General Debate

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

It is great news, as we’ve just heard from the Deputy Prime Minister. You won’t be hearing it from the National Party, but it’s great times down on the farm, and yesterday’s announcement from Fonterra lifting their forecast payouts, and another $450 million going into regional economies throughout New Zealand. And, of course, in my sector, the red meat sector—knocking it out of the park as well—unprecedented prices, lamb at $9 a kilo and even old cull ewes selling at six bucks a kilo. We’ve got a $10 billion sector. This is an unprecedented mix, in my time, of a low dollar, low interest rates, and strong markets, underpinned by some new trade deals that, as we heard from Kirk Hope on the weekend—those of us that were there at the New Zealand First conference—some of those trade deals are really starting to pay off for New Zealand.

Imagine the sort of money that Ian McKelvie, the owner of half the North Island, will be making under these, or even landed gentry like David Bennett—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat, quite a few other members will be quiet, and I will—and this is a relatively new member, but one is not allowed to bring members’ private circumstances into the debate.

So it is to be acknowledged, these are times of change. This is an inflection point for agriculture as we look to get long-term sustainable management and adjust to those challenges. And remember, as we get to addressing our Paris climate obligations—and remember who signed us up for that, it was that great eco-warrior, Paula Bennett. There seems to have been a case of collective amnesia over the other side of the House. But we are not going to spray and walk away; we are going to address those issues.

On the freshwater packages, they are wide-ranging packages, and I have been travelling up and down the length of the country, meeting with farmers, attending meetings—in fact, the Hon Ron Mark and myself one on one with a farming couple on the West Coast, trying to work through the magnitude of these packages. We do acknowledge there are some concerns, but there is genuine intent from the farming community to do their bit, and New Zealand First will be looking to the constructive feedback that they bring.

Who else has been out there? Well, Todd Muller’s been out there. We’ve seen Todd Muller, and by the look of him—I hope, Todd, you’re all right, I see your arm in a sling. Obviously, National Party leadership contests are getting more torrid by the minute. But he’s ditched his Hugo Boss suits and his Gucci shoes and he’s put on his moleskins and bought a pair of Red Bands and out he goes, catastrophising, spreading fear, and hoping that farmers forget that he is one of the executives, highly paid, that steered the good ship Fonterra towards the rocks—and Nicola Willis, we’re looking at you too.

But this is the time for leadership, not followers, and Todd Muller is following; he is not leading. We need great leaders like Sir Peter Elworthy of the 1980s, and we have got those leaders emerging. One of those leaders is Rick Burke. Now, Rick Burke, you might ask? He is the chairman of a 3,000-member group called Farmers for Positive Change. Now, they’re the sort of farmers that you see on Country Calendar and the farm environment awards. They are the leaders of catchment groups around the country. This is what he has said in the country just the other day: “National should be supporting the key components of the Essential Freshwater proposal. They along with the [previous] Labour Government [should] admit they got it wrong, overshooting the mark in pursuit of [pure] economics.” That is coming from our emerging farming leaders.

So we must get alongside the Rick Burkes of this world and we must look to other farming leaders that are looking for constructive suggestions. In New Zealand First, we’ll be assessing their submissions and looking for pragmatic and workable solutions. The reason why New Zealand farmers are the best in the world is that they have adapted and innovated over 150 years, and with the right assistance, they will once again rise to this challenge. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This is a great week. This is the week that marks the second anniversary of our Government. Some people said it wouldn’t last, but look at us now. This is indeed our cotton anniversary, so just a note to the Opposition: it is customary to give gifts. I’d like to point out to you that cotton is the traditional gift for this anniversary, and it is very, very fitting that it should be, because it symbolises the threads coming together, even more interconnected over time, something that I’m sure the Opposition look at with great envy, about interconnectedness and unity, when they look over this side of the House.

It is with great pride that we look back on our two years of progress in Government. When we came together as a Government, what we did was do something that was a first in New Zealand. What we have achieved is a Government where all parties that make up this Government have maintained a distinct public voice and public support. This is a true MMP Government, and of that we are proud. I would like to acknowledge the cooperation that has gone into making this work, with our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Greens co-leaders, who have made this Government work so well. Since coming to office, we have achieved great progress for New Zealanders. After nine years of neglect, too many issues were ignored, and New Zealanders were paying the price. If we don’t start fixing these problems now, things will only get worse, and that is something that New Zealanders recognised. We are getting things back on track. It’s going to take time, but we have made a start.

