are reinvesting in that.

Another aspect is around transport. We’re investing in a diverse transport network that has the balance right between road and rail. We’re investing record amounts in roads. We’re investing in road safety. We’re investing in new roads. Let me give you an example in Hamilton: a $110 million project in Hamilton, with a bridge and road into Peacocke. At the same time, we’re investing in rail up to Auckland, $80 million to link the labour markets between the Waikato region and the Auckland region—linking those labour markets—and it’s been very well received by businesses.

We’re investing $1 billion into rail. I recently visited the Hutt workshops, and they’re full steam ahead—

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, great place.

—full steam ahead. Nice area, I acknowledge that. Nice area of the country, but we’ve got an industry there that hasn’t had the investment that it has deserved over many years—and I acknowledge, from various Governments. But this Government is investing in rail, and that’s been incredibly well received across the country as we roll that out and as we scale up.

Just in the Waikato region, we’ve got a local construction company with 37 builds on at the moment, all $2 million and up. So there’s lots of activity happening.

I’d just like to link that into the regions. The Provincial Growth Fund is making a big difference in the regions. What we have is—for the first time in a long time—people in the regions, and they’re starting to lift their head up, and they’re saying, “We have a Government who are taking notice of us in the regions”, and they’re getting business cases together, they’re working together, they’re collaborating, and they’re working with their councils. The Opposition rally against the Provincial Growth Fund, but in their electorates they love the Provincial Growth Fund—they love the Provincial Growth Fund. Their mayors like the Provincial Growth Fund. They even turn out to some of the announcements of the Provincial Growth Fund, because they acknowledge that this is an absolutely fantastic, targeted investment in the region.

There’s so much we can talk about, but I think I’ll finish with the economy. Under the previous Labour Government, we ran nine years of surpluses, paid down net debt to almost zero, started the super fund, and started KiwiSaver. This Government—this coalition Government—is carrying on a similar sort of trend around economic growth and around running surpluses. Our growth is 2.5 percent—that’s higher than Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US—and we’re doing that in spite of global headwinds, particularly in the areas of trade.

This is a Government that is delivering, and I’m proud to be a part of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity. New Zealand has always punched above its weight. Despite the size of our country, we have been one of the best countries in the world. But we are losing that reputation ever since Labour took office. New Zealand is no longer an aspirational destination for businesses, for tourists, or for students. Businesses don’t want to invest here in New Zealand, of course, because business confidence is coming down really fast under this Labour Government. Tourists don’t want to come to New Zealand. International students don’t want to come to New Zealand.

Actually, this was their year of delivery—the year of delivery. It is already October, and today is 16 October. This year is nearly gone, and next year is going to be an election year, and what they’re going to do is throw money at people to get votes. Actually, what they have delivered is embarrassment for New Zealand, because their Ministers stand in front of people and ask for votes in return for grants that they give to organisations and associations. So they have delivered embarrassment after embarrassment and failure after failure.

When they were in Opposition, they had a solution for everything—solution for everything—whether it was housing, the economy, business, transport, mental health, or victims of crime; especially sexual crime. They had a silver bullet for everything, but now from the Prime Minister to their backbenchers, what they say is that there is more to be done—there is more to be done. Of course, there is more to be done, because nothing has been done in these two years. So they have only delivered failure and embarrassment. They haven’t delivered on their promises. But then there are other areas where the sectors really want them to deliver and they have not bothered to listen to those sectors.

I want to commend, as the Opposition spokesperson for research, science and innovation, the work that Royal Society of New Zealand did on biotechnology. They have been urging this Government to review the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act to allow biotechnology forums to flourish here in New Zealand. But do they care? No they don’t, because they are really stuck in their ideology. That’s why they don’t want us to support biotechnology here in New Zealand. But us here in Opposition have already started doing that work from the start of this term. We have put out some consultation papers through our discussion documents. The first one was in the Our Environment - Discussion Document and the second one was in the Primary Sector - Discussion Document and then again we talk about biotechnology in our Economy - Discussion Document. Based on the feedback that I’ve received—which is very, very positive—on 8 October, the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Simon Bridges, and I, in Auckland, announced that we will review the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act because we want to see our biotech sector flourishing here in New Zealand.

I picked that date, 8 October, because it’s from that date that Australia has implemented their reviewed legislation. This is one bit of gene editing which is not going to be regulated in Australia. This is not a fringe sector that we are talking about; this is a sector on which the future of our environment and the future of our agri-sector will depend on. So it’s a very, very significant sector. This is a high-value sector that we are talking about, and for this we need highly skilled people. Now, because Australia has changed their legislation, what is stopping our biotech sector or our highly skilled people from moving out to Australia? Nothing—nothing.

This is a sector that we need to pay serious attention to if we are serious about climate change, if we are serious about the environment, and if we are serious about our agriculture sector. We need to pay attention to this sector, but this Government will not act, because they don’t want to—simply, they don’t want to. The Ministry for the Environment has been urging and the Royal Society of New Zealand has been urging, but there has been no action from this Government.

Australia announced, in April, that they will be bringing this change from 8 October, so there was plenty of time for this Government to act, but they didn’t. Australia is a significant agribusiness partner for New Zealand. It’s important that we keep up with Australia, at least. New Zealand is now behind. We have the credentials to do that work, they don’t. New Zealand is now behind because of that Government. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.