Let’s have a look at what we have achieved over this time. We’re immensely proud of the big investments in mental health that we have made so people can get help at their local GP. We are immensely proud of the fact that we have provided more addiction treatment beds and services than ever in this country. We are immensely proud that we have funded new cancer treatment equipment, like radiation machines and new cancer drugs. We’ve started to clean up our rivers and are supporting farmers to fence off their waterways and plant trees. We’ve increased school funding so parents don’t have to pay school donations and NCEA fees. We’ve supported businesses to invest in innovation and diversification, and we are investing in trades training. We’ve banned offshore speculators, and we’ve stopped the sell-off of State houses. We’ve built more than 2,300 new State houses this year to September. This is more than any Government since the 1970s, and we are rightly proud of that.

In addition to that, in addition to this progress that we’ve made, we have been delivering more jobs and higher wages, with unemployment down to 3.9 percent and wages growing at 4.4 percent a year. We have extended paid parental leave to 26 weeks by 2020. We’ve helped a million New Zealanders heat their homes with winter energy payments. We’ve got a family income package to help 384,000 families by an average of $75 a week. We’ve banned single-use plastic bags to help clean up our environment, and we have reduced doctors’ fees for around 600,000 New Zealanders, so they now have access to healthcare.

There were many problems that we faced when we came into Government. We had to start addressing this. We couldn’t bury our head in the sand, as the previous Government had, and simply ignore the long-term challenges and issues it faced. What have we heard from the Opposition over the two years of progress that we have been showing for New Zealanders? We have heard negativity and no new ideas. We stand by our progress on this side of the House.

What a pleasure to follow on from the brains trust from the Government—great to have that. It’s wonderful to hear from New Zealand First that all we have to do is completely tank the New Zealand economy, get the dollar down to 20c on the US dollar and everything will be super, because that is actually their argument. The lower the New Zealand dollar goes, they say, in relation to the US, the better we’re doing. Well, tell that to Mexico. That is the most defeatist, pathetic attempt I’ve ever heard. They think that farmers are silly enough to believe that—no, they’re not. They understand they have to buy phosphate, they have to buy fuel, they have to do all the things, and they have to pay with a dollar that is not worth as much. They are having to pay for that. Also, they’re getting the money in, but the New Zealand dollar is not worth as much. Their argument is that makes us richer. Well, I can show them some Monopoly money, and that will make them even richer.

Then we’ve got Dr Megan Woods—an entirely tone-deaf rendition. She said that that this is the best week for New Zealand. Well, tell that to the people in Auckland Central and the people working on the SkyCity Convention Centre and all the people who’ve had to be shifted out of there and the people who have, no doubt, what looks very much like toxic fumes all around the place. That’s the best week for New Zealand. Why was it the best week for New Zealand? She said it’s because they’ve been in Government for two years. Well, actually, no. The best week for New Zealand is still coming. It’s the week that they leave office, and it’s coming very soon. I’m going to do everything I can to help make that happen.

Let’s have a look at delivery, because this was supposed to be the year of delivery—the year of delivery. Have a look at KiwiBuild. I give you KiwiBuild as a year of delivery. Well, how’s that been going, team? How’s it going? Then I give you KiwiBuild 2.0, which, of course, is light rail.

Now, let’s just talk about transport, light rail. National delivered for nine years in transport. We had roads going, we delivered on rail, we delivered on roads, we delivered on the City Rail Link in Auckland. These are enormous, big projects for a little country going through and coming out of the global financial crisis, as we did, and dealing with the Christchurch rebuild and Kaikōura. We had enormous issues to deal with, and we still did it. What’d this lot get? Jacinda Ardern, as Leader of the Opposition, announced light rail up Dominion Road going from the CBD in Auckland to the airport. It was only going to cost $1.5 billion. Now we’re told it will cost $6 billion to $8 billion, and it won’t be happening anytime soon and it might happen at $10 billion—and, by the way, not quite to the airport. It’ll be somewhere in Māngere. You might have to catch a bus after that. What is going on with a Government like this? The Minister in charge is my dear friend, the Hon Phil Twyford, so what could go wrong? I mean, really, what could go wrong! KiwiBuild, 2.0.

Let’s just have a look at health. OK, so we spent $16.8 billion extra in health when we were in Government for nine years. There was enormous extra spend in health. We brought in targets for people to get immunised. What’s the first thing this Government does when it gets into office? It gets rid of every single target that we put in place. In Counties Manukau, in the Papakura electorate, and in areas like that, people were getting immunised. Kids were getting immunised. The schools and nurses—everybody was going out to people’s homes to immunise children, because if they didn’t they’d never reach their targets. This Government came into office, scrapped targets two years ago, and now look what’s happened. We have now had 1,800 measles cases under this Government. Why are we not flying in measles vaccines from anywhere in the world to get them? What’s wrong? We’re told by Julie Anne Genter, the Minister in charge, that future possible tax cuts could put that at risk. No. What’s happening here is that this Government’s inability to deliver on anything it promises is putting kids and adults at risk.

Measles is a very serious disease. It is highly infectious. This is a Third World disease now in a country that should be First World. It is an absolute and total disgrace and I cannot understand why it is that the Minister of Health is still in charge, the Associate Minister is still there, and none of them seem to know what to do.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Let me give you a rough time line of the last 12 years, with regard to law and order. In 2007, it was the last major investment in policing with a thousand more police delivered by New Zealand First and Labour in 2007—the last major investment in police.

Let’s move forward to 2011. Australian Rebels motorcycle gang first became established in New Zealand. This event has been highlighted by experts as a point in time when the gang scene changed. The gangs became more sophisticated. They became more organised, and it changed. But guess what happened next year? In 2013, that financial year after the arrival of the Rebels, police numbers dropped by 150—by 150. Let’s move forward to 2016. At this point, the gangs had become well established, they’d become highly professional, very organised, and meth was out of control. And in the 2016 police annual report, it said in the back, in an appendix, “no more funding for any more police until 2020”.

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Till when?

Until 2020, no more police. As mentioned, the ratio between police and population had gone from 1:470 to 1:540.

Now let’s go to the 2017 annual workplace survey. This is a survey that police fill in to inform management about what is going on in the organisation. Sixty percent—“six zero” percent—of police said that they had an undue level of workplace stress. Sixty percent also said that they were not delivering on the promises that they were making to our communities. But the other interesting stat is that 80 percent said that they were committed to the New Zealand Police Service and to the communities they serve.

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Good people.

So what we had—you’re dead right—is a group of incredibly dedicated men and women who knew what needed to be done to deliver, but just did not have the resources to do it. They just did not have the resources. And when you’ve got 60 percent saying they have an undue level of workplace stress, that is just not sustainable.

Moving forward to 2017, Jacinda Ardern and her team sat down with Winston Peters and his team, and out of that came a promise to deliver 1,800 new police—1,800 new police. Move forward two years to 2019, today—the two-year anniversary. In November of this year, we will deliver on that promise for 1,800 new police—we will deliver 1,800 new police. And not only that, the previous Government promised 880 more police over four years. We have delivered that in under two years. In under two years we have delivered what the previous Government promised to do in four years. Yet again New Zealand First and Labour have delivered for our policemen and policewomen and for our communities.

When another wing graduates tomorrow—and I’ve been to every single graduation that has occurred under this Government except one—I can tell you that there is a fine group of men and women who have chosen a career less ordinary, and they are making a real difference in our community. As of tomorrow there’ll be 1,744 new policemen and policewomen out in our community. They are doing an absolutely fantastic job, and I’m incredibly proud to be their Minister and I’m incredibly proud to go to the graduation and welcome them into the New Zealand police service family.

When you look at the results that police have delivered, this year alone they have confiscated 1.6 metric tonnes of methamphetamine. Of the gun crime committed in Counties Manukau, they have solved every single one of those. In my district alone, in the eastern district, the district commander has set up a gang focus unit, and she has made it very clear that the reason she could do that is because of the numbers coming in. We’ve got these armed response teams—we’re trialling them. The only reason the commissioner can trial these is because he now has the resources to set up these dedicated units of men and women to keep our community safe.

The crime scene has changed. Gangs have become more sophisticated. P is out of control and we are dealing with the solution. Thank you, New Zealand First, and thank you, Labour, for backing our New Zealand police service.

Well, if ever there was an example of the Government’s non-delivery, it’s that Minister. He’s been dancing on the head of a pin for weeks now—dancing on the head of a pin—trying to explain the woeful performance in terms of police recruitment numbers. What he never speaks about is, of course, the rate at which police officers are retiring or resigning from the force, and it’s the net numbers that are important.

If there has been an example of incompetence and fumbling and bumbling, that Minister represents that in this Government, because that’s the overall image that the New Zealand public see from this Government: a lack of focus, a lack of direction, and a lack of delivery. And two years into this Government, as they come towards the end of their second year, joining very soon their third and final year in office, that focus hasn’t changed. It’s non-delivery, non-performance, and non-direction in terms of policy delivery. Business confidence keeps getting lower. Farmer confidence keeps getting lower. Delivery on things like environmental promises keeps not happening. That kind of inaction is only leading to massive uncertainty out there in voter land and out there in the real world.

In my own electorate, in the beautiful Coromandel electorate, I was speaking only yesterday to a hard-working business owner who is literally at his wit’s end. And I want to share this story with the House, because I think it’s worth telling. The Coromandel electorate is surrounded by the Hauraki Gulf, and there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in my electorate that earn a living from the bounty of the Hauraki Gulf. One in particular is a business called Whangamata Seafoods. They’ve been operating since the 1970s. It’s a family business. They catch fish and process scallops. They do that very effectively, very efficiently, very sustainably. In the height of the season, they employ 40 people and they’re busy right now. But the owner has been working this business for nearly 40 years and he’s not getting any younger, like the rest of us. He’s now in his 60s and he wants to retire. He wants to sell the business, but such is the uncertainty about the future direction of Government policy in relation to the Hauraki Gulf, and their inaction on things like the spatial planning sea-change, that the owner of Whangamata Seafoods finds that whenever a prospective buyer wants to come and have a look at his business, they back off because they say, under due diligence, “We can’t be certain of the future of this business because there’s no clarity, there’s no focus, there’s no direction about Government policy on what is to become of the Hauraki Gulf.” They kicked the spatial plan, the sea-change plan to—guess what!—a working group. So a decision on eventual plans for the Hauraki Gulf are another year or two away.

Then we come to a much bigger business. Just today, the Rio Tinto Aluminium smelter in Invercargill, which employs a thousand people, is telling the Government that the future of that smelter is uncertain. Why? It’s because of lack of direction, lack of certainty, lack of clarity around Government policy and Government directions for business. So there is now serious talk about that smelter closing. That would be devastating for Southland and the surrounding district—a thousand jobs; to say nothing of the hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs that are provided by contractors and support and service people supporting that aluminium smelter.

So we look at farmers—exactly the same situation: farming confidence low, uncertainty around the direction of water quality policies, uncertainty around the direction of the zero carbon bill, uncertainty about what farmers can and can’t do for the future. It’s no wonder that farming confidence is at an all-time low.

So what has this Government really got to do in the last 12 months or so—probably less—of its term in Government? Well, they haven’t learnt yet, but they really do need to learn quickly that they need to deal with people rather than to people. They need to deal with business rather than dealing to business. Particularly, they need to learn to deal with farmers who want to do the right thing, who are capable of doing the right thing, rather than dealing to them. This is a Government that is directionless, rudderless, has no focus, no clarity, and it’s hurting New Zealanders. It’s hurting hard-working New Zealanders every day of the week. The sooner they are put out of office, the better.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Boy, the short memories on that side of the House do my head in—but never mind. I want to speak about something else today: the Green Party’s commitment to ensuring that everyone in this country has enough to be able to sustain themselves.

We as a party are really committed to helping create an equal society, because we think we’re all better off the more equality we have. When people’s incomes aren’t enough to enable them to confidently put food on the table or in the lunch boxes, pay their bills, spend enough time at home, join in community events, or pay money towards their retirement, our society as a whole is weakened. So we’ve been told for successive years, and I hear resonating from that side of the House, that the answer to that problem is work. That’s the answer to poverty and the pathway to a good life—work. Yet that ignores the reality of our mental health crisis, the reality of sickness driving people out of employment at times, the social construction of disability that keeps people out of employment, and the in-built churn in and out of employment in this country, set by Government policy, which is one of the highest rates of churn in the developed world. They are the reasons we need a welfare overhaul and this Government has committed to one. We for too long have been blaming individuals for the problems of Government policies and our society.

It also ignores the thousands of people in work who are living below the poverty line or close to it. People in paid employment being driven to food banks at unprecedented levels started under that last Government’s policies. We’re hearing recently of teachers, before their pay rise, having to go to food banks because their wages had been suppressed for so long, of working people living in cars because they cannot afford rent, during the time where we heard there was no housing crisis. We know that this is a problem for individuals and families and whānau, but it’s also a problem for us as a society, because we are suffering as a collective because of those policies. When over 50 percent of net wealth is held by just 10 percent of the country, and some CEOs in this country are earning well over a million dollars a year, that reality for people at the other end becomes intolerable.

The last Government’s response—and I still hear echoes in the Opposition—was denial, and they really told us again and again that work was the solution, that the free market, liberating the free market, was the solution. We saw how that worked out. We’re dealing with how that worked out. As we need to urgently move towards a zero-carbon economy, we need innovation, not a drive-down of wages and conditions, to be behind and the centrepiece of our economy.

Currently, wage growth lags behind productivity. Wage growth for low and middle income people is significantly lower than for high-income people. People in this country are working longer hours and producing less than in comparable OECD countries. That is why this Government has committed to increasing the minimum wage, delivering a living wage for the public sector, ensuring that our teachers and nurses get the bump to their income, too, and averting an even worse crisis than was created by that Government, and has significantly extended equal pay settlements across caring professions.

But this, we know, is not enough, which is one of the reasons we need fair pay agreements too. Fair pay agreements get agreement across industries on wages, conditions, and training, and can deliver benefits for the whole society.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The great thing about having the ability to criticise the Opposition when you’re in Government for everything that goes wrong in Government is that it comes to the end in the end, and I suspect at the rate we’re going it will be in about 12 months’ time. I just want to start my contribution today by talking a little bit about confidence, and I know that’s been gone on about—confidence—so far today, but I woke up so confident this morning that I took Mr Bayly’s place speaking here today, and I want to thank him for that. But I just had to make a couple of comments on the way to getting to the point of my speech.

It’s ironic for me—one of the great ironies of this place is that we heard the Deputy Prime Minister a few minutes ago crowing about the great success of the dairy industry in propping up the New Zealand economy. I recall he spent nine years sitting just down the passage here a little way, or down the side here a little way, criticising the previous Government for the success of the dairy industry in New Zealand. He’s now crowing about the success of the dairy industry in propping up the New Zealand economy—ironic, in my view. He’s also, of course, presiding over an economy that’s being driven by the other thing he complained about a lot, and that was immigration.

I worked out the enigma of the New Zealand First side of the House because I’ve done it by looking at their ties. You see Mark Patterson in his light blue tie, Clayton Mitchell in his dark blue tie, the leader in his black tie, and Darroch Ball in his red tie—pretty much sums up the enigma of the New Zealand First part of that Government. You’ll notice that I’ve got a blue tie on and it’s got a saddle on it, which are used to ride the king of all animals, the horse.

Now, I want to talk very briefly about another thing before I get on to the real topic I want to talk about, and that’s the inquiry into electricity. So we launched, with great aplomb, this inquiry into the electricity activities of New Zealand. Of course, in my part of the world, in the north of my electorate, I do have some very challenged areas, because the more remote your communities are, the much more difficult it is to deliver electricity into those areas. Consequently we have higher prices in some of those areas. But this inquiry into electricity has, effectively, delivered a murky report that basically recommends that the majority of us pay more so a few of us can pay less. It doesn’t seem to make any sense to me.

Then we had the last speaker, Jan Logie, blaming poverty on suppressed wages, when, in fact, the increase in poverty at the moment has been caused by a dramatic increase in prices caused by policies introduced by this Government, and I need say no more about that because rent is clearly the obvious one.

But when you wake up in the morning, if you’re confident and get out of bed ready to go, you feel much better about the day. And I think that’s one of the problems we’ve got in New Zealand at the moment there. We’ve got far too many people in New Zealand who are not confident about where they’re going and not confident about what action they should take next to, I guess, make the right decisions and dictate their futures. If you looked at the topic that Scott Simpson raised just a few minutes ago about the fishing industry in his part of the world, the in-shore fishing industry in New Zealand is suffering a serious lack of confidence. The reason they’re suffering it is because they have no clear direction from the Government as to where they’re going to go with much of their policy around the fishing industry, around the protection of dolphins, and around the protection of marine areas.

It is hugely unsettling for a sector of our community or our economy that contributes greatly to both our food sources and to our export earnings. I think, when you go and meet those people, you realise what uncertainty does to an industry and what grief it causes those families. I think also Scott Simpson referred to the fact that we need to deal with people rather than things. I think that people are everything as we go. As we promote change in life, people are the most important things we can get to and we need to make sure that we deal with those and deal with them effectively.

Just before I get to the end of my time, I just want to very briefly mention a couple of very successful things in my electorate. One, the Massey aviation school, opened last week—a project that Steve Maharey has been working on for some years, and that the previous Government worked with Massey University on. It’s been hugely successful and it will be one of those activities that points to our future.

I want to briefly mention also something that’s not so successful in my electorate, and that’s State Highway 4 and the effect on the business in Raetihi of the, effective, collapse of that road. I think that a serious amount of work needs to be done with that community to find a way forward for them, because whilst there’s still access to Raetihi, what’s, effectively, happened is that the passing traffic has been diverted away from it. And they were hugely reliant on that passing traffic, so I feel very sorry for that sector of our community. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today my grandson Bodhi visited me at lunchtime. He’s about four months shy of being two years old. He’s quite a precocious young man and he loves vehicles: buses, cars, tractors—anything—trains, he loves trains.

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: Light rail. I bet you he likes light rail.

He does like light rail. I love having him come visit, because that gives me a little bit of balance in my life. He’s a very important part of my life.

What I think I really love about being part of a Government that’s delivering is that there are some opportunities for that young man when he grows up. I think he might get into the trades. I think that I’m very thankful to the Minister Chris Hipkins for encouraging our young people to think about trades as an option. For him—he loves the outdoors; he’s an active wee kid—I think that might be a great option for him.

But I also know that young people can find life a little bit difficult. So I’m enormously grateful for the investment that we’ve put into mental health, particularly to support young people around their darkest issues. Sometimes our young people harm themselves and they find life really difficult. So, as a Government, we’ve pumped an enormous amount of resources into ensuring that our mental wellbeing is one of the top priorities of this Government. Mana Ake, for example, in Canterbury is supporting our children to deal with not only the impacts of the earthquakes but, actually, life in general in a post-disaster city. I’m enormously proud of that.

But I’m also very grateful to this Government for its support of young parents or parents of new children. I mean, I’m grateful that I’ve got Bodhi in my life. In about seven months’ time, little Bodhi will have a little brother or sister. So we are going to have access to the Best Start payment, but not just for my family, for families across New Zealand—at the most vulnerable time for families, when they’ve got new babies in the House, with the extra expense, and just the extra pressure—this Government has recognised that and supports them in their needs at that time, and through paid parental leave so that parents can be at home in the most important time for bonding and attachment, which is within the first six months. When Bodhi goes to school, actually, he and all his mates are going to be able to have free lunches; his parents won’t have to pay school donations. He will have a free education if he is in the area that will provide that. That’s because our Government cares about ensuring that our kids not only have the best start, they’ve got the best education and they’ve got a great future, and we support them when life gets difficult for them as well.

I just want to say that there’s a real contrast between what we’ve been hearing from the Opposition in that regard too. I have to say that the Hon Judith Collins’ claims that vaccinations for measles have declined under this Government in the last two years—when, actually, I have it on good advice from a certain colleague next to me that in 80 percent of DHBs, vaccinations fell off the priority list immediately after Māori and Pacific health outcomes. So for that Opposition to claim that this Government is the cause for the measles outbreak is pure fantasy. That Opposition is rewriting history—that Opposition is rewriting history—because when the going gets tough and when the issues need addressing, we address them.

The royal commission to investigate historic abuse and violence towards children in State care: we are doing and delivering what we need to for our people. I for one, as the grandmother of Bodhi, and soon to be the grandmother of his little brother and sister, am really proud of what we’ve achieved in these two years. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

It’s a pleasure to speak in the general debate. I just want to pick up on the previous point about the measles. Look, I’ve travelled a lot in the world, particularly to developing countries. The measles outbreak that we have in New Zealand is just, frankly, something that I would expect more in the developing world. It’s not something I’d expect here in New Zealand. So it’s all very good and well to say that they’ve done X or Y or Z, but why do we still have a measles outbreak? That is the question that I have today.

But let us wind back the clock 10 months ago where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern claimed that this was going to be her year of delivery. And 10 months on, what can we say about that? Well, I would encourage a rephrase of that statement to be the “year of incompetence”—incompetence on KiwiBuild, incompetence on the economy, incompetence on mental health, incompetence on boosting the police numbers, incompetence in transport, and, of course, incompetence in dealing with the measles outbreak.

This Government can’t deliver, because they don’t have the team, they don’t have the strategy, and they don’t have the plan to deliver on their promises. They’re great at cutting ribbons and making great speeches to the UN, but when it comes to delivering the goods, this Government falls short.

This Government is incompetent in delivering for Aucklanders. Let me give you a few examples. Around transport, we’ve heard about the light rail down Dominion Road that is costing anywhere from what was to be $2 billion but now is looking to be north of $8 billion to $10 billion. No private sector company wants to be involved with this—that’s why they’re calling in the super fund, and calling it a public-public partnership, which, quite frankly, is a term I’ve never heard before. Also, they’ve cancelled the East-West Link in Auckland, which would have benefited a huge amount of people in east Auckland.

Let’s look at the economy in Auckland, where confidence has plummeted, where costs have skyrocketed for small and medium sized enterprises, and where fuel taxes are hurting a whole lot of Aucklanders and also small businesses.

Let’s go to housing, where we’ve had the KiwiBuild project—or, what I like to call, the “KiwiFail” project. We’re up to KiwiBuild 2.0—who knows how many iterations of KiwiBuild we’ll have before the Government finally announces that their policy has been a failure.

So this is an incompetent Government. They’re incompetent in delivering for my electorate in Northcote, where we’ve got a shared path across the Harbour Bridge, which was announced early last year, and about $100 million has been devoted to this project—but where are we at nearly a year and a half later? Nothing. No business case, no spade in the ground; no spade in the ground likely till after the next election. And what at? It’s going to cost north of a quarter of a billion dollars for this SkyPath, or now it’s been renamed the shared walking path project.

What else in Northcote? Well, when I go out in my community, small business tells me, loud and clear, that they’re really struggling. I had a small chocolate manufacturing business say that he’s struggling with the rising costs of minimum wages and all the extra compliance costs that this Government is adding on.

So this is an incompetent Government, but they like to say “Nine long years of a failed Government.” But we did do a lot in our nine long years. We didn’t just cut the ribbons and make grand speeches, we actually got stuff done. And let me just highlight a few of those for you today.

In transport, we made a number of record investments in all modes of transport. Let’s look at the Waterview Tunnel. What a great project the Waterview Tunnel has been! [Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: No rules against irony; just leave it.

What about the economy—what about the economy? Well, we had an economic plan that was delivering 10,000 jobs a month under our Government.

Also in housing, we started projects—for example, the Northcote redevelopment project, and this Government is claiming the credit for that.

So this is an incompetent Government. It’s great to be on the National team, working hard and working on things that matter.

I’m so proud of the coalition Government’s achievements: our economic growth has now outperformed that of Australia, the UK, Japan, and many other OECD countries; a record low unemployment rate at 3.9 percent; record high investments in our health services, such as hospitals; big investments in mental health so that people can get help at their local GP; and a record infrastructure investment to boost our economy. These areas have been neglected. We have kids going to school hungry. We have hospitals that are leaking. We have terrible traffic jams in Auckland. We have infrastructure that’s badly in need of upgrading.

Hearing Opposition members, who are barking at every passing car, my message to them is quite simple: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

What a magnificent achievement. The “big three”—Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and the Fitch Group—all pointed in the same direction. Our economic growth has now outperformed that of Australia, the UK, Japan, and the USA; $7.5 billion surplus, the net Crown debt has fallen to 19.2 percent of GDP. Big thumbs up to the finance Minister, the Hon Grant Robertson! Our economic fundamentals are strong but we are facing a number of headwinds, including low productivity and global volatility such as Brexit and the US-China trade war.

As a Chinese-born member of Parliament, I can convey a strong gratitude from the community for the Government decision to resume contributions to our superannuation fund—saving and preparing for the rainy day, as a notion, is embedded in our DNA. It was indeed a historic moment when the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and finance Minister, Grant Robertson, on that particular day in December 2017, pushed a button to restart contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.

It’s not only about saving more; it’s more about supporting our sustainable economy and investing in high-tech companies. Those funds have invested in high-tech companies such as LanzaTech. Where is LanzaTech now? It has moved to the USA because of the previous National Government’s unwise decision in terms of research and development policy.

That has reminded me of a very insightful opinion article by Brian Gaynor, “How Muldoon threw away NZ’s wealth”. That article was published in the New Zealand Herald in 2007 and is still valid and helpful. That article stated that the National Government’s decision to terminate New Zealand’s compulsory superannuation scheme in 1975 was the worst economic decision of past decades. That decision, effectively, transformed New Zealand from a potential Switzerland of the Southern Hemisphere to a low-ranking OECD economy. Had the National Government not made that dreadful economic decision, we would still own ASB Bank, the Bank of New Zealand, together with many other major companies that are now overseas owned. Our economy would have been in a much better position had that far-sighted scheme stayed. The scheme would represent 146 percent of GDP, whereas Australia’s superannuation—which is considered to be the benchmark for the rest of world—would only represent 82 percent of the country’s GDP.

I am so proud of our Government, which is clearing the economic mess and tackling the long-term problems and challenges. We’re growing an economy that is working for all of us. We’re improving the wellbeing of all New Zealanders and their families. And we are transforming to a clean, green, carbon-neutral New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity to speak in the general debate. I give voice to all migrant families—especially first-generation migrant families in New Zealand. Whether Filipino or Indian, Chinese or Pacific, Pacific or European, whether living in New Lynn or any other electorate, I speak for families, often with young children with parents who are both working very hard—many times possibly working two or more jobs and long, long hours. These are the people who keep New Zealand moving and who allow other New Zealanders to live their lives to the full.

This scenario is actually also true for all young families living in New Zealand with parents who are aspirational and who are focused on giving their children the best opportunities for their future, who are ready to work hard and prosper, and who wish only to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their hard work, to live in vibrant communities, to be able to easily travel from place to place, and to have their children well educated and graduating into our country, where opportunities for work are there and available to them. When this is true for any family, their costs will be and their hard-earned money will have been used to the very last cent in providing for their families’ needs and, for some, even in sending money overseas to their relatives in their home countries.

At this stage, when everything has been spent, will hardly anything be available, apart from money spent on costs for housing and accommodation, for transportation, and for food for the families. Living arrangements can be quite bare, and all wish for solutions. Yes, we all wish that solutions were as simple as increasing the minimum wage or having cash handouts through benefit payments. Such solutions, however, create problems of their own: expansion plans and salary increases are held back, and an increased dependence and, mostly, also a generational dependence on the benefit.

Now, especially, it becomes harder still when new taxes, including fuel taxes, are imposed, especially when no new taxes were promised in the lead-up to the 2017 elections. So we ask where is the integrity in that, especially when other promises like more affordable and available housing and better roads and transport—including light rail to the airport in Auckland—have failed or have been delayed beyond what had been promised? We must ask, again, where is the integrity in that? How could promises like these have been made when, presumably, there would have been an opportunity to prepare, to think things through, and to be ready with a plan that could be effectively carried out over the nine years that those Government members had been in Opposition? It seems that with all the discussion and the talk and the reference to the rhetoric of nine years of neglect, actually, that nine years of neglect does apply to them.

My wife and I have been involved in parent education for over 20 years, and one of the key teachings to build integrity in children is to say what you mean and mean what you say, and to not make any promises unless you know well that you could deliver and make good on the promise. Responsible parenting means you will have weighed all options, studied and thought through your plans, and made sure that you could deliver. Although this may be a very simplistic analogy—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—in itself—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—if New Zealand were a family—

Order! Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call in the general debate, and it’s one I haven’t had the opportunity to do for quite some time. But before I begin my contribution, can I just acknowledge the firefighters in Auckland fighting the blaze at the SkyCity Auckland Convention Centre, who have been working extremely long hours in extremely dangerous conditions. I’d also like to acknowledge the family members of those firefighters. As the wife of a volunteer firefighter myself, I know that every time that siren goes off, there is an element of worry that goes along with them racing out the door to attend the fire or motor vehicle accident, or whatever that might be. So I just want to acknowledge them and thank them for the efforts with which they are fighting that fire today.

I want to talk about what this Government has achieved in the past two years, and there is so much to talk about.

💬 Marja Lubeck: You’ll run out of time.

I know—five minutes is never going to be long enough. But under this busy, hard-working Government, under the leadership of our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, great things are happening, after nine long years of neglect from the previous Government. We’re getting on with the job. It’s not going to happen overnight, but we are getting on with the job.

The economy is going gangbusters. We’ve delivered one heck of a surplus, and that puts us in good stead to face any headwinds that we might find come our way within the global economy, but, actually, it’s not all about the economy. We’re tackling the long-term challenges that the previous Government left behind, and we’re actually focusing on the wellbeing of New Zealanders.

We’ve lifted the minimum wage, unemployment is down to record levels, and we’re seeing great successes in our Mana in Mahi programme. One example of that is a young girl that I visited in Palmerston North recently, who is working in a rest home for people with dementia. The joy that that young girl is bringing to those people every day shows that she is the perfect fit for working in a place like that—an outstanding young woman.

We’ve increased school funding so that schools do not have to ask for donations from their families. Netherby School in Ashburton has signed up to that. They were getting around $6,000 to $7,000 in school donations, and what this means for that school is that they are going to get close to $20,000 with this in place. It is a heck of a lot of money for schools, who, every time I’ve visited them, talk about the fact that they never got enough money under the previous Government to just get on with the day-to-day running of their schools.

I also want to talk about the fact that we have provided families and people with the winter energy payment. Nothing gives me more pride than to know that people are not having to go cold during the winter months, particularly our elderly, frail people. I think of the pictures that we see—the horrific pictures—of a little old lady wrapped up in a blanket, blanket upon blanket, or in her bed just to keep warm, and now she doesn’t have to do that. That is fantastic news.

We’re funding 2,000 more trades academy places and up to 2,000 more places in the Gateway programme. We are moving away from focusing on pushing our young people into university, because that is what we’ve seen happen at the expense of the trades sector. The decline in the trades sector—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Isn’t your husband a builder?

Yes, my husband is a builder—that is correct. That is correct.

I just want to touch on something that a couple of the members from the Opposition said. They talked about the lack of focus, the lack of delivery, negative this, negative that. They talked about incompetence, incompetence, incompetence—I wonder if they are self-reflecting in that word. But, anyway, negative this, negative that, negative National—no solutions, unlike this Government, who is working hard, providing for New Zealanders with a booming economy and looking after the wellbeing of our people. I am so proud of what this Government is doing, and there is so much more to come.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.